At present the greatest worry I have is whether the housemaid will remember to clean my room, and, if so, will she remember to leave me some handtowels........ I came home on Thursday to find my room hadn't been done, and yesterday she took all the towels away and didn't leave me any!

I also seem to have a decent lawyer in the US - from his name he is of Swedish backgound, so this is not surprising. Of course the lawyer here is still useless, her agent came on Tuesday to collect my papers, only eight days late. Rosetta, from the client, saw him, and started laughing about how many photocopies of my passport the Cypriot authorities must now have. It's really silly.... and I also read in the local paper this morning that now European citizens and 3rd party nationals who have been on the island for more than 12 weeks must register for residence as of Monday, so the Ministry will be besieged! They can't even process what they do have, let alone cope with an influx of new applications. Technically both Alec and I are registered, I believe, but neither of us has a work permit, despite repeated applications. Leo has a British passport, and in any case is not here every week.

Apart from these practical details, I don't have much stress at work at present, so I am able to try and build myself up a bit psychologically and physically - I swam after work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then went for a walk to the Hilton bookshop today. And then walked around town for another hour or so. I'm now going to lie down for a bit and read - I have my French windows to the balcony wide open, and it is not too hot at all, the temperature gauge downtown said 25 degrees. The usual mess of cars in the streets of course, Makariou is like an obstacle course. I looked at a few shoe shops, but haven't bought any yet, I want some new ones with bows on the toes.