Thursday, November 30, 2006
Catherine Agnes Photo
I went home very early yesterday, like 5:00pm, because I was so upset about the work permit.... I haven't really slept for some days, so I called the HR Hologram. Of course they are doing nothing except talking to lawyers, who keep on saying that it takes three months to apply for a Cyprus work permit, when the whole problem is that we applied for it eighteen months ago and it is sitting in the ministry unprocessed.

I did some more of Galons et Bordures, which will get finished this weekend, also took out Catherine Agnes again. I have started now on the spots:

I was thinking last night about Christmas and all that, I haven't decided what to do yet. Maybe nothing, maybe just stay at home and try to get some rest. It would be kind of nice to go to a spa, but most of them are closed and those that aren't put up their prices. It's fairly crucial for me not to spend too much money this Christmas, I've paid off all my ex-husband's debts this year, and now I need to concentrate on acquiring some money of my own. I've made a good start, I think, but I can't be extravagant at all. I am sending Christmas presents to my mother and sister in New Zealand, and I will send something to Perth when my brother's new baby arrives in February, but that's all.

It's a pain this whole work permit thing, it's really spoiling what should be quite a nice time! Last year this time we were being terrorised by the Dwarf, who, I now realise, is just a pathetic little bully. I'm not sure why they keep him on, and David keeps on saying surely they must fire him, but it never happens. Leo wrote a most pointed note about something where he'd verbally promised the client that something would work, and of course it doesn't, because he never did anything about it, and we don't have a leg to stand on, because the document we do have that does NOT include this promise was never signed off by the client. He copied it to the Dwarf as well as the ones who were asking why this had to be done now, but I do not know what repsonse, if any, he got.

The other thing is that I would really like to see Nicky before Christmas, but I don't know if that is going to be possible.

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posted by Ally at 10:14 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Not So Successful
I did try to change my template and then customise it to the Pannasmontata one that I like, but really it wasn't working... this drag and drop and so on is incredibly frustrating. It's like having to use a GUI to view a database instead of writing SQL to find what you need.

So in some ways I regret having changed to Beta, it's hard to see what benefits there are.

Today is being very tedious.... I am ploughing through a whole lot of meter reading validation, the people in Singapore seem to have no idea how meters actually work or what they are for....

I promise I will take some pictures of Galons Et Bordures, I promise, I promise, I promise. I did quite a lot last night, as I was totally unable to sleep.
 
posted by Ally at 3:47 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday - Weekend Progress Report
Well, I didn't do much except stitch this weekend. On Saturday morning I went shopping and bought some Greek aromatherapy stuff as part of my sister's Christmas present, plus two evening bags from Accessorize, including this Claudia Schiffer bag:
The other one was a black satin one with a bow and a small handle, only about £10, which I thought good. I bought a few magazines as well, and was home by 11:30 am, sitting on the sofa, doing Galons et Bordures. And I stayed there for all of Saturday, and made some progress.

Similarly on Sunday, I went to work for about two hours, but spent the rest of the day stitching, mostly on Galons et Bordures, but also a little on La Ruche (which I am determined to make a 2006 finish), and I also wound three balls of Anny Blatt yarn into one, as I am going to make a (rather expensive) multi-stranded scarf. Actually I don't knit very much these days, but every winter I like to make a couple of small things. In France there seem to be sort of little crazes about knitting some things, and one can go to Bon Marche and pick up free patterns for them if you buy the yarn. This scarf is one of these, obviously meant to entice people into buying three balls of Anny Blatt.

Today we have had the usual Monday review meeting, plus a conference call with the Big Big Boss in Paris and the HR Hologram about the takeover, of course there were no answers to anything. David went to sleep during it, of course! Did I mention that he went to the airport last week and had to ring Leo as he was about to board the plane, to say that he thought he had left the door of his apartment unlocked. Leo went there and sure enough, it was unlocked, with the key in the door. This is pretty much normal for David, I fear.

