“Weather forecast – right too often to ignore it – wrong too often to rely on it”

Larnaca Current Temperature

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Forecast for Thursday, last updated at 04:45 GMT

Larnaca 38ºC     Hastings 19ºC             

Dear Mum,

While the UK shivered its way through a very cold Easter weekend, temperatures soared in Cyprus, all caused by a dust cloud which popped over from North Africa for a few days and settled in the atmosphere over the island, trapping the heat.

Here in Larnaca, the temperature peaked at around 27°C/80°F, whilst inland in the capital, Nicosia, it reached 34°C/93°F according to the TV News. Amazing! And totally unprecedented. The highest temperature ever recorded at this time of year.

You’re probably thinking, “I bet he’s got that wrong! He doesn’t speak Greek. They probably said 24, not 34. Idiot!”.

Well you’re definitely right on one count  –  I don’t speak Greek. And I wouldn’t necessarily hold it against you for thinking I’m an idiot. But as the News was in English, I know what 34 sounds like when I hear it. Not only that, but it was accompanied by a map which had 34 written on it. So I guess we’ll have to take their word for it. Even so, it does sound extraordinarily high.

They predicted that the dust cloud would be gone by the end of Tuesday, and they actually got that right. The familiar clear blue sky was back on Wednesday morning, and the temperature was back down to the low 20s. Everything back to normal.

Speaking of Tuesday, it was a Bank Holiday here  -  Greek Independence Day. A fine idea. Have a day off to celebrate another country’s Independence Day. Cyprus also has a public holiday on Greek National Day in October. If you did that with every country in the world, you’d probably never have to work a day in your life!

It’s amazing how many people think that Cyprus is part of Greece. It’s not helped by a travel internet site I came across which offers hotels in Cyprus, Greece!

Ok, they share a common language and they can both be relied upon to give each other maximum points every year in the Eurovision song contest, but the fact remains that they are both totally independent countries. Greece has never had control of Cyprus at any stage in its history. So for Cyprus to celebrate Greece’s Independence and National Days does seem somewhat bizarre.

Anyway, I wrote last year about how I was woken up at 6am on a Sunday morning by a lone drummer walking along the street. It happened again on Tuesday. A year to the day. Only this time it was the whole marching band rehearsing for the big parade later. Just what you need at 6.15 in the morning!

Spring is upon us now. New shoots are appearing everywhere, and the cherry blossom tree that I inadvertently photographed in black and white last year has produced its first petals. There are a few people sunbathing on the beach every day, and even one or two brave ones swimming in the sea.

“So what?”, I hear you cry.

Well, I just thought I’d tell you, that’s all. I realise that this month has been a bit short on Letters, but there seems to be a dearth of amusing incidents at the moment. Or maybe I’m just lacking inspiration at the moment. So I’m writing this Letter just for the sake of it. Take it or leave it!

I think there’ll be something on Monday though. Stay tuned!

And don’t forget to do the clocks forward thing this weekend. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd, so I’m seriously thinking of putting mine back an hour instead, just to be awkward!

©MPB 28/March/2008

Dear Mum,

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

I can’t believe we’re already half way through March and this is the first Letter of the month. The truth is, nothing’s happened that’s inspired me to write. So I thought I’d give you an update on the water crisis in Cyprus. I know how concerned you must be!

And I have to confess that I was a little curious myself to see what’s being done to alleviate the situation. So I turned to the Cyprus Mail to see what the latest news is.

Once a country plagued by water cuts and shortages, Cyprus has recently enjoyed three good years of rainfall. As things now stand, the high rate of rainfall over the last three years has adequately filled the island’s dams and satisfied its needs, while two desalination plants in Cyprus are working to cover any shortages in household water demand. Plans for more desalination plants have been shelved after the recent bout of good rainfall.

Excellent news! At least, it was four years ago when that article was published. I bet they wish they’d built those extra desalination plants now!

I love the use of the word ‘Once‘ as well. As if it could never happen again.  An island which historically suffers from regular long periods of water shortage.

A spokesman for the Water Department said,

“Our job is to study the various scenarios, whether there will be dry years or plenty of rainfall and what can be done about it to have satisfactory use of water. We always plan ahead.”

Good idea. Be prepared! Robert Baden-Powell would have been proud!

“The aim is to have good management of available dam water and maximum use of treated water to avoid problems in the future.”

Really? That went well then!

So what went wrong? Why are the reservoirs all empty now? Just how far ahead did they plan?

