Half-way through summer

Last day of July, and that always feels like a milestone. It's only July and August which are really hot and humid here, so we're half-way there. And so far, it hasn't been too awful. No major heatwaves, and the air conditioning is still limping along. We set it to 26C now, and it reduces the room temp to 28C. That's all right: with the dehumidifying it does it feels cool in here when it's hotter out.

Last night Richard and I went out for the meal for which our house group gave us a voucher. Nice place. It even has a website. But I was rather puzzled: the site says it's a steak house that even vegetarians will love. So... I would have thought that meant it would have a good selection of veggie options on the menu. Logical, no? I'm not a vegetarian myself but I don't eat much meat - I prefer veggie meals on the whole, though I'm quite happy to eat chicken or fish (although not sea-food of the lobster/crab/prawn variety). Occasionally I eat a little beef or lamb if I'm offered it, but I never do at home.

Cyprus restaurants aren't renowned for their vegetarian choice, although most will offer two or three - albeit sometimes rather unimaginative. So I was looking forward to seeing what Campanario would have on their menu.

It had NOTHING for vegetarians. Not a thing. Not even an omelette! Well, I suppose amongst the starters there may have been vegeterian possibilities, but nothing at all amongst the main courses. Strange. Just as well we weren't vegetarians!

Anyway... we aren't huge eaters, but some of the starters sounded quite nice. We asked a waiter how big the Caesar salad was, and he said it was fairly small. Sometimes we have one starter between two, but we thought - well, salad; it won't be that filling. So (as we had the generous voucher) we ordered two.

They were HUGE! And while the majority of them was lettuce, of varying types, it was covered in dressing and grated cheese. With croutons. And (just in case a vegetarian had sneaked in and ordered one) anchovies on the top.

Actually they were very good, but extremely filling. We managed about half each.

For the main course, Richard ordered what they called an X-rated steak - with a cream sauce - and I ordered chicken kiev. His was apparently tasty though a little chewy. Mine was OK, but very chewy. They came with chips (ie french fries) that were clearly cut on site, and delicious. They also came with some mixed veg that weren't very tasty. But never mind. I only managed about half my meal and I felt full by the end.

However we thought we'd better try a dessert - since we had the voucher, and it wasn't the kind of place we'd go on our own normally. Well, we don't go out to eat more than three or four imes a year anyway, so as this was the last celebration of our 25th anniversary month, we thought we'd better end on a good note.

We were very glad we did. We ordered a chocolate ice cream cake thing, and it was awesome. It looked like a generous slice of cake covered with chocolate sauce. It turned out to be mostly ice cream, with a praline topping and something a bit like shortbread mixed in with the ice cream. Yum! It really was excellent. I ate mine v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y as I was extremely full. I enjoyed every mouthful.

It was a very pleasant place, too. The tables were outside in a walled garden with plants growing around and overhead. No insects fell on our table, and although smoking was allowed we weren't plagued by smokers. Well, we got there at 7pm and were the only people in the place for about half an hour, till others started arriving. By 9pm when we left, it was filling up quite fast. Cypriots tend to eat late, by our standards.

But I still don't understand their web-site byline. Bizarre.

Some weeks whizz by

I have no idea how it's Friday again. Although it seems like a long time since last weekend, which is bizarre. I just don't know where Monday to Thursday went. I suppose the history monks* have been working overtime again.

Tim was going to do some of his NCSC curriculum work this week. He really wants to finish what he's doing, to the end of the second level, so he can concentrate on more interesting things. However he hasn't woken up before about 10am any day this week, so decided against it. It's hot and humid, and he's not inspired towards academics. Maybe next week. Instead he's been helping out with various things at Richard's office, and spending time online. Thank goodness we have two computers in the house, plus Richard's notebook computer when he brings it home.

We heard a few days ago that a good friend of ours from Limassol had fallen out of a tree and broken several ribs. Even worse, his family had just flown to the States for a couple of months, and he was due to join them this week. Today Richard managed to speak to our friend - who is still in hospital - and was relieved to hear that he sounds as if he's mending, albeit in pain. He's in the ICU, which worried us; however the description sounds like an ordinary ward - with DVD players and TVs and even personal fridges (unlike UK hospitals!) . Normally in ICU patients wouldn't be in the kind of state to care about food or entertainment.

Anyway, he's hoping to be discharged in the next day or so, and will then go to stay with some friends. He won't be able to get to the States this summer, though.

Richard also spoke to our landlady this evening. She isn't planning to sell the house any time soon, which is a relief. She doesn't really want to sell it at all, but this friend-of-a-neighbour is apparently very interested, and she says that if he offers her a vast sum she might consider it. But not this year.

Tomorrow evening Tim's having some of the guys from the youth group over. Two of them have finished school, so have had to start their compulsory army service. Hard work, and no fun in the heat. These two guys have a weekend off, and wanted to get together with some of the other youth, so Tim's arranged for them and a few others to come over here in the evening. A perfect opportunity for us to go out - and we have a great reason for doing so: some of our friends here gave us a voucher for a meal at a rather nice restaurant, for our anniversary. A real surprise and a lovely idea. So we'll go tomorrow evening. Not that we have any problem with the youth group - they're great people and we'll be interested to hear about the army service. But it's easier for them to hang out without us around.

I completed my first 500-piece jigsaw in about 18 hours. It was a very nice one, easy to do and attractive to look at. Now I'm doing the second: same number of pieces but a whole order more difficult. I thought it would break us in gently to do the 500-piece puzzles first, but this one is difficult. It's an impressionistic picture of two black cats amongst some flowers. Not that I'm looking at the picture on the box, of course - although it may come to that! I don't mind expanses of sky or water in jigsaws, but for some reason I find flowers and trees extremely tricky.

*[see 'Thief of Time' by Terry Pratchett]

Cost of living in Cyprus

Anvilcloud commented that people from the USA and Canada think of Europe as an expensive place to live. I've heard this kind of comment before from North Americans; indeed in the past year when the US dollar has lost a lot in value against world currencies, I know of some American families who've had to return to the USA or who have struggled greatly to make their US income stretch to live here.

On the other hand, we found it very expensive to live in the USA when we spent two years there, back in 1992. Again the exchange rate was relevant: at the time, the pound sterling was only worth about $1.50 and our income was in sterling. But we know of other Brits who consider America an expensive place to live.

Meanwhile I fairly often get asked what the cost of living is here, so I thought I'd explore the subject a little for future reference. 'Expensive' is a relative term, and if you're living on another country's currency, the exchange rate is crucial. A small change in the rate can increase - or decrease - your income drastically. We tend to track on oanda although it doesn't give the exact rates that we can find in the banks. But it shows the trends.

According to Oanda, the Cyprus pound is currently equivalent to:

American dollars - $2.12
Canadian dollars - $2.61
British pounds - £1.21
Euros - €1.75

- but these vary. Anyone seriously wishing to research this will need to check their own currency, and the current rate.

So, to the cost of living. All values given in Cyprus pounds, which use the same symbol as UK pounds sterling, but which are divided into 100 Cyprus cents rather than pence.

Renting in Larnaka is pretty inexpensive, in my view. For about £100 per month it's possible to find a reasonable two-bedroom flat (apartment). Rent for a three- or four-bedroom bungalow or house is usually in the region of about £300 or a bit more, depending on condition and neighbourhood. We actually pay a bit less than that for our 4-bedroom bungalow in a nice district, but that's because it's not in very good condition on the outside, and we do inside maintenance ourselves.

Of course it's possible to find luxury homes with swimming pools at far higher rents, and in other cities on the island costs do tend to be a bit higher for similar properties.