I also heard that the Big Boss from London is coming next Monday and Tuesday, so I will try to talk to him about my work permit. Actually he is someone I get on quite well with, although he is most terribly, terribly busy and rarely has time to talk these days.

Now it is my turn to go to Costas and buy the coffee...

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posted by Ally at 3:42 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Friday, November 24, 2006
Little Change
I changed to the Beta Blogger, although I have done nothing with the template and so on yet, I am a bit frightened to!

We had some bad news yesterday, a colleague in Ireland died very suddenly. He was someone I had only met once or twice, but he was very nice and also had young children. I think he was considerably younger than I am. Very sad, we need nice people like that, and it's sad that someone like that has something so awful happen when a real creep like you know who never even gets a cold. Obviously I don't want people, even like the Dwarf, to die, but it would be kind of nice to think of him slipping on a banana skin and being sore for a while!

I am trying to get out of here early today, not after 8pm like every other day this week, I want to go and buy some magazines to read and some Nandos chicken to eat, then go home and stitch....
 
posted by Ally at 2:44 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Galons Et Bordures Photos
I think this is after about 20 hours work:





As you see, it is a central square followed by borders in different stitches - the central square will get cream wool woven through the ecru that is there now, but this is not done until the very end. There is only one border that is not started, it is a very easy one that we did not do in class. Veronique's instructions are excellent, by the way, with both written instructions and diagrams, so you cannot go wrong.

I hope to finish it by the next time I go home, as then I will have the Motif Florentin (which Veronique says actually is not so much work as this).

Today is setting out to be rather frustrating, as I am having problems with a batch job for adhoc letters. Our people in Singapore really miss the point sometimes, they have got no idea about business things, and are quite capable of saying that it shouldn't be possible to recover from some errors, while I am saying, well, the client would actually like to send letters to these people, so there has to be a way to sort it out! I had a very frustrating episode where they told me it shouldn't be logically possible for two, or even three, different parts of the same street to be in different postcode areas. You should have seen the maps I drew, with mountains, winding roads and other geographic phenomena. And the hilarious thing was that these scraps of paper - I was as usual drawing on paper napkins and old envelopes - got scanned and sent off to Singapore, where they were minutely discussed.

I have so much testing and documentation to do, and the HR Hologram has not come back to me.
 
posted by Ally at 9:50 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Forgetfulness
I have taken photos of my progress with Galons et Bordures, but did I bring the cable so that I could upload them to the computer? No, no, no, of course not!

Actually I spent about 45 minutes of work time on this just before, because it was the fire drill. They set off all the alarms, a perfectly excruciating noise, and everyone had to get out, we were told it would take about an hour, so David and I went off to the coffee shop. Alec went home to work, and Leo went to the Archbishopric! I think he was looking for a religious bookshop, he wanted to buy some holy pictures or something, do not ask me why, as of course he is Jewish. He has an enthusiasm for Borat lately also, and is driving us all mad with Borat jokes, which are not at all funny after the first time (some of them not even then).

David stayed over last weekend and he took the boys from Singapore to Paphos with him, he had quite a good talk with them on the way back when they stopped at Governor's Beach... they are very worried about the takeover, as the new company ("O") does not pay per diem, they just pay actual expenses upon production of receipts. Now of course we all hope to save a bit on our per diems, but for these guys, in fact it is as much as their actual salary! They get paid very low salaries, I'm not sure much, but it may only be the equivalent of $10,000 US per annum, but they are getting £27 CYP per day as the per diem, so this is quite a lot of money for them. They try to spend less than £10 per day, I think, in fact, it takes effort to spend more than that, unless you eat a lot, or buy Missoni scarves every week, like some of us.

We actually did get a European employee FAQ about "O", but it was extremely useless, mostly it just said, you will be informed in the future!
 
posted by Ally at 11:01 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Back in Nicosia
I got back last night, and was interrogated unpleasantly at Immigration as usual, I've just sent a note to the Hologram about this. Actually I got interrogated on the way out as well, so that was not at all nice.