Asked how long water supplies would last if the rain stopped, he replied,

“In an extreme scenario, where we had not a drop more water and maintained existing levels of demand, we would last for about a year.”

One year? That’s all? 115 reservoirs on the island and 2 desalination plants (plus treated water plants for agricultural purposes) and the island can only survive one year?

The current water crisis is extremely acute. Here we are half way through March and still waiting for the winter rains. There’s been virtually nothing. Just the odd shower. And hardly any snowfall up in the Troodos mountains to melt.

So just how bad is it? What is being done?

“Now, after four successive years of sparse rainfall, water levels are dangerously low. Currently, there are 90 million litres of water to go around: 60 million litres from the dams  –  less than half the amount at the same time last year  -  and 30 million from the two desalination plants.”

Doesn’t sound too bad. Serious, yes. Serious enough to warrant some extreme measures being taken in case there’s another year of low rainfall. But no real panic just yet.

The trouble is, that article is just over a year old. That was the scenario in January last year. Since when there’s been very little rain. That ‘60 million litres from the dams…’ has all gone. They’re all empty.

A spokesman for the Water Department said,

“A new campaign to save water will be undertaken while better use will be made of desalination facilities, which will form a significant cornerstone of policy in the coming years.”

So what’s the policy?

“The policy is to wean Cyprus away from its dependence on rainfall alone for its water supply.“

Good thinking! Knew they’d get there in the end. Can’t rely on the weather. Never could. Never will.

“At this stage, it’s all about managing existing water supplies, since building and operating a new desalination plant could take up to two years.”

Bet they wish now that they’d started building it two years ago!

So what’s the latest plan?

There’s been quite a lot in the news recently about using tankers to ship water from Lebanon. I’ve heard people talking about it as if it’s the answer to the island’s prayers. Everyone seems hopeful that this will provide a short-term solution.

“The water transport plans from Lebanon are, however, considered to be a possible short-term solution.”

I just said that!

Nicosia Water Board Director Nicos Zampakides told the Cyprus Mail,

“The company which is offering to provide the water tankers says that the tankers can circumvent the lack of infrastructure which would enable water delivery at our ports. They said that the tankers have pipes on board which can be used to unload the water off the tankers,”

That’s excellent. The Water Department is taking some serious action. Water from Lebanon can save us all.

The only problem with that is,

Lebanon said it had not even been asked for water and in any case had none to spare.

Oh!

Still, it was a nice idea!

So now that the tankers-from-Lebanon-deal-that-never-was has fallen through, what new drastic measures does the Water Department plan to take to overcome the current worsening-day-by-day situation?

From an article published three days ago,

The Nicosia Water Board yesterday expressed its opposition to water cuts and advocated the encouragement of a water-saving mentality among the population.

“We’re expressing our concerns, nothing more.”

That’s it? They’re expressing their concerns? That’s all they’re doing?

They must know something that the rest of us don’t. Maybe they’ve found a way to control the weather and make it rain non-stop for the next six months.

As for ‘the encouragement of a water-saving mentality among the population’, I wouldn’t hold out too much hope, although I’m glad to say that some Cypriots do now seem to be taking it seriously. But I do get the impression that most of them think it’s somebody else’s problem and that someone somewhere is bound to do something about it.

The Cyprus Mail recently published its Ten Commandments of how we can all help to conserve water.

The list is too long to reproduce here, but I wrote a couple of months ago in my Letter entitled Raindrops On Rooftops about how grey water systems could help with a long-term solution to the island’s water problems, so I’m delighted to see at number 10,

10. If you are building or renovating a house, put in a grey water system. This will cost a few hundred pounds extra but will halve your water consumption.

I’d like to think that whoever compiled this list read my Letter before including it, but I doubt it. I imagine it’s been on the list for a while. They probably think that’s where I got the idea!

Still no mention of my Share-A-Shower scheme though…

©MPB 17/March/2008

Dear Mum,

Well, here we are at the end of February and there’s still no sign of any substantial rain. There’s been the odd drop, but the ground is dry and rock hard at the moment. No puddles anywhere and not even the slightest bit of mud. So let’s hope that March is the wettest month that Cyprus has ever known, otherwise we’re all doomed!

I had a letter from those very nice people at the Bank of Cyprus this week:

‘Dear Customer’, it began.

A nice personal touch, I thought.

‘We are contacting you today to remind you that your road tax license is about to expire!!!‘

My first thought was ‘Why on earth does it need to be in bold and with three exclamation marks? It doesn’t even need one!’

