We have woken up to no water, and no electricity. This is quite a reality check and stops the idle dreams of owning an isolated shepherd’s shack in a field of yellow flowers.

We are creatures of a modern time, and I am not ready for the truly rustic life. I read that travel makes you aware of two things: loneliness and time, and I can vouch for both, as well as foreign ruins and a feeling of being pushed to the forefront of a long procession of footsteps marching over the same rocky paths.

The sunshine has brought us out and about, like lizards on a sunbed, and we have had the mixed pleasures of meeting with fellow ‘Brits Abroad’. A friend recently recounted a time when he was in NZ sitting sipping a beer in Paihia in the North Island. Some holiday makers fresh from their cruise were at a table next to him. They were obviously feeling the rush of excitement of meeting a fellow country man. A Margo-look-and-sound-like brayed across, ‘Which part of England are you from?’, to which my friend replied, ‘The best bit, it’s called Scotland!’ to which Margo and Jerry, sniffed and turned back to their ‘whaite waine’.

We went out to the restaurant by the pool on our complex the other night and met ‘Brits Abroad’. They were like Del boy and his moll. I shouldn’t mock, but all the conversation revolved around money and how rich they were, and how he has built 9 holiday apartment blocks and blah blah blah. Wife (Sylvia) seemed very nice and friendly (Essex girl), but got drunker and drunker and more and more boring yapping on about her daughter’s education (yawn). She said all the expats here have a drinking problem… I can see that! Then she asked me if I believed in open marriage? I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and she said ‘free sex’. I looked at Del Boy and his missing 3 front teeth and almost laughed out loud!!!! So funny. A little Russian kid toddled over to our table and wouldn’t leave Del Boy alone. He looked at her quizzically and said, ‘Are you mine?’ Ha ha ha!!!!

I think my Del Boy is of a different sort of “Brit abroad” to the Margot and Jerry (Good Life) type. Isn’t it strange how we use TV characters as the common currency of reference?

And Bill, nice Bill. He and his wife come out three times a year and motor about and enjoy the sunshine and ambience. He startled us by recounting how he had a heart attack just past Boguz and went straight into a field and knew nothing more till he woke up in a hospital in Famagusta! I always think of him when we pass ‘Bill’s Field’, and hold on to the steering wheel really tight!

Yesterday we drove up the panhandle of the Karpaz Peninsula. It was all very beautiful, the countryside verdant and dotted with tall yellow flowers and carpets of dog roses, cyclamen and anemones.

We called in to a café in Yenierenkoy and there met a retired English couple selling second hand books. The coffee was awful. John was enjoying his Turkish little demi tasse, but I fed my milky long life synthetic Nescafé to the plant beside me. That was when Peter strolled down the street and leant on the café rails, rather like a cowboy tethering his horse at a saloon, and befriended us.

We asked him all the usual questions. How was he enjoying living in Cyprus full time, did he like the little town, did he garden blah blah blah? It was then he launched into his story.

He and his wife have rescued 5 wild donkeys. They (the donkeys) were starving, at death’s door, and ugly and bony. Somehow they (our new friends) procured a field with a shelter, and delivered them from the bullet that would certainly have been their fate if they had been left any longer in the wild.

The donkeys soon started to recover and it wasn’t long before their particular personalities began to show. Also one had given birth a few weeks after the rescue, so then there were 6.

They decided to call the old blind one George. The two frisky lads they called William and Harry, the middle aged ugly, bony, horsey-faced one, Camilla, and the young bony horsey-faced one, Anne. The new baby was called Bertie. I don’t think this couple are royalists somehow.

Anyway Peter went into great detail about the food they have to procure from the market, (end of the day beetroot and cabbages, old carrots and apples etc.) as well as muesli if you please… quite the royal rations. I would have thought a few nuts and hay would have sufficed.

All this fine dining had turned the little pack into sex fiends. William and Harry with the aid of Blind George had a ball gang raping Camilla and Anne. Poor Camilla’s haunches were bald and cut with the hoof abuse, and it just could not go on. Even Blind George was not averse to having a go, but he took such a long time lining one of the girls up, by the time he was ready she had walked off. Peter decided to get them all castrated, it was a kindness.

So now only baby Bertie is full of the joys of spring and like all baby animals everywhere he bounces about on all fours.

Peter meanwhile was shaking his head at the way his world has changed. From a quiet life in England, he is now never off the road, begging for hay, procuring vedg and visiting his donkeys. The money we spent on the books we bought would of course go towards the donkey fund.

On the way home we decided to call in and visit the royal donkeys. It was funny, they were charming and fat and healthy. We looked into their big brown eyes and tried to distinguish which was which.

Apart from chatting up the people we meet, we did visit Kantara castle, built high up on the hills, with panoramic views of the north and the east side of the island.

I could imagine being an archer guarding such an impregnable fortress.

It was all very amazing. But I was more taken with the wild cyclamen growing in the clefts of the rock.

Another ‘old ruin’ was the monastery of St Barnabus. The poor man was stoned and burned to death, and his body thrown to the sea. Later his friends rescued his remains and took them a little to the west and buried him in a tomb under a carob tree. He was later discovered 400 or so years later, and on the site a monastery was built.

Nowadays it is used as an archaeological museum, with some very amazing pots and pans dating back to the 11^th C BC. We climbed down into the tomb, and I lay down on the hard rock carved into the cave. I felt a little like Juliette. It was actually quite creepy.

So all in all, we have had an interesting few days. By the way, the globe artichokes were delicious. I made the lemon aioli. We had them with fish roasted with grated ginger and broad beans fried in olive oil and garlic. It was all so Elizabeth David. I do love her recipes – they are a must for this Mediterranean way of life.

Tonight we are going out to eat at a Turkish restaurant. The speciality is Meze (short for Mezedhes), which means we get a little of everything. Apparently you get about 30 courses. Now that is what I call a meal! I think it should be an experience to be savoured, though knowing me; I will be so hungry I will probably horse down the first 3 and then not be able to eat any more!

We are off now on our bikes to Iskele. Sludgy coffee for John and peppermint tea for MOI!