At least in Paris things went well, the course at La Tapisserie Au Point was excellent as usual. This one was Galons Et Bordures, there should be a picture tomorrow, it needs to be taken out of my suitcase and put back on the frame, I didn't have time last night. You will be impressed, I think, by the amount that we did in the class, it is pretty hard work at one of Veronique's courses. There were only three of us doing this one, plus there was a girl there who was doing the "Maison de Reve", which is the final and most impressive project that you can do as a class. I'm really looking forward to going back to do Motif Florentin in three weeks time.

The one rather boring point was that there was a Korean woman there who was rather strange, she wants to do all the courses very fast and then go back to Korea and teach - I have the feeling that she kind of wants to take the ideas and profit from them, because she was asking for copies of this and that. I think it's fine to be an agent in another country and do things correctly, but I get a bad feeling when it looks as though someone wants to plagiarise.

By the way, Veronique's new book is really great, and it is bilingual - although the diagrams are so fantastic that it doesn't need to be. I am seriously thinking of making the screen, it is a really practical and elegant way to record a sampler of stitches:

If you would like a book, you can order it here - I can highly recommend it. It is so well produced and the ideas are greatly inspiring.

Two days of courses from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm didn't really leave much time for anything else, especially when I also spent four hours on Saturday evening advancing for Sunday.

However on Friday I went to the hairdresser and have a new, shorter cut, David says it is rather nice, incredibly rare for him to notice, I wonder if his wife has been telling him to be more sensitive again! I also went to Brentano's and to Le Bon Marche - where I bought yarn, needles, a few notions and Christmas present for my sister. For some reason she is convinced that Petit Bateau T-shirts are the height of chic - they are actually children's ones that go up to an 18 year old size that quite small women can squeeze into - so I humour her by buying them. I don't actually know any French women that wear them, although children and teenagers do. Myself, I prefer something a bit more comfortable and better cut for a woman's figure, although I don't wear a lot of T-shirts anyway.

After that I went to the office to collect airtickets and talk to a few people who were there, and I crawled home again really quite early, about 4:00pm, to rest and get ready for the course.

I did get some nice mail while I was home - my clothes from Ulla Popken, some things from Criss Cross Row and Traditional Stitches, and a Rowan magazine with lovely cushions in it. But I am still waiting for a few things.

Yesterday I stayed at home until it was time for my taxi, the morning was only enlivened by a call from Sylvain, who with his usual tact and diplomacy said it didn't really matter if I had a Cyprus work permit, because then he could take me back to his French project. Talk about missing the point entirely! I did not appreciate, especially when it turned out that the reason he wanted to talk to me was to ask questions to help him with an RFP for Algeria. Algeria, I shrieked, what is wrong with Belgium or Germany or Denmark or somewhere normal? I am getting quite worried about this continued tendancy to go for contracts in Muslim countries, it simply is too dangerous and unsuitable for women to work there.

Anyway today I am playing catch up, better go...


 
posted by Ally at 2:13 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
One Day To Go!
Last night I had a pleasant surprise, Veronique de Luna rang me to confirm the course for Saturday and Sunday, she is having trouble with her email, so she was calling everyone. She was a bit surprised to hear that I was in Cyprus, but it was good to hear a friendly voice for once. And at least , at the weekend, if I survive the plane trip, I will be able to forget about work permits and other things. And, of course, France is one country where I do not need to worry about being refused entry, I have a beautiful 10 year carte de resident.

I just checked with Alec and David, the airport is enforcing the plastic bag rule quite strictly, for liquids, and it does take longer to go through security. Really it is quite inconvenient, and I don't think it will stop terrorists anyway. Frankly air travel is becoming so unpleasant and inconvenient that I am just not willing to do it any more unless absolutely necessary. Why don't we get some nice contracts in Belgium or Germany where I can go by train every week? The worst thing is that it gives the petty tyrants who work in airports an opportunity to behave as badly as they like, and they justify it all by the threat of terrorism. Like the lesbian in Belfast who used to run her hands rather too much over my body every week, she was awful. And there was another funny little lady there who used to tug viciously at my Chanel necklace on the pretext of looking under it to see if I had any weapons of terrorism hidden there! I think not!

