Well, it seems I am off to Paris on Saturday............... but I don't know as yet whether I will be back at all. They are allegedly going to tell me before the end of tomorrow, so that I can make the appropriate noises to the client, but I have had to chase them all day to get even this far, so who knows?

It's not me I mind about, but how rude this is to the client........ and I am the one who has to face them.

Last night we did go out for dinner, to the Varoshiotis Fish Tavern, where we had fish meze, delicious. I was skyping Nicky about this, and he was extremely envious. Goodness, I miss him.....

That's me, evidently............. the powers that be think I can be in two places at once, they have double-committed me for next week! Oh my goodness! So I still don't know whether I should be in Cyprus or in Paris, it is being decided by a Vice-President this afternoon, as the two projector directors concerned have just had words, and the resources director is going to have a nervous breakdown.

It's marginally cooler here today, that is, the forecast was for only 37 degrees as opposed to 39 (which really means 45), so it may actually be below 40 degrees. Last night was relatively cool, and I had dinner out by the swimming pool at about 9pm, there was a really great breeze, and it felt like normal weather.

I went in after that and did some more QOTN, I've started the top lines of lettering (above the Italian crosses), and I did two small yellow butterflies. The flowers underneath the Rhodes Hearts are painful, just two or three stitches with each colour. The effect is pretty, but it makes me long for the AMAP Quaker and all that one colour stitching!

On the whole, am feeling pretty good, as I have solved two huge problems today. We were also scheduled to have a huge meeting with Rosetta and Andy, but Rosetta is sick, so that got postponed. We are trying to decide whether to go out for my farewell dinner tonight....... I wish they would let me know what is going on.

First, the photos, as Blogger has generously decided to cooperate........... here is the jeep we travelled in, as you see, it is quite large, and in theory they can take nine passengers:

The view from the coffe shop in Agios Nicolaos over towards the abandoned Turkish part of the village:
The Kelethos Bridge, without any water underneath it:

View from the top of Mount Olympos:

Mosaics from Kykkou monastery:

Now for my goodness, parts 1 and 2.................

I have three more days here, after today, and they have not told the client definitely that I am leaving! I have been expressly forbidden to mention it, and our resources director in London appears to be taking an extended bank holiday! What do I do? If Sylvain is in the office in Paris, I suppose I can speak to him, but he isperfectly useless at anything practical.

And we just got a notice about a new PD on the Dwarf's new project, and it was NOT the Dwarf. We immediately rang up everyone we know on that project, to see if we could get the real story, but it is all very unclear. As far as they know, they have multiple PDs, and the Dwarf is on vacation and not emailing them with edicts - as opposed to two weeks ago when he was on vacation and emailing them every five minutes. So there is a theory that he is history, but no-one actually knows.

Just very quickly:



Excuse the not-so-great pictures, I was taking them in my hotel bedroom before breakfast, just so that you could get an idea of progress.... as I said, not fantastic last week or over the weekend, but then I did do a lot of other things!

I haven't answered one for a while, so here goes:

What do you keep your WIPs and other stitching supplies in when travelling?

I always carry my WIPs and supplies (apart from scissors normally) in my carry-on baggage, there is no way I would put them in the hold baggage. So this is fairly limiting, as I am also compelled to carry a laptop as well, if travelling on business, and this thing is heavy. And of course there's a few other things I need too, like newspaper, Sudoku book, makeup bag, camera, Ipod, pencil case, etc. At the moment I just put stuff in a mesh bag, the one that's about A4 size, and slip that into my backpack - I have a laptop backpack, because it's easier with the heavy laptop, and it also holds more than a standard computer bag.

It does mean I can't take much stuff with me on the plane, so I love it when I go somewhere on the train, and I can take scissors and whatever I want!

I only take things with me when I am travelling by plane or train, not around Paris if I am going somewhere or commuting, there is no way I could stitch on the metro, bus or suburban train.

