Spaghetti in western Cyprus……..

We’ve had a giggle today in the office: at the moment, on an almost daily basis, we are meeting the owners of new apartments who want us to rent them out – and sometimes need help to furnish them……so we were talking to one such lady (who was lovely and very funny) and she was describing the challenges of finding the right things in the new apartment she has rented while she is getting hers ready…….

The hob is fine apparently but the pans are SO big, you can only get one on at a time – which is fine until you need to cook more than one thing. Last night, making spaghetti, they balanced the large pans and shared the heat – then got the colander out, only to discover that it was the size of a small boiled egg and would hardly take more than one spaghetti strand at a time! (and spaghetti, as we know, has a life of its own!).

Like many new builds, the apartment has some strange quirks: you turn the bathroom light on and the outdoor light goes out. The extractor in the bathroom works when it wants to, not switch related – and the ceiling light seems to want to join the family, lowering itself daily to a level closer to the floor………

All of these are the early snagging issues which every new build has but it was very funny to hear this lady explain the challenges and quirks…….I was reminded of years ago when we lived in York and a lady called Maureen used to come in and “undo” everything for us: well, that was everything that she hadn’t already broken!

I got an urgent message from Maureen one day , when I was in a very important board meeting and she’d insisted I was called out. Running to the phone , thinking something had happened to one of my beloved animals, she answered my distressed “hello” with the phrase, “Your new bucket isn’t big enough – and don’t think I’m going to work here unless you buy Fairy Liquid”, then put the phone down!

On the scale of things, having a big enough bucket is very important – as is having a generously sized colandar but personally, my thought is, “`Is the toilet the right height? and if it is, be happy!”