I managed to recuperate my 10 year carte de sejour on Monday, it says I am allowed to stay in France until 2016.... I hope I will be a French citizen by then, of course.

It didn't take long to get the card, I was out of there relatively quickly and went off to the bank to do some business with automatic payments, then went to buy magazines and newspapers, and had lunch at Hippo, where I ate Assiette Exotique , this being one of my favourite dishes. Then off to the facial, which did take place this time, I am happy to say, and it was also very good, I enjoyed it and my skin feels very good since then. Also the girl asked me how old I was, and then most gratifyingly nearly feel over and said I had fewer wrinkles than any other 50 year old she had ever seen. This is genetic, I think, as Mummy does not have many wrinkles for a 78 year old.

Yesterday I spent the morning packing, then went to the airport at midday and sat in the lounge until my flight. I got on first for some reason and had to watch everyone else trooping past with their mountains of handluggage, as this was an A320 and they had to come in through business class. Actually some of them had so much that I started to get a bit worried about the weight of the plane, and there was one guy who had a very sinister looking case, it was like one for an electric drill, but I guess he couldn't possibly be allowed to take one of those on a plane.

I arrived in Nicosia quite late, about 9:30pm, and found that they hadn't got a reservation for me, but fortunately Andre, the desk clerk, came to my rescue and gave me a nice executive room overlooking the pool. It is twice the size of the one I had last time, and bigger than my apartment at home, which is actually not uncommon for hotel rooms, given the size of the average Parisian apartment. This weekend I'm not going to do any sightseeing, just a bit of shopping, lounging by the pool and stitching and knitting.

With me I brought Lefkaritika (I did some of L2 on the plane), also QOTN, Partita and Pretty in Pink. Must update my template to say what my WIPs are now! Also I brought some of the Great North American Afghan yarn, if I can get a square done, that would be great.

Must go and do some work, I am being David as well as me, it is pretty hard...... Alec is quite un-Zen, I think he has been overworking.