A couple of years ago The Sun newspaper revealed, in true Sun style, that British women have pre-conceptions about men called Dave. Apparently 1,000 women were surveyed and most of them seemed to think that men called Dave were the best endowed in the trouser department! This made me smile when I heard that Samantha Cameron had been talking for the first time about her man, Dave. That is Dave, the leader of the Tory party and potentially the next prime minister of Britain. I was so intrigued I had to watch the whole Trevor McDonald meets David Cameron (and wife) interview on the iplayer.

What is Mother’s Day all about? Surely it is about your kids taking time to show a bit of appreciation for all the things you have given up for them and all the things you do for them. Yesterday was Mother’s Day in the UK. I thought my kids might remember, especially as two of them actually live in the UK and naturally, I had dropped several hints.

Yesterday marked the 100^th International Women’s Day. What does that mean? My husband came home with a string of imitation pearls; recognition of the sterling work that women do – a gift from the union, not from him. Great. Just what every woman needs to feel valued: cheap pearls. An inspired choice. It must have been a man that thought that one up…

When I said yesterday that finally there is a decent film showing, I was wrong! I turned up at the Zena Palace at 8pm last night to find a queue out of the door for some pretentious looking Greek film. Someone in the queue told us it was by invite only; so a bit like the Oscars then! I didn’t have an invite, don’t speak Greek and had no desire to watch the film anyway. I wanted to see An Education. I had been looking forward to it all day…..

Finally, there is a decent film showing, An Education. I have already seen it of course but beggars can’t be choosers, as they say, so I will just have to see it again. Thank god for the Zena Palace. When anything worth watching comes to Nicosia, it often shows there. But it is never on for long, so you need to rearrange your plans and see it tonight or tomorrow at 8pm only. The other great thing about the Zena Palace (like the Cine Club at the University of Nicosia) is that it hardly ever attracts teenagers who eat loudly and talk all the way through the film – the kind of experience that puts me off going to the cinema all together whenever there is anything worth watching.

It is so tiresome when people keep asking if the rain in Nicosia makes me feel at home. I really don’t know what that question means but I think the simple answer is no! I do like the rain. And I like the fact that in countries where it rains a lot the landscape is generally green rather than a sort of camel-coloured shade of biscuit brown. However, when it rains in Nicosia it bears very little resemblance to when it rains in London. And it would take a rather more powerful leap of imagination to conjure up London life than I am able to muster. Firstly, Nicosia is nothing like London and secondly, when it rains in London, nothing changes because it rains on a regular basis.

The weather is getting better but everyone is on strike! Or at least, threatening to strike. Crane drivers at the ports, other port authority workers, petrol company workers at Cyprus airports, Petrol stations in general and British Airways. The good news: Cyprus Airways is confident that not a single flight will be affected even if there is a petrol strike at the airports. That is all very reassuring but what if…

It was an exciting long weekend! Half of Cyprus was in Athalassa Park, eating tomatoes and cucumbers (which naturally made for exciting news interviews on Monday evening). And everybody else was in Limassol at the carnival party. Wow! I have to say neither option appealed to me personally. Being a Brit, I should naturally have spent the long weekend doing DIY but I didn’t. When everyone one else is out of town, it is best to stay in and catch up with the TV.

It always amazes me how anybody with children manages to hold down a job here with all the driving that is required. Some parents I know spend a good couple of hours every afternoon driving their kids to private lessons, after picking them up from their private schools in their big gas-guzzling cars.

I have no intention of banging on about the environmental implications of all this because I really can’t get exercised about that. It is just that I find it incredible that people have the money and the patience, (that is nearly always the mothers) to indulge in this expensive and very time-consuming pastime….

The journey back to Cyprus was interesting. Despite warnings about full body scans being introduced at Heathrow and a good half hour spent choosing appropriate underwear at the crack of dawn, just in case, I was disappointed to find that I was not scanned at all. Why did I bother, I obviously don’t look like a terrorist? I could have stayed in bed another half an hour.