My second thought was ‘How nice of them. You don’t get that from banks in the UKOGBANI’

My third thought was ‘How on earth do they know? Do they send people round to look at my windscreen and see if my road tax is out of date? What a service!’

My final thought was ‘No! It’s not possible. It can’t be about to expire. They must be wrong’

A quick bit of investigation soon told me that Car Circulation Tax, as it’s officially called in Cyprus, can be purchased for either 6 or 12 months, and expires at either the end of December or the end of June.

So the bank’s ‘your road tax license is about to expire!!!‘ must be out by two months.

But from what I can gather they don’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to collect the renewal fee.

According to the Cyprus Advanced Driving and Road Safety Network,

“The Police inform the public, via the press and TV, when they will start to prosecute for the offence of not having or displaying a valid circulation licence. Prosecutions will start after 28th February 2008.“

So what the bank actually meant was “You’re about to get nicked for not having any road tax!!!“.

Or circulation tax, rather.

Still nice of them to tell me though.

But they’re still wrong. I’m sure of it.

The whole system of Circulation Tax renewal has changed here recently. In addition to renewing it at a Department of Transport office, you can renew your car tax at a bank. Probably why the Bank Of Cyprus is sending out spam letters, trying to drum up business. Presumably they get a rake-back of some sort.

A new alternative is to apply for it online and print out your own tax disc! That sounds to me like a system that must be severely open to abuse somewhere along the line. But the Cyprus Advanced Driving and Road Safety Network does advise you when you print it out to,

‘Make sure you have enough ink‘

Yikes! How big is this tax disc? Just how much ink will I need? And if I run out of ink, why can’t I simply replace the ink cartridge and have another go? Do you only get one shot at it? If you run out of ink half way through do you have to pay again?

Anyway, in my case, ‘Make sure there’s some paper in the printer, you wally‘ would be much better advice!

And how can they check that my insurance and MOT are valid if I apply online? Do cars even need an MOT or whatever in Cyprus?

According to the Cyprus Advanced Driving and Road Safety Etc. site…

That really is a bit of a mouthful. I think I’ll start abbreviating it.

According to CADARSE, vehicles require a ‘Bi-annual Vehicle Inspection (MOT Test / Roadworthiness Test)‘.

Yikes! And yikes again! Biannual? Twice a year? Surely not!

It’s a quirk of the English language that biweekly and bimonthly can mean either twice a week/month or every two weeks/months. You have to guess from the context which it is. But biannual has only one meaning  –  twice a year.

And as I suspected, further reading established that they meant to say biennial  –  every two years. Phew!

So we can unyikes that one.

And the answer to the question about documents is that it’s all logged on the Department of Road Transport database, and therefore easy to cross-reference when you apply online.

So what does it cost? How much do I have to pay to circulate on the roads in Cyprus?

It can be either very cheap or very expensive. It varies according to engine size. Under 1450cc will cost you just 0.0425 euros per cc. So a 1000cc car works out at just €42.75 per year (just over £30 GB). At the other end of the scale, over 2650cc starts at €522 euros (£386 GB).

Vans cost the same as cars up to 2 litres, after which the price is capped at €300 (about £220 GB).

There are a lot of double cab pick-up trucks in Cyprus. An extraordinary amount in fact. They’re everywhere. Now I understand why. Because if you drive a double cab you get a 55% discount off your road tax!

Why? Why only double cabs and not single cabs? Why pick-up trucks at all?

I have absolutely no idea. It can’t be on economic grounds. They’re not particularly cheap to run, and they must apply more wear and tear to the roads than a small saloon car. So what could the reason be?

This is a complete guess and I could be way off the mark, but I think it may have something to do with the standard of the roads in Cyprus. The motorways are great. Top quality. A lot of the main roads are pretty good too. But there really aren’t any secondary roads. There are only tracks for which a 4-wheel drive vehicle is pretty much essential. The same goes for the Troodos mountains, which cover quite a large area of the island.

So a large part of the population live off the beaten track, as it were, and really don’t have much choice about what sort of vehicle to drive. So presumably the 55% discount is a concession to the rural community.

If I was playing Call My Bluff, I’d definitely reject that explanation. It only makes any sort of sense if the concession applied to any 4-wheel drive vehicle, not just double cabs.

But it’s the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment. I’m sure there must be another more logical reason.

Actually, as this is Cyprus, it’s a gross assumption on my part to assume that there must be some logic attached to it!

