6 September 2025

Kaliméra

It is 1:30 am (+2 GMT).

An early start of a long day.

We were only away for 6 days as opposed to a week.

Yesterday was eventful.

The Lito Private Hospital wanted to keep Julie in for 3 days. They put her on several drips to get antibiotics and painkillers into her system.

She needs her gall bladder removing.

Gall stones - and I mean a lot, which she never knew about - even though she has been under the specialists at both Doncaster and Scunthorpe Hospital for her Diverticulitis amongst other things, missed it - and a couple of them made their way into her pancreas.

That's your wonderful NHS.

Bogged down by left wing bureaucracy, diversity and fucking useless staff.

The Dancing Nurses on Tik Tock during Co-Vid are mentioned by Gaynor in The A's when in Series 1 she looks at studying towards a doctorate.

The private hospital hit us for €1,200.

The insurance policy as part of Julie's American Express Platinum card will cover it, and they emailed confirmation to both us and the hospital that she was covered.

The hospital, however, said: "No - you pay us, and you claim it back."

They have obviously been hit by non-payers in the past.

Julie said that they were like vultures.

Nevertheless - in the real world, you pay and you get treated.

In the utopia of non-payment using the NHS, it is anyone's guess.

See you in Larnaca Airport.

Day 246

5 September 2025

Kaliméra

I have been up since 4:30 am (+2 GMT).

I have been tossing and turning for the last hour as Julie is feeling ill in and has been out of bed all night throwing up.

She has always suffered from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), but she says this is not IBD, and is probably Diverticulitis, which she was diagnosed with maybe four years ago. 

Diverticulitis is the inflammation of irregular bulging pouches in the wall of the large intestine.

She's also mentioned food poisoning, but we have eaten similar food, so it probably isn't that.

I've asked if she wants to go to the general hospital in Deryneia, or the private Lito Hospital on Sotira Avenue in Paralimni, the latter of which we have used quite regularly - especially for all the co-vid tests we had to endure to enable us to fly.

We fly home early tomorrow morning and she fears that the doctors may make her stop in.

These are some of the perils of travelling abroad.

Fingers crossed that it eases up

We didn't get to bed until late.

The last few evenings we have eaten and then called at the small white church that sits above Agia Triada harbour to feed the feral cats.

There is around 15 of them, so Julie bought a dozen tins of cat meat yesterday and distributed most of that.

There is a black and white kitten that gets bullied, which was there for three days and which wasn't last night. I did look, but to no avail.

We got in and finished watching Series 3 of Happy Valley.

It started slow and built up momentum, but I have to admit, it had me scratching my head at some of the stuff in it - as at times, it seems like it has been written by some social worker.

Siobhan Finneran isn't an actress I particularly like, but maybe it is the characters she portrays. In Happy Valley she is annoyingly pathetic from the get go.

I'm not sure it is good acting as her character was just as annoyingly shit in Benidorm.

The deadpan Mancunian accent, the beady eyes, and the shit clothes they dress her in certainly doesn't help.

--

Well, it is 8:50 am and I am just back in from the Lito Hospital. They are keeping Julie in for the day to do some scans.

She succumbed about an hour ago and said that she needed to go. It made absolute sense. Her blood pressure was up at 185/115 (I think she said).

All she is worried about is everything being okay for when the kids come on Wednesday.

Very selfless, but that is who she is when it comes to her family.

Day 245

Series 2: Gaynor and Jenny Mellor

Rendered at 2160p 4k, 16:9 Widescreen

(Above) A 33 second animation of Gaynor Mellor and her daughter, Jenny, midpoint in Series 2.

I created this from an image that I created this morning using Adobe Photoshop 2025 and from three frames with transitions, including a partial reverse loop.

I am not 100%, but I think this is the first time that I have animated both the mother and daughter actually together.

Music. Automatically Sunshine by The Supremes (Again)

4 September 2025.

Mia polý kalí méra gia esás

We got knocked up 8:30 am (+2 GMT) by The Terminator's son - with his commercial insecticide and pump.

It is very hot outside.

Just having my coffee under the air-con.

Yesterday was a very uneventful-stroke-pissy-offish day in that the FTO came back as it went.

It needed another part - this time the inner console as they had also damaged that when installing the radio.

As I said, 30 years - with the majority of that in the sun, had made it extremely brittle.

(Above) The inner console £190

(Above) The outer floor console £160 (Already bought and in Cyprus).

The car is beginning to be an expensive hobby.

I've just bought the inner console from the same (car parts) place in Western Australia.

Fingers crossed.

Anyway, it gave me a chance to get au fait with the power of The Hog - the nickname we gave for the scooter, with its blistering top speed of 63 mph.

The Red Ruby was mentioned, but I couldn't be arsed with driving over the hill and into Ayia Napa.

We ended up having a couple of beers up in The Lionheart and had a meal at the beach bar, where it was getting quite dark.

I have to admit - the beach bar is really nice and the food quite good.

I have no idea what we are doing today.

Animation. I am trying to firm up an idea of what the Gaynor character will look like in Series 2.

So, the animation opposite will give you an idea.

Day 244

Series 2: Gaynor Mellor

Rendered at 2160p 4k, 16:9 Widescreen

(Above) This is a 30 second animation of the Gaynor Mellor character - with me looking at different angles for her appearance in Series 2.

The original image was created long before I started animating using a combination of Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly circa 2023/2024.

I reshaped the image and cleaned it up this morning using Adobe Photoshop 2025.

