Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Cyprus
Monday 9th April
It was great to see some familiar faces and the boys were especially pleased to see their Granny. Jon and I managed to have a day off, the first time in 6 months! It didn’t feel at all weird being back in a roomy house and it was especially great that I didn’t have to cook every night and Jon was more than pleased at not having to do the washing up. Jon managed to get a couple of massages and I was able to have my hair done. Such luxuries! Having been to Cyprus previously we didn’t have an overwhelming urge to explore the island and go zooming off here and there so we mainly stayed in the Paphos area.
The boys were happy to have attention from somebody else for a change and enjoyed having their nails painted and watching many, many videos.
On our first day there we took a stroll around my mum’s Villa situated up in the hills overlooking the Troodos mountains and away from all the development that is currently taking place in Cyprus. On showing Mum Max’s warts (you remember the episode in Italy?) we proceeded to put on the milk from a plant called Spurge. The following day Max told me his arm was hurting and when we looked under his arm it was very red and swollen and so was the inside of his elbow. Max spent the day with his arm held against his chest but complained little. When we looked at his arm the next day he had great big blisters, so we lanced them and aired them to try and dry the skin.
The following day we decided to take him to hospital. The doctor said Max had had an allergic reaction to this natural medicine and needed his wounds cleaning daily. He wrote a list of 7 items on prescription for us, we asked many questions about what should be applied when and how many times and he tried as best he could to explain. In the end, he took us for the imbeciles we were and took us to a nurse to demonstrate. So another episode of Max screaming in a hospital room as the nurse sympathetically but necessarily roughly cleaned Max’s sores and lavished cream on them.
We visited Aphrodite’s baths near Lacchi and enjoyed a walk along the cliffs edge there. Max walking with his arm stuck in the air so as to help the healing process! The boys were still resplendent in their bunny ears.
We took a trip to Limmasol, whilst Jon conducted some business I was able to take the boys to a park opposite the sea front where there were oodles of play equipment for them to play on. In the park we discovered a zoo providing good entertainment and costing less than £3 for the whole family to get in.
Mum and Danny accompanied us to George’s snake park. George is an Austrian who has lived in Cyprus for many years and is a snake fanatic. He has been battling for many years to change the Cypriots view of snakes, they think the only good snake is a dead one. There are 8 species of snake on Cyprus 3 of which are venomous and only one of these deadly, the blunt nosed Viper. However, the Cypriots kill a snake as soon as look at one. George gave us an emotive, if slightly boring for the children, talk on his campaign for the snakes in Cyprus. The boys were able to touch a Montpelier snake (one of the venomous ones!).
We took a trip to the bird and animal park at Coral Bay. This was a shocking £28 for the family and was basically full of exotic and wonderful birds. It also had lots of goats, deer, camels, giant tortoise, Ostriches, a Giraffe, monkeys, a red fox and many snakes. The surroundings were nice but the cages were quite small and the larger animals showed signs of distress.
Saturday 21st April
We returned to Marathonas to find that some bored child had wiled away the hours by throwing stones at the caravan leaving some impressive dents along the way. The following day we said a fond farewell to Mavis and left taking our pock marked caravan with us.
Monday 9th April
It was great to see some familiar faces and the boys were especially pleased to see their Granny. Jon and I managed to have a day off, the first time in 6 months! It didn’t feel at all weird being back in a roomy house and it was especially great that I didn’t have to cook every night and Jon was more than pleased at not having to do the washing up. Jon managed to get a couple of massages and I was able to have my hair done. Such luxuries! Having been to Cyprus previously we didn’t have an overwhelming urge to explore the island and go zooming off here and there so we mainly stayed in the Paphos area.
The boys were happy to have attention from somebody else for a change and enjoyed having their nails painted and watching many, many videos.
On our first day there we took a stroll around my mum’s Villa situated up in the hills overlooking the Troodos mountains and away from all the development that is currently taking place in Cyprus. On showing Mum Max’s warts (you remember the episode in Italy?) we proceeded to put on the milk from a plant called Spurge. The following day Max told me his arm was hurting and when we looked under his arm it was very red and swollen and so was the inside of his elbow. Max spent the day with his arm held against his chest but complained little. When we looked at his arm the next day he had great big blisters, so we lanced them and aired them to try and dry the skin.
The following day we decided to take him to hospital. The doctor said Max had had an allergic reaction to this natural medicine and needed his wounds cleaning daily. He wrote a list of 7 items on prescription for us, we asked many questions about what should be applied when and how many times and he tried as best he could to explain. In the end, he took us for the imbeciles we were and took us to a nurse to demonstrate. So another episode of Max screaming in a hospital room as the nurse sympathetically but necessarily roughly cleaned Max’s sores and lavished cream on them.
We visited Aphrodite’s baths near Lacchi and enjoyed a walk along the cliffs edge there. Max walking with his arm stuck in the air so as to help the healing process! The boys were still resplendent in their bunny ears.
We took a trip to Limmasol, whilst Jon conducted some business I was able to take the boys to a park opposite the sea front where there were oodles of play equipment for them to play on. In the park we discovered a zoo providing good entertainment and costing less than £3 for the whole family to get in.
Mum and Danny accompanied us to George’s snake park. George is an Austrian who has lived in Cyprus for many years and is a snake fanatic. He has been battling for many years to change the Cypriots view of snakes, they think the only good snake is a dead one. There are 8 species of snake on Cyprus 3 of which are venomous and only one of these deadly, the blunt nosed Viper. However, the Cypriots kill a snake as soon as look at one. George gave us an emotive, if slightly boring for the children, talk on his campaign for the snakes in Cyprus. The boys were able to touch a Montpelier snake (one of the venomous ones!).
We took a trip to the bird and animal park at Coral Bay. This was a shocking £28 for the family and was basically full of exotic and wonderful birds. It also had lots of goats, deer, camels, giant tortoise, Ostriches, a Giraffe, monkeys, a red fox and many snakes. The surroundings were nice but the cages were quite small and the larger animals showed signs of distress.
Saturday 21st April
We returned to Marathonas to find that some bored child had wiled away the hours by throwing stones at the caravan leaving some impressive dents along the way. The following day we said a fond farewell to Mavis and left taking our pock marked caravan with us.
