A friend in London texted me the other day and asked if I was interested in getting a few people together to buy Greece. Apparently it is going cheap. She also suggested that if we wait we might be able to buy Britain this time next year. Well, I guess that might depend on who wins the election next week….

Number one son got away yesterday, thanks to my foresight. No, I did not wait for Cyprus Airways to call me to reschedule his flight. I called them before British airspace opened and rescheduled for yesterday morning. A stroke of genius…. Because frankly, if I hadn’t done that I might still be calling every morning to see if he was on today’s list, like some other people I know. And this is a bit like waiting for your numbers to come up on the lottery, judging by the amount of people still stuck here!

Thank goodness, Cyprus airways is now ‘back to normal operations’, according to the website and I have a confirmed booking on a flight home for my son at the weekend. It could have been worse. I have been complaining about the way Cyprus Airways has handled the situation, but I have found an airline that makes them seem positively helpful and my travails all rather minor.

The end of the Easter holidays in the UK. My son should have left this morning to go back to school but the ash cloud intervened. An act of God is one thing, but Cyprus Airways is something else. I must have called them 20 times yesterday. I got through to the message, “Welcome to Cyprus Airways. To ensure service quality your call is being recorded.” (Or it would be if anyone actually bothered to speak to me.) I just kept getting a busy tone and then the phone went dead. A friend, who was meant to travel on Friday morning, had the same problem all day Friday. Very helpful indeed!

Highlights of the week so far: The Tottenham Hotspur’s victory in the North London Derby last night. Apologies to my brother and any close friends (you know who you are) but watching the smugness knocked out of the Arsenal fans while Wenger gesticulating on the sidelines, in frustration, was pure pleasure…Much joy in my household.

The weather forecast is 16 degrees and heavy rain today. That would really annoy me if I had come out from the UK for an expensive holiday in the sun, with no sun…. A friend sent me a message on Facebook saying that the sun was shining in London and it made her think of me in Cyprus; she was jealous. Well nothing to be jealous of at the moment. Went to lunch at a friend’s house in Larnaca yesterday, sat outside and nearly froze before I had to borrow an overcoat. The prospect is even worse today.

The house is full of teenagers, flaounes and alcohol. The neighbours brought round the home-made Easter cheese cakes and then departed for the village for Easter. I think everyone in Strovolos has gone to the village or else they have spent the whole weekend in and out of church. The one next to us seems to be heaving every time I try to drive past and everywhere else is eerily quiet. I am guessing that this pattern is repeated around Cyprus at this time of year, creating pockets of heavier than normal traffic problems, given that no one in Cyprus lives very far from a church, it seems.

Where was the April Fool’s story in the paper? I am not sure. Could it be the story about an albino wallaby in Paphos or a herd of mini moufflon spotted in in wooded areas in recent months? Or perhaps the story in yesterday’s paper about the joint statement from Talat and Christofias that is not actually a joint statement? Whatever sort of statement it was it didn’t really say much, ‘nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed’! And it didn’t mention the pot plants in the buffer zone….

Back in Cyprus and I have been catching up with friends and the news. What is the burning question of the day? Not why did the Archbishop visit the Apostolos Andreas monastery? What is the Immovable Property Commission up to? Or what did I do on my wedding anniversary? No, none of those are anywhere near as interesting as the real question: why does everyone in Cyprus seem to spend so much time in the gym?

What do you do when you are feeling stressed? I have discovered Bikram (hot) yoga. My brother has been going on about it for a while, and I thought, why not! It is called hot yoga because it is done in a room temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit (over 40 degrees Celsius). Apparently the heat is good for relaxing your muscles. It is all the rage in the trendy parts of London but I guess you could do it anywhere in Cyprus in the summer and just close the windows and leave off the air con.