There and back again

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Well, so much has happened. Having settled into the apartment, time passed by.

The weather was still decent. The temperatures were generally above 15°C most days and not much below 10 overnight. A fair amount of rain, which generally fell in massive deluges. The Island being short of water, this is a good thing. The reservoirs, which were at 5% of capacity when we arrived, were at 16.1% when I left. Apparently better than last year.

On the 7th February, 2009, we awoke to find that a number of items had been stolen from the apartment whilst we had slept. Lost items included our credit cards, both passports, driving licences, the laptop, three mobile phones, car keys, some cash and several other sundry items.

Quite a blow to us, but a the end of the day, we are both OK and everything can be replaced. It certainly caused a lot of stress and has cost us a lot money, some of which we obviously hope can be recovered through insurance.

We reported the theft to the Pafos Police, who were very good, they responded immediately and efficiently. They even took fingerprints. We had the necessary Police reports and details later the same day to deal with replacing our official documents and insurance claims.

We also reported the theft to our Rental Agent, who had the locks changed the same day and additional locks fitted to the windows.

The main issues at that time, were that Pat was due to fly to France a few days later for a skiing holiday.

We made our way first thing on Monday morning to Nicosia and through the UK High commission, had gained a replacement passport, by the Wednesday, enabling Pat to enjoy her Holiday.

Mine took a little longer and wasn’t quite so easy, due to be an being an older passport, but through some scanned copies of passport and driving licence on a memory stick, it eventually got sorted.

I also sorted out some new keys for the car in the meantime.

Pat left Cyprus on Thursday, 12th February, 2009, leaving me on my own, until I left on Tuesday, 24th February, 2009.

Pat had her week in La Tania and returned to the UK on the 20th February.

We had arranged a hire car for our stay back home and Pat very kindly collected me from the airport. This had been our longest time apart ever, and bearing in mind we had hardly been apart for the last four months during our trip, we were both very happy to be back together again.

Our time back in the UK, had several objectives, mainly that of sorting out the house and being able to rent it out and Pat had arranged for a number of potential letting agents to view the property in the first days back.

One of the main things that came to light was the advantages / disadvantages of letting the property furnished or unfurnished. We realised that following the advice given to us that we were going to have to have the place completely empty and rent unfurnished. This of course increased our task, and we had to sort out the house from top to bottom.

Bearing in mind that the two of us were living in a four bedroom detached property, with a medium sized garden, greenhouse, two sheds and a loft full of stuff, this would be easier said than done.

We decided on an Agency based in Woodbridge, who would manage it on our behalf. They had it advertised on the internet and we had an interested viewing extremely quickly and a subsequent application to rent the property.

We now had three basic options with regards to the contents of our house, bearing in mind that our accommodation in Cyprus is only a two bedroom furnished apartment and rented.

They were 1. Send to Cyprus 2. Store in the UK and 3. Get rid of.

Option three entailed may variances, one of them being a friend, who for a percentage of profits, is selling stuff by the car load for us on Ebay. One of our biggest successes being some old German Deutschmarks, which sold for over one hundred pounds.

The local tip became even more familiar to us.

Friends and family who visited us over the time spent in the UK, never left without driving away with a full car. It became a standing joke between Pat and I.

Neighbours were offered all sorts of items. Local charity shops became the next owner of many of our beloved items. We walked through the town, for Pat to notice some of things in a shop window!

The local council runs a project to recycle furniture and a number of our larger items went in that direction.

So many of our possessions, which have a value to us, usually sentimental, have no real cash value to anyone else, even though there is not anything wrong with them.

Also, a relative is currently raising money for the Girl Guides and a lot of items went to a car boot sale for them.

So, we have benefited various charities and good causes, which can’t be a bad thing.

Option Two, we investigated around for storage options and visited a few places looking at our options, they seemed to work out quite expensive, until we spotted a place, very close to us, that rented containers for storage and we have rented a half container.

Option One, once we had a better idea of how much stuff we were actually going to want of our own personal things to take to Cyprus, we contacted various International Removals Companies. A very local Company to us provided a quote in the region of what we that and we accepted that quote.

We had originally booked a hire car through 1car1 for a month and tried to extend the booking, but the Company went into administration and we had to change to another Company, of course more expensive.

Some part of our time, back in the UK, was spent catching up with friends we hadn’t seen for five months and also saying goodbye again, as we don’t when we will see people again.

We were able to help my Mother celebrate her 70th Birthday, whilst we were back and had a wonderful meal at the Bistro on the Quay.

We have a number of standing invitations out to friends and family for them to visit us in Cyprus anytime they would wish too.

Pat’s Mum, will be with us for two weeks in May and my parents will be with us for two weeks in June. We also have a Wedding in July, so lots to look forward to.

We are looking forward to sharing our time with people in our new location.

Once we knew the date of our stuff leaving our house, which was to be the 8th April, we were able to book ourselves the flight back to Pafos, which was the 15th April, giving some time in between to finalise everything else.

This meant that we would have an Easter in The UK and then an Easter in Cyprus, the weekend after, not that it made too much difference to us.

The weather forecast initially for the UK Easter weekend was lousy, but as it approached they changed their minds and it turned out to be a reasonable weekend.

Our last few weeks in the UK everything started to become time critical and became quite hectic, all in all we both worked our socks off. Pat worked incredibly hard on cleaning the house in preparation for our tenants.

We slept on a blow up mattress for the last few days in the house and gradually moved out of all the rooms, emptied then cleaned them. We had all the upstairs rooms cleared and cleaned apart from the bathroom, a few days before leaving.

Our return journey was uneventful, we were to a large degree exhausted and arrived back in Cyprus exactly on time at 2135, got a taxi and back to the apartment to our new life.

The car was parked where we left it and started straight away, and I managed to drive it a short distance, so all is well with the beast.

On our return to Pafos we met up with our new neighbours and caught up on local gossip etc, about the development.

We are now on mains Electricity and the Water Company wants our details. At least with mains Electricity we don’t have the generator running twenty four hours a day, but we are now having to pay for our power, so swings and roundabouts.

The weather in Cyprus apparently, hasn’t been that good, they have still been getting a lot of rain and thunderstorms. The reservoirs are up to 33% of capacity, compared to 11% at the same time last year.

We have just heard that our tenants will be taking over the house in May, so that’s good news for us.

Our stuff travelling by ship is due to arrive in Limassol on the 11th May, and then has to clear Customs, should be with us a few days later.

Our first day back, was a drive in the car to ensure the battery was back up to strength. A quick visit to the Agents and then the Supermarket to stock up. The shops will shut for longer than in the UK over the Easter period and we haven’t much food in a the moment.

It was even stranger seeing the number of Tourists increasing in Kato Paphos and knowing that we now live here. It wasn’t quite smug mode, but nearly.

The weather has been glorious since our return, and definitely back to wearing shorts again.

Sunday evening we went up into the village to see the Easter Sunday festivities, locals in costumes and dancing.

On Monday afternoon our neighbours decided it was time to enter the pool, and we joined them, enjoying a few glasses of wine and a bit of a laugh. The water, wasn’t what you would describe as warm, but once you were in, was OK.

It is a delight to wake up in the morning to have the sun shining.

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