Anyway, to get back to that very kind reminder from the Bank Of Cyprus that ‘your road tax license is about to expire!!!‘, I’m still pretty sure that they must be wrong. If only for the very good reason that…

…I don’t have a car!

©MPB 29/February/2008

Dear Mum,

It looks like the worst of the cold weather may be over now. Having said that, it’ll be a while before it actually starts to warm up again to a sensible temperature. And the island still needs loads of rain. No sign of it yet though and we’re already half way through the second of the rainy months.

I’m building up quite a nice collection of 1 eurocent coins. Very few people seem to want them. I bought something yesterday which cost €2.41 and gave the correct change. The shopkeeper laughed and handed me back the 1 cent coin, saying,

“This has no value.“

He’s wrong of course. Once I’ve collected a few million of them, they’ll have great value. I’ve only got 103 so far, so I’ve still got a way to go. I’ll give you an update in twenty years time!

I was thinking only yesterday that I haven’t seen a mosquito for quite a while. They don’t like the cold and they don’t like the heat. Autumn and Spring are when you see them. I managed to get through the Autumn session without picking up any bites. Let’s hope the Spring mosquito-fest goes equally well.

Synchronicity being what it is, having had that thought yesterday I was woken up by a mosquito during the night.

Staying on the subject of synchronicity whilst also going off at a complete tangent, I had the misfortune to have that awful song Day Trip To Bangor going through my head all day on Wednesday. I’ve absolutely no idea why. I haven’t heard the song for many years and I certainly haven’t missed it. But you know what it’s like when a song like that gets inside your head. It’s near impossible to shake free from it.

Anyway, having being assaulted by this song all day, I popped into the Blarney Stone in the evening and the damn thing came on over the sound system. I couldn’t believe it!

Where was I? Oh yes…

Synchronicity being what it is, having had that thought about mosquitoes yesterday I was woken up by one during the night.

My faithful German Shorthaired Pointer, Cleopatra, who has standing orders never to sleep on the bed at night, and who was fast asleep on the bed at the time, heard it at the same time as I did, buzzing round our heads.

We were both instantly wide awake. For me, it’s a legacy of the first two weeks that I was in Cyprus when I got bitten to pieces during the night by a whole family of the little critters. I was covered in bite marks for weeks. So now, the first buzzing sound instantly arouses me from the deepest of sleeps, and there’s no way that I can get back to sleep until he’s been dealt with.

For Cleopatra, I think it’s just that she knows how animated I get when one of those biters is around and she gets a bit scared. Anyway, at the first sound of this particular fellow, she leapt from the bed and scurried out onto the balcony through the slightly ajar door. What a coward! She’s supposed to protect me!

I’ve become very skilful at summarily dispatching these buzzing, biting blighters with a deft flick of a tea cloth. I used to use a spray but I couldn’t stand breathing in the stuff myself!

So, arming myself with this deadly weapon I went in search of the unwelcome intruder.

They can be very hard to spot sometimes, but I was in luck. There he was, clinging to the wall just above the bed. Great! This would all be over quickly and I could get back to sleep.

So I took careful aim, gave it a flick… and missed!

Hmmm! Out of practice. I obviously need to get myself down to the flicking range and get my eye in again.

Where was he? Where had he gone?

Try as I might, I was unable to find him again. He’d gone to ground. I had no choice eventually but to get back into bed. I left the light on though. They only seem to buzz you when it’s dark. But after half an hour, I was still awake so I had to turn it off.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

It was almost instant. He’d been lurking in the shadows. Just waiting for me to turn the light off.

You’ve never seen me move so fast. I leapt out of bed, turned the light back on, and took the tea towel out of its holster. I was angry now. This was personal.

And there he was. Sitting on the blind. No mistakes this time.

I launched myself at him and wrestled him to the ground, beating him into a pulp, venting my full fury upon him.

One late mosquito!

Which was when I noticed the other one…

I’ve no idea what possessed me, having failed to flick the first one into submission the first time, but I thought I’d have another go. And no surprises… I missed again!

I watched him fly out through the door into the living room. No point in giving chase. I needed to get some sleep. So I closed the door hurriedly, leaving Cleo to do battle with him.

And with any luck he’ll spread the word about what happened to his friend!

©MPB 15/February/2008

Dear Mum,

Sorry I haven’t written for a while but it’s been bitterly cold and I got frostbite in my fingers and had to have them all amputated. It’s taken a couple of weeks for them to grow back!

