Postage and pomegranites, cheques and bananas, tomatoes and ostriches…….

What a wonderful place Peyia municipality is! Today, I went about my business as normal, with letters to post, cheques to pay to a holiday villa owner – then my own shopping to do and, in typical Cypriot style, things went their own sweet way.

First stop was the post office. Well, the Kafenes (cafe), where the postman snoozes during the day then gambles at night. Handing letters over to him with a polite request for stamps to England, he huffed and asked me to wait. I waited and waited – till he came back with a carrier bag and thrust it at me. He’s a little scary at the best of times so I was nervous to look inside which he noticed, so grabbed the bag back and plunged his hands into the contents: pomegranites. 12 of them, for me from him! A present!

Paying the cheque to Christina who owns the beautiful Ellada holiday villas is normally a quick and simple process but one which sees us always laden with gifts from her. Today was no different: we exchanged one cheque for a sheath of bananas – and two more pomegranites!

All done, we called to get some tomatoes at the fruit shop on Banana Bay, near Coral Bay – and the owner of the shop said, “come around the back and meet my ostriches!”.

I’ve heard some lines in my time but never that one! So we went and sure enough, there behind very high fencing were approx 15 very tall ostriches, staring back at us!

The day has been interesting here in Coral Bay area to say the least! So when Tony returned moments ago with a plastic oil can and I asked him why, his reply didnt surprise me: “Its a gift for us. Its full of Zivania, (the local drink) and we have to use it before December.” Apparently, you can drink it, cook with it, clean floors with it and use it as an ointment too! Very adaptable!

I’m going to stick to bananas and pomegranites and let Tony try the big Z! Don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it (though I’d imagine the ostriches have been given some to try!).