I got here late last night, after the usual nightmare journey - the plane was an hour late, which did not please my taxi driver, as Cyprus Airways told her it was on time. Mind you, it was more or less on time until we spent an hour driving around the airport at Paris, I thought we were going to drive to Larnaca, the way things were going. We also got to the hotel about five minutes ahead of another taxi carrying a guy off the same plane, who gave me a filthy look, not sure why, as I can't possibly be expected to know who from the plane is going to the same hotel.

The place seems fairly deserted, I had breakfast all by myself today, and I have a large apartment, two bedrooms, and actually freezing cold at present, since the heater in the sitting room doesn't work. On the plus side, I have managed to access a wireless network from my bedroom without any difficulty, I hope this continues! It must belong to the building next door or something.

I have started Toccata 1, and goodness, the problems I have had with threads for this, I have noticed that I am missing one colour of Needlepoint Silk. I will try to go out tomorrow and get the DMC equivalent and see how that looks with the other colours - if I don't like it, I will make an emergency order of NPS. It would have to come from the US, as unfortunately Sew and Sew don't stock it, nor does Victoria Broad, and it is not one of the colours that Atelier des Fees Brodeuses has left in stock.

It's funny, I also thought I had Toccata 2 at home, but I don't seem to, so I am going to have to order that at some stage, and I hope I can get a thread pack for that, as I think it's got different gold threads that I certainly don't already have. I'm looking forward to the new Toccata release as well...

First day of work tomorrow, I hope I can remember all my designs and so on. I'm going to have a nice rest for the rest of the day, to get ready for it. I went for a walk earlier, and Nicosia looks just the same as usual, even quieter than normal - if you want totally dead, a winter Sunday in Nicosia is really it.