We were off down to Emba today and went early to get some bits and pieces done beforehand. We try where possible, to make sure we get as much done as possible if we are going down to the 'Big City'! I had a parcel to collect from the Post Office but it was the subject of some confusion so more of that later.
Our first stop was at One Stop DIY. Over here DIY shops tend to be a bit more like large hardware stores although the Superhome Centre and Paphos Home Market are more like B&Q selling everything for the home from paint to pot pourri! How times have changed - when we first came over visiting Mum and Dad the idea of a general purpose DIY store was something quite alien to the Cypriots as you would get specialist stores for particular products so if you wanted irrigation items you went to the irrigation shop - if you wanted metal items you went to the funny little shops in the old town that sold metal items and scarily used to weld them without any safety equipment out on the pavements. You might be lucky to get nuts in one shop but then have to head off across town to get bolts in another. I can clearly remember that I was able to get curtains in a shop but not curtain hooks as they would be sold elsewhere. There was a charm about this but also a sense of frustration. Now the big stores have stopped a lot of these idiosyncrasies and we are as guilty as the next person for grabbing everything we need from one shop just for the ease of it.
Our next port of call was Euroblinds. We had the guy up to measure on Saturday and had received the quote which was a little confusing and also a little more than we had anticipated but then there was VAT and installation added to the price so we weighed up the fact that it was the fabric I wanted and they would be made to measure and we were putting the remainder of John's Mum's money to pay for them and decided that we would go ahead but just clarify the costs. It is a good job we did because the quotation included the pelmets that we originally thought we would have and then decided we would do without. This actually reduced the cost of the blinds by more than a third so we were well happy with the final figure and paid the deposit and await a date for installation.
So as I said I had a parcel to pick up from the main Paphos Post Office - they had sent me a text to say something was waiting for me - they didn't require an invoice so it wasn't something which required import duty so would have been from Amazon. The number the Post Office quotes is the number they allocate to the parcel and doesn't correspond in any way to any number Amazon may have given you so if you are waiting for more than one parcel you cannot be sure what it is.
Before Christmas I had ordered a vacuum cleaner for Dip which never arrived and could not be traced so the Amazon supplier refunded the money and I bought another one through Amazon from a different supplier and it arrived last week. I then had a message from the original supplier telling me they had been notified that the item had eventually been delivered and I explained I no longer wanted it as I had purchased another - they told me not to accept the parcel and it would be returned otherwise they wanted paying for it. That was ok but I was awaiting another parcel from Amazon so didn't know what was waiting for me at the Post Office and wasn't sure whether they would let me refuse to accept it. As it happens I went and the girl with the lovely hair that deals with parcels listened and said I was more than welcome to come with her into the parcel room take a look at the package and decide whether or not I wanted it. The photograph above is not the Paphos parcel office - I didn't think it would be wise to take a photograph of that but it isn't far off - the room is bung full of parcels of every shape and size and I guess there is a system for finding a particular parcel at any given time but I struggled to see it. Anyway the parcel was not the vacuum cleaner so I was happy to accept it. Confused? not as much as I am!
The island is currently swathed in a sand storm and we are betwixt and between two coptic storms which are classed as gales. This leads to some interesting conditions not least that the sun looks strange trying to struggle through the fug of the sand. I took this picture outside Ikoagora - you could be forgiven to think we were in Norway or somewhere!
We found some new Cider in Ikoagora - my friend Kenna who is coming in April says she is partial to a little tipple of fruit cider so we decided to give these a go. There were three flavours to chose from, cherry, strawberry and pear. The girl on the till said she had tried the strawberry and it was too sweet but she liked the cherry and wanted us to let her know what the pear was like. I can tell her that the pear was actually very nice - light and not too sweet and didn't give me heartburn so that is a result.
Our first stop was at One Stop DIY. Over here DIY shops tend to be a bit more like large hardware stores although the Superhome Centre and Paphos Home Market are more like B&Q selling everything for the home from paint to pot pourri! How times have changed - when we first came over visiting Mum and Dad the idea of a general purpose DIY store was something quite alien to the Cypriots as you would get specialist stores for particular products so if you wanted irrigation items you went to the irrigation shop - if you wanted metal items you went to the funny little shops in the old town that sold metal items and scarily used to weld them without any safety equipment out on the pavements. You might be lucky to get nuts in one shop but then have to head off across town to get bolts in another. I can clearly remember that I was able to get curtains in a shop but not curtain hooks as they would be sold elsewhere. There was a charm about this but also a sense of frustration. Now the big stores have stopped a lot of these idiosyncrasies and we are as guilty as the next person for grabbing everything we need from one shop just for the ease of it.
Our next port of call was Euroblinds. We had the guy up to measure on Saturday and had received the quote which was a little confusing and also a little more than we had anticipated but then there was VAT and installation added to the price so we weighed up the fact that it was the fabric I wanted and they would be made to measure and we were putting the remainder of John's Mum's money to pay for them and decided that we would go ahead but just clarify the costs. It is a good job we did because the quotation included the pelmets that we originally thought we would have and then decided we would do without. This actually reduced the cost of the blinds by more than a third so we were well happy with the final figure and paid the deposit and await a date for installation.
So as I said I had a parcel to pick up from the main Paphos Post Office - they had sent me a text to say something was waiting for me - they didn't require an invoice so it wasn't something which required import duty so would have been from Amazon. The number the Post Office quotes is the number they allocate to the parcel and doesn't correspond in any way to any number Amazon may have given you so if you are waiting for more than one parcel you cannot be sure what it is.
Before Christmas I had ordered a vacuum cleaner for Dip which never arrived and could not be traced so the Amazon supplier refunded the money and I bought another one through Amazon from a different supplier and it arrived last week. I then had a message from the original supplier telling me they had been notified that the item had eventually been delivered and I explained I no longer wanted it as I had purchased another - they told me not to accept the parcel and it would be returned otherwise they wanted paying for it. That was ok but I was awaiting another parcel from Amazon so didn't know what was waiting for me at the Post Office and wasn't sure whether they would let me refuse to accept it. As it happens I went and the girl with the lovely hair that deals with parcels listened and said I was more than welcome to come with her into the parcel room take a look at the package and decide whether or not I wanted it. The photograph above is not the Paphos parcel office - I didn't think it would be wise to take a photograph of that but it isn't far off - the room is bung full of parcels of every shape and size and I guess there is a system for finding a particular parcel at any given time but I struggled to see it. Anyway the parcel was not the vacuum cleaner so I was happy to accept it. Confused? not as much as I am!
The island is currently swathed in a sand storm and we are betwixt and between two coptic storms which are classed as gales. This leads to some interesting conditions not least that the sun looks strange trying to struggle through the fug of the sand. I took this picture outside Ikoagora - you could be forgiven to think we were in Norway or somewhere!We found some new Cider in Ikoagora - my friend Kenna who is coming in April says she is partial to a little tipple of fruit cider so we decided to give these a go. There were three flavours to chose from, cherry, strawberry and pear. The girl on the till said she had tried the strawberry and it was too sweet but she liked the cherry and wanted us to let her know what the pear was like. I can tell her that the pear was actually very nice - light and not too sweet and didn't give me heartburn so that is a result.
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