Probably I will not post again until Tuesday, as I will be fairly busy over the weekend - on Friday it is hairdresser, shopping etc etc etc, then Satuday and Sunday with Veronique and fly back on Monday. Not sure how much stitching I will get done either...
 
posted by Ally at 10:48 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Monday, November 13, 2006
Biscornu Photos
Mary's Pin Pillow from Indigo Rose:
Pretty in Pink from Indigo Rose:
Both of them together:
As I planned, I did the tassels last night and attached them. It was quite hard putting Pretty in Pink on her pedestal, with two buttons to attach at opposite ends. I lucked out with the buttons for Mary, it specifies small white ones in the pattern, and I found some at the knitting wool shop in Kyriacou Matsi that were ivory with little brown speckles, all different, that go perfectly with the linen and the Waterlilies silk that is in the alphabet.

I also started Catherine Agnes last night, and have done two Rhodes Hearts! I want to try and finish this by the end of the year, and make it a 2006 finish. I wonder if I can do it!

Today Leo and I have been to a lawyer this morning, one that the HR Hologram's law firm in Amsterdam has recommended. It appears that not just me, but everyone, is in an irregular situation, because the company has not been correctly registered in Cyprus. Goodness knows how long this is going to take to sort out. At least this lawyer is polite and has offices nearby, this is two points more positive than the old one. He gave me a cup of mint tea, which was most welcome, and again one cup more than I ever got from Jerkbrain.

Also today I am not in so much pain from the fall, but the bruising is quite colourful. I was telling David about it, and he says, at least you can't show us this! Still I shall try to go early and get some rest, it's always tough in a week where I fly.
 
posted by Ally at 2:57 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Sunday Afternoon
Terrible sleep last night.... I got up and was at breakfast before 9:00am, which almost no-one is on Sunday, the head waiter nearly fell over to see me. Then went and bought some papers and went back to my flat to read them. And I sewed up the two biscornus I have, and cut the threads for the tassels. Maybe some rhythmic winding thread around card will be a gentle pre-bedtime occupation for me tonight.

Part of the problem was that I was thinking of Diana, as I wrote about her yesterday. Diana sadly died at the age of 31, in an accident in Paris, it was perfectly dreadful, as you might imagine, the death of such a young and healthy person. Whatever you could say about Diana, she was very very alive and vibrant - sometimes far too much so for the peace and quiet of the office, in fact. I still feel terrible every time I think about her, not only because of that, but because frankly I didn't like her at all. Apart from the Luigi episode, she often behaved quite badly, she hurt and upset a lot of people who were not in her exclusive group. So in some ways her death was a lot worse than if she had been universally popular and admired.

On a more cheerful subject, I saw someone yesterday that I hadn't seen for ages, I went to a new coffee shop,Gloria Jeans Coffees, and the manager is an Australian Cypriot guy that I used to see at our regular coffee shop. They told me he had left the last time I was in there and said, Tony not here today? He hasn't moved far, it's only just up the road. Coffee shops, their air thick with smoke are very popular here, your average Cypriot can spend hours in them. This one, Gloria Jeans, is not bad, they have good flavoured coffees, like white chocolate Macadamia. Yum. Funny that most of the people I know in Cyprus work in coffee shops... or hairdressers.... it kind of reflects the limited range of spare time activities.

Well, I had better go and find some lunch....
 
posted by Ally at 1:59 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Hooray, hooray, suffering and dismay!
It's the refrain of that Noel Coward song, "There are bad times just around the corner", I can't get it out of my head, I'm afraid. I tossed and turned all night because of the work permit problem. I've just written a really quite nasty email to the HR Hologram about all of this.

