Moving house, the long version. Saturday.

So. We painted the living room with much enthusiasm on Saturday morning, as described, and were pleased with the result. Here's the photo I took of it when Tim got back from his camp:


In the afternoon we thought we would do our bedroom. We had chosen a pale blue, since most of our bedding is blue and we like the colour. Unfortunately, we had not really taken in the pink/brown nature of all the tiles throughout the house. We painted one strip of blue, and stopped. We pondered. We went away and thought about it and returned.


No, we decided, we did not like it. It was a horrible clash. So we were not going to paint the room, only to find we had to re-do it. Richard's colleague at work needs his office painted, so he decided to offer him the blue paint! Unfortunately, it being Saturday afternoon, most shops were shut so we knew we'd have to wait until Monday to find a replacement. Instead we did Tim's room, in a colour called Warm Apricot. It was rather brighter than we had expected but effective.

We were quite tired by then and Tim's little room took almost as long as the living room. By 7pm we were shattered. We had planned to go out to eat, but to do so we'd have had to go to our other house to shower and change, and at a normal 'slow-food' restaurant we wouldn't get food until after 8pm. We didn't like that idea for two reasons: (1) we were extremely hungry (2) 8pm is when Cypriots tend to eat. Many Cypriots smoke, and most restaurants allow smoking.

So we decided to opt for something quick. We did change out of our painting clothes, then parked in town. The sea-front has dozens of eating places, all eager to welcome us. Unfortunately the majority of them were showing football on large and noisy televisions. We had forgotten that the World Cup was still going, since neither of us is remotely interested in sports. So we kept walking... and the first place we found that looked quiet was, I hate to admit it, MacDonalds. In eight years and eight months since we came to Cyprus, we have never eaten in this brightly-coloured symbol of capitalism consumerism. But we knew it would be quick, and inexpensive, and most importantly it had neither smokers nor football.

So Richard had a beefburger with chips, and I had a veggieburger with chips. We even enjoyed them, despite feeling a bit old to be in there, since most of the other people were in their 20s or early 30s, with young children.

Maybe we'll go there again in another eight-and-two-thirds years.