Buying a small flat in Larnaka starts at about £50,000; houses start about £100,000. But that's even more variable, depending on where you go and who you know. It's possible to buy land and have a house built for rather less than this, since labour costs tend to be low. Several of our friends have done that.

Rental does not usually include any utilities. Our electricity bill is typically about £60 - £120 bi-monthly, depending on the season. In the summer we run a lot of fans overnight, and an air-conditioner by day. But the sun is sufficient for solar heating of all our hot water. In the winter we run some electric heaters, and also have to use an electric water heater. So the bills are lowest in the spring and autumn.

Our water bill is usually about £10 per quarter. I think this is remarkably low - water is metered, and even in the summer when I'm thoroughly watering the garden once a week (and it's a huge garden) the bill only goes up by a few pounds.

There's no piped gas; instead we buy gas barrels for our gas cooker. We get ours delivered, and pay about £20 every two to three months. Some people buy them at the supermarkets, and save a little by doing so; however so many people get back injuries as a result, we decided to pay a bit more and have them delivered.

The phone bill is very low, but then we dont use the phone much. The standing charge is about £6 per month, our call charges are usually in the region of £3. However our entire phone bill per month is about £40-£45 because we're on broadband internet and subscribe through the phone company - so that includes our broadband charges and ISP subscription. Before we had broadband, our phone bill was higher from all the dial-up charges!

Mobile phone charges are very inexpensive. Contracts (for those resident on the island) are £1 per month, or £2 per month, depending which sort you want. Actual call charges are not much more than landline charges, text messages are 1c each, and the contract includes 30 free texts per month. Alternatively the pay-as-you-go Cyprus-only cards start at £5, and - for instance - Tim finds one lasts him at least six months.

Insurance is pretty cheap too, but obviously depends what you want to insure, and what excess - if any - you're prepared to have. The medical insurance we've taken out costs just over £400 per year for the four of us, but that only covers hospital stays. It's about what we paid per month in the USA!! However emergency care is free for everyone here, as is some treatment at hospitals, and an ordinary visit to any kind of doctor is typically about £10 - £15.

As for groceries - typically we pay about £75 per week. I don't think that's too bad for a family of four including two teenage boys, plus four cats. It would be possible to spend less, but we do buy some ready-made imported things such as breakfast cereals, Marmite, veggie sausages etc. In the summer we buy even more pre-prepared foods - such as frozen pies, or ready-made spaghetti sauce - as it's far too hot to do much cooking. But oddly, the grocery bill doesn't seem to go up much as a result.

So that covers the basic cost of living here. Household appliances and furniture vary enormously in price. For very rough figures, check online at Dalco, a discount store not far from where we live, although by shopping around we've found most things slightly cheaper at other places. People who've just arrived can always check the Larnaka Thrift Store, which has lots of stock in good condition, mostly at excellent prices.

Clothes too vary a great deal in cost, with significant sales in January and July. It's possible to spend vast amounts on brand-name clothes from boutiques, or very little in markets, supermarkets or other discount stores. We recently bought adult-size plain tee-shirts for £2 each, bermuda-length shorts for about £7 each, and jeans for about £5 each.

Cost of labour is one of the things that still surprises us, as it's very low. A plumber spent about an hour here, including changing a small part, and charged us £5. Our washing machine went wrong, and the engineer came out the same day, changed part of the spinning mechanism, and charged us £7. A good haircut lasting nearly an hour is £4. A one-on-one music lesson for an hour is at most £7.50.

However when one gets to books, CDs and DVDs, prices become higher. I suppose this reflects the general trend that it's easy to live here cheaply, but luxury goods are expensive. Unfortunately we consider books a necessity in our family! The thrift store does have some books at 50c each, but the stock doesn't change very fast and we've bought all the ones we want to read. The only library is 90% Greek with very little of interest in English. There are some bookshops with a fair selection of English books, but they charge full list price in Cyprus pounds - which is currently 20% more than the UK price. DVDs tend to start about £12.99.

So we buy almost all books and DVDs online, usually from Play.com which offers free postage anywhere in Europe, and prices mostly about40% less than list price.

Petrol (gasoline) has just gone up to about 50c per litre, which is probably high compared to the USA, but still low compared with the UK. However we only spend about £10 per month on petrol typically, because distances are so small and most places within Larnaka are within walking distance. Repairs on the car vary, but we've discovered an excellent mechanic who seems to charge little more than the cost of the parts, and does a great job.

Then there are true luxury goods - hi-fi equipment, digital cameras and so on. Those are definitely expensive here, and again we tend to buy in the UK on the rare occasions we want something like this. US prices tend to be better still, but shipping rates are high from the USA to Europe.

Oh, and eating out - important to visitors and those from the USA, less so to residents. We eat out ourselves about twice a year, plus sometimes with guests. It's quite possible to get a good meal on the sea-front, including soft drinks and dessert, for about £6-7 per person. At nicer restaurants we'd expect the cost to be about £10-£15 per person. Again this is less than the UK, but more than the USA; however we recently learned that in the USA a tip of 20% is expected, since many waiters and waitresses don't get a salary! If this is true, that would put the price up considerably. In the UK, a tip of 10% (or perhaps a little more) is generally expected when service is good; in Cyprus tips are optional, and not expected at all at the cheaper restaurants.

So... is it expensive to live here? It depends what you want to do. If you want a luxurious home, designer clothes, top-of-the range technology, and pre-processed food (or restaurants) then yes, it probably is. On the other hand, if you're going to live like a local with mostly seasonal food that you cook yourself, in an ordinary home with basic equipment, it's easy to manage quite happily on a figure that - even given the exchange rate - would probably count as below the poverty line in the USA.

Strange...

This morning Tim was about to go out. He opened the front door, and saw a Cypriot man wandering around in our front garden, looking at the house. Tim said hello, and the man looked surprised to see him. Then he told Tim that he was thinking of buying the house.

So Tim called me, and the man said much the same. He said he'd spoken to the owner (our landlady), and that he wanted to look around.

Seemed odd to me, since our landlady is usually very careful about checking even if she wants to come over for any reason. She won't even come and pick a few lemons without asking us first. So it was hard to believe she'd told someone we'd never met before to come and look around.

Then a lady appeared, I presume the man's wife. She was fully bilingual, a British Cypriot who spoke English like a Brit. I explained that we didn't think the house was for sale - but that if it was, we would be interested ourselves. I said we had understood that it was to be knocked down within the next year or so, and flats built in its place.

She tried to pull her husband back. She sounded much less certain, and said of course they wouldn't come in - after all, we didn't know who they were. Then she told her husband she was far too hot, asked if we had air conditioning, and then said they'd come back another time with a proper appointment.

It left me feeling a bit unnerved. Last time we spoke to our landlady, she said she certainly wouldn't be doing anything with the house until 2006 because her daughter's getting married just after Christmas, and as she doesn't want to live here they don't want to have to worry about the house before then. Most rental homes here are dowry houses - property belongs to women in Cyprus, mostly - and as our landlady has three daughters, it will eventually belong to them. However many families knock down old houses and build blocks of flats - usually six or eight - and then rent them out to bring in money, or even sell some of them if their daughters don't want to live there.

We have a huge garden here, and it's quite possible that the far end could have flats built, in which case the house might remain. Alternatively, and this is what was first proposed, the house might simply be knocked down and the flats built where it stands. I think that would be a pity, as it's a lovely shape, colonial style. It's not actually very old - only about fifty years or a little more since it was built. On the other hand, the outside is in poor condition and needs a lot of work to make it look good. It needs a new roof, replacement windows and shutters, and ideally one more bathroom - or at least a second room with a toilet since there's only one - so it won't be cheap to renovate if it is sold.

But if it IS for sale, then we'd definitely be interested ourselves. If the price is reasonable. We're hoping to sell our UK house when we're back in the Autumn, and as we paid the mortage on that a few years it would give us a good sum to buy a house here. We've been vaguely looking around, but don't want to find anything ideal until we've actually sold our UK house. We thought we might begin looking seriously in about November, once we return from our visit. It may be that the house we're living in would be too expensive - we really have no idea what kind of price it might go for. With the entire plot it would have been way beyond our price-range, but if the far end is going to be turned into flats, so it's a smaller garden with the house to remain, it might be within our range.

Richard tried to phone our landlady when he was back for lunch, but she was out. So maybe he'll speak to her later and find out what's going on. None of us really WANT to move - it's such a hassle! - and certainly not before the end of this year. But if she's definitely going to sell, then we want to know that too.

What a year of milestones this is turning out to be....

Family blogging

The boys have both had blogs for a while, now, although they haven't used them much. Daniel started one to go along with his woodwind repair career, but although he keeps notes about the clarinets he's repaired, he didn't keep up-to-date on the blog. Maybe when he gets back, he will.

On the other hand, his Doulos blog is getting a lot of updates. Email was very slow at first, from Tanzania and then from Mozambique, but recently it's been arriving the day after it was sent. Perhaps someone fixed some problem somewhere. For some reason my blogrolling list doesn't ever seem to list Dan's blog as updated, but it has been several times. He's about half-way through his STEP program now, getting to the stage where he's definitely missing a lot of the food we have here in Cyprus - such as lots of fruit and cheese, and pasta.

Tim has been a team member on various blogs, but his most recent one is a Photo blog. Only two pictures so far, but when we get our new digital camera, I hope he'll keep it up to date.

Last night Richard decided he should join in too, so he's also started a blog, called 'I won't be long'. It's to be a day-to-day explanation of what he actually does. People often ask him, and it's hard to remember sometimes. Lots of media stuff, much of it technical. Now at last maybe I'll find out exactly how he spends his time at the office!

As for me, I'm slowly increasing my number of blogs, though I'm not sure I'll keep them all up. I prefer to have them subject-related. My most recent addition is one to do Internet quizzes and questionnaires - so many get passed around, and I didn't want them in this blog. I may start a blog for recipes once Summer's over and I get back to proper cooking again. And I'm keeping up my book reviews blog - so far I've apparently read 50 books this year.

PS The cats aren't telling us where they keep their blogs... we think they must spend most of the night online since they sleep all day at present.

Jigsaws

I love jigsaws.

No, not the electric power-tools, jigsaw puzzles. We've developed a tradition since living in Cyprus of doing several in the Summer months - or at least, I do, with a little help from others in the family who are less enthusiastic.

Of course jigsaws, even smallish ones, take up a fair bit of space. But we have a large dining room table (which was technically a small conference table - it seats six to eight easily and has seated twelve without too much difficulty). So I do the puzzles on the table, and at mealtimes we just cover them with the thickish everyday plastic-coated cloth we use to make it look like a dining table rather than a conference table.

This year I have about five or six new puzzles, mostly either 500 or 1000 pieces. We had a couple given to us at Christmas, and I bought some more at a jumble sale at the Anglican church a couple of months ago. Of course I've no idea if the jumble sale jigsaws will be complete, but it doesn't really matter - I'll enjoy doing them anyway.

I don't look at the box when I do a jigsaw. As a child I was told it was cheating to do so, and even as a young adult it seemed very 'wrong' to look at the box. I do now accept that other people want to check the pictures, and occasionally - if I'm REALLY stuck on a hard one - I might take a peek myself. But I still find them more of an interesting challenge if I don't use the picture to do the puzzle. Then when it's finished, I step back and enjoy it.

By the end of August I usually have about four or five complete jigsaws on the table, which stick around for a week or two before I decide to dismantle them for another year.

Shopping, online and offfline

So, today we spent the most we've ever spent at Amazon UK in one day! Richard will be going to a conference in the UK in about three weeks, so we've ordered things to meet him there. Postage on orders over £19 is free within the UK, although it takes an extra five days. To Cyprus, it's extortionate :-( They don't even count it as part of Europe, although postal charges here from the UK are exactly the same as they are to Western Europe. Usually a friend with a BFPO box lets us use that if we order from Amazon, but she won't be there until September now.

We ordered a few DVDs in the sale, and the new Harry Potter book - at last - since it seems to be best value at Amazon. We also went ahead and ordered a Canon digital camera, as we'd been pondering in the past week or two. It wasn't quite the cheapest place online, but they were doing a free case with this particular camera, and we tend to trust Amazon on the whole. It was certainly better value than most of the other shops that we know of that have offline stores in the UK, and as far as we know it's not available here. We also ordered some extra memory to go with the camera.

Life is certainly much easier in Cyprus with online UK shops so readily available. Even eight years ago when we were first here, I was less inclined to use the Internet for ordering, and there were fewer options. My first port of call is always Play.com when looking at books or DVDs, since it's one site forward-thinking enough to offer free postage anywhere in Europe. We've had a lot of good things from there. But they didn't have the camera we wanted, and the book and DVDs we ordered were all more expensive from Play.com this time.

If it weren't for online ordering, we'd probably end up buying vast amounts of books and DVDs every time we were in England, and then having trouble with the weight of our luggage. Books are very expensive here, on the whole. There's an excellent bookshop in Larnaka, the Academic & General, which has a good selection of English books as well as Greek. But they always seem to charge the full UK price - in Cyprus pounds. So it's nearly 20% higher than list price, while Amazon UK and Play.com are typically 40% lower.

As it is, we tend to buy a year's worth of clothes when we're in the UK, although recently there have been better prices and more choice here. We're not into designer clothes at all, just ordinary casual reasonably well-made clothes. There are plenty of over-priced designer shops here, and a few old-fashioined factory outlets, but we've found quite a good selection of tee-shirts and shorts, of the type we like, in the middle floor of Orphanides - a supermarket which we don't use for groceries as the lighting is unpleasant, the aisles too narrow, and the stacks too high. However we do like their upstairs clothing and electrical departments.

Bugs in the cupboards :-(

Insects, as I've mentioned before, are one of the less pleasant aspects of living in Cyprus. I've managed to avoid most ants this year, by cleaning out all the food cupboards in the spring and spraying with Biokill. I generally keep all opened packets of food in plastic containers, too.

But tonight I opened a new packet of basmati rice, only to find rather a number of tiny black insects in it. I wasn't going to throw the whole packet away - for one thing I needed to use some, for another it's quite expensive, for another I hated the thought of wasting 500g rice! I don't know where the insects came from or how they got in, since it was a plastic bag. Perhaps they were there at Metro when I bought it, or perhaps they crawled in from our kitchen. But I emptied it out into a sieve, then measured the rice I need and washed it repeatedly until all the bugs were gone.

With the remaining rice, I squashed dozens of the insects as they crawled out, then gradually put rice back in an old coffee-jar with a screwtop lid. I don't think any bugs could get in that! I didn't worry too much about it, since rice gets washed and then cooked thoroughly anyway. But it wasn't very pleasant.

After that I checked the cupboard. Foolishly I had left a half-opened pack of spaghetti sitting on top of some jars, rather than putting it in the usual tall container. It had some bugs in it too, but they were just crawling about so easy enough to shake off when I did put the spaghetti in the container! Then I found a cardboard pack of lasagne which was about six months old and unopened, and FULL of bugs, burrowing into it. There was no way to save that so I threw it all in the bin. Then I wiped out the cupboard and sprayed again with Biokill before putting everything back.

Thankfully the cereal and flour cupboards do not appear to have any insects. I'm even more thankful that I didn't discover these insects on Saturday, and that the pasta I used then was in an airtight container, so unaffected.

Tiring weekend

Saturday wasn't as hot as the previous few days, for which I'm extremely thankful. I woke about 5.45am, so was able to cook pasta (for pasta salad) and make a litre of custard (for apricot fool) with the windows open and a cool breeze blowing in the kitchen. The house was clean, vacuumed etc already, so I decided to do a thorough water of the garden, both front and back, since I wouldn't be able to in the evening.

The last of the visitors who had been staying left about 9am, so I threw his sheets and towel in the washing machine, wrote a list of the food and what still had to be done for the evening party, and felt as if I was doing quite well. Richard got up and spent over an hour cleaning the patio - far more thoroughly than I would have done - and all the plastic chairs. By late morning it was getting hot but I closed shutters against the sun, and came into the air conditioning for a couple of hours to read email and so on.

I thought there was perhaps an hour's worth of last-minute food preparation, so decided I would start that at 3pm, giving me two hours until 5pm, at which point I hoped to take a cool shower, change, and then sit for half an hour or so reading to relax.

Alas, I'm no organiser. There seemed to be vast numbers of things to do at the last minute. It didn't help that Tim developed a migraine and slept most of the afternoon, as he's usually very good at helping without being intrusive. I hate telling people what to do. I'd rather be the one doing what I'm told than the one delegating.

By 5.40pm I still hadn't finished, but I had to take my shower. Tim had got up so I asked him to wash grapes and put them in a nice bowl, and Richard to cut up the watermelon. They did so while I showered, but then at ten to six I had to wipe the kitchen counters, do yet more washing of used dishes, and five minutes later I glanced outside to see the morning's laundry still hanging on the line! So I rushed in with that...

Guests came promptly, and it was lovely to see so many of our closest friends all together. I felt tired and a bit headachey, unfortunately, and had to spent the first half-hour putting cold food on the table - and the kitchen isn't next to the dining room! Still, it looked like a good spread and everyone appreciated it. There was a bit left over, but not a huge amount, so we mostly got quantities correct. Three invited guests didn't come, so including four small children and the three of us, there were 32 people in all. A nice number for sitting out on the patio chatting - more would have seemed crowded.

Lora asked me if we'd considered 'grilling out' - which is the American term for barbecuing. We did briefly think about it. Richard quite likes barbecues, but I'm not much of a meat-eater, and I hate ending an evening smelling of charcoal. I also loathe having to clean all the trays and utensils afterwards, and tend to worry that chicken isn't properly cooked so it ends up half-burnt.

We've done barbecues for about fifteen people in the past, and that's been hectic... so decided that for thirty people it really wasn't practical. Also, although Richard does the actual barbecuing, I find it immensely hard work trying to organise other food and make sure the meat's all cooked at the right time. Here's a humorous (but somewhat accurate!) account of a typical barbecue that might explain my reluctance: A real man's cooking.

Did I enjoy our party? Well, I think so. As much as was possible, anyway, given that I find it stressful and difficult to have to organise large amounts of food and other detailed logistics. Being in the summer didn't help, as it was quite hot in the afternoon, and I would really like to have slept for a couple of hours.

But it was lovely to have all our close local friends (or most of them, anyway) together, and it was important to me to mark the anniversary in this way. By about half-way through the evening I did get a chance to sit down and chat to various people, which was pleasant. And at the end we came inside and talked more with a few friends who stayed on after the others had gone. By 10pm everyone had left, and my headache was back. Richard did some clearing up - ensuring all food that needed refrigerating was put in the fridge, for instance, and bringing in chairs that belong in the house - while I took an aspirin and was asleep by 10.30.

On Sunday I did almost nothing. Again I woke early with a bad headache, but by 8.30 was feeling better so I went to church as usual although I came straight home after the service rather than staying to chat. We ate leftovers for lunch and Tim cooked supper. I slept a lot, read a lot, and didn't go near the kitchen - which of course meant I had to do a vast amount of washing-up this morning!

I'm still glad we had the party. But I'm quite glad we won't have to do another July party for another 25 years. Or perhaps 15....

Party food

We're having a celebration party tomorrow evening. To mark the anniversary on Tuesday. Not a huge party - I really don't like crowds of people - but about thirty of the people we're closest to should be coming. We ummed and ahhed for ages, first thinking about having some kind of party a few months ago, but as the weather got hotter I became less and less inclined to do anything about it.

However we'd mentioned it to our church house group so realised we had to do something. We thought about just doing something very low-key with the group, but we wanted to invite Richard's colleagues, and the people he used to work with who we're still close to, and a few others... at first we came up with forty names but managed to cut down to thirty. Plus a few young children who will probably be there, since we're starting at 6.00pm.

Food concerned me more than anything. We have plenty of space indoors and out, and there's certainly no chance of rain. Conversation won't flag: these are mostly people who know each other well, and we won't organise anything. But we didn't want to ask people to bring food (although one or two are going to anyway) - yet I definitely didn't want to spend a lot of time cooking! When Daniel had his 18th party last year, with about the same number of people, I did spent most of the day cooking. That was all right; it was in October, and the weather was cooler. But our kitchen is like an oven during the afternoons in July.

Still, there's plenty of fruit available. And people probably won't expect anything hot, so it's easy enough to buy crisps, nuts, grapes, watermelon, cheese and crackers, that kind of thing. I wanted to offer a bit more than that, though - folk are likely to be fairly hungry and want a full meal, not just snacks. So plenty of salads too: coleslaw is easy with a food processor, chopping up carrot and cucumber sticks is simple and we can buy hummus, tzatsiki etc. Plus there's a very easy (and scrumptious) dip which involves 500g natural Greek yogurt and a packed of dried onion soup mixed together. I can manage that much cooking...

Today we first went to Metro, our usual supermarket which is very close, and bought our regular week's shopping plus a few bits and pieces for the party. Then we went to a new (small) cash'n'carry type place that has a limited selection, but excellent prices on what they stock. Fruit juices in particular are extremely good value, and at this time of year people will need a lot of non-alcoholic fluid. However this place didn't have large bottles of Sprite or Coke, rather to our surprise. So as we weren't far from Chris Cash'n'carry (the newest of the big supermarkets in Larnaka) we decided to go there.

I'm so glad we did! It's probably the most 'British' of the supermarkets. It's laid out like a typical UK co-op, with wide aisles and low shelving. Much more relaxing than Orphanides, previously the biggest supermarket, and far more stock than Metro.

To my surprise and delight, we found what I think of as party food there. Not huge sizes, but the prices were reasonable for what they were. So in addition to several bottles of fizzy drinks, we left with some nice cheeses and sliced ham (etc), a quantity of frozen profiteroles which merely need to be thawed, and - wonder of wonders - some ready-made chilled quiches! I LOVE quiche, and so does Tim. We make them, of course, in the winter. But they're not something either of us want to cook in the summer, and never before have we seen them anywhere in Cyprus - other than one bakery which isn't near here.

I think we'll be returning to Chris cash'n'carry in future, though probably not every week. Their meat looked nicer than Metro's too, and they had more fruit and veggies.

Reflecting on 25 years

Aren't these flowers gorgeous? They were a surprise for our anniversary from my sister and her family in Wales. We've never had flowers delivered here before, let alone internationally ordered. They arrived mid-morning and since someone was here in the afternoon with a digital camera, I asked him to take a photo while the flowers were still at their best. We both think it's one of the nicest flower arrangements we've ever seen, and they look just as good today.


We went out to eat last night, at our favourite Tex-Mex restaurant, Aztecas, which is about ten minutes' drive from here. It's gone rather upmarket since we first found it a few years ago, but still has a good selection of food: Quesadillas, Chimichangas, Burritos and so on, mostly with a choice of beef, chicken or vegetables as filling. All served with spicy beans and rice and a bit of salad. I suppose we go there about once a year on average, not being the kind of people to eat out often, and in the past we've gone straight to the main course. Last night we decided to try some starters, and while they were excellent they were very filling; so much so that I could only eat half my main course, and had no room for a dessert! A nice touch about Aztecas is that they always bring a complementary margharita drink at the end. I don't really drink anything alcoholic, but last night's seemed to have more strawberry than usual and less alcohol, so I enjoyed it very much.

We talked about how time seems to fly... and how 25 years seems such an unusual number. Many of our friends here are retired, or almost so, and have celebrated their 40th anniversaries already - or will do, within the next year or so. That makes us feel young. On the other hand, the only other 25th anniversaries I can remember are those from our parents' generation. Our siblings and most of our cousins have been married considerably less than 25 years, and the same is true of other friends our own age and younger. Rather depressingly, the two couples we knew who were also married in July 1980 - and indeed quite a few of our other friends around our age - are now divorced, many of them married for the second time.

Just for the record, I've scanned one of our wedding photos and also include a picture of us taken at the end of May by the friends who were staying with us. I don't think we look 25 years older, but then I don't FEEL 25 years older. It just seems as if the rest of the world changes around me.

So here we are, 19th July 1980, in Moseley, Birmingham outside St Mary's Church where we were married. Even now I remember the trouble I had with that veil... the headband thing kept coming away from it, and my hair got blown all over the place - particularly, as in this photo, when people threw confetti.

And here we are, at the end of May this year. I liked this picture because it shows our front garden at its best, rather than dry and brown as it is now!

I thought we would have changed a lot more in 25 years. I suppose by the time we've been married for 50 years we'll inevitably look much more elderly, but I don't suppose I'll ever feel more than about 26 on the inside.

Summer days

I sometimes get asked how I cope with the high temperature. Or what I do all day. Or what it's like to live in Cyprus.

I hope some of this blog answers some of those questions, but of course I mostly write about the unexpected, or the unusual - even by Cyprus terms - or things that strike me. Other times, little of note happens. Days drift by, particularly in the summer when it's too hot to do anything much during most of the day.

So... I get up around 6.30 usually, or earlier if one of the cats decides to miaow loudly at the window, or climb on me and flex her claws. I love early mornings in the summer, when opening a window gives at least a slight breath of cool, fresh air. I try to get a few things done when it's still reasonably cool: today I mopped all the floors, watered the trees I didn't water on Saturday, did a couple of loads of laundry and hung them out. Just everyday living, because that's what we do: Cyprus might sound exciting, even exotic to those who see it as a holiday destination only, but for us it's quite ordinary. It's where we live.

So it's rare for us to go to the beach. We went when our friends were here at the end of May, and to a church picnic a week ago, but we haven't swum in the sea yet. Perhaps we'll do so in the next few weeks, or perhaps not. During the daytime, the beaches are usually packed with tourists with skins in varying shades of red and brown. Crazy to get so much sun now we know how dangerous it is.

By about 10am this morning it was too hot to be outside, or doing anything energetic. I really don't cope with heat and humidity, although it's not quite as hot as it was for a few days last week. I switched on the air conditioning then and shut the windows.

I had some more email from Dan on the Doulos, so I updated his blog and also wrote him an email. I read about 60 other emails that had arrived, mostly on forums. I replied to a few. I did a bit of research about cleaning marble floors, because ours never seem to shine or look particularly good, no matter what I use on them. We bought a new Vileda AttrActive mop on Saturday because our old squeegee mop broke. It seems to be very easy to use and quite effective, but the marble-cleaning fluid always seems to leave a residue. Most sites seem to suggest using water only on marble, so I'll try that next time.

I read some reviews on Dooyoo, a site where I sometimes write reviews myself. At least, I used to, but it became slow and difficult to use. A few weeks ago it was revamped, and has a new co-ordinator, and it looks as if it's working well so I may get back to it again, particularly now I have to spend most of my time inside in the air conditioning.

And then it was lunchtime. Richard came home, eventually, and we made some sandwiches, had coffee, read for a while....

Yes, life here is much like life anywhere else. Perhaps slower in pace, definitely warmer than we're used to. Quieter than usual today because Tim is still in the mountains with the youth group camp. He gets back tomorrow afternoon, which is our 25th anniversary. Apparently 25th anniversaries often fall on Tuesdays though I'm not entirely sure why. I'm still not sure how I can possibly be old enough to celebrate a Silver Wedding, they're things that happen to parents and aunts and uncles.

Oh. We ARE parents, and I am an aunt.

I nearly forgot....

... that the sixth Harry Potter book was published today. I don't even know if it was released in Cyprus. The Greek version won't be available until late Autumn, apparently, though I'm sure the English one will sooner or later.

However I couldn't forget about it for long, as it seems to be the main topic of discussion on many forums and blogs today. Not surprising, I suppose: it has been an astoundingly successful series. Personally I think all the hype is ridiculous - encouraging children to queue up for hours just to get a copy at midnight, or pre-ordering online so as to have the book the day it's published. Not to mention all the extra marketing junk that's grown up around this series.

But I do like the books. Sooner or later, we'll probably get the new one. I know there are some Christians who would consider me a heretic - or worse - for thinking they're good books. But then most of the hype against them is (in my opinion) just as ridiculous as the manufacturing hype surrounding them. I found an excellent, well-balanced article here which talks about positive ways in which Christian parents can use the series. Not by banning them, or insisting they're full of every kind of evil, but by talking about them, seeing the good themes (of which there are many) and realising, most of all, that they're fiction.

Why is there such a huge reaction against these books, yet few people seem to worry about witches or wizards in - say - JRR Tolkien's work, or Terry Pratchett's, or the classic children's book and film, The Wizard of Oz? As far as I understand it, it all started back in 2000 when the satirical online newspaper The Onion posted an article saying that children reading these books were turning to satanism. Not actually a funny suggestion, but it was written in such an over-the-top way (with ridiculous pictures) that nobody in their right mind would take it seriously. The whole site is full of spoofs, some of them in very bad taste - it's not something I generally read at all. But I certainly wouldn't believe anything I read there.

Unfortunately, some people did believe it. Email messages started circulating, blowing the entire thing out of proportion. And then, of course, people who had never even heard of the books before, or hadn't bothered reading them, decided to find out what the fuss was about. Here's a summary on Snopes of what happened. I expect the publishers were delighted: controversy like this was bound to multiply their sales hugely, and that's what happened.

So Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is out, and apparently will answer some questions from the previous novels. I'm somewhat intrigued, and am sure it will be a good read. I expect my sons will enjoy it too. Perhaps I'll read it aloud to them when Dan gets back from Africa in late August. But even if we're in the UK when the seventh and final book comes out, I won't be queuing at midnight for it.

Considering Canon cameras....

Following the sad (and annoying) loss of our digital camera on holiday last week, I've been pondering replacing it. Thanks to generous relatives I have some birthday and Christmas money unspent, as well as some - unexpectedly - in honour of our 25th anniversary.

The choice is overwhelming. There are several well-known quality camera manufacturers - Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Canon, etc - who each seem to make a huge variety of digital cameras. I tried researching on Amazon UK, Ciao UK and Dooyoo UK, but they didn't help. It seems that most people are happy with whatever they've bought, and they all have similar features within any price range.

I asked on an online forum, and was directed to the excellent DPReview site. Here, up to ten cameras can be selected from a lengthy list, and compared side to side. Some of them have online galleries, most of them have brief reviews. There's also a way of selecting by features and price, to narrow down the selection.

However I was also advised to have a look at actual cameras, see what appealed, find out how easy they were for me to use. So this morning we went into the town and visited three or four camera shops. There aren't any huge electrical stores that sell dozens of options - instead each shop seemed to sell from just a couple of manufacturers, and only one or two models. Prices were much higher than in the UK, but we didn't expect to buy one here unless offered a considerable discount. I found in handling them that I didn't like the very light ones. They seemed fiddly, and I thought they would be difficult to hold still. My 35mm camera weighs about 250g, and the lost digital was about the same; I decided that was around the weight I was looking for.

We jotted down brands and prices, and came back to compare with Amazon UK. Most of the models here are no longer available in the UK, apparently, and if they are they're about 75% of the price.

So we went back to DPReview, and checked the galleries. I have a high-resolution flatscreen monitor on this computer, so differences in quality were quite amazing. Not that any of the photos in the galleries were bad - they were all at least as good as our old camera, mostly better.

But there were just a few cameras which stood out as being stunning - unbelievably sharp, excellent colour, a real delight on the screen. Every one of them was, to our surprise, a Canon. Even at the cheapest ranges and lowest megapixels, Canon stood out from the rest in photo quality.

So now we've narrowed the vast choice down to four, all of them by Canon: A85, A95, A510 and A520. The latter two are newer models, but they all look excellent. The A520 is a little beyond our expected price-range, but then again if it's good enough for enlarged prints, I wouldn't need to use my 35mm camera at all, and that would save costs over the next few years.

To my surprise, it seems as though Amazon UK has the best prices for these cameras. They won't deliver cameras outside the UK, but that's OK: we'll be back there in October, or may be able to get a delivery sent to someone coming out here. The only places cheaper are one or two online shops that only deliver within the UK to the registered credit card address. Even more surprisingly, Argos - supposedly the discount catalogue store - is significantly more expensive than anywhere else!

Any comments about these cameras, positive or negative, would be very welcome.

Watermelon woes

On the whole, we love watermelon. They're huge at this time of year in Cyprus, and very inexpensive. A couple of weeks ago we had a beautifully sweet and juicy one, so we decided to buy another yesterday morning, when doing our weekly supermarket visit. Richard's been shown by the locals how and where to tap a watermelon to tell when it's ripe, so he tapped several, and managed to find a smallish one that sounded exactly right. With Dan in Africa, and Tim camping in the mountains with the youth group this weekend, there are only two of us in the house for a few days.

I put the watermelon straight in the fridge when we got home. In the evening, after supper, Richard cut it up - or half of it. He cut off the peel and chopped it into chunks. The colour was gorgeous, a deep pinkish-red, and there weren't even very many pips (seedless watermelons are unknown here).

I took my first piece. Cool and crunchy, yes. Juicy, yes. Sweet - no, not really. Rather bland, in fact. Ah well, it happens. Even tasteless watermelons are refreshing.

I took another piece. It gave me a faint fizzing sensation on my tongue, rather unexpectedly. I frowned. I commented that perhaps we should eat it fairly quickly as I didn't think it was going to keep long, since it tasted as if it was about to ferment.

Richard took a piece. He was less fortunate than me... he took one bite, and couldn't eat the rest. He said he thought it had already gone bad. I tried one more piece, and agreed with him. When we smelled it closely, there was a definite (albeit faint) sour aroma.

We've never had this happen before; usually watermelons start to go soft before they go bad. But... this is Cyprus. Life is rarely predictable. So we shrugged and then threw the entire thing on the compost heap.

Hot, hot, hot....

Yes, Summer is here. I don't do well in the heat although I've acclimatised somewhat in the (nearly) eight years we've been here. I no longer find 25C to be unbearably hot, as I did when we lived in the UK. On the other hand, I still don't cope with 35C [95F] and that's what the shade temperatures have been for the past couple of days. Richard likes it, and Tim's been out and about with some of the youth group without problem, but I find it draining and can get little done.

The last couple of days I've been doing some early-morning weeding - the back garden needs it badly, despite lack of rain - but by about 8.45am it becomes too hot for me, as the sun creeps over the garden and the shade temperature rises beyond about 28C [82F]. So I come inside, turn on the aircon unit in the living room, and spend most of my day in here. I don't think it's working as effectively as it did last year, but the room stays around 27-28C and is dehumidified, so it's a great deal pleasanter than the rest of the house.

The kitchen has usually cooled to 28C by about 6pm, but last night it was still 34C even at that time... not good. I guess this is a heatwave even by Cyprus terms, but it's no fun. We had a minimal-cooking meal, of which Richard organised the majority, and I didn't clear up the kitchen until 10pm by which time it was just about bearable. Thankfully I don't have problems sleeping, so long as there's a fan running, but somehow Summer feels like an endurance test out here.

The Mini-Cruise

After much fighting with wires, drivers and other techie stuff, Tim managed to get the scanner working on his computer. So I scanned some of Richard's photos of our holiday last week, and with a bit more effort Tim transferred them to my computer. Then I started writing.... and after about ten minutes the browser crashed. 'Recover post' did nothing, so I'm trying again... and ensuring I save draft copies several times!

We set off from Limassol port early on the Sunday afternoon. Our ship, the SS Ausonia, was towed out by a tug-boat. It was very calm, even once we were out in the Mediterranean, so much so that I was barely aware of the motion.

Lunch was served almost immediately, although as we'd bought filled rolls in the port we weren't very hungry. Still, the vast array of buffet choices was tempting, so we had some salads. We were a bit disappointed to find that coffee was not included along with the meal - nor was any other drink - but managed to find a comfortable lounge bar which sold reasonable coffee afterwards.

Our cabin was pleasant - reasonably roomy with quite a bit of storage space to unpack all our clothes. It looked out over a sundeck, with mirrored glass in the window so nobody could see in! The only problem was that it was directly underneath another sundeck, so when we tried to rest for a bit, we were almost deafened by the thumps of children rushing around exploring the ship! Still, there were plenty of other places to sit and read, the only disadvantage being a distinct lack of non-smoking areas. Most of the passengers were Cypriots, and this is a nation which, by and large, smokes very heavily.

The evening meal was more formal, with allocated places at tables and a menu (albeit not particularly well-printed!). There were four courses, each with two or three options including vegetarian ones. Service was smooth and efficient, and the food excellent. We were at a table with another 'foreign' couple and an Egyptian waiter.

On Monday afternoon, as per schedule, we arrived at Patmos. The stop at this island was one of the reasons we decided on this particular mini-cruise: it's the place where John the Apostle was exiled, and where he wrote the book of Revelation. We had booked a guided tour which was with other English-speaking people and a bilingual guide. We all had to climb into a small 'tender' boat (like a bus on water) to get from the Ausonia to the shore.

Of course we weren't allowed to take any photos inside the cave of the Apocalypse, or the monasteries. We had to buy a postcard for this image of the inside of the cave where - apparently - John (or his scribe) did most of the writing. To the Greek Orthodox majority of visitors this is a very holy place; they lit candles and kissed icons. To those of us who are Protestant Christians, and even to some with no faith, it was still an awe-inspiring experience.

I took several photos of the various places we visited, on the digital camera which I later lost. Sigh. Richard took a few although most of them had me in the foreground - such as this one, where we waited to go inside a monastery. We lost track of the number of different places we visited; each of them was fascinating but since we had to fit the tour into about three hours, we didn't really have long enough anywhere. It would be good to go there again one day, with longer to see around at our own leisure - and fewer crowds of people!

This is part of another postcard, showing another of the monasteries. In one of them, the Greek Orthodox people were able to take part in a brief communion service, but of course this option wasn't open to Protestants. Still, it meant we had slightly longer in the museum. Perhaps the most awesome things we saw were preserved documents from the Bible - one ancient piece of papyrus, and some beautiful calligraphy-style copied works from the Middle Ages. I began to see how the monks and priests several hundred years ago really did work to give glory to God in the painstaking care they took to preserve and copy the Scriptures.

After the tour, we did get a chance to shop in the harbour town - Skala, as it's called locally - which was pleasant and cool. To our surprise and delight we found a small bookshop which had second-hand books, many of them in English, upstairs. This is a most unflattering picture of me, but editing it out cut out too much of the rest of the photo!

Although we left the ship via tender, the Captain had managed to manoevre it into the harbour, so we could re-board whenever we liked. No doubt he saved a bit by not having to book tenders again, but I'm sure he must have regretted this decision heartily over the next 16 hours. The Ausonia bumped the side of the dock on the way out, and we had to wait for 16 hours until an inspector arrived from Athens to check that the ship was still seaworthy. As a result, we missed out on the trip to Kos which should have been on our schedule.

On Tuesday we were given free drinks with all our meals, which I'm sure helped to keep people cheerful as we sat and looked out at Patmos for hours! By early afternoon, we set off again on a revised schedule, and arrived at the lovely island of Tinos by early evening. There were plenty of shops, still open, clearly geared at tourist so we wandered around for a while before finding ourselves at the top of a small hill, where this church was the centre of attraction. After dark it was floodlight, and really very attractive. We didn't go inside, though.

On Wednesday morning we arrived at Volos. We thought this was a bit of a mistake, really - it's a port in mainland Greece, apparently the third or fourth largest city in the country, and famous for having been the home of Jason (of Argonaut fame). However it was basically just a large, busy city. We would have preferred the revised schedule to have missed out Volos and visited Kos, and we were not alone in this!

Some people had booked excursions from Volos, but they included two-hour drives in coaches to and from the places to be visited, and we didn't really want that. So we wandered around the town in the morning, went back to the ship for lunch, and then sat reading by on one of the decks outside, taking advantage of the relative emptiness of the ship as most other people were out and about.
On Thursday we arrived in Santorini in the morning. This is part of a volcanic island, but we did not stop for long enough to visit the still smoking crater. I was rather dubious about visiting the town of Thira, which is at the top of a cliff. The only way to get there is via cable-car, or via donkey, unless one wishes to walk up 560 or so steps. We decided the cable car would be quicker, cooler,and less terrifying for someone like me who does not like heights! Sure enough, it only took five minutes and I shut my eyes for most of the journey. Richard took this photo looking down into the harbour where the Ausonia was anchored. This time we had to take tender boats to and from the shore!

Santorini was a delightful town with lots of interesting shops, although as I lost my digital camera here (and can only assume it must have been stolen since it wasn't where I must have left it, nor had any of the shop-owners nearby had it handed in) I have mixed feelings about it. It was as Richard took this photo of an unusual church tower that I realised the digital camera was missing. I was already feeling hot and sticky but we rushed back to the place where we had stopped for ice-creams a little earlier, and I was very upset to find the camera gone.

Of course we had to get back down to shore again, and by this time it was nearly 12.00 noon. The last tender for the Ausonia was due to leave at 1.00pm so we had plenty of time to catch a cable-car. Or so we thought! Unfortunately, when we reached the place where the cable-cars started, there were crowds and crowds of people waiting. Not just from our ship, but from other ships which had arrived shortly afterwards. With only six cars taking six people each, we guessed it would be at least an hour and a half before we got a place.

So our only option was to go back to the steps. No way was I going to ride a donkey - the poor things looked hot and tired, and not very happy, besides probably being uncomfortable! But more than that, the thought of riding down that many steps was not something I could even consider. So we set out to walk.... not easy since we shared the steps with the donkeys, and there wasn't a whole lot of shade. There was no way to avoid stepping in donkey mess, either. By the time we'd walked down those 560 steps I was utterly exhausted, my legs were shaking, and my clothes were totally stuck to me! The only thing I wanted was a cool shower - something which, thankfully, was easy to take as soon as we got back to our cabin before lunch.

In the evening was the final dinner, at which some people dressed up a little more than usual although many didn't. Richard's tie never came out of the wardrobe all week! The waiters, mostly Egyptian and Filipino, were a talented bunch - a couple of times during the week, including that last evening, they entertained us with some songs. On the last evening they sang 'Leaving on a jet-plane' and others with similar sentiment!

For the grand finale of the evening - and the culmination of a week of absolutely fabulous food - the chef had organised baked alaska. For 350 people. The waiters did a parade around the room with one each, set alight to brown the meringue outside. Actually it wasn't the best dessert I'd eaten during the week, but probably the most impressive.

So that was really the end of the trip, although it took until Friday mid-afternoon to get back to Limassol. It sounds quite a short trip, and we had been a bit worried the time might fly past, but in the event it actually felt like more than five days. I suppose seeing somewhere new each day means there are plenty of different experiences, and we certainly felt more relaxed by the end despite the many stresses (see the post below this one!).

Brief update

We're home again. The air conditioning seems to be dripping fluid so I'm typing in 32C heat with a noisy fan in the background, hoping the computer doesn't overheat.

The mini-cruise was wonderful in many respects. The food was superb - vast choice, enormous quantities, excellent service. No need to dress up at all, although some people did for the last night. We were at a table with a very nice couple each evening, an Australian Cypriot man and a Chinese lady. The excursion in Patmos was very interesting, albeit a bit rushed as we saw a cave, a museum, a monastery and a nunnery within a short space of time. The islands of Tinos and Santorini were also beautiful, although we didn't spend very long at either. Our cabin was comfortable and reasonably roomy. The staff were friendly and helpful. The sea was calm, the weather warm but with a pleasant breeze, and not humid. Accommodation was more like that of a hotel than a ferry, with towels provided and thorough cleaning done every morning.

Unfortunately, every silver lining has a cloud! It seemed as if something went wrong every day of our trip, although most of these were not related to the cruise itself.

On Sunday, the car overheated on the way to Limassol. This was the first long trip Richard had done since it was repaired a few weeks earlier after the same thing happened on the way to Nicosia. It wasn't a disaster: turning off the air-conditioning and switching on the heater meant that the temperature stabilised, although it's not much fun driving along the motorway in summer with the heating on! We got to the port in plenty of time and found we could park the car there, albeit at great cost. But no more so than the cost of getting a service taxi there and back would have been. We also learned that although meals were all included in the price, we would have to pay for all drinks at lunch and dinner - even water. Coffee and juice were included with the breakfasts, though, so that was good.

Shortly after we left, Richard had an urgent message from his colleague back in Larnaka, with a computer server problem. Thankfully after several texts to and fro, it was resolved.

On Monday, after the excursion to Patmos, the ship managed to bump into the side of the dock. I overheard someone say that one of the ropes had not been untied properly. Whatever the reason, the dockmaster insisted that we wait just outside Patmos until an inspector arrived from Athens to check whether it was safe to proceed. So we waited 16 hours. Far better in a ship than in an aeroplane, of course, but rather frustrating. Still, we were at least offered free drinks with our meals for Tuesday.

On Tuesday there was another, more serious server crash at Richard's office - this time with one of the London servers. It ended up being down for nearly 24 hours, potentially a big problem for several different people. As well as rapid text messages to and from Richard's Egyptian colleague, he heard from other people who were not receiving email, or hearing the radio station. Richard had hoped not to have to think about work while away, but ended up spending much of Tuesday evening (and Wednesday morning) troubleshooting via text messages (and a few voice calls) on his mobile phone.

On Wednesday it was Tim's turn to have a big problem, and it took him an hour to contact us as Richard had left the phone in our cabin while we sat outside reading. Four months ago, I wrote this post - about an electrical pole in our street being damaged by a drunk driver. The pole was fixed, but the crash seemed to have jerked a couple of power cables slightly out of their fittings in our home. All electrical cables here are overhead rather than underground. Richard mentioned it to the workmen at the time, and phoned the electricity board several times over the next few days, but although they kept saying they would come and fix it, they didn't. And somehow, we forgot about it.

Unfortunately, on Wednesday there must have been a stronger wind than usual. Tim arrived home from a music practice to find there was no power in the house. Suspecting a power cut, he looked outside, and saw one of the cables right out - loose, lying on a tree. Thank goodness for the tree, since otherwise it could have landed on the (metal) fence at the front of the house, making it live.

When Tim finally got through to Richard, we told him to go and speak to our neighbour over the road who could explain in Greek what had happened to the electricity board. Besides that, he's a safety officer! When Richard phoned back five minutes later, he learned that repairmen had arrived already - clearly this was an emergency! So power was resumed to the house.

Thursday's disaster was my fault. I managed to lose our digital camera. We were in Santorini, and had stopped for ice creams. I put down various things I was carrying as we sat on a wall to enjoy them. When we got up again, I was carrying a carton of juice and although I picked up everything else, I somehow must have forgotten the camera. When we discovered this, about ten minutes later, we hurried back to the spot but it was gone. We asked around, but nobody had seen it. It was two years old, we didn't even pay for it (we bought it with Nectar points accumulated over the years from our credit card) and it wasn't a great camera - but by that stage I'd taken 20 pictures intended for this blog. Richard took some with his 35mm camera too, but I'd hoped to use my digital ones today. I can't believe how sad I was about my poor little camera, which won't even be any use to anyone else since we have the cable here and I don't suppose the software's available any more as the camera's obsolete.

On Friday we arrived back in Limassol at 3pm - later than the original 11am, due to the delay after Patmos. The trip to Kos had been missed out, sadly. We found the car and it did start, but by the time we had reached the end of Limassol it was overheating dangerously. So we stopped and called the Cyprus AA, only to find that our subscription had expired. Apparently we had never received the renewal form. They did send out a recovery vehicle but we had to re-join the AA for this year, and also pay for the truck. Not a huge amount, but it was very annoying.

Still, we got home safely. We went to the youth group variety night which was very enjoyable. All four cats are fit and well. Tim coped fine without us. This morning I received two email messages from Daniel, so anyone following his Doulos blog can read those. We feel as if we've been away at least a fortnight, not just five days, and are much more relaxed despite everything! Richard took his photos to the local place to be printed, and they've come out reasonably although the colours are nothing like as good as we expect from UK printers. So we do at least have some pictorial record of our holiday.

Tonight we're going to an inter-church beach barbecue so I won't be posting any more today. Perhaps tomorrow I'll scan in some of Richard's photos and write about what we actually did!

Away till next weekend

Tomorrow morning Richard and I leave directly after church. We have to drive to Limassol, which is about an hour's journey, and hope we can leave the car at the port. We're going on a mini-cruise thing to some Greek islands for five days, in celebration of 25 years of marriage (well, nearly. The anniversary is actually in a couple of weeks). It's the first time we've been away on our own in five years. Five years ago when we had a couple of nights in a hotel in Limassol for our 20th anniversary, that was the first time in over 13 years - ie since Daniel was born.

A friend went on this same mini-cruise a few years ago and highly recommended it. As I don't like flying unless it's essential this seemed like a much better idea than going on holiday by plane. It worked out less expensive too. Cruises are often thought of as luxuries, and of course in a sense every holiday is a luzury, but there are quite a few which go from Limassol, which are very reasonably priced. Particularly if one goes early in the season, as we are.

Food is all included, that much we know. And we've booked a guided tour for the day we're in Patmos (where the book of Revelation was written). Other than that, we know almost nothing about what to expect. Do we have to dress up for the evening meal, for intance? We're taking some less casual clothes for the evenings, but hope it won't be too formal. Richard certainly doesn't want to have to wear a tie, although he's taking one. And what about towels? I would think they would be provided - I'm guessing the facilities are somewhere in between a hotel and a passenger ferry - but perhaps not swimming towels. So we're taking a couple.

And what about my early-morning coffee? I usually wake about 6.30am and make myself my first cup of coffee immediately. I only have one other cup per day (after lunch) but if I miss one I get a headache.

Then there's the possible heat. It should be cooler than it is here, due to the sea-breezes. But will there be plenty of shade on the deck? Will there be lounges to sit in and read? If I'm out in the sun when it's hot, that's another way of getting a bad headache.

Ah well, I've learned over the years that it's better not to worry too much about these things, but to take life as it comes. This morning after I had spent a couple of hours watering the garden, we did our packing. Or rather, Richard did. I found what I needed, and he organised it tidily into cases. I've spent most of today trying to catch up on finances (ie putting everything into Quicken) and emails.

This evening I cleaned out the fridge somewhat - throwing on the compost heap some rather tired looking lettuce and some almost-fermenting leftover watermelon chunks. Tim's going to be here, along with four young men from a church youth team (three from Northern Ireland, one from the USA) who are in Larnaka for three weeks looking after various youth activities. Two of them have arrived already, the others come on Monday. So he'll have plenty of company.

We get back on Friday but may well go to our favourite second-hand bookshop in Limassol before we return. In the evening there's a youth group variety night, so I may well not switch my computer on until next Saturday. I certainly won't tomorrow since church starts at 9.00am and we'll be leaving immediately afterwards.

Yesterday I spent all morning finishing tidying Tim's room and the study/guest room, and cleaning, and making up beds so everything was ready for four young men who will be staying here for the next few weeks, mostly doing youth work in the neighbourhood. I took it slowly, had a cold drink every hour or so, and didn't get too over-heated. The first person arrived yesterday afternoon and has been out most of the time since then.

In the afternoon we put the air conditioner on in the living room and I read email... the a/c does seem to be working a bit, although not very effectively. Still, it reduces humidity (which can get high in the afternoons) and keeps the room slightly cooler than the outside so it's better than nothing. Since we're hoping to buy our own house within the next year or so, it's probably worthwhile trying to keep this one going for the next couple of months rather than installing a new one.

Today I had an email from Dan on the Doulos - the bulk of it is included in today's update on his blog. I was very pleased to hear from him - it seems such a long time since he left, although it's only a week. He wrote the email on Monday but for some reason it didn't arrive until today - very strange. However the ship left Tanzania on Monday shortly after he wrote, and arrived in Mozambique on Wednesday or Thursday, so perhaps they didn't send outgoing mail until this morning.

I won't be blogging next week since Richard and I are going on a mini-cruise of some Greek islands - which might sound like an expensive luxurious holiday, but isn't really - these mini-cruises run weekly from Limassol, which is about an hour's drive from here. It's our treat to ourselves in celebration of our upcoming 25th wedding anniversary.