My Personal Milestone

with Cyprus Alive

It’s been quite a milestone time for Cyprus Alive what with the website reaching 10,000 views in one day on Friday the 24^th  May and over 140,000 visits to the site during the month as a whole.

For the first time ever, I had 4000 readers for all my articles during the month of May. I then went on to exceed 5000 readers during this same month.

It is also the month where I wrote my 100^th article. That was the one on World Bee Day and the Ora festival. 

Most of the time, I write first in English, because, although I was brought up bilingually, I write faster in this language as my secondary and higher education was in England. I have translated 58 of these articles of mine into Greek.

I look back at that first meeting we had in the offices of Cyprus Alive

– a handful of aspiring writers getting to know each other and the office team. I remember looking at the stats of my first articles: 25 readers, 30 readers. Not very inspiring. But we made our leap into the dark. Some fell by the wayside; others came on board and wrote prolifically, covering every aspect of Cyprus Life imaginable.

“It is a good time,” I said to myself, “to reflect on my favourite articles”. I think the ones I enjoy writing most are the travel-style articles that convey the feel of a place or event. Articles such as the one I wrote on the Festival of the “Opening of the Pithari” 

Another of my favourites is “Beyond the Last Village” about an expedition with a group of young people to the illegally occupied areas. It conveys some of my sadness and reflections on the Cyprus problem.

I love writing my observations on characteristics of a location such as in “Food in Cyprus – Watch your dialect” . Here I comment on the different words used for some foods in Cyprus and in Greece.

I am fascinated by Agros, the village whose economy is based on the rose of Damascus. My recent article on the yearly rose festival of Agros achieved over 1000 hits. .

The most popular article I have written for Cyprus Alive is on the 12 Best Wines of Cyprus. I plan to write a slight update soon.

I love the picture my artist friend, Gilson, painted to celebrate my milestone.

I must say a few words here about him. He has spent most of his working life as a very skilled Antiques Restorer. But he is also an artist and at the moment is devoting most of his time to art. Cyprus seems to be inspirational for a lot of artists – just witness the amount of people sitting in front of their easel as you walk through Lefkara. Gilson is no exception and is quite drawn to the idea of coming to live here to paint. But that is quite an upheaval, so he may content himself with painting-holidays here.