And my view on the current restrictions on hand luggage? It's all ridiculous, I can't bear people who take their entire worldly goods into the cabin with them (as per practically all French people), but I think the present restrictions are just unrealistic. Just another example of how these extremist fanatics are ruling our lives....

Today I didn't want to get up, I was so tired after yesterday, and I didn't get here until 9:30am! I'm going to go home relatively early tonight as well, and carry on with QOTN, and try and have an early night.

Today I got up at 6:15am, yuck, I hate this, am definitely not a morning person. Again a taxi down to Limassol to wait for the tour group - at 8:30 a jeep rolls up to the Hotel Miramare, and I meet Rico, our guide for the day, and the four other passengers, a young English husband and wife, and a mother with her 13 year old son, also English. I was lucky, apparently each jeep can take nine or ten passengers and sometimes there are eight or ten jeeps, but because we were so few, it was very comfortable, and Rico could stop more often and talk to each of us more. Also, because I was the only one by myself, I was in the front seat next to him. I offered to the others to change seats from time to time, but they wanted to sit next to their partner. So sometimes being alone has advantages.

We went first to a roadside cafe in a village to have coffee before we went offroad to see a Venetian bridge from the sixteenth century. There should have been water flowing (or trickling)underneath it, but it's been dry for a few weeks now, and the water won't come back until the winter probably.

From there we went through the Myriklini forest on a rough road alongside where the river should be, and after a while, as we got higher into the mountains, there was a small amount of water. This road came out near the famous Kykkos Monastery, where we visited the church and I, at least, the Byzantine Museum. I was wearing linen trousers and a fairly voluminous t-shirt with sleeves, but some people had to put on more clothes. I also saw a guy with a Kama Sutra t-shirt inside, which was technically decent, but I am sure not what they have in mind for appropriate dress.

We descended to Prodromos for lunch, and strangely enough it was the same restaurant where I went with Nicky and David earlier in the year. Great meze! With kleftiko, yum. Then we drove up to the summit of Mount Olympos, I haven't been so high before, as you can get really close in a four-wheel drive. We were right at the top of the ski lift, next to the British radar base.

Then came the scary bit! We passed through a "road closed" sign to go down this very bumpy track to the Caledonian Falls. We had to park a short way before the falls and walk ten minutes to the actual water. It wasn't Niagara, but it was very pretty, and certainly as much water in nature as I have ever seen in Cyprus. The 13 year old and the English husband got fairly drenched, while the rest of us took photos. I'm glad I bought that Cyprus airways camera!

Down the rest of the bumpy track to get to Platres and a bit further, to a family run winery, where we had tasting, and I bought two bottles for £6. They had just brought in the grapes picked that day, and we saw them go into the crusher.

We got back to Hotel Miramare just before 5:00pm, so I got here about 6:00pm, 11 hours of excursion. I might just go in latish tomorrow.......... and of course I have not stitched this weekend. I am completely zonked, but in a nice way, not in the horrible having-been-yelled-at-by-Dwarf way that I used to be.

Just hope I survive the week, Rosetta is back from vacation tomorrow, and I also have to remove all my stuff from the cupboards at work, and decide what goes back to Paris, then convey it to the hotel and my suitcases.

(PS Blogger is not letting me post photos, I'll do them later)

It can be rather complex to get around Cyprus if you don't drive.......... today I got a taxi to the Hotel Miramare in Limassol at 8:00am and admired the facilities there (very nice, I should have booked that one when I went there at Easter) before a bus of French and Belgian tourists came to pick me up at 9:15am.

We went first to the village of Monagri for breakfast, then on to a Commandaria winery for tasting.

On to Omodos, a little village with a specialty of needle-made lace. Of course the shop with the nicest lace was held by a little old man, who actually groped my breast and tried to get me to go into the back of his shop to taste some special wine! I bet! I would have hit him if he hadn't been so old and frail looking. Lunch was in a restored old house in Vouni, another village, quite atmospheric for a tour group place.......... I've had much better meze though.