There is a blooper of sorts in that in Series 1 Gaynor has blue eyes, which is something that will be rectified when I eventually move to 3D.

Music. Automatically Sunshine by The Supremes...

Unfortunately, I didn't fade out the audio properly... That is what rushing does!

3 September 2025

Good morning.

I got up at 8:30 am (+2 GMT).

I was awake a few hours earlier but tossed and turned until I dropped back off.

It is another hot one. 34°c it says.

We have just taken the car up to the auto electricians. Fingers crossed that nothing comes back broken.

I think Julie is wanting to go for a nice meal later on as opposed to bumming around at the beach bar and eating up at the Bulgarian open kitchen.

By nice meal, she means somewhere that she can get dressed up.

Everything points to the Red Ruby - but who knows.

Right. Just a short one today.

Time for a coffee.

Day 243

The A's: My first two Animations

Rendered at 2160p 4k, 16:9 Widescreen

(Above) Gaynor Mellor on a Vespa and with her curlers in when she tried to do her hair for Mason coming around to the house in September 2022.

Her mum, Maureen nicknamed her "our Hilda" and that being the case, Gaynor sometimes referred to Mason as Stan.

It was something that never stuck.

That was until Jenny found out.

2 September 2025

Mia polý kalí méra gia esás.

A very good morning to you.

I had a proper bash at learning Greek a couple of years ago but I was driving Julie up the pole as she was trying to read whilst I was trying to string shit sentences together.

Everybody over here tends to speak English, anyway.

I was up at 5:10 am (+2 GMT) and straight into The A's and filling in some holes to make the story flow.

Yesterday, didn't quite go as planned.

Julie ended up washing the car and doing all the hosing around the pool and patio as the navigation bar on this website went AWOL.

I obviously did something that I shouldn't.

Cutting corners to make things go faster is never the answer.

It is the same when putting a magazine or book together.

I drove up to the auto electricians and booked the car in for Wednesday morning.

I'll have to write a big note: "Whatever you do - do not break the fucking floor console."

I put the battery back on the scooter and took it for a spin around Levanda Hills and down to the seafront and back again. Quite good fun, really.

As I said, I bought it for when the kids come over more than anything else.

We had a few beers at the beach bar, and later on ate at the Bulgarian open kitchen on Paralimni's Protaras Avenue - which goes under the rather limp name of  Mr Food.

Ivan and Svetlana run the place - the latter of whom is very matter of fact in her delivery. It is an Eastern European thing. The cabin crew on Wizz Air are the same.

"It is James and Julie," she says. "How are you. You have a good trip."

They cook the best liver that I've ever had... however...

"We have no liver. The blacks buy all the cheap meat at the butchers."

I told her. "You said that last time."

"Yes, and I am telling it you again. Come tomorrow and I will have some liver."

And she swears like a trooper.

I mentioned that I was struggling to see the text on their menu and blamed the long hours in front of the computer over the years.

"Before we open the restaurant I used to work with computers and my eyes are fucking shit as well."

She's a character that much is for sure.

When we left last holiday, she came out on to the road as we were getting in the car and gave us both a hug, which was seemed very out of character.

It wasn't really. As I said, it is an Eastern European-thing.

Day 242

Angie Mellor under the Camera 2

Rendered at 2160p 4k, 16:9 Widescreen

(Above) Another 3:25 minute animation of Angie Mellor.

This is the same animation of yesterday but with over a dozen more frames added.

As you see, the more frames you use - the more it goes with the music.

I still feel that the animation could do with another ten or twelve frames to speed it up a bit more.

Music. (Again) Sooper by The Juliet Dagger.

1 September 2025

Kaliméra from Cyprus.

I was up at 9:00 am (+2 GMT).

It is glorious outside, but not so inside.

Myrmínkia - ants.

They are rife out here.

We have The Terminator - a guy by the name of Bandolis, come round to spray the house with some commercial insecticide a few times a year.

Julie will no doubt, phone him later.

The website was also playing up a bit. I'd lost the navigation bar, which was very annoying.

Julie is outside now, hosing round the pool as the pool cleaner generally comes on Monday's and Friday's.

In the coastal towns and villages in the United Kingdom we have seagulls. Here it is doves.  And just like the seagulls back home, they have made quite a few deposits.

I'm waiting for Julie to come inside and get the bleach.

My first jobs. Washing the car, trimming the mini palm trees, and bagging up the debris. I've already been down to the green bins at the bottom of the street with two black sacks - one of which contained four boxes of cereal - Special K with red berries and Bran Flakes which were full of ants.

Yesterday evening, when we arrived, we went straight down to the beach bar on Agia Trias. A few beers and some (dry) Kleftiko at €15 apiece which was one of their Sunday specials.

All it is, is lamb that has been cooked in a clay pot for hours.

I'm no fan of Cypriot cuisine as it is quite bland, but Kleftiko along with Sheftalia's - Cypriot type of half-sausage, is okay.

Another job, is nipping up to Nikos - the auto electrician's to re-fit to new car radio and replace the centre floor console that they shattered the last time around.

Animation. Opposite is a montage of clips featuring the Angie Mellor character.

At present, Angie tends to get overshadowed by her younger sister, both on here and in the story. I need to level that up a bit as her character is an extremely good one.

Day 241

Angie Mellor under the Camera

Rendered at 2160p 4k, 16:9 Widescreen

(Above) This a a 3:26 minute video of several clips of the Angie Mellor character.

Ideally, when you put clips to music with a quick tempo you should use shorter clips. I've not really done this here.

Music. Sooper by The Juliet Dagger