This is not the blog I had expected to write today. I had promised a Cypriot adventure story. After all I was there for seven days and I expected some excitement. As I posted in my comment last week to the SECRET VALLEY blog, I did not meet an Adonis hunting in the cypress and olive groves. Poor Aphrodite would have met only an insignificant Russian of modest stature…..and no common means of verbal communication. I tried to engage him in conversation to explain there were eleven ladies in front of him and no way for him to play through. No English, said he.
I had to abandon my scarf last week early in the morning. Not quite appropriate for a golf game in the upper twenties Centigrade. It was a wonderful break from England’s grey November weather, great companionship with my fellow golfers, fun, sun and the warm Mediterranean. Our little group was quite international, with birthplaces and home countries of Australia, Japan, Africa, India, Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland and of course England. All had led interesting lives, one caring for alpacas, one going to work on a kibbutz as a young woman, another picking pears in Canada, etc. Nobody fell off a cliff, stumbled with too much bubbly or fell asleep through lack of stimulating chat.
I was thinking there would be nothing to write about ……until…….we arrived at Pathos Airport ready for the flight home. Eleven lady golfers, eleven suitcases and eleven golf bags…..oh no, ten golf bags! The driver had not picked up mine into which I had shoved all my shoes, dirty laundry and my best cashmere jumper. A taxi had to be sent from the hotel bearing my clubs, etc just in time for us to catch the plane. Fortunately I had enough euros to pay for the taxi. Got a good look at our flight captain. He looked about fifteen years old …...slight headache now developing. Nevertheless safe flight, efficient taxi from Gatwick back home to Richmond. Opened the front door to my dark house to be met with the loudest rock music I have ever heard. I thought there was a rave party at the top of my house. Kind Indian taxi driver nervously came up the stairs behind me. I found the TV in my bedroom had somehow switched itself on to a radio programme at top volume and the whole house was shaking. No intruders having a riotous party! I have now ascertained my neighbour had little sleep for several nights. It seemed to switch off during the day. Quite a mystery, as yet unsolved.
Following day….time for the compulsory lateral flow test following foreign travel. I was thunderstruck to receive a POSITIVE Covid result! I have done another laboratory PCR test today as I write this and will be isolating for ten days unless I get a negative.
And now to today’s scarf. Another surprise for me. When I packed my golf bag into its travelling case which had not been used since my last trip to Cyprus two years ago, I found this geometric designed scarf with its many circles and round dots. Now I remember buying it in Cyprus on a former trip and it has remained unloved for two years in the darkness of my bag lying in the garage. My photo shows it with the book I was reading on my holiday, The Readers’ Room by the French author Antoine Laurain. I am only one third through the book so unaware of its ending. I have enjoyed his other books very much so anticipate a good story. I am especially interested in the subject, a mystery manuscript turns up in a Paris publishers Readers’ Room. The selecting staff use a coded system of squares (no good), crescents (shows promise) and round suns (publish). I have been forced to isolate for ten days, just enough time to edit the first one hundred blogs and get them ready for publishing into a book. I do not feel unwell and just hope these circles will pass as suns so I get published. The pandemic made me start writing and now if I have Covid myself, I must use this enforced isolation to complete the task.
I usually want to turn negatives into a positive, but now I am hoping for the reverse! Fingers crossed my PCR test comes back negative!
Busy Bee, Scarf Face!
Series 2, Blog 71.
Ps. THIS IS YOUR ART EDITOR ELLA. JUST HEARD FROM GRANNY THAT PCR RESULT IS NEGATIVE. EXPECT BLOG 72 NEXT WEEK.