After lunch we went to Kourion, the amphitheatre and some mosaics. It was terribly hot, but the theatre (sorry, its not actually an amphitheatre, because it's not a full circle, I was forgetting). Back to Limassol and another taxi, arriving back in Nicosia at 6:00pm.






There's no tours from Nicosia, because it's not a tourist destination, not being by the sea or anywhere picturesque......... tomorrow I am going to get up even earlier and take a jeep safari in the Troodos, again from Limassol.

Well, David is back, and we are spending mornings with the users, so have a few things to sort out........ it was going to be Alec who took over my subjects when I go back to Paris, but it's changed now and it will be David. So he's kind of panicking about learning some things. Alec has his own problems, he has an apprentice, in fact, this apprentice is Derek who is new and will be working with me in Paris. He has to learn migration from Alec in two weeks, and he has only had seven weeks of basic training i.e. no actual experience in our system.

I don't know what I think of this guy, he acts very self-confident and as though he is an expert in everything! I hope he is not another dwarf............. but at least he is not going to be my project director, he will just be another architect, and we will be working with Gil, whom I know and like. He has been asking me a lot of questions about car hire, I gather he intends to spend the weekend going diving from Larnaka or somewhere.

I'm going to sign up for the hotel's excursion to Troodos and Kykkos on Sunday, I think, as I don't know when I'll get another chance to sightsee in Cyprus.

Last night I went to the hotel gym, then ordered Greek Salad and fresh fruit from room service. The Greek Salad was massive, and had not just the caper berries, but the whole pickled stems - which I love. So much lettuce that I couldn't eat it all. Fruit was six slices of melon, two bunches of grapes, two plums and two peaches, huge!

I have been doing more of the middle panel of QOTN, I've done the initials and have started on the verse, have also done the Italian cross stitch in between the lines of the verse. The verse is backstitching, which normally I love (I gather that makes me one of the minority!), but this one is a slight pain, because it's designed to look like script, so there are some parts of the letters which are not exactly what you might expect. I hope the next lot of pictures will show the verse finished, but I think it will take at least another evening. Then I get to have some fun with the line of Rhodes Hearts, I think, I enjoy those...........

These are the rest of the ones I took yesterday, it is a lot quicker posting them from here than from the hotel, and I don't seem to have much to do as yet. David called me, he is still in Israel until tomorrow, something came up. I went to see our clients who are testing, there are only a few of them, as most people are still on holidays, including Rosetta. They are going to call me if they need me, but apart from that, I just have to wait for David, as he has all the notes of Rosetta's million questions for me that arose while I was away. At this rate, I may even get off early for some stitching today! It would be good, I didn't actually sleep well last night, I was still lying awake well after 1:00am.

David told me that the client here is unaware that I am leaving the project in two weeks, although they seem to have guessed that something is up. Why on earth can't the powers that be just tell them? They will have to do so soon, and I would think the earlier the better, it would look awful to leave it until the end of the two weeks.

Uh-uh, they just called me............

This is the name of the establishment I am staying in in Nicosia, as the lease on my apartment has run out, and I am only here for two weeks this time......... I will take photos later and post them, it is not bad, only a few minutes walk from the office, and it has a swimming pool, in which I have disported myself this morning. And I was not the chubbiest person there, by any means. I get breakfast as well, even if, this being Cyprus, all the hot food is lukewarm (this is a general Hellenic tendency).

The flight yesterday was not as totally horrific as I thought, it did not take long to check in and go through security, but we took off half an hour late - that is a general Charles de Gaulle airport tendency. As usual there was salmon with spinach to eat, that suits me just fine. Only four other passengers in the business class compartment, a family who sat together and were fairly quiet. I sat there and finished two butterflies on Queen of the Needle and did some four-sided stitch on Lefkaritika 2. Later I will take photos of Queen of the Needle and post them - I had a nice comment from Claudia in Italy who is making a list of all the blogs of us Queens. Terrific idea!

