So, I was up at 7am, breakfasted by 7:30am, and down by the gangway and stood by my bus waving my Number 3 lollipop about by 8:15.

We'd arrived at Limassol at 8am, and the tours set off at 8:30.

My tour was to Omodhos and Platres. The weather was cold, and in Platres it rained - in fact i was just like being at home!

Omodhos is a lovely, picturesque little place, with a monastery, which our tour guide took us around, and a wine-press. She explained that Cyprus produces around 200 different wines, several of which we were able to sample freely in a little tavern on the main square. From here, our coach took us up a narrow, windy road up to Laptes, with fantastic views over towards the Tooross Mountains (the highest point at which is over 6000 feet). The thing about Cyprus is it looks so untidy. I don't really mean this derogatorily; the landscape is limestone, and the hills are largely terraced, in order to grow orange trees and olive trees. Terracing them saves on erosion, but it also seems to occur naturally. The thing is, glancing across the valleys, the image that springs to mind is that of a huge quarry - the sort of thing that happens in the Peak District, to the dismay of environmentalists - looks horrible, like a scar, yet here is perfectly normal. the landscape is dominated by this - strips of alternating green and light stoney brown (-ey grey - ish sort of colour - to paint it, I'd use Raw Sienna).

Because of it being Boxing Day, most shop were closed in both places, although several obviously heard tell of our coming and opened especially, in the hope of parting us from our money (a lady in one of the shops in Omodhos admitted this to me, and happily reported that it had been more than worthwhile). A shop-keeper in the Platres, however, wasn't so lucky. I walked in on a little dispute between her and one of my passengers (yes, I like to think of them as MY passengers) regarding a purchase my passenger (known as pax in the daily despatch sheet) had made a short time earlier. The lady had purchased a tablecloth (or something similar) and a couple of handkerchiefs, but was claiming not to have seen the handkerchiefs at all - the last she'd seen of them was in a bag on the corner of the shop counter. The shopkeeper, on the other hand insisted that she'd put the handkerchiefs into a bag of their own and put that bag inside the carrier bag with the tablecloths. She claimed also to have seen the lady take the goods out of the bag once she'd left the shop, and maybe they'd dropped on the ground. The lady had then walked back to the coach looking for it and returned, obviously irate at not having found the handkerchiefs, but with the obvious suspicion that the shopkeeper wasn't telling the truth. Needless to say, the dispute grew heated and my role of onlooker came about only because I'd been passing the shop at the time and recognised one of my passengers. Each accused the other until eventually the passenger-woman left looking like she'd been diddled out of a diamond ring, not a couple of blooming snot-rags!!! I spoke briefly to the shopkeeper-woman who continued to persist with her story, and told me that she remembered it all because the lady had been her only customer all day (I simply couldn't believe that the shopkeeper would deliberately swindle a customer to the tune of two handkerchiefs, but remained impartial throughout).

The upshot of this story is that the woman chuntered away like a great baby all the way back. At the end of the journey, once we'd arrived back at Limassol Port, I thanked the guide and driver for a lovely trip (this is part of an escort's duties - to thank both guide and driver in front of all the passengers), then asked if anyone had by any remote chance picked up a bag containing two handkerchiefs - and a hand went up to my right - YES! It had been picked up by another passenger who claimed she was going to hand it in (yeh - right) on board ship - so all's well that ends well - I had a good mind to make the driver take us back to the village in order for the woman TO APOLOGISE!! cos SHE WAS WRONG!!!

Tour Duties are now coming in thick and fast. Tomorrow, we're in Alanya, Turkey, where I'll be escorting a tour to some plateau place (excellent!) and on Thursday we're in Rhodes, where I'll be escorting a tour to Kamiros (That'll bring back a few memories!).