The House/ Scarlet

Just over a year ago, I blipped Old Town Larnaca, which we visited with my Dad, mainly to see his old house, which his Father had built for him and his Brother. What we didn't realise on that day, was that the lady who had been given that house by the Cypriot government, under the refugee programme in 1974, had just passed away. Mark remembers there being a lot of people in the house when we walked passed, and they may well have been gathering for the funeral at that time.
Under the Cypriot refugee programme, houses are only given to refugees until their death - the house is then the property of the government once more (refugees are unable to sell their houses here). On this lady's death however, her son decided he would do whatever he could to keep this house in the family, as they had lived in it for so many years, and loved it so much. He asked a local knowledgable friend to see if he could find out the name of the Turkish family who had owned this house before the war. This friend managed to find my Aunt, who lives in the North of the island, and she gave them my Dad's phone number. So out of the blue this summer, my Dad got a call from a Cypriot man, asking him if he could buy the deeds to his house in Larnaca. My Dad was amazed and asked the man over to his house in Kent (the man was visiting London at this time) to discuss, and they became immediate friends. This week my Dad came to visit the man at the house in Larnaca, and he insisted that my Dad stay there, and made available the bedroom where my Dad slept in as a child. The Blip shows my Dad in his old room, that he then shared with two brothers. The door to the right leads to a similar sized room where my 5 Aunts slept, and to the left, my Grandparents' room, where my Father was born.

I'm so pleased that my Dad has formed this friendship with this wonderful warm Cypriot family that I had the pleasure to meet today. The exchange of the deeds for the house is proving complicated, but that will hopefully be resolved soon enough. I've decided to blip this today as actually, shortly after this, my Dad really irritated me, and caused me to spend the rest of the day driving aimlessly around the island and getting lost in the dark, but I am trying to put that behind me, and focus on the good! Also, you will have to trust me that when I took this photo, my toenails were painted a wonderful shade of scarlet (for the November colour challenge!), and I did take several photos of them, but really wanted to blip this instead!