After all my indignant squawking about terrorists and how selfish they are, I read a really interesting article in the Cyprus Sunday Mail today - apparently to make these bombs on the planes, you need quite specialised lab equipment, including an ice bath (they recommend flying first class and ordering champagne, which will hopefully come in an ice bucket). It also would take several hours, and quite a few trips to the toilet with the ice bucket, so everyone would twig long before it got to the explosion stage. and evidently this liquid explosive cannot be made beforehand, as it is extremely unstable and would probably detonate on the way to the airport. So really you have to wonder. The article suggests that governments have an interest in keeping us all in a state of terror, as we are far more likely to do what they want - and what they want, in its own way, is just as nutty as what the terrorists want, on the whole. So I am inclined to give up on trying to understand this whole mess, and I'll try to be less afraid the next time I travel. I was shaking with terror at the airport and really on the point of cancelling, the only thing that got me through it was the thought of seeing David and Alec tomorrow.

My plans for the rest of the day are to find some lunch, have a sleep, do some stitching and some photographing of stitching........... back to work tomorrow. It's a pity I've been so sick over the holidays, not sick, sick, but just feeling rather tired and out of sorts, I'm pretty sure it's hormonal actually, given other factors. Never mind, I'll just try to keep on keeping on.

For two weeks, that is........... I fly tomorrow, and have just been calling Cyprus Airways to find out if I am allowed to take my handbag and my computer in the cabin with me. Fortunately yes, although they advised me not to take any liquids in my hand luggage, as they would probably be confiscated.

I can't believe the latest lot of terrorists - every time I think about the couple who have a baby, I just feel sick with fear that they were planning to take the baby with them as well. In the UK, they have started to give extra screening to passengers who fit the terrorist profile, which I think is great. People are moaning about how it is racist against young Muslims, but then, so far all the terrorists have been young Muslims, so it makes sense. If the terrorists were middleaged Lutherans, I'd be only too happy to have extra screening, in fact, I would expect it, but it's really idiotic that all of us have to be frisked and can't take our moisturiser or lipstick on the plane. It means the authorities are actually pretending that all of us are equally likely to be terrorists, which is just plain stupid.

And I can't stand it either when they interview people on the news, and they say "Oh we don't mind, it's for our safety!" It is ridiculous that people get brainwashed so easily into accepting this sort of thing. If ordinary people were allowed to take their lipsticks, knitting needles and so on into the plane with them, they would be no more or less safe than now. Actually, if knitting needles are so dangerous, why are the authorities not issuing them to passengers, so that, in the event of terrorist activity, the passengers may all use their knitting needles against the terrorists?

However I won't attempt to take my embroidery scissors with me - I have found (the first time by accident) that, if they are wrapped in fabric inside a mesh bag in my backpack, they do not show up on the x-rays at CDG or Larnaca, but I guess they may have upped the strength of these now. One thing that does show up on the machine you have to walk through at CDG is the underwires in bras, I did suggest to the security people there last time that this is really overkill, but they pretended not to understand me. Although they are not as officious as people at British airports, I was always astounded by the security at Belfast and Cardiff. Every week at Belfast the same security officer used to run her hands over me and she always used to give my Chanel necklace a vicious tug. But I think she was really rather strange. Then there was the one at Cardiff who went through every piece of paper in my bags, in case there was anthrax on them. I had a stack of "incorrect" electricity bills to investigate, and this was apparently highly suspicious.

I look back on the days when travel was a pleasure, they seem so long ago. I can't imagine now getting on a plane unless I had to for work, what with all the hassle........... and just to add to all the joy, work has now introduced an incredibly cumbersome system of approvals for travel. Of course, introducing it while everyone is on holiday as well is just a stroke of genius, we're all now in trouble for not getting prior approval for our first-day-back-at-work travel!

Better stop moaning, I guess.......... I should have taken some pictures of Queen of the Needle to post today, but silly me, I didn't, so I think it will be Sunday before I can do this. Progress is enormous!

