When we first moved to Cyprus, there had been a drought for so long that there were widespread water restrictions. Main water was only switched on for about three days per week; the rest of the time we had to rely on our tanks. So we filled about 24 bottles with drinking water from the (filtered) mains tap which lasted while the water was off. We took short showers, and we didn't run the washing machine or use a hose in the garden other than when the mains was on.
It became a way of life. So long as we knew when the water would be on, and were careful the rest of the time, it wasn't really a problem. We thought perhaps we shouldn't use the hose at all in the garden, but our neighbours told us that we must: nobody wanted Cyprus to become a total desert.
The reservoirs got dryer, and a couple of years later water was only on twice per week: once overnight (when it filled up the tanks) and during one daytime, when we watered the garden if needed, and did a lot of washing. We did run the tanks dry a couple of times, but mostly even that was all right.
Then, at last, a de-salination plant was built, and - oh joy! - we had mains water on all the time. Well.. most of the time. Every so often it would go off for an hour or so, probably while some maintenance was being done, or while a leak was being fixed. We continued filling bottles with drinking water, for convenience as much as anything, but limited it to six rather than twenty-four.
Once the de-salination plant was functioning, the weather got wetter. There were a couple of quite wet autumns, and a lot of snow in the mountains which helped to fill up the reservoirs.
But now we've had a couple of dry years again. Very little rain or snow this past winter. The local desalination plant is working well, but the population is increasing, and (we're told) there should have been another desalination plant built but it never happened due to the subsequent rain. We heard a rumour that it's quite on the cards that water might be restricted again.
On Saturday evening, about six o'clock, I switched on the mains tap to get a drink of water, and only a few drips came out. Uh-oh. But I thought it must be some emergency, and that it would be back later.
By bed-time, it still hadn't come on. I was getting a little worried: the Water Board don't work Sundays anyway, and Monday is a public holiday for May Day.
When I got up this morning and there was still no mains water, I was seriously worried. We had quick showers, we didn't flush the loo as much as we would normally have done, and I popped out to the local bakery to buy a few extra bottles of drinking water, since we were close to running out.
To our great relief, the water did come on again late morning.
So I wonder now if it this was simply a glitch in the system, or an emergency that took a very long time to fix... or a sign of restrictions to come?
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Saturday, April 29, 2006
A typical Cyprus Saturday in April
Tim had a busy day today.
The youth group were doing a 'car wash' in the church car park this morning, to raise funds for their summer camp. So he set off at 9.30am armed with a bucket and an old nappy... yes, when we were back in the UK last October, we discovered a pile of old terry nappies packed away. They made very useful cloths to wrap ornaments in, so they came out here. They're not really in good enough condition to give them to anyone as nappies for babies, but they're just fine as general cloths. So one of them ended its useful life today, washing cars.
He got back at lunch-time, pretty tired, and surprisingly not very wet. Some of the younger youth members had apparently got bored and ended with a water fight, which was probably fun but not very helpful for the people who still wanted their cars washed!
At three o'clock this afternoon he was out again, this time setting up some kind of basic sound system to enable CDs to be played in the church grounds, for the post-Easter children's fair. He also tried to organise some games, but the children just wanted to play football (ie soccer) so he sat and watched.
At half past five he came home, picked up his laptop computer, and went out again - this time to help setting up and running a projector for an inter-church evening, listening to some people who have been working abroad. There was a potluck meal beforehand so he wasn't in to eat.
He just got home. It's only half past eight, but he's shattered!
Meanwhile, I wanted to cut the 'lawn' today. The lawnmower has been very unreliable, and Richard and Tim have given up on trying to fix it. I've discovered that spraying a bit of WD40 into the moving parts seems to trigger it into working for half an hour or so. I don't know why, but that doesn't worry me. We only need to keep it going until we move house, when I shall - with great thankfulness - no longer have to worry about any kind of lawn.
I didn't finish it, but at least neatened up the parts near the house.
