Thereby hangs a tale

13th October 2024

A full two weeks since I last took up my metaphorical pen, there having been the little matter of our holiday in Cyprus causing minor disruption, in the nicest possible way, to the normal rhythms of life.

Before that, there was the little matter of assembling our wardrobes which was done in the very safe and efficient hands of Sergio. He was even truer to his word, arriving some ten or fifteen minutes ahead of schedule on the Monday, the last day of September. Armed with his toolbox, he got stuck in and had everything finished in a little over four hours, just in time for us to put on the pasta water. “It said fifteen and a half hours on the instructions,” we said. “Yes,” he replied, “that’s for people who don’t know what they are doing.” Thank heavens Sergio did, and a very good job he made of it as well.

Ikea, on the other hand, let us down slightly; we were one pair of handles short as the nice man had only put four down on the order instead of five. This will mean a trip back to make up the number, but we were due to return as in all the excitement we agreed to having lights fitted which came on automatically when the doors were opened. There were only two in stock when we ordered everything, so the man printed the details so we could buy the others separately later. This has now all changed as the two that came, Sergio said, were not the right size, being too small for him to fit, and will need to be returned – which also prompted our decision to do without lights altogether. The idea sounded very flash in the heat of the moment, but do we really need to make getting dressed seem like the curtain coming up on opening night? I think not.

Good as Sergio was, he did leave us with some tidying up, mainly disposing of the mountain of cardboard packaging. In a fine exhibition of teamwork, I carried it out of the french windows onto the terrazzo and dropped it all over the railings. Stephen then piled it up by the lumber room from where he was intending to take it to the ecocentro. The problem with this is that seeing it en masse and working out how many trips it might require in the back of the Renegade, he decided, instead, to go for the non-ecocentric option of burning it  – where at least the ashes might do the orto some good.

The wardrobes being up we were, after giving them a clean and polish, able to transfer everything back, which took up maybe 60% of the available space. There are still drawers and hanging space going begging, and we are hoping that this autumn might be the last time of the changeover as it seems that we will probably be able to accommodate all our clothes in the new set-up – with some jiggling about to make sure the clothes most likely to be used are in the more accessible places. Such a pleasant dilemma to have.

While the wardrobes were giving satisfaction, we couldn’t say the same for our boiler. It was time for its annual check (well, annual since the other year when we finally got round to having one done and found out it’s obligatory), and it should have been carried out on Monday evening by Samuele, our usual man. This was not before time as, with the sixth sense that devices appear to have, the boiler started playing silly beggars in the morning, with the pilot light not kicking in a few of times and the display panel either telling us to RESET or showing ERROR SP1.

It seemed to right itself on a second attempt on each occasion, which was just as well as the appointment for the afternoon was cancelled, due to unforeseen family circumstances, and rescheduled for the following afternoon but with a different operative. The blips persisted, but the engineer duly arrived, carried out the service and said that the problems of the past couple of days were now sorted.

No they weren’t. On Thursday morning the boiler started playing up again, only more so, and by the evening had stopped cooperating completely and was refusing to give us any hot water. Stephen, and not just because he had to have a cold shower in the morning, phoned the service people where the nice lady apologised profusely, said they were very busy but if we could hold out to the next day Samuele would be back and he would come to see to things in the afternoon. Being nice people, we said that was ok and managed to do with boiling the kettle and a good old-fashioned strip wash – only in the bathroom and not at the kitchen sink.

Samuele, our hero, arrived on Friday afternoon. I picked him up, brought him to the house, he took off the cover, removed a component and asked me for a needle. I found one, gave it to him, he wiggled it about in the tiny holes in the component, put it back and Bob was our uncle: it worked perfectly. I took him back to his van and off he went, not twenty minutes after he had arrived. If only the other engineer had had the same extensive knowledge of the latest techniques in boiler servicing.

That was a bit of a pain, but was put into perspective when Stephen phoned Irene on Wednesday afternoon for an update on how the things were progressing with the house and was told the sad news that after a short illness, the geologist had passed a few days previously. This, naturally, has put the investigation into what is happening underground on hold, but she was able to give us the estimate from Loris for the support work. That this was substantial was not a surprise, but the gap between the lower and the higher prices was. Stephen is adding this to the things he has to sort after the holiday, as we really need to have a clearer idea of the final cost before we commit ourselves.

That was about it before the countdown to our holiday started, apart from my attempts to encourage a gecko to go outside. I was a little taken aback when it dropped from the rubber seal and inside the house as I was wiping around the door jamb (Thursday morning – clean front door, number 72 on my list of household chores for the anally retentive). Putting aside my admiration for how these creatures manage to get into such small spaces and forgetting that this meant it would be able to find its own way out, I started trying to encourage it back out through the open door.

It, however, thought that hiding behind the wine rack was the better option, before scurrying along by the skirting board. I was not so easily put off, and after a couple of forays back and forth I dropped the duster over it when it paused to consider its next move. This would have worked ok, as I scooped it up and took the couple of paces to the door, but just as we got there it wriggled and dropped onto the mat. Well, most of it dropped on the mat; a significant part of its tail dropped on the floor.

