It's still January...

What is it about the first month of each year? While time usually races by, more rapidly each year as I get older, January seems to last forever. The humorous poet Brian Bilston captured it perfectly. Well, perhaps it's not quite 6184 days, but I'm sure it's a lot more than five weeks since Christmas. I took the decorations down on Saturday 4th January so I could clean properly - they had been up for nearly a month - but I didn't do a whole lot else. 

I had such good plans for my time. Not 'resolutions' - I don't really see the point of them. Just a realistic way of trying to ensure I made the best use of my days, without over-scheduling or stress. I more-or-less followed that in the first full week of January.  On the Monday, I did some work on my recipe blog. I added a new recipe, edited some older ones, and added in some photos. I played around with the theme, too. It's not ideal, but I think probably better than the previous one. 

On the Wednesday I walked to my favourite haberdashery shop, and bought some new yarn for knitting baby hats, and then went to the thrift store, where I found a couple of DVDs that looked good. On the Thursday, I spent a couple of hours working on photos. I did some writing in the afternoons, too, though not as much as I had hoped. 

On the Friday, we didn't need to do any extra grocery shopping, but had decided that we would upgrade the rather rickety bookshelving in our guest flat living room, replacing with an Ikea Billy bookcase with glass doors. We were also thinking about a dedicated TV unit. So we drove (in the van) to Nicosia, and found not just the bookcase we needed, but a kitchen unit thing in pine which, we knew, would make a good TV unit. 

On Friday afternoon, Richard put the bookcase together...

After I had removed all the books from the old shelving: 

The TV was still on its old shelving along with a lot of other books which had become quite dusty over the years. And we agreed that we would need a second bookcase to match the first one, since we had too many books to fit in just the one. 

We didn't want to go back to Ikea, and we knew what we wanted, so we ordered online. We quickly realised that it was better to make two orders, each one less than 35kg, rather than all in one, from the postage point of view. The site said delivery would be 3 working days to Larnaka... 

.. although when the order was sent, it said that delivery would be 'within 6 working days'. Our first guest flat visitor of the year was due to arrive on Monday 20th, and we had hoped to get everything ready and tidied before then. Still, we hoped it might arrive on Friday or Saturday...

On the Monday morning, January 13th, was the first writers' group meeting of the year. And on the Wednesday I had planned to do a thorough clean of the guest flat, hoping to get it ready.  Our last guests were friends who left towards the end of October. Since then, the flat has been used by Richard to work on his PA system, and, in early January, for items from his boat, which was out of the water for a couple of weeks, for its biannual 'dry dock'. And it still had tools for building Ikea furniture, and wood varnish for the unit which Richard put together: 

I was becoming a bit concerned about getting everything ready for our visitor (who is staying for about eight weeks). So it was something of a relief to hear, on Wednesday, that there had been a delay, and he wasn't arriving until Wednesday 29th. 

Still, I did clean the main bedroom on Wednesday 13th, and made up the bed.  On Thursday morning I did more in the flat: washing cushion covers, and the sofa throw, and cleaning the bathroom. I also sorted the books better, calculating how many would fill up the two billy bookcases. I wanted to remove the books which had been taking up space in the bedroom, too, and the ones occupying space, rather precariously, on a spice rack in the kitchen. 

And... shock, horror! - I decided that we should probably get rid of about fifty or sixty books which we were never going to read, and which, we're pretty sure, none of our guests has ever looked at. We gave our local friends first refusal (and they took a fair selection) and I chose about fifteen of the remainder that were in the best condition for the church book sale. The rest, to our relief, were eventually taken by the Larnaka thrift store. 

But that's leaping forwards. On Friday 17th we went to Superhome store, then on to the nut shop (for five or six weeks' worth of nuts, seeds and dried fruit) and then Metro (for dried cat food and one or two other items). Richard had a phone call from Ikea while we were out, letting us know that the new bookcase would be delivered on Sunday. When he was hoping to be out sailing, and I had planned to go to the church service. But they didn't give any other options.

As it turned out, we were both at home. On Friday evening, Richard didn't want any food, and said he felt queasy. He slept most of the evening. In the morning I got up to walk with Sheila but after a short distance I knew I wasn't feeling well, so we turned around and I came in. 

I won't mention the details; suffice it to say that we both had a very miserable 24 hours with what we assume was an attack of norovirus. Richard felt a little better by Saturday afternoon, and got up. Sheila had brought us a loaf of bread, as I'd mentioned in passing that we'd run out and I was going to make some but wasn't sure I would cope with the smell of baking bread. We were very, very thankful for her thoughtfulness as the only thing either of us wanted to eat at first was toast with Marmite. I don't usually eat Marmite as it can be a migraine trigger; thankfully it wasn't on Monday, which is the first time I wanted to eat anything at all. 