I've started the Queen of the Needle kit from Just Nan, the one that was an exclusive from the Silver Needle, here's some progess pictures:


These were in fact taken on Friday, but Blogger wouldn't let me post then, for some reason, so there is a bit more progress now, and I will post that when I have some pictures.

You can see the pink and white checked Graziano linen quite clearly, it is very nice to work on, and it's great for counting. It's been designed to use the squares in quite a logical way, as well, and you know how much we IT people love logical embroidery!

There is a LOT of work in it, I think it is several weeks of stitching, never mind the finishing, so I will be concentrating as far as I can on this, even though I now have the threads for Catherine Agnes and Toccata, they will both have to move down the queue.

I did get to Ostend over the weekend, no photos, as it was so, so wet......... I very brilliantly missed the train on the way there, and had to reroute via Lille and Ghent, but that was no great drama, as there are plenty of trains, I just got there a couple of hours later. Ostend is a lot busier than I expected, mostly with groups of English tourists, who seem to come on very cheap coach tours and wear wristbands to show that they are entitled to free drinks in the hotel. So much not my sort of holiday! I was out seeing the museums and the promenade, and eating delicious fish in restaurants. I have a thing about the shrimp croquettes that you get in Belgium, and always make a point of having them at least once when I am in Belgium.

My Flemish is still dire, I can read quite a bit, and practically everything on menus, but I can hardly speak a word. Apart from please, thank you and shrimp croquettes........ so mostly I speak French or English there. They don't seem to mind speaking French in Flanders, which is the opposite of what I was told, although it is true you do come across people who do not speak French.

Back in Paris, it also rained very heavily last night, and it seems there have been floods in the Pas de Calais area. It is also quite cold for August, only about 20 degrees, but I think this is preferable to the alternative, blistering heat and the canicule. I actually feel not bad now, athough I still have a staggering amount to do in the apartment and I have to go back to Cyprus on Saturday. It really has taken a good two weeks to get over the horrors of working with you know who and his exploitatation of his colleagues. Looking back on it, I think he really just expected us to work and work, no matter what, and if we died in the attempt, he would have just stepped over our bodies on his way to the phone to order some more victims. Nicky says I exaggerate slightly, but I am not the one who used to refer to him as "Hitler".

Nicky, by the way, seems to be doing OK in Ireland, he is spending his time working or else running in the rain. Belfast possibly has less to do even than Nicosia - I mean, for the visiting IT consultant, it's probably a lovely place to live if all your family are there and so on, but places are different when you go there just for work.

Well, had better go, I am actually at work - no-one else is here, and nor should I be, as it is a bridge day before a public holiday. I shall go home and do more tidying up and Queen of the Needle.

I just walked from Madeleine to Opera, because, having been away so long, I have forgotten the metro stops for anything, and I thought the big, empty McDo where I can use the wifi was near Madeleine. It isn't, it is near Opera, and between the two, it is wall to wall tourists. I've got out of the habit of tourist-dodging in Nicosia, where there aren't so many.

It's the second time I've been out today, I went to my Waou gym at Bercy this morning, goodness, there are some strange people there, some are anorexic and there are some who are definitely over-exercising, as well as some who I can't see why they are there, since pedalling very slowly on the exercise bike for hours while they read the newspaper does nothing. They would be better off pedalling briskly for 10 minutes, then going to the cafe to read the newspaper.

What do I do at the gym? Well, I start off with twenty minutes on the walking machine, then I do twenty minutes on the exercise bike (the fat-burning program!), then I finish off with some weight machines. And then I go into the hammam to get warm, if it is winter, but I am not bothering to do that at the moment. I haven't bothered to swim yet, either, although there is a 14 x 4.5 meter pool there, quite sizeable for Paris.

Today was my third time since rejoining, I managed twice last week, so hope to make it a total of eight times before I go back to Nicosia. It costs a fair whack, 995€ for a year, but it is worth it, if I can keep fit to some extent. I really let go of that side of things in Nicosia, what with all the Dwarf trauma, and now it is time to try and make it up again.