I can't believe the attitude sometimes.... HR Hologram's boss, the last time there was a problem with a work permit (in that case created because they didn't want to pay a lawyer to get one, and let the receptionist do it instead!), told me it was my fault for being from New Zealand. I ask you!

And I get extremely tired of the people who tell me they have five different passports etc etc and never have any problems going anywhere. Nowadays I usually just say, are you offering to lend me one of them? And if they carry on, I ask them, what is their point? Do they consider themselves superior to me because they have five passports? That normally shuts them up.

We used to have one of those in the office - I'll never forget, one day when a colleague who is Italian, but lives in the US, got refused boarding at CDG because they didn't think he had the right papers, she arrived on the scene, and, on being told what had happened, her first remark was "that's never happened to me, I have UK, USA and Australian passports". I just looked at her and said, Diana, we are all thinking of Luigi at present, not of you. Poor guy had to stay in Paris an extra week while his paperwork was sorted out. You should have heard his wife on the phone, it was in Italian, but my goodness, it was perfectly plain what she was saying.

It was fairly miraculous that last night I managed to do most of the rest of Mary's Pin Pillow, I am just finishing off the back of it now, and then it needs to be assembled. I have to make tassels! In fact I have to make four tassels for Mary and eight for Pretty in Pink, oh dear. I did also manage to trip over the hem of my nightdress last night and fall flat on my chest, do not ask me how, so I am in a bit of pain from that, although I am not as black and blue as I thought.
 
posted by Ally at 4:23 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 1 comments
Friday, November 10, 2006
SBQ and Moan, Moan, Moan
One of these SBQ's:

How many different brands of "complete" embroidery floss sets do you own? How do you keep track of it? (i.e., spread sheet program, index cards, palm pilot, etc.)

I think I own a practically complete set of DMC floss, it is in three floss boxes plus a plastic bag! One of these days I will verify what's there and perhaps complete it. I also own a complete set of Danish Flower thread, just on a large ring holder. And I have almost complete sets of GAST and WDW stored similarly. Then there are the boxes with other types of thread that I've bought for specific projects, a couple of large boxes that gifts came in.

As far as keeping track of it is concerned, I don't. No spreadsheet, no cards, palm pilot etc. People often act surprised about this, because I am in IT, but I get enough of spreadsheets at work, people are always waving them at me. Also if I want to know if I've got something, I just look at it, it doesn't take five minutes, as opposed to the spare time I don't have to keep spreadsheets up to date. Time that I could spend stitching!

Actually I'm quite often amazed by the time that people will spend doing something that is supposed to save time - I wanted to be more organised around the house, so I looked at this Flylady thing where they give you all the tips on housework etc. It was so much more than I do that I was exhausted just reading one day's instructions! And I don't want to spend my time polishing sinks anyway.

Moan, moan, moan is about the HR Hologram, he has just sent a mail saying that I will need to apply all over again for the Cyprus work permit. He really has no idea.... I need to talk to the Resources Director, at least he has some vague idea of what I've been through.
 
posted by Ally at 4:38 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Thursday, November 09, 2006
A Week To Go
Until I go home for the weekend, that is - I am looking forward to it, even though it means flights, because there should be a lot of mail for me. I should get from Criss Cross Row a parcel with the real Needlepoint Silks for Toccata 1, plus a Whitmans tin. I am really hoping that my Silver Needle things have come - I ordered the Hillside Samplings painted boxes, and one was not in stock. And I also have clothes from Ulla Popken, two pairs of black trousers, a nightshirt, and three tops. And there should be a Traditional Stitches package at work, too. With a new SANQ, I love SANQ!

As usual I have quite a lot of other things to do there, including attending the Veronique de Luna class in Galons Et Bordures - I have not yet had a confirmation, but it may be waiting for me in my mail in Paris. It is 12 hours of classes in two days, so I will be tired after that, for sure. And it takes a while to finish the piece at home, I think Cluny took me about thirty hours, and Petit Point was a long, long time. I am glad to be in Cycle Two now, and I will be doing Motif Florentin in December. That is only six hours. It is on the Sunday following our work Christmas party, which actually I am not sure I want to go to.

