Thursday, 25th. Driver Andreas had Christmas Day off, of course, and we set off on foot. But not before observing these three Laughing doves on the roof of one of hotel buildings.

Having turned right, westwards, along the road on Sunday, this time we turned left,

but soon went inland (south) into the hills, following a large arc, eventually back to the road.

Stella, the hotel dog, (who seemed to get on well with the nine cats) chose to accompany us. This troubled the leaders, though I didn’t understand why – clearly she knew her way around very well. It turned out it was for fear she would flush out creatures we might hope to see.

I looked back towards the location of the hotel. Is that a storm on the horizon?

We started to feel the odd spot of rain.

We made our way down the hillside, crossed the main road, and started to make our way down the the beach, via more rocky pools. The intention was to walk back to the hotel along the beach. But the rain was too much for some of us, and we decided just to walk back along the road to the hotel. I had a brolly with me, fortunately. Less fortunately, about half way back (in total about a mile) the ankle that had played me up near Fort Augustus in May started playing me up again. Once home from that trip, I had bought some ankle-strengtheners, but after a few weeks had had no more problems with it, so it hadn’t crossed my mind to pack them for Cyprus. My walking pole was a boon, as I limped along the road. (No photos – pole and umbrella occupied my hands!) I lagged behind as the others overtook me, and was very happy indeed when I made it back to my room, where I had my packed lunch.

The rest of the party was not, as I gathered later, much further behind.

The rain stopped, the sun came out, my ankle had recovered somewhat after a couple of hours’ rest, and I felt very deprived of the beach walk to which I had been much looking forward. So I set off mid-afternoon, quite gingerly, from the hotel, to treat myself on my own. (A few of the others, I understand, caught the bus – running on Christmas Day – back to Aphrodite’s pool, and continued their explorations of the Akamas peninsula that had been foiled by Sunday’s thunderstorms.)

Down to the beach was quite a steep slope.

I looked down and noticed I had one of the cats for company.

Surely he would leave one I got to the wet sand, I thought. But no. In fact he left me at what appeared to be the exact boundary between the hotel and the next property.

I didn’t go far, but was out for about an hour. Not only was walking not easy on the loose, coarse sand, on a steeply sloping beach, but I was mesmerised by the surf and just stood there watching for ages. I took dozens of photos, and a few videos, much thinned out here, the Troodos Mountains to the east for backdrop. The noise!

As aften happens when I am solitary on a beach, the lovely ‘On the beach at night alone‘, from Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony, words by Walt Whitman, came to mind.

I climbed back up the slope to the hotel, made for the bar, and had a hot chocolate. I had grown a little chilly standing around with the sun going down.

For our dinner, a few of us had brought Christmassy wear. I had knitted mine, a dress in fact, and was very gratified at comments, including from a Dutch woman who jumped up from her group’s table to compliment me on it as I was passing. As for the meal, among the many choices, including vegetarian, were the elements of a full British traditional Christmas dinner, as there had been the night for the benefit of those who have their main festive meal on the 24th. There was also a huge Christmas cake, spicy and rather lighter in texture than we are used to.

As I walked back to my room, in a separate building, I puzzled at how it was, just a few days after the winter solstice, the sun should hit the moon at a lower angle in a country so much further south than the UK, given that both countries are north of the Tropic of Cancer. I’m still puzzling.