What a very nice day! Sunny and warm but with a lovely constant breeze that really took the edge off it. Tonight is the first night for quite a while we haven’t jumped in the pool just before turning in.

I woke up quite early, just as the sun was coming up. An amazing dawn over the sea.

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This morning we had to go to the new hospital in Kyrenia to get our PCR tests for the return flight on Thursday. It was really quiet down there, being a public holiday. We walked right in and were out again 5 minutes later. It’s not a pleasant thing but at least it’s over quickly. There were lots of celebrations of one sort or another today. Many family gatherings and also it is the anniversary of the Turkish landings to save the Turkish Cypriot people and there were parades and flypasts for that. In fact last night was the torchlight vigil along the seashore which commemorates the locals coming out to guide in the Turkish troops as they landed in 1974. By that time full scale genocide was occurring on the island, with the extremists on the Greek Cypriot side carrying out overt ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt that without the arrival of the Turkish troops, this would have continued apace. Anyway, it was a big day of celebrating up here.

This afternoon we watched some of the naval parades from our terrace and we wallowed in the pool. At 4pm we were invited up to Heather and Chris’ house in Lapta for a swim, supper and then to a quiz at Karsyaka Square. Their house is absolutely lovely, they have done so much to it over the past year and it is really faultless both in taste and in design. Very impressive. The pool area is especially nice and we took note of where they got their big patio umbrellas and loungers. Had a good swim in their pool, Pimms, then bobotie supper which was delicious.

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The quiz at Karsyaka Square was really fun. Quite wide ranging and challenging but not impossible or full of trick questions. We came third out of about 20 teams so that was pleasing and we won a raffle prize of a bottle of brandy. Would definitely go to that quiz again. I liked it better than the Hoots one which is frankly a bit too difficult.

Dropped Heather and Chris home and came back to ours. The stars were amazing tonight and the moon is over half full. The scent of the jasmines was so strong around the pool. I love that smell.

Our PCR test results were in. Both negative, which was expected but also somewhat of a relief. So we are all set for the flights. Bob will pick up the certificates in the morning. We can now fill in the Locator form and the Verifly app. which will give us fast track arrival at Heathrow. I’ve booked our Day 2 tests from a company called testing4all.org The tests were £52 each which is cheap for the UK (they are diy at home) but compares unfavourable with here where a professinally administered gold standard PCR test is £12.50.