A lot of walking today - dropped the car off at the garage to get a puncture sorted, and then walked from there to the train station; then walking here and there in Glasgow, and then back to my flat. I'll need to walk back to the garage later as well. Again, just rejoicing in the fact that although a little tired, I'm holding up quite well with a good bit more walking than I used to do. It did help that the sun was showing face today (a little shamefaced, I must say, and rightly so!), but still sharply cold - I never took off my hat and scarf, not even during the interview! (I was a little surprised...I mean I could have just had a wig or even false head on under that hat for all they knew!)
Glasgow was its own inimitable self - a man in full Indian (or should I say, Native American) garb playing some kind of windpipes...a noble statue with an orange and white traffic cone on its head...the sun sparkling off the windows of tall buildings...people hurrying, hurrying...people doing nothing....people stopping in the middle of the walkway for no reason, or to check their phone...so many people on their phones...a building under construction that was wrapped entirely in blue, like a birthday present...people talking...snatches of conversation and snatches of many swear words...frustrated people, happy people, bored people, people who seem to be dead inside....friendly shopkeepers....a helpful security guard who noticed me trying to find a shop and helped me out...and me, winding my way amongst it all and being part of someone else's scenery. 
Day 10 - Snow Feathers. I never will forget the beauty of these incredible patterns in snow.
Today was, in comparison, fairly 'normal'. I worked in the morning, met with a couple who are getting married next year, tidied the house, wrote a new post on my photography blog There's Beauty Everywhere, and went to visit one of the older members in the church who is housebound. I guess in some ways that can seem like it's not very substantial, or significant, or important. And yet, probably one of the most important parts of today was this visit. To an older woman who is kept to her home and primarily her living-room chair, who has a few visitors here and there but some days spends all day just reading or watching tv, I suppose it was a great day. Her hearing aid didn't work, so I wrote notes to her on the back of the paper we found lying about, and she made jokes and I laughed and she laughed and we defied old age to prevent us having a great time.
Walking along the paths in the area behind my flat today I was reminded of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". I've always loved that poem, the idea that there are roads to choose from and it always makes a difference what one you choose...whatever one you choose. And the idea that you must choose now, because you're only heading on. But my choice today was a little different. Many of the paths I walk each day are paths I will be coming to again tomorrow, and the next day. For some reason I never like taking the same path. I don't think I've done the exact same walk more than perhaps once or twice in the 49 days of walking so far. And even then, if it was the same route, the weather made it a completely different experience. I like choosing the left road today, the right tomorrow. Today it was all lefts until I came back round to my starting point.
I woke up a little late today. Had been getting up early several mornings in a row for meetings and phone calls, and I took my time this morning. I was still in my jammies when the delivery man came by with a parcel for me to sign for, and he must have been able to tell from my bleary-eyed look that I wasn't yet on speaking terms with the day. "Did I get you out of your bed?" he asked, and although it was tempting to say no, I've been up for a while, or explain how late I'd been working the night before, or basically justify why I was just out of bed when he, the delivery man, had been up and at them since five or six a.m. most likely...the easiest (and most truthful) answer was simply, Yes. So I said yes, and he smiled. "Well, best go back to it then," he said in a friendly way. "It's cold out." And he gave me my parcel and headed out into that cold. I thought it was very kind. I always fear that someone who has been at work for several hours will condemn me for getting up later...but he spoke as though he was on my side. Wanted me to be warm and cosy. Of course by then I was well awake, so I 'got up' properly. Looked outside and saw things were looking cold and a bit misty.
Five minutes later I looked out and was humming "Past three o'clock...on a cold frosty mooooorning...past three o'clock...good morrow, masters all!" as I watched the fog come down and looked at the frosty housetops. I decided to go for my walk immediately, and I haven't enjoyed a walk as much in days. Everything was frost covered. Fenceposts, flowers, tree branches. The mist and fog made everything quiet, spooky. I would walk down a path and look behind me and not recognise where I just came from. The ice was frozen in funny, beautiful patterns. I came to my diverging of the paths and chose left, and passed a little mini-loch entirely frozen over. A man and his dog appeared, suddenly, out of the mist, passed me with a nod (well, the man nodded, and I think the dog would have done the same but he was busy with a very important water-bottle in his mouth) and then disappeared again into the mist. It was very cold - my phone tells me it's minus 4. There were mist crystals in my hair until it was almost wet. And yet strangely, from the walking, I was almost warm. My face was frozen cold but my body felt like it was snuggled warm in bed. (That's the wool jumper, I think.) So I walked and walked and walked and...tomorrow I take the right-hand turning.
The sea was angry tonight. It's the only way to describe it. Even before the sun set, the sky was dark and the clouds glowering, the sea flinging itself against the rocks over and over and over, the wind howling and whipping the slightest thing round. I even saw seashells on my path, and looked down ten feet or so to the sea, realising that the wind and water had flung them so high that they landed clear out of the beach.
After the passport photo was completed (and put out of my memory), it was on to the Boodle Bar! This is our favourite takeaway in Airdrie; I think the owners have a sign that says 'Bar Noodle' but they are clearly mistaken. Misspelling the name in a text message has led to us calling it the Boodle Bar, and it's a much more catchy name. We got our favourites and walked home (in no rain!) to enjoy them, and I taught Caitie how to play Skip-Bo. An old classic! 