Meanwhile again, Dan sent me his latest newsletter, which I've proof-read and forwarded on to family, friends and supporters who've asked for it, and he also sent me some brief posts for his blog, including a picture of himself in a kilt. There's not a whole lot of Scottish blood in him (I think I'm about an eighth Scottish myself) but Scottish country dancing certainly runs in the family. I used to be in a demonstration team, in my late teens and twenties. Dan only took it up recently but seems to have inherited both an interest and skill. Or else he's welcomed and put in the display team because most of the Doulos folk who like to dance are girls, and men are always needed. Oddly enough, this is not sufficient motivation for the majority of the other lads on board to join in!
The youth group were doing a 'car wash' in the church car park this morning, to raise funds for their summer camp. So he set off at 9.30am armed with a bucket and an old nappy... yes, when we were back in the UK last October, we discovered a pile of old terry nappies packed away. They made very useful cloths to wrap ornaments in, so they came out here. They're not really in good enough condition to give them to anyone as nappies for babies, but they're just fine as general cloths. So one of them ended its useful life today, washing cars.
He got back at lunch-time, pretty tired, and surprisingly not very wet. Some of the younger youth members had apparently got bored and ended with a water fight, which was probably fun but not very helpful for the people who still wanted their cars washed!
At three o'clock this afternoon he was out again, this time setting up some kind of basic sound system to enable CDs to be played in the church grounds, for the post-Easter children's fair. He also tried to organise some games, but the children just wanted to play football (ie soccer) so he sat and watched.
At half past five he came home, picked up his laptop computer, and went out again - this time to help setting up and running a projector for an inter-church evening, listening to some people who have been working abroad. There was a potluck meal beforehand so he wasn't in to eat.
He just got home. It's only half past eight, but he's shattered!
Meanwhile, I wanted to cut the 'lawn' today. The lawnmower has been very unreliable, and Richard and Tim have given up on trying to fix it. I've discovered that spraying a bit of WD40 into the moving parts seems to trigger it into working for half an hour or so. I don't know why, but that doesn't worry me. We only need to keep it going until we move house, when I shall - with great thankfulness - no longer have to worry about any kind of lawn.
I didn't finish it, but at least neatened up the parts near the house.
Meanwhile again, Dan sent me his latest newsletter, which I've proof-read and forwarded on to family, friends and supporters who've asked for it, and he also sent me some brief posts for his blog, including a picture of himself in a kilt. There's not a whole lot of Scottish blood in him (I think I'm about an eighth Scottish myself) but Scottish country dancing certainly runs in the family. I used to be in a demonstration team, in my late teens and twenties. Dan only took it up recently but seems to have inherited both an interest and skill. Or else he's welcomed and put in the display team because most of the Doulos folk who like to dance are girls, and men are always needed. Oddly enough, this is not sufficient motivation for the majority of the other lads on board to join in!
Friday, April 28, 2006
One of the better sides of Cyprus life
For three days this week (which is the second week of Easter break for the schools) the youth group have had various activities planned by a visiting team. So yesterday evening Tim went down to the sea-front for games etc about half past six.
Five minutes later, the phone rang. It was some friends of ours, who are leaving Cyprus in another week, calling to let us know that their shipping company had spent the day packing and collecting the things they're taking with them. Someone else will be movning into their home and buying most of the remaining furniture - beds, table and chairs, kitchen appliances etc - but we'd said we'd like one of their bookcases. So they asked if we could collect it.
So we got in the car and drove to their house. The bookcase just fit in the rear of our estate car, with the back seat down, and we chatted for a few minutes too. I suppose we were out of the house for about 45 minutes in all.
When we returned, we realised that not only had we left the study window wide open, but one of the pairs of side doors that opens onto a tiny balcony - quite visible from the street.
Our reaction was to shrug and smile...
Had it happened in the UK, our instant reaction would have been to worry that something might have been stolen. The worst that was likely to happen here was a stray cat getting in. But since our cats were all in the house, there were no intruders at all. Other than a couple of mosquitoes.
Five minutes later, the phone rang. It was some friends of ours, who are leaving Cyprus in another week, calling to let us know that their shipping company had spent the day packing and collecting the things they're taking with them. Someone else will be movning into their home and buying most of the remaining furniture - beds, table and chairs, kitchen appliances etc - but we'd said we'd like one of their bookcases. So they asked if we could collect it.
So we got in the car and drove to their house. The bookcase just fit in the rear of our estate car, with the back seat down, and we chatted for a few minutes too. I suppose we were out of the house for about 45 minutes in all.
When we returned, we realised that not only had we left the study window wide open, but one of the pairs of side doors that opens onto a tiny balcony - quite visible from the street.
Our reaction was to shrug and smile...
Had it happened in the UK, our instant reaction would have been to worry that something might have been stolen. The worst that was likely to happen here was a stray cat getting in. But since our cats were all in the house, there were no intruders at all. Other than a couple of mosquitoes.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dead Mouse
Yes, today's great excitement (?) was the discovery of a large and extremely dead mouse under Richard's desk in our dining room.
When I got up this morning, I thought there was a bit of an odd smell. I put it down to making chicken stock last night, and opened several windows. The smell seemed to dissipate, at least in the kitchen.
Then Tim told me he needed to take a couple of tests for his home education coursework. He does these sitting at our dining room table. The smell was really bad in there, and opening windows did not help. It was only then that we thought to check Sophia's usual spot for 'burying' her kill. Usually she eats birds, mice, lizards and so on. She catches them outside, but brings them into the room where we eat, and has a little snack while we're having our meal. Not every day, but often enough during the spring and summer that we've become accustomed to it. Mostly it's lizards, thankfully, and she eats them in their entirety. Generally she manages to eat most of a mouse too, but this time there was what looked like a complete body. Ugh.
Tim and I don't do mouse-moving. Opening windows did not help with the smell.
So we moved through to the kitchen table, closed all the doors, and left all the windows open. Richard wasn't home for lunch today, but got home at 5.30 this afternoon and quickly disposed of it. He said the mouse was so huge it might have been a rat! Shudder. Tim and I didn't get close enough to look, and I'm not sure I'd know the difference anyway. But if it was a rat, perhaps that's why Sophia didn't eat it.
Incidentally, noting a couple of the comments on this post, I should add that the rat wouldn't have been in the house to start with. There are mice in some houses here, but they're intelligent enough to keep out of houses where four cats are living. I haven't heard of rats living in homes at all, although there are some wild outdoors. Not that I've ever seen a live one. However although our other cats eat any 'snacks' they catch outside, Sophia brings hers inside. Either she didn't eat this one because rats are just too disgusting, or it was intended as a present for Richard...
Living in Cyprus is great, but it's not all bougainvillea and beaches...
When I got up this morning, I thought there was a bit of an odd smell. I put it down to making chicken stock last night, and opened several windows. The smell seemed to dissipate, at least in the kitchen.
Then Tim told me he needed to take a couple of tests for his home education coursework. He does these sitting at our dining room table. The smell was really bad in there, and opening windows did not help. It was only then that we thought to check Sophia's usual spot for 'burying' her kill. Usually she eats birds, mice, lizards and so on. She catches them outside, but brings them into the room where we eat, and has a little snack while we're having our meal. Not every day, but often enough during the spring and summer that we've become accustomed to it. Mostly it's lizards, thankfully, and she eats them in their entirety. Generally she manages to eat most of a mouse too, but this time there was what looked like a complete body. Ugh.
Tim and I don't do mouse-moving. Opening windows did not help with the smell.
So we moved through to the kitchen table, closed all the doors, and left all the windows open. Richard wasn't home for lunch today, but got home at 5.30 this afternoon and quickly disposed of it. He said the mouse was so huge it might have been a rat! Shudder. Tim and I didn't get close enough to look, and I'm not sure I'd know the difference anyway. But if it was a rat, perhaps that's why Sophia didn't eat it.
Incidentally, noting a couple of the comments on this post, I should add that the rat wouldn't have been in the house to start with. There are mice in some houses here, but they're intelligent enough to keep out of houses where four cats are living. I haven't heard of rats living in homes at all, although there are some wild outdoors. Not that I've ever seen a live one. However although our other cats eat any 'snacks' they catch outside, Sophia brings hers inside. Either she didn't eat this one because rats are just too disgusting, or it was intended as a present for Richard...
Living in Cyprus is great, but it's not all bougainvillea and beaches...
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Weekend
Strawberries are fairly inexpensive at this time of year, so this morning I made some strawberry jam, using the jam-pan we brought out from the UK last October. I also made some lemon curd since our lemons are starting to fall off the trees, so need to be used up. And some more yogurt, and some raw applesauce (which Tim and I eat for breakfast) for the freezer.
Then I spent much of the day reading.
Let me back-track a moment:
Unusually, we've been out three evenings this week. Twice we were asked out to friends' houses for evening meals, which was very enjoyable, and on Thursday the three of us went out to eat at a restaurant as it was my birthday. I'm now 46 so on the downhill slide towards 90...
Anyway, last night we ate at the home of some church friends and - as you do - got talking about life, the world and the universe. And church. None of us is really sure what we'll be doing in future. We're all, in varying ways and degrees, unhappy about what our church has been doing recently. I wrote more about this in March.
Some of our friends have been enthusing about a book called 'So you don't want to go to Church anymore?' by Jake Colsen. It's available to read or as an ebook at the author's site, and Richard has read it on his PDA. I hadn't taken in until last night that it was a work of fiction, or that our friends had a nicely printed and bound version of it...
So I borrowed it, and have been reading it off and on all day. It's only 160 pages so didn't take all that long, but it's very thought-provoking so I didn't read fast. It really is an amazing book. I suppose there's not really anything new, but the way it's written is inspiring and extremely encouraging. I wrote more about it on my book reviews blog, and an article about it on my Abstractions blog - and recommend it to anyone with any interest at all in Christianity or church life, including (indeed, particularly so) those who are feeling thoroughly disillusioned by church.
Then I spent much of the day reading.
Let me back-track a moment:
Unusually, we've been out three evenings this week. Twice we were asked out to friends' houses for evening meals, which was very enjoyable, and on Thursday the three of us went out to eat at a restaurant as it was my birthday. I'm now 46 so on the downhill slide towards 90...
Anyway, last night we ate at the home of some church friends and - as you do - got talking about life, the world and the universe. And church. None of us is really sure what we'll be doing in future. We're all, in varying ways and degrees, unhappy about what our church has been doing recently. I wrote more about this in March.
Some of our friends have been enthusing about a book called 'So you don't want to go to Church anymore?' by Jake Colsen. It's available to read or as an ebook at the author's site, and Richard has read it on his PDA. I hadn't taken in until last night that it was a work of fiction, or that our friends had a nicely printed and bound version of it...
So I borrowed it, and have been reading it off and on all day. It's only 160 pages so didn't take all that long, but it's very thought-provoking so I didn't read fast. It really is an amazing book. I suppose there's not really anything new, but the way it's written is inspiring and extremely encouraging. I wrote more about it on my book reviews blog, and an article about it on my Abstractions blog - and recommend it to anyone with any interest at all in Christianity or church life, including (indeed, particularly so) those who are feeling thoroughly disillusioned by church.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Flowers, Fruit, .. and Further Frustration
I'm quite pleased with the little border of bedding plants in the front garden:
.. rather more attractive then when I planted them out mid-December, as blogged here with a rather dreary photo.
Our mespila (loquat) tree is about to produce fruit, which is good. These fruit are good for cooking with (albeit rather too full of stones) and delicious when they're just ripe and eaten straight from the tree. We wouldn't choose to plant this particular tree, and never buy the fruit at the supermarket since by the time they've been stored a days or so they're rather tasteless. But there's nothing to beat freshly-picked and fully organic home-grown fruit so we'll make the most of them for the last time.
Well.
We hope it's the last time. Today the buyer of our house in the UK saw her solicitor, and our solicitor spoke to him too. Apparently he (the buyer's solicitor) said that contract exchange is impossible by the end of this week, because he has to deal with three other solicitors - those appointed by our buyer's mortgage company, those of the person I spoke to on Friday who's paying some of the deposit, and ours. But he didn't seem even to have worked out how the mechanics will work - with cheques taking three days to clear, it could take another two weeks even if the first cheques are written tomorrow, since they'd have to pass through three solicitors each.
Unbelievable...
Richard did speak to the guy paying the deposit, who does understand the process and the need for speedy completion, and he'll see what he can do. But I guess we won't be moving by mid-May (sigh).
Oh, and one more thing. I don't fully understand what a blogging carnival is about, but I gather it's a compilation of various posts on a relevant topic. There's a weekly carnival about home education, hosted at various places. I wondered if one of my posts from a year ago would be acceptable so I emailed this week's host to find out - and today had a notification that it was indeed included. I suppose it doesn't matter that my post is out of date from our family perspective, since it's still pertinent to home education.
Anyway, those interested in this subject might like to look through this week's carnival - and maybe folk who are currently home educating in the UK (or anywhere else) could submit posts for future carnivals, to make them a bit more international in flavour.
.. rather more attractive then when I planted them out mid-December, as blogged here with a rather dreary photo.
Our mespila (loquat) tree is about to produce fruit, which is good. These fruit are good for cooking with (albeit rather too full of stones) and delicious when they're just ripe and eaten straight from the tree. We wouldn't choose to plant this particular tree, and never buy the fruit at the supermarket since by the time they've been stored a days or so they're rather tasteless. But there's nothing to beat freshly-picked and fully organic home-grown fruit so we'll make the most of them for the last time.
Well.
We hope it's the last time. Today the buyer of our house in the UK saw her solicitor, and our solicitor spoke to him too. Apparently he (the buyer's solicitor) said that contract exchange is impossible by the end of this week, because he has to deal with three other solicitors - those appointed by our buyer's mortgage company, those of the person I spoke to on Friday who's paying some of the deposit, and ours. But he didn't seem even to have worked out how the mechanics will work - with cheques taking three days to clear, it could take another two weeks even if the first cheques are written tomorrow, since they'd have to pass through three solicitors each.
Unbelievable...
Richard did speak to the guy paying the deposit, who does understand the process and the need for speedy completion, and he'll see what he can do. But I guess we won't be moving by mid-May (sigh).
Oh, and one more thing. I don't fully understand what a blogging carnival is about, but I gather it's a compilation of various posts on a relevant topic. There's a weekly carnival about home education, hosted at various places. I wondered if one of my posts from a year ago would be acceptable so I emailed this week's host to find out - and today had a notification that it was indeed included. I suppose it doesn't matter that my post is out of date from our family perspective, since it's still pertinent to home education.
Anyway, those interested in this subject might like to look through this week's carnival - and maybe folk who are currently home educating in the UK (or anywhere else) could submit posts for future carnivals, to make them a bit more international in flavour.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Good Friday
It's odd when Good Friday is an ordinary working day. Even the schools here haven't yet finished - their Easter break starts next week. That's because Easter in this country is mostly celebrated on the Greek Orthodox day - ie not this Sunday, but the following one. So next Friday will be a public holiday here instead.
Still, we bought some hot cross buns in the supermarket today, which we ate at lunchtime. Tim went to a service at his church at noon, and I shall probably go to the one at our church at 7pm this evening.
It's feeling distinctly warm today, for the first time this year. I thought perhaps it was because there's almost no wind - it really does look extremely still. But I see that (according to the Weather Site) it's 26C here at the moment (around 80F). I don't think it was more than 20 yesterday (68F), so that's quite a leap. I hope it doesn't mean that summer is going to arrive, although of course it's good for the many visitors staying in Cyprus for the UK Easter break, this week and next week. For some reason many people expect Cyprus to be hot all year round and even in April expect to spend a lot of time on the beach or swimming in the sea.
I had a very encouraging phone call from someone in the UK who's putting some money into our house, to help the main buyer. He's been abroad for awhile recently, so has only just caught up with the latest round of discussions and emails. He too is shocked that the process has been taking so long, but thinks part of the problem is lack of communication and understanding. The main buyer has not bought a house before, so is not familiar with the need - sometimes - to hassle solicitors repeatedly to get things done! He is going to see the buyer's solicitor with her on Tuesday (since today and Monday are public holidays in the UK) and will push very hard for exchange of contracts and completion next week. He assures us there is no real problem, nothing else that needs doing our end, and no chance that the buyer is going to pull out. So that's a huge relief.
Still, we bought some hot cross buns in the supermarket today, which we ate at lunchtime. Tim went to a service at his church at noon, and I shall probably go to the one at our church at 7pm this evening.
It's feeling distinctly warm today, for the first time this year. I thought perhaps it was because there's almost no wind - it really does look extremely still. But I see that (according to the Weather Site) it's 26C here at the moment (around 80F). I don't think it was more than 20 yesterday (68F), so that's quite a leap. I hope it doesn't mean that summer is going to arrive, although of course it's good for the many visitors staying in Cyprus for the UK Easter break, this week and next week. For some reason many people expect Cyprus to be hot all year round and even in April expect to spend a lot of time on the beach or swimming in the sea.
I had a very encouraging phone call from someone in the UK who's putting some money into our house, to help the main buyer. He's been abroad for awhile recently, so has only just caught up with the latest round of discussions and emails. He too is shocked that the process has been taking so long, but thinks part of the problem is lack of communication and understanding. The main buyer has not bought a house before, so is not familiar with the need - sometimes - to hassle solicitors repeatedly to get things done! He is going to see the buyer's solicitor with her on Tuesday (since today and Monday are public holidays in the UK) and will push very hard for exchange of contracts and completion next week. He assures us there is no real problem, nothing else that needs doing our end, and no chance that the buyer is going to pull out. So that's a huge relief.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Comings and Goings
One of the strange things about living here is that many people who become friends stay for only a short time. Although there are an increasing number of Brits and other ex-pats who retire here, and plan to stay long-term, there are great numbers of folk who come just for two or three years. Then, perhaps harder to deal with, are those who stay for perhaps six or more years, but eventually return to their native lands. This year quite a few of our friends seem to be departing for good, and it's going to leave quite a hole.
Last night and this morning we said goodbye to a family from Limassol, who we got to know through the home educators' group (which no longer exists, since so many home educators left the island and nobody wants to run it any more). We hadn't seen them very often in recent months, but as families we all got along well and really enjoyed our times together. They came to stay here overnight as their flight to the USA was at 10am this morning; they arrived about 6pm so I'd cooked a meal for us all. We had a pleasant evening doing various things and catching up on news since we last saw them in January. We'll miss them...
UK house update: the lady buying has signed a contract, at last, and apparently the deposit will now be transferred. But contracts are still not exchanged. Her solicitor is now re-asking some questions which we thought had been sorted out nearly two months ago. These ongoing delays are unbelievably stressful.
For those who also follow Daniel's news, I had an IM 'chat' with him this morning, and an email update which I've posted to his blog. The Doulos has just arrived in India, where the temperatures are soaring. He's pretty tired after several nights on firewatch, and feeling a little down, so if anyone wants to leave him any comments I'm sure he'd appreciate them.
Last night and this morning we said goodbye to a family from Limassol, who we got to know through the home educators' group (which no longer exists, since so many home educators left the island and nobody wants to run it any more). We hadn't seen them very often in recent months, but as families we all got along well and really enjoyed our times together. They came to stay here overnight as their flight to the USA was at 10am this morning; they arrived about 6pm so I'd cooked a meal for us all. We had a pleasant evening doing various things and catching up on news since we last saw them in January. We'll miss them...
UK house update: the lady buying has signed a contract, at last, and apparently the deposit will now be transferred. But contracts are still not exchanged. Her solicitor is now re-asking some questions which we thought had been sorted out nearly two months ago. These ongoing delays are unbelievably stressful.
For those who also follow Daniel's news, I had an IM 'chat' with him this morning, and an email update which I've posted to his blog. The Doulos has just arrived in India, where the temperatures are soaring. He's pretty tired after several nights on firewatch, and feeling a little down, so if anyone wants to leave him any comments I'm sure he'd appreciate them.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Weekend
On Saturday morning, Richard and Tim drove to Nicosia to collect some microphones Richard had ordered for his PA system (several weeks ago - but things don't generally happen rapidly in this country). Tim bought a sustain pedal for his keyboard, something he had been looking for, so he was pleased.
Meanwhile I attempted to cut the 'grass' at the back of the house, only to have the lawnmower stop working after about ten minutes.
After an early lunch, Richard went to meet our sailing friends and his mirror dinghy - bought back in September last year - finally had its maiden voyage.
I didn't go, thinking it would be chilly sitting on the shingle and that one of our friends would be in Richard's boat. In the event, Richard started on his own and did so well that our friends simply sailed their boat alongside - and took some photos. It was a pretty calm day, so not too difficult.
In the afternoon Tim was playing his keyboard for a 'ladies' tea' organised by the Greek Evangelical Church at one of the restaurants downtown. A friend from youth group was playing violin with him for half an hour, and he was also accompanying a singer from the GEC. I gather it went well. He got back about 6.30, had a quick bite to eat, then Richard drove him to a friend's house where some of the Youth Group were gathering to play 'Risk'.
Since Tim was out, we went out for a meal - to Alexander's, an open-air restaurant by the sea-front that's inexpensive and usually good quality. Also very quick, and they nearly always give us something 'on the house' at the end. This time we had some hot chocolate as we were feeling distinctly chilly. Partly because of the weather (although we were under a cover with a heater keeping it reasonably warm) and partly because we indulged in some rather delicious ice-creams...
On Sunday was the 'celebration' service for the end of the '40 days of purpose' campaign (which I wrote about in this post). It was the last one in Antidote Theatre, so the last time Richard had to load up his PA system at 8am ready for a 10.30am service. The service wasn't bad - the children did a few items and we were particularly impressed with one or two in a drama sketch who (we happen to know) attend Antidote classes.
Unfortunately the question about the future, church-wise, is still open and rather stressful. I'd pretty much decided it was right for me to continue attending the Community Church, at least for a while. Richard is much more unhappy about all that has been going on, and doesn't want to go there at all. Last night we talked for a long time about the pros and cons, going round in circles as one does in a late-night conversation, and I was horrified to find it was 2am by the time we finally got to sleep. All the worse because Richard had agreed to take some friends to the airport for 5am, so had to set his alarm for 4.30, and naturally I woke up too. Then Sophia, our cat of schedule, insisted on waking me up as usual at about 7am. I suppose I had about three hours sleep in all, so felt pretty exhausted all day.
I spent much of the weekend working more on my home education site - a time-consuming task trying to ensure all the pages match, and that links are up-to-date. I still have to wade through a couple of years' worth of emails to find those which asked me to include other links or sites... and I haven't finished the basic simplifying yet. I hope later this week...
Meanwhile I attempted to cut the 'grass' at the back of the house, only to have the lawnmower stop working after about ten minutes.
After an early lunch, Richard went to meet our sailing friends and his mirror dinghy - bought back in September last year - finally had its maiden voyage.
I didn't go, thinking it would be chilly sitting on the shingle and that one of our friends would be in Richard's boat. In the event, Richard started on his own and did so well that our friends simply sailed their boat alongside - and took some photos. It was a pretty calm day, so not too difficult. In the afternoon Tim was playing his keyboard for a 'ladies' tea' organised by the Greek Evangelical Church at one of the restaurants downtown. A friend from youth group was playing violin with him for half an hour, and he was also accompanying a singer from the GEC. I gather it went well. He got back about 6.30, had a quick bite to eat, then Richard drove him to a friend's house where some of the Youth Group were gathering to play 'Risk'.
Since Tim was out, we went out for a meal - to Alexander's, an open-air restaurant by the sea-front that's inexpensive and usually good quality. Also very quick, and they nearly always give us something 'on the house' at the end. This time we had some hot chocolate as we were feeling distinctly chilly. Partly because of the weather (although we were under a cover with a heater keeping it reasonably warm) and partly because we indulged in some rather delicious ice-creams...
On Sunday was the 'celebration' service for the end of the '40 days of purpose' campaign (which I wrote about in this post). It was the last one in Antidote Theatre, so the last time Richard had to load up his PA system at 8am ready for a 10.30am service. The service wasn't bad - the children did a few items and we were particularly impressed with one or two in a drama sketch who (we happen to know) attend Antidote classes.
Unfortunately the question about the future, church-wise, is still open and rather stressful. I'd pretty much decided it was right for me to continue attending the Community Church, at least for a while. Richard is much more unhappy about all that has been going on, and doesn't want to go there at all. Last night we talked for a long time about the pros and cons, going round in circles as one does in a late-night conversation, and I was horrified to find it was 2am by the time we finally got to sleep. All the worse because Richard had agreed to take some friends to the airport for 5am, so had to set his alarm for 4.30, and naturally I woke up too. Then Sophia, our cat of schedule, insisted on waking me up as usual at about 7am. I suppose I had about three hours sleep in all, so felt pretty exhausted all day.
I spent much of the weekend working more on my home education site - a time-consuming task trying to ensure all the pages match, and that links are up-to-date. I still have to wade through a couple of years' worth of emails to find those which asked me to include other links or sites... and I haven't finished the basic simplifying yet. I hope later this week...
Friday, April 07, 2006
Friday rolls around again
It's been raining quite a bit this week, and the weather's turned chilly again. Well, that is to say it's up to about 20C in the daytime, but by mid-afternoon I have to close the windows and put on a fleece, so that's pretty chilly for Cyprus in April. I hope it warms up a little next week when the island will probably have an influx of families from the UK, since it will be the first week of the British Easter break. I expect the Cyprus schools will start their break a week later since Greek Easter is April 23rd this year, a week after Western Easter.
With the rain, I haven't been able to do any weeding this week. Instead I've started on a long-overdue upgrade of my home education web-site. I'm shocked to find it's nearly three years since I made any changes at all. I'm simplifying it - removing the rather untidy side-bars and the 1990s style clip-art, doing a few necessary updates, and checking as many links as I can, many of which are now out of date. Having checked the stats, I see that most people find individual pages via Google rather than clicking random links, and since Geocities has changed its style of advert, the side-bars just looked a mess. There's still a long way to go, but in the immortal words of Magnus Magnusson, I've started, so I'll finish.
Tim has also set up a new web-site for his church, St Helena's, after discussion with the PCC. Just one page so far, but a good start. It's about time churches in Cyprus started advertising on the web - in some ways we're still a long way behind the rest of Europe.
We're still waiting for exchange of contracts on our UK house. It's unbelievable how long it's taking. Our buyer is meeting her solicitor on Tuesday, so we're hoping and praying that a date will be fixed, and not delayed by the Easter holidays (both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in the UK, and many firms don't work Easter Tuesday either). We would really like to move house here as soon as possible. We had hoped for the last week of April or (at latest) first week of May.
With the rain, I haven't been able to do any weeding this week. Instead I've started on a long-overdue upgrade of my home education web-site. I'm shocked to find it's nearly three years since I made any changes at all. I'm simplifying it - removing the rather untidy side-bars and the 1990s style clip-art, doing a few necessary updates, and checking as many links as I can, many of which are now out of date. Having checked the stats, I see that most people find individual pages via Google rather than clicking random links, and since Geocities has changed its style of advert, the side-bars just looked a mess. There's still a long way to go, but in the immortal words of Magnus Magnusson, I've started, so I'll finish.
Tim has also set up a new web-site for his church, St Helena's, after discussion with the PCC. Just one page so far, but a good start. It's about time churches in Cyprus started advertising on the web - in some ways we're still a long way behind the rest of Europe.
We're still waiting for exchange of contracts on our UK house. It's unbelievable how long it's taking. Our buyer is meeting her solicitor on Tuesday, so we're hoping and praying that a date will be fixed, and not delayed by the Easter holidays (both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in the UK, and many firms don't work Easter Tuesday either). We would really like to move house here as soon as possible. We had hoped for the last week of April or (at latest) first week of May.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Road works
Our street isn't being dug up yet, despite having been resurfaced recently.
But just around the corner, several roads have had large trenches dug along one side recently.
We wondered if they were putting in sewage pipes at last, but it looks to me more like the piping for electricity cables.
It would be great to have all those horrible overhead electrical cables buried - maybe it's one of the requirements for Cyprus having joined the EU.
But just around the corner, several roads have had large trenches dug along one side recently.
We wondered if they were putting in sewage pipes at last, but it looks to me more like the piping for electricity cables.
It would be great to have all those horrible overhead electrical cables buried - maybe it's one of the requirements for Cyprus having joined the EU.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Tidying front garden
This week I've been attempting to tidy up the front garden. It was getting terribly overgrown with weeds. I didn't take a picture just before I started, but this is how it looked in December. It was much worse by March!
The red geraniums have grown well, the freesias are blooming and I not only got rid of the weeds, I tidied up around the palm tree.
The red geraniums have grown well, the freesias are blooming and I not only got rid of the weeds, I tidied up around the palm tree. 
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)