Cyprus Calling

So my beloved is away again, this time Monday to Thursday he has left me in charge of the money again, I really am struggling with the Dinah over here, I understand that 1000.00dz is around six pounds, but the way it is written on items is confusing me, like for instance I knew that the pressure cooker I looked at yesterday could not possibly be £778.01 but the way it was written was 125000dz so you can see how a girl with Dyscalculia could have a few issues, like today for instance I picked up a handbag and working on the same assumption as the pressure cooker problem there was no way the bag was 18000dz or so I thought, obviously I was in the posh shop, thankfully I didn't try and buy it because that would have been embarrassing to say the least. If only they would use the point on their price tags all would be well in my world, but no I will have to keep guessing at prices or sending my beloved pictures and saying 'How much is this'. I currently go into the vegetable markets and such like with a handful of change and put my hand out for them to take what they need, as far as I know I have not been robbed yet.  My next job and at the top of the list is to learn french numbers past dix.....because all I hear at the moment is blah, blah, blah......

Morning view across to the Tell Atlas Mountains

I have now managed to purchase a new pressure cooker and a couple of other things for the new apartment, we are keeping our fingers crossed everything goes smoothly with the transaction, a very nice apartment it is too, all brand new inside from the dishwasher to the oven, to sofa and beds, what more could you want, an apartment untouched by bodies of any kind, yaaaaa. I may have to get a pepper spray though as I noticed a cat when we were visiting the last time, I wouldn't want it thinking I was the friendly type!

I walked along to the Boucher on Wednesday and had a friendly chat with him, myself I spoke English and the Butcher he spoke French, who said things get lost in translation, I managed to get myself 2 kilo of the best ground veal my pennies can buy, and I'm really not kidding, this store is more like a market stall which is in a little area with other indoor market stalls selling vegetables and fruits, pots and pans, spice, shoes and all manner of nick naks, and honestly as a rule not my type of place to buy meat, I'm a supermarket kind of girl, but this place is ace, the veggies are great although most look like they have come from your grandads allotment, Tesco certainly would not let these babies onto their shelves, and the EU would be in uproar, why? because shape and size are not to regulation standards, we are convinced that a certain aesthetic look will be the best tasting when looking for vegetables and we rule out anything that is not in uniformed shapes because this is how we believe things should be, well Algiers rocks because it's vegetables are fantastically unshapely and great to taste.

I received an imessage from Tito the gardener telling me he had received my message but that the overflow had in fact already been fixed, I found this quite amazing as Tito lives in Cyprus and looked after the garden of the house we used to live in, on further investigation Tito informed me he had in fact that morning received a text from me on his iPad, and yes he sent me the message I had posted saying the problem needed addressing, we were both perplexed as to how this could happen, especially as the overflow was actually broken! When Tito sent me the message it actually had the date in Greek and it was September 2014, even more peculiar that a message over a year old should suddenly be sent across the airwaves, I think there must have been a glitch in the Apple update that sent poor Tito's iPad into a frenzy, but it was nice to chat with him again over the iMessage and did make me smile, I was just glad I could help with his overflow......

Azzdine collected me around 1pm for a trip to Carrefour which is around 40 mins away, it is in fact only 13km from the house but the crazy traffic of Algiers is such that most journeys take forever to get anywhere and are usually spent in the back of the car catching up on facebook, whatsapp or emails.  When we eventually arrived at the brand new city centre mall which contained Carrefour I took a peek around all the stores checked out the eating areas for future reference and then headed in for some shopping, it’s a great little store, really pleasant to walk around with a great kitchen section and household section, and then the shopping commenced, I should really have taken a trolley but I certainly will remember it next time, when I had paid for all my purchases the lovely security guard informed my that my pull along basket was not to be taken outside the store, REALLY! I now had to carry my purchases to the car, no easy feat as I had purchased water and thankfully only six bottles because there was no way I would have managed the 12 I had considered buying. So I stacked my purchases, loaded up each arm and swung the water as high as I could get them in front on my ribs and tried not to cry…..

Unfortunately the next 36 hours were a blur of pain, sleep, sweats, jitters and more pain, I have no idea what or why or even how this was caused but the Doctor had to be called and eventually he turned up and prescribed some medication or other and away he went, my beloved returned eventually from Hassi and the office and poor guy got no cut from me, I slept all night on the sofa and right through the night in my bed, Welcome Home baby I loves ya….

a view of the Atlas Mountain Range from Tunisia across Algeria to Morocco