I am still in the middle of Additional Load, at least I am now working with a designer in Singapore who knows what he is talking about. I'm afraid that yesterday I was very bad and sent a semi-letter-bomb to one who wrote and told me that my requirement was wrong because he'd asked the others and no-one could remember this one. Of course not, because it was new.... we'd only just expressed it and we'd asked him to get on with it, not say he'd never heard of it! Today's experience is much happier, we are working away quite happily by exchange of email. Unlike David, who has been in a three hour phone conversation with his designer. He has now gone to gaze upon the fishnet stockings of the users as some sort of compensation.

Leo has just asked me to write him an email he can forward to the HR Hologram, regarding my business class airfares... I doubt that they will end up paying them, but still, let's hassle the Hologram. I had better stop and do that, how I wish I could go home and do some more of Mary's Pin Pillow!
 
posted by Ally at 9:57 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Sunshine At Last
Well, the rest of the weekend was a compete washout, it rained practically continuously and certainly every time I wanted to go anywhere. Plus it is none too warm in the apartment, I actually wished I had my doona socks (literally the are socks made of doona fabric, I look like an alien wearing them, but they are good for times when your feet are cold).

I did not do well with QOTN, I am now engaged in unpicking what I have done of the crown because I just don't like the one over one that I have done. I am not redoing it, I think I will put something else there. It's called personalisation :)

I've had two quite bad nights in a row, what with QOTN, my still non-existent Cyprus work permit, the takeover business and a pesky thing called Additional Load that has turned out to be bigger than Ben Hur. I am beginning to think that Mr New HR Man is actually a hologram, as he doesn't return my phone calls or answer my emails. Ditto for Mr Resources Director in London. Leo has put my work permit issues in the weekly report as a risk and a make or break issue. After all, we are not going to get very far with Additional Load if I am in jail, are we?

This morning has brought some relief in the form of sunshine, and also a parcel I picked up at the Post Office after breakfast. Two Q snap frames, 20 gold needles, some petite needles, some WDW and GAST and two Trilogy charts. I am in love with the Trilogy and Heart in Hand. There will be hearts everywhere before I am finished! Mostly pink ones of course...

Last night I did start Mary's Pin Pillow, a little biscornu from Indigo Rose. And the fact that the Q snaps have arrived means that I can start Catherine Agnes as well. I want to use Q snaps for that, given that it has needleweaving and so on. I normally stitch without these days, for smaller pieces, and use the scroll frames for larger pieces (it's a pain mounting into them, although they are wonderful to use, and I do have the very nice wooden ones).

Let us hope the sunshine keeps up - there was a rumour that there would be snow in Nicosia this week. The poor little boys from Singapore are frozen to the bone and keep on saying how severe the winter is here, so let us hope their next posting is not Duluth, Minnesota! They have never seen snow, and they are torn between wanting to go up to Troodos and see the snow that fell at the weekend, and fear that they might actually freeze to death there.
 
posted by Ally at 11:03 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Big Shock
Yesyterday when I came to work and logged on, there was a huge shock - we have been sold to another company, in fact to one of the world's largest software companies! This is something that we heard one rumour about, only a few days earlier, so it has been a fairly closely guarded secret. There is nothing hostile about it, they don't want to put us out of business or anything, we will be integrated as a business unit in their company. They are buying us because we have intellectual property that they need, and we are being bought because being in a bigger company will bring some advantages - our main competitor is also a very large company, many times larger than us, and there have been some difficult battles with them. Now supposedly these will be easier.

For us personally, it could be interesting. In Europe, they must take on the existing employees, that is the law - but I'd be interested to know what their views on people over 50 are. No kidding, we would all like to know, I am the baby of this project at 50, Cyprus is known as the "EMEA retirement home". I'm certainly not going to tolerate being put out to grass because of my age.

