Richard got back - eventually - on August 13th. I'd had quite a tiring day. The family who had been staying in our guest flat had a fairly early flight, so they left about eight o'clock in the morning. They had put one load of sheets and towels in the washing machine already, but there was more to do. And there was another family coming to stay for a few days, friends of Richard's from the conference, arriving later that afternoon.
Thankfully it wasn't quite as humid as it had been, so laundry dried very quickly. I did another load in the guest flat machine, and a load in our upstairs washing machine, and was able to run the Roomba downstairs, and re-make up all the beds. But it was hot, and everything takes me a lot longer in the summer. Richard had said he should be home before lunch and hoped to help, but more bureaucracy got in the way, and it was mid-afternoon before he arrived back.
He suggested we go out to eat that evening, celebrating our anniversary (nearly four weeks late). And so I wouldn't have to think about food. But where to go? Local places were closed, as many businesses are during the middle weeks of August. We knew that the sea-front restaurants would be open, however, as it's high season for tourists.
We liked the idea of going to the Al Sultan Lebanese restaurant. We've sometimes shared their 'platter for one' as a lightish lunch, but wanted something more substantial for the evening. We knew a platter for two would be a lot of food, far too much for us at one meal. But restaurants in Cyprus are always happy to offer boxes to bring extra food home.
So we parked at the marina and walked along the sea front. It was hot and sticky, and we took it slowly. We reached the restaurant, and went in. Like many Cyprus restaurants, the front area is somewhat open to the air, and so has smokers. And it was very warm. We asked if we could go to the inside section, where smoking isn't permitted and they said we could, but that there was no air conditioning on.
Suddenly that restaurant was a lot less appealing.
Oh well, we decided, as we were starting to feel quite hungry, we would have to go to Alexander's, which is often our default. They also have a large semi-outdoor area, but they have an inside too.
Unfortunately, the same was true there. The semi-outdoor smoking area was packed and full of both noise and smoke as well as heat and humidity. The non-smoking area inside was even warmer. No air conditioning. Perhaps the restaurants are trying to economise - and many people don't mind smoke around them. Our request for an indoor non-smoking section was apparently an unusual one for the summer.
And when we looked at other restaurants along the sea-front, they were all operating a similar policy.
Okay, said Richard, let's try the Art Cafe. That doesn't have an outdoor area, and we were pretty sure they had air conditioning.
What we had forgotten is that the Art Cafe is closed on Tuesdays.
By then, we were both feeling very hungry and somewhat frustrated. Yes, this is a 'first world' problem. We could have gone home and cooked something, we could have bought pastries at a bakery. We had many options. But - spoiled as we are - we had been looking forward to a Lebanese meze. So we decided to order the Lebanese meal we'd hoped for, via Foody.
We sat down near the Post Office to order, then went back to the marina for the car, and drove home, hoping we would get there first.
We needn't have worried. It was another fifteen minutes or so before the food arrived. When we set it out on the table, it looked like a very impressive meal:
We had ordered the vegetarian version of the platter, as Richard had been eating lots of meat for the previous week at the conference. There were a couple of hot items (the ones in foil trays - and they were very hot) and the rest was cold. As we had expected, it was far too much for one meal. More than half of it went in the fridge and we ate it again the next day. And some of it the following day too.
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