The good news is that I was able to lift up the mat and tip it over the doorstep; the bad news is that when I turned my attention to the abandoned tail, that was wriggling across the floor with a life of its own – not quite the stuff of a horror movie thanks to its diminutive size, but disquieting nonetheless. Again the duster came in handy as I covered it and picked it up, trying not to think about it squirming away, and dropped it outside as well, where it continued to writhe as the tailless gecko huddled by the wall. A couple of judicious flicks of the duster got it into the gutter that runs along the terrazzo and when I checked a little later, the gecko was nowhere in sight. Hopefully no harm was done to it in my bungled attempts to rescue it when it really didn’t need saving – no harm, that is, if you discount the self-mutilation.

While that might have been excitement enough for one week, it was almost matched when the weekend rolled round and the countdown to our holiday really began on Saturday afternoon when we completed most of the packing ready for the next day. I say we, but I learned many years ago that Stephen is so much better at it than I am, it makes sense to let him take control of the process, from okaying or vetoing my suggestions of what to take to organising it efficiently in the suitcases.

Harry, unsurprisingly, became a little anxious when he saw these appear though he did have his own holiday to look forward to, starting before ours when we took him to the kennels the next morning. We were a little surprised when we got there to find that between booking his stay and arriving, the business had changed hands and it was a much younger couple, Loris and Daniela, who welcomed us. “Did Rita not tell you?” Loris asked. Well, no, but they seemed very nice and Harry was very happy to be let into the grassy exercise enclosure while we sorted the bits and pieces. When we left, he was sniffing around very happily, and the couple of videos that Loris sent of him playing with some new friends in the enclosure suggested that he wasn’t missing us too much – if at all…

It was our turn next, and after returning home to load the car we headed to the airport for our evening flight, parking up in good time and changing pleasantries with a man who, like Stephen, was trying out a couple of possible parking spaces at the less crowded far end of the car park before making a final decision – and that wasn’t the last we saw of him as he was sitting next to Stephen on the flight. Not only that, but in the way these things happen, he was there again on our return journey, only this time in the row in front of us.

The flight itself was fine, if you ignore the bumpiest landing I think I have experienced, once we got through security control, that is. I was stopped to have my bag searched, then it was sent through the scanner again as the man with the screen had spotted something suspicious. Both I and the lady carrying out the search were a little puzzled until he muttered something about the wallet when it dawned on me. Inside my coin purse I keep the small (2cm long) Swiss army knife, that Stephen gave me for Christmas, for emergencies and had forgotten all about it. I apologised profusely, fully expecting it to be confiscated, but the lady smiled and said it was ok, which surprised -and maybe concerned us – not a little.

I will forbear relating an exhaustive day-by-day account of the holiday; with how much interest can you imbue: got up, had breakfast, lounged by the pool, had a swim, had lunch, lounged by the pool, had a swim, rested in the room to recover, had aperitivi, had dinner, had digestivi, went to bed? There were, though, a couple of highlights worth noting:

1.     Finding how much cheaper paracetamol are in Cyprus compared with Italy (€6 for 100 generic vs €10.90 for 12 branded) when we popped into the nearest chemist for some stuff for Stephen’s feet (don’t ask). This latter was so fabulous we went back the next day for the same again to take back home, likewise the paracetamol of which we have enough not only for our needs but also to give as Christmas presents.

2.     A pot of Earl Grey and a toasted teacake at Tea for Two, the nearest thing to a British café you are going to find in Paphos. So taken with it was Stephen that we went back for lunch later in the week where we both had cheese on toast. I just had fizzy water on that occasion but Stephen was seduced by the name into ordering a mixed juice concoction called Mickey Mouse.

3.     Discovering that our nearest Zara outlet was not actually in Ancona but at The Kings Mall in Paphos where Stephen bought two t-shirts and I purchased a short-sleeved cream shirt, in which I look much to advantage. Don’t just take my word for it; Stephen thinks so too.

4.     Stopping on the way back at the jewellers near the harbour that we have frequented before to buy a small, gold band that fits snuggly to his ring finger to prevent Stephen losing either of his two wedding rings again. While we were there, we thought we might as well get a bracelet, in fine cord with a small diamante circle, for him and another charm for my Pandora bracelet because why not?

5.     Commenting to a taxi driver when we were out on Friday to visit somewhere nearby, the one dullish day, that it looked like rain. “In Paphos!” he said dismissively. Stephen then asked when it had last rained there. “March”, he replied.

And then it was all over bar the return flight. With this being an evening one again, we did have time to get in a last lounge and swim, once Stephen had finished the packing, before heading to the airport. The journey home was about as good as it can be when travelling Ryan Air – though they did put on some entertainment at baggage drop off with a skit where a French woman heading to Toulouse held up the queue for twenty-five minutes because she had lost something, which also involved a hard-faced check-in operative, an airport cleaner and a bag with a cameo from airport security.

We had no such diversion on our way back from the airport, just an uneventful ride over the Apennines, seeing us arrive home, thanks to the time difference, on the same day we left our hotel. The wonders of modern travel – a morning by the pool in the Eastern Mediterranean and home before midnight.