We also get integrated into their system of job titles and grades, so that will be interesting as well. And of course some other things may change, although I think in France, we are fairly well protected against anything actually becoming worse.

Of course I was bowled over by all of this, and naturally we also had to listen to about two hours of conference call plus webex, with people from the new company and our MD. So I ended up going home very early yesterday, and sleeping for about four hours, which played havoc with last night's sleep. I did manage in between the two lots of sleep to do some more of QOTN, I am on track to finishing the inside as planned.

Today I had breakfast - it was a fried egg day, they alternate scrambled and fried - then went to the post office to post a cheque for my housing tax, 224 euros. The post office here is open from 7:30 am to 1:30 pm, then again 3pm to 6pm and on Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 10:30. Don't even try to understand it, this is Cyprus.

Then I took a taxi to the Hilton, to buy books and magazines, as I often do at the weekend. Their newstand is also the best English language bookshop here, I find. Then another taxi to the wool shop I found in Kyriacou Matsi - they don't sell Rowan, as I thought, but Noro, Louisa Harding and Debbie Bliss. I bought stitch holders, three skeins of Noro for a bag, a Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton pattern book, some buttons for a biscornu I am about to make and some proper batting i.e. natural, as I have quite a bit of making up to do that will require this. Then I walked down to Aerosoles and bought two pairs of shoes and to Marina Rinaldi and bought a cardigan. The weather has not been great - this has been the wettest week since 1901, or something like that - and I have only sandals and summer stuff with me.

I'm about to go home again, first detouring for some food, I've really had enough this week...
 
posted by Ally at 1:04 pm ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Thursday Afternoon
Last night I had a dream that I had a terrible cold! It was very lifelike, and I was surprised not to wake up with one.

Things are going along quite slowly here, but our client has told our local partner that they are happy with the progress of the project - we think this is because they are able to proceed at snail's pace with us waiting on them hand and foot! Things certainly do not move fast in Cyprus, except for cars driven by young men.

We did have a long meeting with Andy and Rosetta - Rosetta is really happy that go-live date will have to be put back, she is raving on about how she always said there was not enough time. I guess if we had all followed her instructions from the start, everything would be perfect now. Pity she has to scream like a fishwife to get her point across, it is very tiring.

Last night I went home at about 8:00 pm, dead tired as usual, and did some more of QOTN, I am halfway through two butterflies - tonight I will finish them and do some lettering, I think. I really would like to finish the inside of QOTN this weekend. There are some other things I would like to do also, like buy some warmer clothes, go to the bookshop at the Hilton hotel and track down this supposed Rowan yarn shop that is up near the British war cemetery somewhere. I should not be buying anything, but I really wouldn't mind a look at something kind of normal.... and if they have some nice sock yarn, I may succumb.

The apartment is becoming a bit cold at night, I got out an extra blanket last night, and I might go down to Zara Home and get some things at the weekend.

Now I think it is time to go home and try to finish these butterflies...
 
posted by Ally at 11:04 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
I survived until the middle of the week...
Which yesterday I was beginning to doubt, I was that tired when I went home that I had to force myself to sit upright. The weather is not helping, we have had more rain in the last week than in the whole of the time that I have been in Cyprus, and it is accompanied by thunder and lightening on a grand scale. Alec loves it, but he is the only one.

The street kittens at the Cleopatra certainly did not like the thunder and lightning, when I got home, after wading through ankle deep water in the streets and dodging the spray from cars, the cats were all huddled in the doorway, begging to come inside. They all followed me in the front door and had to go out the back door - where at least they can shelter in the shed where the garden tables and chairs are kept. The staff would have a fit if they saw me letting the cats in, but the cats know who is who, and who will let them in.

I did more QOTN last night, even though I was dead tired, I really hope I will finish this at the weekend, the stitching, that is, the making up will take ages. If I can do this and do another GNAA square, I shall be happy. I don't think I could ever stitch according to a rotation, not with the way I have to work at present - and in my job, it is practically always going to be like this......
 
posted by Ally at 9:49 am ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments