You can probably deduce that it rained all day yesterday in Nicosia! So I did nothing except read and do Toccata squares. I did go out in the rain to have lunch, but that was about it.

Today is much finer, sunny and warmish, so I walked into the old town and up to the wall before having lunch at one of the restaurants in Laiki Geitonia. LG is dead at this time of the year, very, very few tourists around. In the summer, it's the lunch point for quite a lot of bus tours, and is crowded. In Ledra Street, there are the usual crowds of Sri Lankans etc, as it is their one day off a week. I found out that a housemaid gets paid £150 a month, I can't imagine it. And quite a lot of the people who have them are absolutely foul to them as well, there are stories one hears. Even some people I like have a bad attitude towards their maids, and the one who told me that it was OK for me to work in the afternoon, but she couldn't because she had to go to tennis and drive her kids around has a terrible attitude. She's always screaming at the maid on the phone.

David still says I was making up what she told me about working in the afternoon, but I swear it's true. And they don't work in the afternoon - the hours for the clients here are 7:30 am to 2:15 pm, although we work from about 8:30 am to 8:00 pm from Monday to Thursday. I work on Fridays also, but not so long, and David and Alec work on Sunday, but not so long. Actually we have all been trying to work less lately, because this is the lull before the storm, but we are not very good at not working so much.

On my walk today, I saw a For Sale sign in the window of my favourite creperie, I dare not tell David, because he has been telling me for a week that they have gone bankrupt because of all the free glasses of Chardonnay they gave me! I am quite sad about it, as I liked it there. Now the buffet restaurant is the only decent choice within not-getting-run-over distance. Everything else involves crossing roads.

Well, I think it is back to Toccata and my Margaret Drabble book...... at this rate I shall have it finished this week, Queen Stitch notwithstanding. Did I see something once all in Queen Stitch? That would be my worst nightmare, I think.