I’m continuing to hibernate and have hardly been out at all during January. You wouldn’t believe a Mediterranean island that’s so hot during the summer could possibly be so very cold during the winter. But at least we haven’t had any of the severe weather which the UK enjoyed last month.

Actually I shouldn’t really say ‘at least’. Cyprus desperately needs lots of rain and snow up in the mountains. January is supposed to be the wettest month of the year in Cyprus. There was a little bit of rain on maybe two or three days during January. None of the torrential downpours that I was expecting, and that the island was hoping for in order to begin restocking the reservoirs. The water crisis must now be worse than ever.

There’s been a ban on the use of hose pipes for many months. It was in force all through last summer, but you never saw a dirty car. I remember mentioning this to a native Cypriot whose reply was simply,

“What can you do? You have to keep your car clean.”

No! No you don’t. When there’s a water shortage and a hose pipe ban, a dirty car should become a status symbol. The filthier it is, the more conscientious a citizen you are, and the prouder you should feel. People should be applauded for having dirty cars, and lambasted for having clean ones. Clean car owners should be ostracised by their neighbours.

And I’m glad to say that I’m now starting to see lots of dirty cars. At last! The islanders are starting to take it seriously. Maybe. Maybe they just can’t be bothered to get out there and wash their cars while it’s so cold!

Artist Scott Wade knows what to do with dirty cars. Draw pictures on them! And what fantastic pictures they are. Here’s just a couple of them. You can see more of his work at Dirty Car Art.

Wouldn’t it be great if every car in Cyprus was thus decorated…

Anyway, enough of that. I have a momentous decision to make this week.

I’ve known for some time that this day would arrive, and I’ve spent many sleepless nights pondering it. I want to do what’s right, but I can’t work out whether I should side with the UK because I’m British, or whether I should be loyal to Cyprus because that’s where I’m living at the moment. I’ve been procrastinating about it every day for quite some time, hoping that some sort of celestial inspiration will guide me towards making the correct choice.

But the time has come. I can put it off no longer. I must now decide.

The problem is that Easter in the UK and elsewhere doesn’t always coincide with Easter in Cyprus. And 2008 is such a year. Easter in the UK is on March 23rd this year. In Cyprus it’s on April 27th.

And I just don’t know what to do.

Should I wait until next month?

Or should I celebrate Shrove Tuesday along with the UK… and stuff myself with pancakes tomorrow?

©MPB 04/February/2008

Dear Mum,

Smiling is infectious, you can catch it like the flu.
Someone smiled at me today, and I started smiling too.

I mentioned in my last Letter that I’m impressed with the respect they give the elderly in Cyprus. So different from the UK. Another aspect of life here which I really like is the way everyone is so friendly. It would be unthinkable to pass a stranger in the street and not smile and say hello.

I’m always smiling at strangers. Not that I walk down the high street smiling inanely at everyone I pass. Too many strangers! Just if I pass a solitary soul somewhere. And more often than not, I’m responding to someone else who beat me to it.

But there’s one nut that I’m finding it very hard to crack.

There’s a Cypriot woman in her late fifties/early sixties who lives in a large house on the corner of a street which I pass most days. I always give her one of my best smiles whenever I see her, and say hello or good morning or whatever, in Greek.

The best response I’ve had so far after over a year of platitudes is a barely perceptible nod of the head. In fact, she now seems to go out of her way to avoid eye contact with me. I’ve never once seen her with a smile on her face.

It’s become a challenge of course. I shall continue to proffer salutations whenever I see her in the hope that one day she’ll respond. But I have little expectation of success.

She’s not a heartless woman by any means. She puts out food every day for a family of cats who have taken up residence there. There are five or six of them. There’s one less now as one of the kittens got squished in the road back in the summer. The other kittens are now small cats.

There was an incident a few days ago that any animal lover would have enjoyed.

I was returning from exercising my German Shorthaired Pointer, Cleopatra, and rounded the corner by this woman’s house to be confronted by one of the kitten/cats lying in the middle of the road. The woman was just leaving her house at that very moment and stepped over this black cat as she crossed the road to get to her car, making no attempt to move the cat.

Cleopatra has a love/hate relationship with cats. She’s a bit scared and a bit wary of them, but she always wants to have a go at playing with them. She gets very excited whenever she sees a cat and starts dancing round in circles and advancing and retreating, trying to get a reaction from them. Usually, they just run away. And who can blame them!

On this occasion though, she advanced very calmly towards this black kitten/cat and lay down in the road about two or three feet away from it, with her head between her paws. No sign of her usual hyperactive excitement.

The two of them just lay there facing each other. And I just stood there watching, wondering what this was all about. And the woman just stood there by her car watching too, probably scared that her cat was about to be attacked by a fierce dog!

After a few moments, the kitten/cat stood up and began to advance very slowly towards Cleopatra until it was just inches away. Cleo lifted her head and gave a perfunctory sniff. The kitten lifted one of its paws very slowly, its claws retracted, and smacked Cleo very gently on the side of her nose. No reaction. So the kitten leaned forwards until their noses were touching and gave Cleo a quick lick. Still no reaction from the fierce dog!

I was spellbound by this. Cleo’s passive behaviour was right out of character.

Unfortunately, we’ll never know what happened next because at that moment a car came round the corner, the kitten skedaddled, and we had to make a hasty withdrawal from the centre of the road or risk being terminated.

Without a flicker of emotion on her face, or even the slightest acknowledgement of this endearing spectacle that she’d witnessed, the woman just got into her car and drove off…

©MPB 21/January/2008

Dear Mum,

It’s been very cold this week. Overnight temperatures at sea level have been hovering just above freezing point. The days have been sunny for the most part with temperatures around 15C. No sign of any rain yet which the island so desperately needs. January is supposed to be a rainy month here, but it’s rained in Larnaca on just one day so far this month.

But in spite of the cold, there’s something about life on this island which definitely puts you in a better frame of mind than living in the UK. Maybe it’s because the sun shines at least 300 days a year and you know that this cold spell is very temporary. It makes a difference. Undoubtedly.

Or maybe it’s simply because there are fewer people per square paving slab than in the UK, and it’s so much easier to get on with everyone. There’s none of the aggression caused by overcrowding.

One aspect of life here that I particularly like is the respect with which they treat elderly folk. It’s instilled from an early age. And it’s something which is sadly lacking in the UK where the elderly are often treated like second-class citizens.

Just the other day, I witnessed an event which brought this home to me. It was in a narrow street with cars parked on the pavement on both sides of the road, and an elderly lady was making her way along the side of the street at a very sedate pace.

You take your life in your hands in Cyprus when you leave the relative safety of the pavement and venture out onto the road. Cypriot motorists are a mad lot. I wrote somewhere that the best advice I can give to anyone coming to Cyprus is to always look both ways before crossing a one-way street. They just don’t care.

So, when this elderly lady came to the parked cars blocking the pavement, she simply walked in the middle of the road, holding up all the traffic while she hobbled along.

The thing which I found fascinating is that none of the motorists showed any sign of anger. No tooting of horns. No “Get out of the road you dopey old cow!”. They all sat there patiently in their cars while this senior citizen ambled past the parked vehicles and returned to the pavement.

Respect. It was great to see.

©MPB 18/January/2008

Dear Mum,

Not much has happened this week. I’ve been taking it easy due to a bad back. Plus it’s been very cold this week and I’m continuing to hibernate.

The transition from Cyprus Pounds to the Euro seems to have gone fairly smoothly, although I haven’t yet adjusted mentally to the value of things. Everything seems so much more expensive just because the numbers are bigger.

Actually, I’ve just made a gross assumption there. I’ve no idea if it’s gone smoothly or not. I don’t usually put on the deerstalker more than once a month, if that, but I suppose I’d better see how the island is taking to the euro.

So! What does the Cyprus Mail have to say about it?

“The first working day of euro circulation brought to light several teething problems as people emerged from their New Year torpor…”

No idea what the connection is between the euro and dentistry. Maybe there’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And what about ‘torpor’? That’s not a word you see every day. Especially not in a newspaper.

Torpor:

1 Lack of activity

2 The state of reduced activity that some animals experience during the winter

That’s me! The second one. I told you I was hibernating. My torpor is well under way and not restricted purely to the New Year break. I’m utterly torpedoed at the moment.

“Andreas Charalambous, the Director of Finance, said the Ministry had received complaints from people who had got the wrong change after handing in Cyprus pounds. But these complaints were not serious, he said.”

Frivolous complaints eh? Whatever next?

“We will have some incidents no doubt, but people should complain to the observatories, he said.“

Observatories? A queue of people complaining about euro profiteers is just what you need when you’re studying the stars, trying to boldly focus on the Milky Way or a distant Galaxy, or even a Mars bar during a short torpor!

