Kevin Blake's Blog

Well, it’s a short one today, since I’ve already been writing postcards and spent most of the day shopping. Yes, postcards. They are currently speeding towards England faster than you can say “have you been away somewhere? You look slightly less white”. Actually, probably not – since in the race to beat them back to England, I will probably arrive first. Oh well

But yes, I do even look a little off-white – if not “tanned”. For the mostpart, I’ve even been good, and used vast quantities of sun tan lotion (buy 1 get 1 free at boots!). Not totally though, my legs got a bit burned during the first day of rain. Bah.

So my travels into Limassol, mostly to find presents, were of mild success. I won’t write about them yet, because otherwise it will ruin the surprise. But I will say this; Ali, my trip to the underwater museum, where they had a *special* natural sea sponge exhibition was extremely valuable. Providing your present makes it back in one piece. It’s truly special. Better than a naked clay totem woman, even. I realise I’ve built this up now – but to put it bluntly, you’re not going to be dissapointed. And once you have “it”, I’ll make sure to put up some photos here – so everyone can see what I mean.

A lot of the shops I visited around Limassol are clearly geared for the tourist trade. I know this, because a lot of them have signs out fron saying “GIFTS!” or “EURO SHOP”, or “TOURIST SHOP”. It gives it away slightly… So as a result, I saw a large amount of total junk. Not just lace, but there are plenty of miniature donkey models. You know the sort, it looks like real donkey hair. Like the clver shopkeeper has not only stuffed a donkey for you to take home, but also shrunken it in the magic donkey shrinking machine, for your convenience. The Mouflon in similar style was tempting … but not at 15 pounds. I don’t care if it was real and miniaturised.

I’ve also seen a large number of Llama rugs, too. Which is odd, because I haven’t seen any mention of Llama’s here, or anywhere nearby – so I’m not sure where they’re coming from. But, they’re no cheaper than available from the Ashdown Forest Llama Park.

So, for those of you reading this, not “fortunate” enough to receive a gift from Cyprus. I think you’ll agree, it doesn’t really matter

Tomorrow will be my last full day in Cyprus, so this may be my last entry from this fantastic island (at least until next time). My flight leaves at 4.30am Friday morning, and I have yet to nail down a way of getting to Larnaca airport at that crazy time of the day – but I’m sure that hotel reception will point me in the right direction when I go down foraging for food in just a few minutes.

Tomorrow, I’ll either spend the day in Nicosia, or here in Limassol – depending on how much I feel like waking up in the morning

Bye for now