I was off early today to go down to Paphos as we had a parcel that needed collecting from the main post office and that closes around 1.00pm - then I was going to play pickle-ball at 2.30pm and there were some other bits and pieces I wanted to do so I tootled on down and found a Cypriot radio station that was playing something akin to Hooked on Classics so had it belting out Carmen, Land of Hope and Glory, Messiah etc etc all the way.
I got to the post office clutching my white form and was told that I had to 'see the man' - actually 'see the woman' as it transpired. Anyway I stood and waited and waited and eventually a guy who was also waiting and turned out to be Eastern European told me what was happening - apparently my parcel had duty that needed paying and after he had been in with his I was to take my parcel with the white form into the woman 'who was having a bad day so good luck! DEEP JOY!!! I hadn't realised that I had duty to pay - I thought I was just signing for the parcel (which turned out to be our new underwater camera).
It was eventually my turn and he was right the woman was having a bad day so she was singularly unimpressed when she asked me for the invoice for the item as I didn't have it so I had to sign into EBAY in her office and show her how much I had paid for the item - she then decided to print out the page without looking at it and when the printer didn't appear to be working sent it to print again. What she hadn't realised was that the page included a print-out of the whole camera manual so we ended up with pages and pages and pages and pages spewing out of the printer - impressed??? NO!!! Eventually I managed to escape with the camera and paid the duty - if it happens again I must make sure I take a receipt!
After racing around trying to find a cantilever sun umbrella (and failing) I made my way to the Imperial Beach Hotel to play pickleball - bloody hell it was hot on court - I reckon it was about 35 degrees and with only four of us playing there was little time to rest and to be honest I struggled a bit - I was very grateful when our hour and half was up. I was almost sorry that I hadn't taken up Mum's invitation to go visiting half a dozen monasteries on the Emba Community Board organised trip that she, Eileen and Hilary were enduring (sorry enjoying)!!!
I got back home just about in time to start getting food ready for the barbeque - we couldn't afford to hang about as Sharon and Sean had to be down to Paphos and pick up Sharon's daughter and her friend. Sharon is a vegetarian and being over here in Cyprus has really inspired me with vegetarian food so I was preparing a special roasted aubergine, pepper and mushroom dish for her which, if it turned out well, will appear on the blog.
I also did a berlotti bean salad and the rocket, pomegranate and cheese salad and Cyprus roast potatoes and we meat eaters had pork souvlaki and grilled chicken. It was all lovely and my vegetarian dish must have been ok because Sharon ate it all so I will have to find the recipe again and put it on the blog.
It was a lovely evening and for once warm and condensation free so we were able to sit out much longer than normally possible. The cats scrutinised the whole proceedings from their vantage point on top of my shed - Chivers was probably hoping a tasty little morsel might just drop into his pathway!!!
Sean and Sharon headed off down to Paphos and the airport and we slowly tidied up and packed everything away so we didn't have to face the carnage in the morning.
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