The new bookcase arrived on Sunday and Richard was able to let the men in. He had cancelled sailing, and there was no way I could get to church; even if I'd been feeling up to it, I wouldn't have wanted to pass on such a nasty bug to anyone else. By Monday 20th, he felt a bit stronger, and put the bookcase together. And since I didn't want to remain in bed (and my worst symptoms had stopped, although I was still very tired) I did organise and sort the books. 

We were very pleased with how it all looked when we had finished. 

We were also extremely grateful that our visitor was not arriving that day!

On Wednesday some friends from Limassol were coming to dinner. We were past the infectious stage by then, though being extra careful with hand-washing still. I had started eating again, but was still incredibly tired, so it took me most of the day to organise the food for the evening. I had to keep sitting down every ten minutes or so. 

Then on Thursday I basically collapsed in a heap (after walking about half our usual route first thing with Sheila) and vegged out. On Friday we took the remaining books to the thrift store, and on Saturday I finally managed to clean the kitchen, and even sort and tidy the area over the washing machine which somehow accumulates a lot of random stuff. It still looks a bit cluttered: 

But I filled an entire bag with almost-empty long-expired bottles of suntan lotion, and hair spray, and body wash, and so on, to get rid of.  It's probably three years since we last did a proper spring clean of the flat, so it was good to do. 

And on Monday morning, this week, I took our carpet shampooer downstairs and thoroughly cleaned the rug in the living room, which had been looking very tired. 

That's the difference after I had cleaned the two stripes nearest the bookcases.  

Our visitor is now here, and the flat is going to be occupied almost continually for the next five months, with a variety of different people. We're very thankful to have it, and love being able to make it available to family, friends, church workers and friends of friends. 

It feels like we've done a lot this month, and there's still another day of January remaining. Today, Thursday, I worked on photos for an hour or so, for the second time this month, and this afternoon am updating this blog. Maybe in February, when it eventually gets here, I'll be back to the supposedly regular schedule...

How I spend my days... in theory

People occasionally ask me how I spend my days. So I thought I would try to keep track for a while, and also include some deliberate structure to the week. At least, as default, for days when nothing else crops up. It's too easy to get caught up in following links online, or doing puzzles, or answering questions on forums when there's no specific plan. That's fine in holiday periods, and is mostly what happened in the 'week between the years', when Christmas Day was over, and the New Year had not yet begun.

The earlier parts of my mornings are usually fairly similar. First thing in the morning (which can start any time from 5.00am to 6.30 or so) I do a few online games (Wordle, Connections and Strands) on my phone to help me wake up, and check the headlines on a couple of news sites. Sometimes I do some knitting (I make baby hats for refugees and asylum seekers). Sometimes I work on Duolingo, the language-learning app which I have on my phone. I might do just five minutes, I might do half an hour. Sometimes I read. 

Three days a week I walk five kilometres or so with my friend Sheila, leaving the house around 6.15am, then we sit outside and chat for a while. Three days a week I leave the house a bit later and go for a short walk around the neighbourhood, ending up at the fruit shop (and sometimes the mini-market oppposite) where I do most of the grocery shopping. On Sundays I just go for a walk, for a couple of kilometres.

However the day starts, I'm usually in the kitchen (with groceries unpacked and away if relevant) by around 8.00am. I squeeze oranges and put nuts in a little ramekin dish, and heat up coffee, and take Richard a tray of breakfast to eat on our balcony. Then I have my own breakfast in the dining room (neither of us is sociable at breakfast time). Afterwards I sit in my study and drink coffee while reading, or doing Duolingo if I didn't get time earlier. 

Around 9.00am Monday to Friday the Roomba starts up, and I go upstairs. We spend anything from ten minutes to an hour chatting, talking about the day, discussing issues, or just hanging out. It's too easy to let time go by without connecting intellectually, so we try to ensure that we have at least this time together, without any distractions. On a typical day I then get in the shower about 9.45, when the solar panels have heated the water sufficiently, and Richard starts whatever work he's doing. Sometimes it's a bit later.

After showering, I potter somewhat - maybe putting on laundry (usually three times a week) and putting away the previous load if it's still hanging up on the utility balcony. If we ran the dishwasher the night before, I'll empty it. If the kitchen floor needs mopping, I'll do that. If I haven't done at least fifteen minutes of knitting, I'll make sure I do that. And I read the 'verse of the day' on my Bible app, and a few chapters of whatever 'plan' I'm currently following.

By then it's usually around 10.30-11.00. I have to have some idea of what I'm going to do, or the time will fritter away.

So, I decided to allocate a couple of hours on Monday mornings to working on my sites or other blogs, except on Mondays when there's a writing group meeting. On Thursday mornings I plan to deal with photos. I have got very behind on making photobooks and organising my digital photos, and thought it would be a good idea to allocate at least one morning per week to working on them. On Tuesday mornings my friend Sheila with one, two or three of her daughters comes over to play board games and hang out. On Fridays Richard and I do any shopping that's needed by car, and I allocate other Fridays to keeping track of our spending and printing statements, etc, as well as paying (online) any bills. 

As for Wednesdays, I thought I'd try to do something slightly different each week, not computer related. Once a month the local Anglican church has a book sale, for instance, on a Wednesday. I like to walk to the thrift store about once a month, too, to browse their interesting selection. I might walk into the town, if it's not too warm, or I might do a bit of baking.

On Saturdays I sometimes prepare a curry to go in the slow cooker in the morning, and I do the weekly cleaning. I change the sheet and pillowcases on the bed, dust surfaces that need it, clean the kitchen countertops, and run the roomba upstairs. I clean the bathrooms thoroughly, too, and sweep the stairs. If I'm feeling energetic and it's not too hot, I can get everything done in around an hour, but usually I take it more slowly, and that takes up most of the rest of the morning.

On Sundays I aim to go to the Anglican church service twice a month, although I don't go in the hottest months, and sometimes events conspire to stop me going anyway. On the other two Sunday mornings each month I am in the kitchen, preparing soup and a dessert for the evening which we spend with friends. 

All of which takes us to lunch-time. Six days per week we eat cold food: bread, salads, leftovers, cheese (dairy-free, mostly), humus, peanut butter etc or, on chilly days, soup. On Sundays, left over from the traditions of our childhoods, we have a cooked lunch which usually includes roast potatoes. 

By two o'clock I've had my coffee and cleared away, and hung out laundry if relevant. I'm ready to sit down for a break with more online puzzles, helping on a forum, checking email and Facebook etc. In theory I stop this about 2.30, but I know it's easy to get distracted; more realistically, it goes on to nearer 3pm. After that, for a couple of hours in the afternoons my plan is to write: reviews of books I've finished reading, or DVDs we've seen, or perhaps do some short-story writing or blogging. By 5pm I'm usually read to start food preparation.

We eat around 6.00pm, maybe a bit later, and afterwards I clean up, and do my evening Duolingo session (around ten to fifteen minutes, usually). 

At 7.30 or so we stop using the computers; three evenings we go out for a short walk, followed by either a couple of episodes in a DVD series, or a two-player board game. 

One evening a week we watch a film on DVD. On Thursday evenings, Sheila comes to play a game.  Every other Sunday she and her family are here for games/DVDs in the afternoon and a shared evening meal, and they stay until 8pm or later, after which I do Duolingo and read. On Saturday evenings either she comes for a board game, or we watch some Doctor Who. 

And some time between 9pm and 10pm I start getting ready for bed... 

Happy Christmas

I started writing two posts in the past six weeks, but didn't finish either of them. I may still do so, and then publish them back-dated to when I started to write. Today, however, is Christmas Eve so I will continue my annual tradition and post a picture of this year's Christmas cake:

Not significantly different from previous years' cakes. But I don't think I've put an approximate star shape in the middle before (which was my intention, though it doesn't look very star-shaped). I made it at the end of October, fed it a couple of times with Cyprus brandy and put home-made almond paste on it at the end of last week. This afternoon, I made royal icing in the food processor, so it's done, albeit finished rather at the last minute this year. 

I've tried to pace myself with food preparation over the past week. Our freezer is extremely full. But today was fairly busy and tomorrow will be hectic trying to time everything correctly, and keep things hot. Neither of our sons are able to be with us, but our local friends, with four of their offspring will be joining us. And I can't, somehow, let go of the family tradition of making too much food with a lot of options, both for lunch and for tea/supper. 

But, hopefully, I then won't have to cook at all for the rest of the week.

We'll go to the church service tomorrow morning, as we usually do, which should help to focus on the real reason for Christmas for an hour. 

Seasons greetings to all who read this, and wishing you every blessing for 2025.  How strange to recall that, quarter of a century ago, we were all feeling concerned about the 'millennium bug'...

On decorating for Christmas

When I was growing up, decorating for Christmas used to happen at the start of the school holidays. Or that's what I recall, anyway. My parents had a real Christmas tree for many years, so wanted it to last until it was taken down on January 6th. And since they used to host Christmas Day for the whole family even after I was married, Richard and I didn't have a tree for some years.

However when our sons were small we bought an artificial tree; I think it was in 1989 when Daniel was three, and very insistent that we should have our own tree. So he and Richard went out on Christmas Eve... but the only real trees they could find were either very scraggy, or enormous and very expensive. So they compromised with a fake tree, pointing out that if we used it for more than one year it would be good value. Thirty-five years later, we still have that tree. We didn't take it to Colorado when we lived there for two years, and we didn't have it here in Cyprus for our first few years. But it's probably had thirty Christmases. 

Since we were home educating in Cyprus, there was no obvious time to put up the tree and other decorations each year. So it was somewhat random. If we were hosting a Christmas party early in December, we would decorate before that event. If not, it was sometimes left until a day or two before Christmas. When the boys had grown up and left home, we didn't feel much like decorating at all, but usually managed to host local friends (and for many years Tim came home). 

In the past thirteen years, our friends' three daughters have helped put up our tree at some point in December. Thirteen years ago, when the oldest of them was six, and the youngest just two, the adults did most of the work, and the hanging of decorations was a bit ragged, so I adjusted everything after they had left.

But it made a tradition. In 2018, for instance, they managed most of it themselves. 

The date of putting up the tree has gradually become earlier in recent years. Since we take everything down around January 5th, I quite like having decorations up for at least four weeks. So in the past couple of years, we've decorated around Advent Sunday. And despite our young friends now being teenagers of 19, 16 and 14, this is still an important tradition for them. 

They put the tree together rapidly and efficiently, then open the decoration boxes to decide which baubles and other decorations they will use. 

The Roomba is now situated in the place where we used to have our tree, so we haven't quite determined the best place for it. But this year we decided to have it next to the DVD bookcases. 

We had already bought a poinsettia and placed it in the usual spot where they seem to thrive, despite our record of killing indoor plants:

And, as I have done for several years now, I hung last year's Christmas cards up across the doors between our living room and dining room: 

Many people no longer send cards (postage prices from the UK are horrendous) but those that do arrive usually get here in the last few days before Christmas, or the first couple of weeks of the new year. So I always keep them to display the following year.

On the table, our knitted nativity set was displayed, this time with the baby conveniently hidden inside Mary's skirts during advent:

I no longer have to do any rearranging of the tree. Our young friends are artistic and competent, and the result was just as I hoped: 

November in Cyprus: kitten update, first rains

Kittens

In my last post, I wrote about two kittens that we were fostering. We had almost given up hope of finding a permanent home for them. We knew we had to keep them for another few weeks before they could go to the cat sanctuary, and I was beginning to wonder if we would succeed in doing so. The boiler room was fine when they were just three weeks old. But they were getting bigger and stronger, needing to climb and run around. It wouldn't be long before they were able to escape.

Half an hour supervised in our side yard each afternoon gave them some exercise, but I knew it wasn't really enough. Richard was working at a conference so I was on my own with them, and I was concerned that they would suddenly make a dash for the road. Even at two months old, they were still very small and would not know to get out of the way of a car.

I took this video eleven days ago:

I'm so glad I did. An hour or so later I had a message from Richard, sent in one of his breaks. He had mentioned the kittens a few weeks earlier on one of the Facebook groups for kittens in Cyprus, and had just received the first enquiry. He said that a man and his wife wanted to come and see them that evening. He didn't think they would take them that evening, and he wasn't sure if they wanted more than one. But we didn't think they should be separated. The boy kitten became quite distraught if he didn't know where his sister was, even for a minute or two.

In the evening, the enquirer arrived with his wife and their two children. They weren't young children, and they were very good with the kittens. They were all smitten almost immediately, and agreed that they would have both of them. Then they asked if they could take them immediately. They thought it would help the kittens to settle in if they could have them on a Friday evening, so they had the whole weekend together. 

I know one is supposed to take foster kittens to a potential new home, to check that everything is okay. But I had a good feeling about the family. They already had an older cat and a dog, and clearly knew how to handle kittens. I couldn't get hold of Richard to see what he thought. So I agreed. I lent them the cat carrier that we share with friends, and gave them the remaining kitten food. 

I felt quite poignant as I said goodbye, but the family suggested we go and visit them when Richard was available, to see how they were doing, and to collect the carrier. And over the next couple of days they sent us photos like this one, and let us know how the kittens were doing, so we were quite reassured: 

There was a lot of rain that weekend, as well as lightning and thunder. I think it would have been quite scary for two small kittens alone in the boiler room. And it would have been difficult to give them any outside playtime. So the timing was perfect. 

A week later we went to see the kittens in their new home, and saw that they were very contented and well-settled. They were happy to play with us, but clearly at home in their new environment. The dog likes them, and they seem to like the dog. The older cat is keeping out of the way. 

I have no regrets.  Lady Jane, our one remaining cat, who is now ten-and-a-half, is no longer sniffing at me suspiciously and turning her back. She knew we were not being faithful to her, even though she's a fully indoor cat so she never saw the kittens. 

Rain and the Salt Lake

The Salt Lake had dried out over the summer and had very little water in it after the first brief rain showers earlier in the month.  But the rain ten days ago made much more of an impression: 

News reports (and some friends) mentioned that the flamingoes had returned, but I didn't see any myself until this morning's walk, after more heavy rain over the past weekend:

The weather is cooler, too. Down to 13-14 degrees early morning, no more than about 20 in the daytime. I very much like wearing socks and a warm layer even in the daytime, sometimes needing an extra layer in the evening (or when walking first thing). And since we no longer have kittens living in our boiler room, we can have our heating serviced... not that we're in any need of central heating yet. Unlike in the UK where my Facebook feed today was full of pictures of snow that had fallen last night.  

Life in general 

I've made this year's mincemeat, in preparation for mince pies once December has started. I still have a Christmas pudding left from the three I made last year, and it doesn't seem to have dried up, so I won't make a new one. I'm still uploading more images and links on my book blog, and I'm trying to get back into Photobox although I really don't like the new design interface. It seems a whole lot more complicated than it used to be, and I'm a long way behind on our 2024 photobook. 

October in Cyprus: kittens, eating out and cooler weather

So much for good intentions. I didn't write a single post last month. So this will be a summary (though probably not brief) of our life here in Cyprus over the past month...

Kittens

At the start of the month, I became aware that we had unexpected visitors. There were two very young kittens, wandering around and crying just outside our boiler room, at the back of our house.

We often see kittens in our neighbourhood, sometimes in one of our side yards. There are a lot of feral cats in Cyprus. They are useful for keeping down the rats and snakes, and the female cats sometimes have two litters per year.  There are sometimes national campaigns to catch, neuter and return feral cats but there are far too many cats for this to make much difference. Historically Cypriots have not liked to neuter cats, so that doesn't help. 

There's a grey cat who often appears in our street. We call 'Mama cat' as she raised three kittens in our side yard in the spring. When these tiny kittens were wandering around I saw her nearby and assumed she was their mother, and that she had gone out hunting or perhaps just to take a break from them. 

But if she was their mother, we quickly discovered, she wasn't looking after them. They looked quite hungry and were mewing loudly. I didn't want to interfere. Touching young kittens can drive a mother cat away, after all. But the little voices were plaintive. So I gave them a bit of yogurt, and they fell on it, lapping rapidly. A few hours later, with still no sign of a mother cat taking care of these kittens, I gave them some of Lady Jane's crunchies (or 'kibble', as I understand the term is now), moistened in a little water. They ate those too, gobbling them down. 

Then they mewed for most of the night. So we decided to buy them some kitten formula, and some kitten food sachets. A visiting friend bought them some other kitten food, too. The kittens seemed quite weak by this time so we realised we would have to be more proactive. Richard built a barricade to keep them in the boiler room, as we were worried about them getting into the road and not being able to get out of the way of a car fast enough. 

Thankfully they were able to lap kitten formula milk from a saucer so we didn't have to bottle-feed, as we did with the seven feral kittens we fostered for six weeks at our old house, over nineteen years ago. We guessed that these kittens were about four weeks old. They loved the wet food from the sachets too, though we were careful not to give them too much at once. And they ate the kibble without any need for adding water. 

However, although we now only have one house cat, we can't keep these kittens. Our existing Lady Jane would not allow it for one thing. For another, we have a very allergic daughter-in-law, so we had agreed already that we won't take on any more cats. And, much as we love having a cat, it is something of a bind at times. We can't go away spontaneously, and when we plan to go away we have to organise a cat-sitter. Usually our close friends do this, but it's not always possible. 

We put photos on Facebook a couple of times, but it seems that none of our local friends want kittens. 

So Richard got in touch with a nearby cat sanctuary, who said they don't take kittens until they're at least twelve weeks old, and have had their first vaccinations. Then they try to find homes for them, and they have a much wider audience on Facebook (and elsewhere) than we do. 

Thus, a month later we are still fostering them, feeding four times a day and taking them out for half an hour to our other side yard where there are plants and fake grass, to give them a chance to jump and run and play. They had their first vaccinations last week, and the vet said they seem to be very healthy. 

We haven't given them names; we refer to them as the little girl kitty and the little boy kitty. I hope that someone, eventually, will adopt them. 

Guests and eating out

We've had several human visitors in the past month, too. We do like having our ground floor used as a guest flat. A long-standing friend and colleague stayed for a few days, with a friend, at the end of September.  They left on the last day of the month, and in the evening some even more long-standing friends arrived for a few days' break. It was wonderful to see them. They spent a lot of time on the beach, soaking up some sunshine (which, they said, had been rather lacking in the UK this year).

They took us out to eat twice; once at our favourite Lebanese restaurant, Al Sultan, and once at our favourite everyday restaurant, Alexander's.  At the Lebanese restaurant we ordered a meze for two, which was more than sufficient for four of us. At Alexander's we had individual meals; I had the vegetarian moussaka, one of my favourites, with grilled vegetables. I learned about this option only in the past year and like it so much better than having a huge pile of chips alongside a moussaka. 

Later in the month we had some other guests who were here for just over a week, and who took us out to our favourite Cypriot meze restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. Meze for two there is also more than sufficient for four of us. 

Indeed, it was quite a month for eating out, something we do quite rarely on our own. But in the middle of the month we went out for a 'platter for one' at Al Sultan, to celebrate Richard's birthday:

We managed to do justice to most of it (though we left most of the extra Arabic bread). 

And towards the end of the month we were treated to yet another meze at Kyra Giorgena, by Richard's cousin-once-removed and her travelling companions. They were visiting Cyprus and spent just one day in Larnaka. 

Bathroom repairs - again

We seem to have had a lot of trouble with our bathroom, one way and another, since it was installed in 2016. There was a team of people who did it originally. While much of the work done was excellent, unfortunately the plumber cut several corners. This means we've had to have several extra repairs in the past few years. 

Most recently we found the points of two screws poking up into the bath, and the base started feeling  spongy, as if there was water below. Richard checked underneath and found several problems, including some totally disintegrated wood supports.  That meant that all the builders' foam had to be pulled out, and concrete put in to replace it. 

Thankfully our young and very competent friend L was here for a few days in the middle of the month, and able to do this for us. 

It meant that we had to shower in my study for about a week, after removing all the things stored in it, but, happily, we're now able to use the bathroom shower again. 

Weather

At the start of October the temperatures were still in the 30s during the daytime, although thankfully less humid than it had been a month earlier. We were still in tee-shirts and shorts, with just a thin sheet at night. We had stopped using the air conditioning in the middle of September, but were still using the ceiling fans until a few weeks ago.

By the end of October, we had put our light (4.5 tog) duvet on the bed, and have started wearing long trousers. First thing in the morning and in the evening I even put on a light jacket. 

Sometimes by the end of the first week of November we have a sudden drop in temperatures, but there's no sign of that predicted this year. Just as well, since we'll have to have our central heating serviced before we use it. We had a new boiler installed in February, and as it's still under warranty, we have to have an official service. But we can't do that until the kittens have moved out of the boiler room. 

And also...

During October, Richard made a brief visit to Egypt, I finished knitting some more baby hats, and continued updating images and links on my book blog. We played lots of board games, watched a few DVDs, and I did some daily Duolingo. We hosted a barbecue for a few friends a few days after Richard's birthday, and at the end of the month I made this year's Christmas cake. 

September in Cyprus, and a warm fridge

A couple of weeks ago, we had a guest to lunch. Among other things, I prepared some basic salads - green salad from a bag, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, etc. Nothing special. But I'm not good at quantities, so there was a lot left over, which I put out for lunch for the two of us the following day. I was a bit surprised to find that the salad was looking a bit sad and brown around the edges, and that the tomatoes were going soft. 

I didn't think too much about it. But by the following day, the tomatoes had fermented, the green salad was going bad, and the coleslaw tasted decidedly weird. I wondered if the fridge was having trouble keeping everything cold enough. But the ambient temperature wasn't any higher than it had been all summer when the fridge had been working without problem. 

Our LG fridge is only a little over four years old. Our previous one lasted at least fifteen years without any issues at all. We replaced it in May 2020. I was becoming concerned that it might break down at some point, and didn't want to risk a summer where this might happen. As it was the year of the pandemic, we knew we weren't going anywhere. 

We also knew that a more modern fridge would be much more efficient to run. Buying a new fridge, we worked out, would essentially pay for itself within about four years with the saving in electricity. And we had money available. The Sam Vines 'boots' theory worked in our favour. 

So fast-forwarding to now, more than four years later, the fridge didn't owe us anything. But still, a four year old fridge ought to be working well. The compressor, the most expensive part, is guaranteed for another six years. And the freezer at the top of the fridge was still working perfectly well. 

We needed empirical evidence that there was a problem. So we found a room thermometer, and put it in the fridge. We waited an hour or so, and were shocked to find it showing 14 degrees Celsius. The thermostat was set to three degrees. The app on Richard's phone that connects with the fridge didn't show any problems. 

We noticed that the fridge was a bit close to the wall behind it. We thought that might be the problem, and moved it forward a few centimetres. Then we waited another hour, and the thermometer reduced to about 12 degrees. But we hadn't opened the fridge in that time, and the room was cooling a little as the afternoon ended. 

On Friday morning, the fridge temperature had gone down to about 6 degrees, but quickly rose back to 10. So Richard went to talk to the owner of the white goods shop where we buy most of our large appliances. He said that he couldn't do anything over the weekend, but would ask an LG engineer to come on Monday. 

The owner then asked if we had another way of keeping our things cold enough. When Richard said that we didn't, he said he would get his staff to bring us another fridge for the weekend. This kind of thing is an advantage of the relational culture here, and of being loyal to one shop. Sure enough, an hour or so later two strong guys arrived with a used but clean and functional fridge. 

We had bought another thermometer in the meantime, one specifically intended for fridges. A few hours later the visiting fridge had cooled to 3 degrees. So we moved things like mayonnaise and spreads into it. We left unopened cans, nuts and chocolate in our fridge - ten to twelve degrees is an ideal temperature for them, and the borrowed one wasn't as big as ours. 

On Monday afternoon, a week ago, the LG engineer arrived. He spoke excellent English, and was happy to talk through what he was doing with Richard. He said that most often this happens when the condenser coils are dirty. We had read that online, but there was no easy way to access them. The engineer pushed the fridge out and removed the back panel. 

The condenser coils, which had not been cleaned in four years, were indeed thick with dust and dirt: 

The engineer had a machine that blew the dust out. All over the kitchen... 

Then he said that would probably solve the problem. 

The following day, the fridge was showing about 7-8 degrees, rising up to 9 or 10 any time the door was opened. The borrowed fridge, for comparison, was down to about 3-4 degrees, rising no higher than 5 when the door was opened. So Richard called the LG guy again, and he said that sometimes it takes 48 hours, so we should wait another day.

We waited another day. The visiting fridge was a bit noisy, and using a lot of electricity. It was also rather in the way, but we were getting used to it. And our fridge was not doing much better. We were getting obsessed with the numbers. But we decided that as there wasn't much that would spoil, we would move things back to our fridge and wait another day or so. 

Nothing went bad. But the temperatures still weren't right, ranging between 5 and 9. Several websites gave checklists of things that might cause this kind of problem, such an over-full fridge or a faulty seal on the door. The only one that was relevant to us was that the back of the freezer was a bit iced up. 

We kept debating whether to call the engineer again... and then it was Friday. We knew that he wouldn't come until at least Monday. On Saturday evening we decided that the following morning we would try to defrost our fridge and freezer entirely. If that didn't work, we would call the engineer on Monday. 

So on Sunday morning, at about 6am, I turned on the visiting fridge again. When it had cooled to 3 degrees - which took about three hours - we moved everything out of our freezer as well as from the fridge, and packed as much as we could into the borrowed one. 

Then we turned our fridge off at the wall. Richard removed all the shelves, in the hope of accessing the panels at the back. It was an excellent opportunity to clean the shelves - and the fridge - more thoroughly than was possible when it had food inside. 

The back panel in the fridge section was easily moved, but there was no ice there. The freezer one wouldn't budge, but clearly had ice behind it. It melted pretty quickly, and left a puddle on the base of the freezer section. It took a couple of hours before that stopped, and all the water had dried up. 

Just after noon on Sunday I put some of the nuts back, and we turned our fridge on again. 

After an hour, the thermometer was showing 24 degrees. 

After another hour, it was down to 18. 

Then it got slower and slower. By four o'clock, it was at about 8 degrees.  By five o'clock it was just under 6 degrees.  We tried to check only once an hour, since opening the door makes the temperature rise, but I couldn't resist. And at twenty to six, I saw:

Hallelujah!

Then at six o'clock, it was back to 4.9 degrees. And over 5 soon after. 

We decided to have one last check at 7.15pm. If it was less than four degrees, we agreed, we would transfer everything back, and turn off the visiting fridge.  If it was higher than four, we would leave them both overnight. 

At 7.15pm, it showed 3.6.  The defrosting had worked! 

So we moved everything back, including the things that had still been left out, and of course that raised the temperature again to 10 degrees.... but we thought all would be well after it had been left overnight.

