Pissouri, Cyprus - coming home, no, yes, no .......

Yesterday I took the car back to Paphos. On the way I delivered my clay tiles back to The Makers Space so they could get fired. Julie, my teacher, was there as was the owner. She had decided to close the building up, encouraging all the "makers" to take equipment home so they could still create and she will return to the building twice a day to feed the cats. I had assumed that the building had been a Carob warehouse but she told me it's history;

It is owned by the Monastery and had been used for water storage and distillation (there is a spring at he Monastery)

Then it became the workshop of a carpenter who provided carved pieces for the Monastery and other customers.

When the Makers Space took the building over, about a year ago, the Abbot said that his wood samples could stay there and be used in the gallery.

I followed Julie down to the car rental office and dropped off my car. She then drove me up to the bus station and I checked that the bus to Pissouri was still running. It was but would only be allowed to take 5 passengers. Julie offered to drive me back to Pissouri. I felt I was probably safer in terms of the virus in her car than in the bus anyway and took her up on her kind offer.

I got in just before a thunderstorm hit. After it had passed I went out to pull a few more weeds in next doors garden. They grow like weeds here! All this rain and then warm sunny weather is perfect for plant growth.

Weeds are not the only things that has been growing

In the last couple of days these flowers have also come out.

I don't think my painting skills are up to this.

Or this.

Late afternoon, I needed to stretch my legs and took a short walk down hill. The sun is behind the Pissouri hill but still shining on Pissouri Bay.

It's darker and the temperature drops but it is not really sunset yet.

When I got home and started to work on the blog I discovered that the internet was not working. No email, no Facebook, no WhatsApp, no Netflix, no TV, no blogging.

Well there's always reading.

I decided to leave it for "the fix-it fairies" but this morning it still wasn't working and I realized how reliant I was on it to stay in contact with everyone, family and friends, and to stay informed. My neighbours still had internet so it wasn't an infrastructure thing.  I contacted Colin, who takes care of Annies House and he contacted Markos, who runs the Internet Cafe.

As I had bought the sunbeds down from the pool area, I now have a very comfy reading spot in the front garden.

By 3pm my internet had been fixed and I had an email from British Airways saying that my flight on the 31st was cancelled and to try and book onto an earlier flight. I informed my travel agent immediately but am not hopeful that I can leave any earlier as two of my neighbours also had their flights cancelled and had no luck in booking on to other flights (they are all already full).

I read on CBC that there are Canadians trapped all over the world. Trudeau announced he wanted all of us to come home and I had started the process of looking into an earlier return even before that. When everyone is trying to leave at the same time as airlines are cutting back on flights and countries are restricting flights and passengers, its not as easy as that. It is further complicated by the fact that there are no direct flights from here to Canada so I have to transition through another country that also has travel restrictions and reduced flights.

So I may be here for a while. I am far luckier than other travelers I read about. I have a nice place to stay. I have neighbours who I can talk to even while practicing social distancing. I am not in a city where there is a mass of humanity to catch the virus from. I am in a village that is coming together and helping each other out. The grocery store has no evidence of "panic buying". The climate is lovely. I have things to do. I will not be out and about as much, so, I suspect, the blog will have fewer photos and I may post every other day rather than every day.