Published on 06 December 2004 at 06:49 pm
Filed in Expat Life In Nicosia Cyprus
From the balcony at the back of our flat we have a lovely view of the army’s rubbish dump - I mean ‘storage facility’ - shhh, don’t tell them, they might think we’re spies.
It’s sort of a field full of long grass, weeds, and lots of stuff the army don’t want anymore...like bald tyres and holey boots and chairs with legs missing and more importantly, cupboards...lots and lots of cupboards...I don’t know why, so don’t ask!
While we were waiting, and waiting and waiting for our furniture container to sail into Famagusta and living on 2 plastic chairs and a sofa bed I often wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to nip down and help myself to some new furniture actually...but I resisted.
Anyway, the ‘storage facility’ is a weekly stopping off point for the local dogs doing their rounds. I love it when they come by as they provide a good couple of hours’ entertainment before one of the soldiers notices them and shoos them away.
You can sit and watch them chewing each other, licking their unmentionables, frolicking about and basically being very happy dogs. I’m convinced that the dogs that roam about here are the happiest dogs I’ve ever seen, have a look next time you nearly run one over - they smile...they really do.
Anyway, back to the cupboards...one day two of the dogs decided they were bored of sun bathing and started sniffing. They sniffed each others bums, they sniffed the tyres, they sniffed the rubble and they sniffed the fridge - and then they started sniffing a cupboard. So interesting was the smell that one of the dogs decided to get inside...now, he was quite a hefty dog, and not exactly agile, so after hauling himself inside the cupboard it tipped over. The doors banged shut on his tail, thus trapping him inside and causing him to cry like a baby!
His stoopid mate sat down, put his head on one side and gazed in confusion at the now swaying about wildly cupboard, the painful yowls of distress from inside and the protruding tail. All the other dogs meanwhile continued yawning, chewing, licking or sun bathing.
But the noise and commotion alerted the soldiers playing volleyball who all decided to quit the game and watch...one brave soul, armed with a big stick and urged on by his mates, picked his way across the field and carefully prised open the cupboard!
Never before have I seen a dog fly! The poor stoopid thing flew backwards out of the cupboard, fell on its butt and ran yelping out across the field - hopefully not into the path of an oncoming taxi...anyway, it was all in a good day’s entertainment.