“The strongest weapon for consumers is to vote with their feet.”

I did try typing with my big toe a while back and I can tell you, it wasn’t easy. But marking the right box on the voting slip and posting it with my feet will require a whole new set of skills.

“One man complained that his parking charges had gone up from £1.00 (€1.71) to €2 overnight. An increase of 17%. But the punter said he had already planned his revenge…”

So what does he plan to do? Sue them? Set fire to the car park? Send them a letter bomb?

“I stocked up on single Cyprus pounds just in case, and I will use them until the end of the month, he said.“

Oh!

Ok. Moving swiftly on…

Apparently this car park wasn’t an isolated incident. Several of them were at it.

“We are collecting all of the names of these parking places…”

Good idea! What will they get? A hefty fine? 28 days in the slammer? Both?

“…and we are going to publish them.”

They don’t mess around, do they?

For those of you who haven’t come into contact with the euro before, euro notes are identical for every country, but each country that has adopted the euro has individually minted coins. I’ve no idea why  -  presumably a concession to allow countries to hang on to some sort of identity. It’s quite unnecessary, but…

But what? No idea. I’ve lost my train of thought. Never mind. I’m sure there’ll be another one along in a minute!

Where was I? Oh yes! Coins. The education by the authorities of one particular retailer hasn’t been all it could. I gave him the right coins for a purchase (it was a Mars bar funnily enough) which he inspected judiciously.

“Ah, we have a problem here”, he said clicking his teeth.

I see what they mean by teething problems now!

“We do?”, was the best I could muster by way of a response.

“This is going to be big problem for so many people.”

It turned out that he wouldn’t accept a 50 cent coin from me because it wasn’t a Cypriot one! It was an old French one that I still had from ages ago. He spotted it because it was very dull compared to the nice new, shiny Cypriot ones.

I tried to explain that a euro was a euro was a euro and acceptable in any country that uses euros, but he wouldn’t have it. It had to be a Cypriot euro coin as far as he was concerned.

Best of luck to him with that one! Definitely one finger short of a KitKat.

Finally,

“The head of the Nicosia Euro Observatory, Argyris Papanastasiou, visited Ledra Street yesterday morning, carried out a few transactions in euros and declared everything was running smoothly.”

So that’s ok then. We can all rest easy in our winter torpor, free from worry about euro profiteers, safe in the knowledge that Argyris Papanastasiou spent a few quid in Ledra Street and didn’t get stitched up.

Still no idea what they mean by an observatory though. Maybe they have strategically placed observation towers where they watch shop-keepers through high-powered telescopes to make sure they give the right change…

…and then publish the names of offenders!

©MPB 11/January/2008

Sources:
Cyprus Mail

Dear Mum,

Cyprus has an acute water shortage. Nothing new about that. It’s been a way of life here for centuries. Not surprising perhaps for an island that has over 300 days of sunshine every year and relies on whatever little rain falls during the short winter months for its annual supply. But I read the word ‘unprecedented’ in an article about it recently.

And I saw some images on the news the other night of an empty reservoir. As my command of the Greek language still hasn”t progressed much past saying ‘Can you lend me a fiver?’, I don’t have a clue if it was a new one about to be filled, or an old one run dry. I suspect the latter.

So I thought I’d better don the deerstalker yet again and find out just how bad the situation is, and see if I can find a solution for them. After all, I’m part of the problem, so it’s the least I can do.

Speaking of which I’ve always thought that a very strange expression – ‘the least I can do’. Imagine what I could do if I really tried!

Anyway, a lot has been done over the years to address the problem. There are now two desalination plants on the island running at full capacity, and the authorities are prepared to build more if that’s what it takes, in spite of the hefty fines they’d have pay to the European Union.

But desalination plants are not the answer in the long term. They use electricity and are therefore responsible for putting a lot of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere (hence the EU fines). And the waste products are put back into the sea which would eventually have a devastating effect on the marine environment.

Capturing and storing what little rainfall occurs is the obvious solution, and to this end Cyprus now has a total of 117 reservoirs, with another one on the way. An astonishing number for a tiny island.

This is the Lefkara Dam. For some reason they seem to call the reservoirs dams. I’ve no idea what they call dams. Dam-dams maybe?

So why is there a water shortage?

Simple. Demand is exceeding supply, and has been for quite a while; three years of exceptionally low rainfall, which is being blamed on climate change, and higher demand due to an increase in the population and tourism.