But there were new beauties, too. The trees lining the park are still shining with millions of little white lights, so that it looks like ghostly branches are reaching out into the night, no tree trunk evident in the darkness. The train trundled past, lights shining out of every window, faces looking out and registering me as a nameless walker just as I did the same for them.
As much as I would like to be walking on sunshine, today I was walking on ice. Everything looked fairly clear, roads free of snow, only a few bits here and there on the grass, frozen solid. But I hadn't taken a few steps before I realised the path's treachery. I felt like I was about to go swooping up, feet first, and land on my bum at any moment. But once I got into my (careful) stride, I was able to move a bit more swiftly. Never too swiftly, because any time I felt confident there would suddenly be a very slick patch of ice, and I had to look down a lot - but otherwise a normal winter's walk! I did pass a section of pavement where there were spread out little patches of ice that looked very much like small bear-tracks. Apparently a small bear has been walking around. 
Woke up to clear blue skies and - could it be? - a hint of warmth in the air. My experience of Cyprus By Winter has been surprisingly chilly - although I fully expect it to warm up the day after I leave. But today was a late gift, and I enjoyed wandering along the harbour at Aiya Napa (complete with strolling kitties who wound around my ankles and purred like little machines when I petted them). Later I found funny a lady who stopped in her own walk to enjoy two small birds walking across her way, until I realised that my enjoyment of these cats probably looked similar to the Cypriots. Just part of the landscape. I enjoyed all the blue and white of the harbour, and then went on to the sea caves for a walk along the edge of the rocks, taking great joy in the absence of barriers or guardrails, making it feel , as a friend put it, "like you are the first person to discover it". I did have a second stalker experience here, but it is conceivable that this one genuinely wanted to point out good photo opportunities, as he spoke very little English and gave up after I showed little enthusiasm for following him to a hidden cave. Strangely enough, after he rounded the corner he disappeared completely, which was very odd!
As the sun began to set, I drove up to Cape Greco, up a winding dirt road which was, if possible, worse than the road to the sea caves. I gloried in the 4x4 truck my firends have loaned me here. I think I will buy one - they're terribly handy! I wandered up the path to watch the sun set at the Cape, and passed several ladies holding bouquets of picked wildflowers. One couple I passed was in a friendly argument, the man careering all over the hillside rooting out a massive bunch of flowers for his lady, who seemed slightly pleased but embarrassed that he was picking so many. "You need to save them for Nature," she said, and her man responded, "for Rachel? who's Rachel?" and continued picking. "You see, where there are ten flowers, I pick only three," he explained, leaping from flower bunch to flower bunch, dashing left and then right. "Leaving seven for...Nature!" He beamed cheerfully and dashed across the path to pick more. I think his mathematics would be more effective if he was the only one picking flowers, but there certainly seemed many to choose from. 
Kait came by and we walked to the nearby village, called Choirokoitia (pronounced with a 'K' sound, and apparently the 'oi' is pronounced 'ee', so it sounds more like Keero-ka-teeya). It was almost cold today - not compared to Scotland, but compared to what I thought it should be, here. Still very pleasant, and Kait and I enjoyed catching up, sprinkled by stops for lovely photos. (I'm actually horrible at trying to spend time with someone and take photos at the same time - I really shouldn't do it. I kept stopping at random times and poor Kait would keep walking on and then look back and realise I wasn't next to her, or listening to what she was saying...but she pressed on valiantly and didn't complain!) We found a 'Natural Path' (as opposed to a Nature Path - sometimes the Greek translation to English falls a little short) and were amused to see manmade stone steps taking us down. So natural! 
We passed a small cave, climbed seemingly endless steps, and came back round to the stone streets of the village, with cheery blue and white flags waving to us as we passed. (One, however, wrapped itself firmly around its post and stubbornly refused to fly. It was feeling either unpatriotic or just plain grumpy.) We passed a whole slew of cats, chatted to a friendly man who fed the cats, and when I stopped to take a photo of a fruit truck, its owner stopped, leaped out agilely, and posed winningly by its side for my photo. I loved it. He stopped again as he passed us going down out of the village and insisted on giving us fresh apples and oranges from the back of his truck. We couldn't speak either of us a word that we could understand (curse you, Tower of Babel!), but we parted with great cheer and much waving on both sides.
Tonight we went to a Chinese restaurant. The tables were layered with brilliant white and red cloths, and the lights sparkled everywhere. Little white Christmas lights decorated the windows, and a nativity stood on a table nearby. There were little Chinese figurines set into the walls, little tableaus as though you were looking in through a window to a little old man and woman having tea, or a man playing the mandarin. The restaurant was called 'Mulan', and on the walls there were canvas murals of the legendary female warrior. I wanted to take them home. Turns out that all the decorations were brought or shipped directly from China - everything was so authentic it brought out the enjoyment that much more. We chatted with the owner (my friend's brother), brainstorming about marketing and encouraging him to take breaks and not work 24-7. The highlight of the meal was something called 'blooming tea' which I had never seen before. We ordered jasmine tea and the lady brought out this clear teapot filled with hot water, setting it on a stand with a votive candle underneath. Then she took what looked like a large brown nut and dropped it into the hot water, and for the next five minutes we watched enthralled as this flower bloomed in the water right before our eyes. (Well, Henrietta and I watched enthralled....as Mihalis put it, he and Alex were 'being cool' and couldn't get too excited about a teapot and a flower. But we're pretty sure they were impressed as well.) I loved it so much I planned to come back later on in my holiday , just for tea!