I hoped it would be down to somewhere between 3 and 4 on Monday morning, but no. It was on 6. I bought some fresh fruit and vegetables and put them in, and the temperature rose to nearly 10. And then it went back to 6. It had occurred to us, more than once, that we actually had no idea how well the fridge had been working prior to this incident. We had never put a thermometer inside, naively assuming that if it said 3 degrees on the front, it would chill to that temperature. 

We knew that 5-6 degrees is not dangerous for food. Many of the things in our fridge wouldn't need to be there at all if the kitchen temperature was 20 rather than 30 degrees. So Richard decided to go and talk to the white goods guy, hoping he might get his employees to remove the visiting fridge. 

They had a good chat. The shop owner said we might as well keep the borrowed fridge a few more days in case our freezer iced up again. He said it was possible that the auto-defrost system wasn't working. He also told us that we should set our thermostat to 4 degrees rather than 3, as this would make the internal temperature more stable. No, I didn't understand why, but Richard did. And sure enough, since setting the thermostat to 4, it hasn't risen beyond about 7 degrees when the door is opened, even when new non-chilled things are put inside.

We're trying to be more efficient about opening and closing the fridge, and plan to clean the coils regularly. At least once a year. We're also being careful not to block any of the vents at the back of the fridge or the freezer section, and will try to ensure that it doesn't move against the wall again.

So we hope this is the end of this saga, and that we'll be able to say goodbye to the visiting fridge before long. 

August in Cyprus: hoping to eat out

Richard got back - eventually - on August 13th.  I'd had quite a tiring day. The family who had been staying in our guest flat had a fairly early flight, so they left about eight o'clock in the morning. They had put one load of sheets and towels in the washing machine already, but there was more to do. And there was another family coming to stay for a few days, friends of Richard's from the conference, arriving later that afternoon. 

Thankfully it wasn't quite as humid as it had been, so laundry dried very quickly. I did another load in the guest flat machine, and a load in our upstairs washing machine, and was able to run the Roomba downstairs, and re-make up all the beds. But it was hot, and everything takes me a lot longer in the summer. Richard had said he should be home before lunch and hoped to help, but more bureaucracy got in the way, and it was mid-afternoon before he arrived back. 

He suggested we go out to eat that evening, celebrating our anniversary (nearly four weeks late). And so I wouldn't have to think about food. But where to go? Local places were closed, as many businesses are during the middle weeks of August. We knew that the sea-front restaurants would be open, however, as it's high season for tourists. 

We liked the idea of going to the Al Sultan Lebanese restaurant. We've sometimes shared their 'platter for one' as a lightish lunch, but wanted something more substantial for the evening. We knew a platter for two would be a lot of food, far too much for us at one meal. But restaurants in Cyprus are always happy to offer boxes to bring extra food home. 

So we parked at the marina and walked along the sea front. It was hot and sticky, and we took it slowly. We reached the restaurant, and went in. Like many Cyprus restaurants, the front area is somewhat open to the air, and so has smokers. And it was very warm. We asked if we could go to the inside section, where smoking isn't permitted and they said we could, but that there was no air conditioning on. 

Suddenly that restaurant was a lot less appealing. 

Oh well, we decided, as we were starting to feel quite hungry, we would have to go to Alexander's, which is often our default. They also have a large semi-outdoor area, but they have an inside too. 

Unfortunately, the same was true there. The semi-outdoor smoking area was packed and full of both noise and smoke as well as heat and humidity. The non-smoking area inside was even warmer. No air conditioning. Perhaps the restaurants are trying to economise - and many people don't mind smoke around them. Our request for an indoor non-smoking section was apparently an unusual one for the summer.

And when we looked at other restaurants along the sea-front, they were all operating a similar policy. 

Okay, said Richard, let's try the Art Cafe. That doesn't have an outdoor area, and we were pretty sure they had air conditioning. 

What we had forgotten is that the Art Cafe is closed on Tuesdays. 

By then, we were both feeling very hungry and somewhat frustrated.  Yes, this is a 'first world' problem. We could have gone home and cooked something, we could have bought pastries at a bakery. We had many options. But - spoiled as we are - we had been looking forward to a Lebanese meze. So we decided to order the Lebanese meal we'd hoped for, via Foody. 

We sat down near the Post Office to order, then went back to the marina for the car, and drove home, hoping we would get there first.

We needn't have worried. It was another fifteen minutes or so before the food arrived. When we set it out on the table, it looked like a very impressive meal: 

We had ordered the vegetarian version of the platter, as Richard had been eating lots of meat for the previous week at the conference.  There were a couple of hot items (the ones in foil trays - and they were very hot) and the rest was cold.  As we had expected, it was far too much for one meal. More than half of it went in the fridge and we ate it again the next day. And some of it the following day too.