I’ve only been here just over a year, but I can attest to the fact that there wasn’t much rain last winter. Consequently, there was an acute water shortage during the summer, with bans on hose-pipes, car-washing etc, and fines of up to £300 or 3 months in prison, or both, for offenders. It was actually a criminal offence.

It didn’t seem to deter many people though. Every day I’d see people using hose pipes to wash their cars, balconies, verandahs, pavements etc and to water their gardens and plants. The wastage was extraordinary.

I was very aware of hardly ever seeing a dirty car. I couldn’t understand the mentality of it. You’d think that on an island used to water shortages that conservation would be a naturally instilled trait.

This is the Kouris Dam, the most recently built in Cyprus, shown in this stunning photo at near full capacity. The following photos of the same reservoir, taken in November last year, show just a tiny amount of water left in it. There’s been little rain to speak of since then, and it is now dry. Completely empty.

From an article published by Reuters last November:

“It’s bad. Very bad.” says Vlassis Partassides, head of water management at Cyprus’s water development department. “If the drought continues for a fourth year, the consequences will be very severe.“

Well for one thing, we’ll all be very dirty. I’ve already been doing my bit by inviting as many Cypriot Goddesses as possible to come and share a shower with me, but so far none of them seem to have realised quite how acute the water shortage really is!

The article goes on to say that ‘Reservoirs are less than 9 percent full and residents  -  accustomed to treating water as a precious commodity  -  are braced for another dry winter.’

Hmmm! I’d take issue with the bit about residents treating water as a precious commodity, some of them anyway, but it sums up the situation. They’ve even been saying prayers for rain in church.

Here are a couple more photos, this time of the Mavrokolymbos Dam, firstly at full capacity, and then as it was in February last year, with all the fish dying. That was nearly a year ago. It won’t have improved since then!

So what’s the answer?

Short-term, I have absolutely no idea. Even if everyone on the island was incredibly conscientious about water conservation, it’s not going to solve the problem if Cyprus has another very dry winter. Maybe my share-a-shower scheme could catch on after all!

But there’s a lot that could be done in the long-term. In spite of the island’s 117 reservoirs and 2 desalination plants, millions of gallons/litres of water go to waste every time it rains.

For example, just about every house in Larnaca has a flat roof with a water tank and solar heating panels. When it rains, the water simply runs off the roof down the drainpipe into a drain and is lost forever. What a waste! I’ve never once seen a water butt anywhere to collect this water. I’m sure there must be a few, but it ought to be a way of life.

Maybe there’s a business opportunity there for me. I could start a company called ‘Butts ”Я” Us, Innit’ with the slogan ‘Kiss My Butt’ and corner the market in water butts all over the island. They’d call me the Butt King of Cyprus.

Being more realistic, maybe every building should be trapping raindrops on rooftops and storing it in giant overhead tanks. The only sensible thing I’ve ever seen is a pipe from someone’s balcony going down the side of the building and across the pavement to water a small tree.

Kitchen sink and bath waste is another area where water could be used for watering gardens and plants, or washing pavements and cars. But it all just goes down the drain. More wastage.

It seems to me that if dwellings were designed with toilet cisterns at a lower level than baths/showers and sinks, then waste water could also be used for flushing lavatories.

I know it’s possible. The technology for greywater systems, as they’re called, has been around for a while. Some of them rely on pumps to re-use the water for flushing toilets, which is a bit counter-productive in that it uses electricity. Hence my idea of using gravity for the job.

A tinkle in the ocean, you might think. “Wouldn’t make any difference“, I hear you cry.

You’d be wrong! Amazingly, toilets account for a staggering 40% of household water usage.

And that’s where the solution to the Cyprus water problem lies. In the khazi! That’s where the biggest saving needs to be made.

One obvious answer is to eat less and drink less, then people won’t need to go as often, leading to a reduction in flushes. However, the effect on the economy could potentially be disastrous as food and drink sales fall and workers are laid off. In fact, water consumption might even increase as more and more people become scared of losing their jobs.

So constraining the demand upon toilet facilities at its source isn’t the answer. Everyone simply needs to save that 40% by re-using waste water from roofs, sinks and showers to flush the toilet. Problem solved!

If everyone did this, the Kouris Dam, and all the others, would currently be 40% full instead of empty.

And water shortages in Cyprus would be a thing of the past.

And my usual fee applies for saving the island…

©MPB 07/January/2008

Sources:
Reuters
Cyprus Mail
Aerial Arts
Fishing In Cyprus