I didn't feel that great over the weekend, I think I was still so tired last week and trying to do a lot and get ahead with tidying the apartment and doing everything I have to, that I overdid things greatly. I am trying not to fall into that trap this week. Although I had a terrible night, and there was a lot of disturbance, including comings and going next door, which rather worried me, as the couple there must be well into their eighties and they seem very frail, although always very charming and cheerful. They get brought their meals by the woman upstairs from me, who is very nice, and I think in fact she may be their daughter. She is older than me, I am fairly sure, although you can never be too careful with the French, sometimes they look fifty and they are actually thirty-five.

Sylvain has sent us a lot of documents about the new French project, although I don't believe it's been signed yet. It seems to be me, Gil, the lead architect/project manager, one guy from South Africa who will be a part-time XAI expert, also Kent for the technical stuff part-time, and Aurelien full-time in September only, to do training. It is ridiculous that Aurelien has become a "trainer", I think it's just because no-one wants him anywhere else, it's certainly not because he has any qualifications or talent for the job. Apart from that, there will be two new people, someone called Casey, who has a Chinese surname, and I have an impression is American. But I don't know if it's a man or a woman, most likely a man, given the relative numbers of men and women applying for IT jobs in Paris. Also someone called Derek, whom I think is Australian/Pom, and it's funny, but I seem to know his name from somewhere. I haven't met either of these two, they have just started with the company and have been sent for training to the US. Amazing really, that they get training and get to go to the US for it (I notice they are not entrusting Aurelien with this sort of training!). When I started, I got a brief induction course about the company and practical things, then I got taken to meet my boss, who was like "you know Natural? you have two arms and two legs? here's our 5000 outstanding problems!". Then three months later, it was, "I'm being sent out on a project, so now you're in charge of this group, Al". People have it soft nowadays, getting training up front!

I'm in two minds as to whether to read Sylvain's documentation, I probably will read some of it, but not the lot. I notice he's sent it to Singapore as well, and they certainly don't read French.

Program for the rest of the week is more cleaning up, more stitching (have nearly finished Papillon Trousse) and then going to Ostend for the weekend. I am thinking of restarting the Merry Cox Shaker Spool Holder on Antique White Belfast with real linen thread, as I don't like the specified linen or the DMC linen thread. I have a ton of Belfast and I have reels of the thread that we used for Hedebo at Skals, so I think that will make a nicer job than what SANQ says.

Well, a week is over already, not that I had a full week because of the Monday thing at the Prefecture and then having to finish my work afterwards.

I've just checked my work email, I got 46 since Wednesday, which was the last time I checked. It sounds like Leo and David are having a very strange time without me, Alec and Nicky, they both sent me crazy emails............. not a peep out of Nicky, I hope everything is OK for him in Belfast. He did say he would hire a car and go touring at the weekend. He is sharing a flat with an American guy who is rather loud, although basically goodhearted, so I hope he is not feeling overwhelmed.

This week I did not do much - I have been to the Waou Club at Bercy twice, I have been to Brussels for the day (although not to Craft Corner, as they are closed for the whole of August!), I have tidied up a bit at home, I have bought a few books and stitched a little, I have taken out a subscription for epilation and been epilated at BodyMinute.

Today I intend to do some shopping at the Parapharmacie, Pharmacie and Sephora. I have a 10% card that arrived in the mail, you get this when you have 150 points on your Sephora card, so I always use these to buy perfume and other stuff that's quite expensive, moisturiser and so on.

Then I will go home and do some more tidying up, I still have to go through all the old clothes and decide what to keep. In some ways it would be nice to keep everything for ever, but I would need so many closets it would be unreal. My apartment is starting to look semi-tidy, maybe by the end of the holidays it may be possible to photograph it, for those who wish to see what a 29 square meter apartment in Paris is like. I should photograph the view anyway, as it is not everyone who can see the Tour Eiffel from their room.