Help!

Tim was cooking turkey curry in the kitchen this evening, when I heard him shout,

'Mum! I need some help!'

Was something about to fall out of the cupboard?

Did the gas refuse to light?

Was a pile of dishes threatening to fall over?

No...

But all four of our cats appeared from nowhere, all of them determined to get inside the dish of leftover turkey:

Friday already

I'm not entirely sure where this week has gone. Richard has been off work, and hoped to get a few jobs done around the house, but all he's done is install a shaver point in the bathroom. That's fine by me... but I don't seem to have done anything at all. I haven't even spent much time online. Nor have we been out, as it's been extremely cold for Cyprus. On Boxing Day there was a fierce biting wind, and on two nights this week the temperatures were below 5C. We even turned the heating on during the daytime a couple of times.

On Wednesday we spent the afternoon at a friend's birthday party. Yesterday we had invited a friend to lunch - someone visiting Cyprus for a week due to visa problems in the country she works in - and spent a relaxing afternoon chatting. In the evening some other friends came over and we ate baked potatoes with Christmas leftovers. A good way to use up some of the turkey and finish our first Christmas pudding, and it was a pleasant evening. Tim was out for the evening at a church party.

But that's about all I can remember doing, and suddenly it's Friday again. This morning we went to our favourite furniture shop in town - the first time I'd been out to shops since Christmas - and ordered a small bookcase for our bedroom. Richard needs somewhere to keep his increasing collection of sailing books! And then did our usual weekly supermarket shop. This evening Tim's making turkey curry and naan bread, since we didn't cook on Wednesday evening after eating so much at the party. I hope that will be the end of the turkey.

Monday will be another public holiday, of course, for the New Year, and most shops will be shut on Tuesday as well. And, no doubt, Saturday next week too, due to Epiphany. Schools are closed until January 8th, as are Tim's music lessons and the youth group, so it should be another peaceful week ahead. All we have planned so far is some guests for lunch on Sunday, and taking down the decorations on January 5th.

A decade of Christmas past

We've been in Cyprus over nine years now, so - as Tim pointed out - this is our 10th Christmas. Each has been unique in its way...

1997 was the Christmas of culture shock. We had only been here two months, and were missing our extended family and friends back in the UK. We invited another new family to lunch, then went for a walk along the sea-front... all enjoying sunshine (even if a little chilly) at the end of December.

1998 was the strangest Christmas. A friend invited us and another colleague to lunch in her flat. Unfortunately she caught some kind of stomach bug, although she insisted we still come. We ate lunch to the accompaniment of her being ill in the bathroom.... then left early, and came back to our house... only to discover that the washing machine had flooded. All over the kitchen floor.

1999 was the extended family Christmas where we went back to the UK and spent the day at the large house my parents owned at the time, along with my grandmother and siblings and their families. More relatives came on Boxing Day. It was the last time my grandmother (well over 90 at the time) was able to travel, as she had a bad fall the following Spring, although she lived for some years afterwards.

2000 was the most spontaneous Christmas. We invited various guests but it looked as if only one would be joining us. Then, at the last minute, another family we had invited decided to combine resources and come to us after all. So we had two turkeys and lots of other food, and played some games, and generally relaxed.

2001 was the noisiest Christmas. We invited the family who had joined us the previous year, and one or two other friends; at the last moment, an Egyptian family who had been in Larnaka were not able to return home so they joined us too. The children got on well at first, but when they got tired things got a bit fraught....

2002 was the start of a new tradition: we invited some home educating friends from Limassol for the day. They don't really celebrate Christmas, seeing it as too commercial, but we had turkey and crackers anyway, and played some games.

2003 was the teenage Christmas. We went to Limassol, to our friends, and they invited another family with teenagers too. They all got along very well: we played some games together which worked brilliantly.

2004 was the jigsaw Christmas. We went to Limassol again, with a different selection of guests. Our friends had an unbelievably difficult puzzle so we spent much of the afternoon working (in vain) on that.

2005 was the busiest Christmas. My mother was staying, and our friends from Limassol came over with another family. Prior to Christmas we had been to two parties, a meal out, a theatre performance with Daniel in, an inter-church Christmas concert, and several church services. After Christmas we went to yet more parties, and the cinema...

So.. 2006 was the quietest Christmas. Just the three of us for lunch. No visitors at all. One party last week, one party this week. Lots of carols for Tim last week, and far too many hours of work for Richard including all of Christmas Eve afternoon and most of the night working on an urgent problem ... he finished around 4am Christmas morning.

10 more days of the Christmas season remain...

Happy Christmas!

Another group left this lovely poinsettia at Richard's office a few days ago. Since he and his colleague are going to be off for a few days, Richard brought it home. I don't know how long it will survive, since (1) we seem to be adept at killing off house plants and (2) it's been sprayed with glitter, which can't be good for it. Still, it looks fairly healthy at present:

It looks like there really will be just the three of us here tomorrow. Plus the four cats, of course. With all our friends having left the island, or gone to their home countries, or been invited out by others, we've run out of folk to ask over. We still bought a turkey (as small as possible, but that's still 6kg) and cooked it on Saturday, then Richard carved it so we can re-heat tomorrow. We did that last year and it worked very well. We've made a load of mince pies, I have my three Christmas puddings, a cake I still have to finish icing, gingerbread, peppermint creams, and several kinds of dried fruit (dates, figs, apricots, etc) which always appear in the supermarkets around now. That's much less cooking than usual but it still seems excessive for just three people!

This morning I went to the carol service at Larnaka Community Church at 9am - it was pleasant, with lots of involvement by international students (readings and a carol in Chinese), and a few light-hearted poems as well as a short message. Ten minutes for a talk is ideal, in my view! The poem 'The 12 days of Christmas turkey' was read, and went down particularly well. Though it would perhaps have been better on 12th night!

We finished just after 10am so I walked to Grace Church, which theoretically starts at 10am but is usually at least ten minutes late. Sure enough I arrived a few minutes before it started, and was greeted by a friend's child in amazement that I was there later than Richard! I am known to be an early bird while he is rather the reverse...

That was another pleasant service, my favourite part being when the person speaking asked, 'Where did the kings or magi come from?' - to be greeted with the response (by an adult), 'Orientar'. Not original, but very amusing.

That was followed by mince pies, and we walked home afterwards, via our old house - or what was our old house (see post below). We had already decided to do something unusual and go out to lunch, since we couldn't decide what to eat - we usually have a roast meal on Sundays, cooked by Tim, but didn't want one when we'll be eating roast turkey etc tomorrow. So Richard suggested a trip to Alexanders, one of the sea front restaurants. It was lovely and sunny, if a little chilly, and we were wondering whether to eat inside or out when we spotted some friends who had gone to the same restaurant! So we joined tables with them. Very enjoyable.

Richard's having to work this afternoon (at home), and Tim has gone out with an inter-church group, carol-singing at two of the hotels. We're all going to go to the midnight communion service at Tim's church (starting at 11.00pm) since he's playing the organ there... assuming I'm still awake by then. He has said he doesn't want a stocking this year, and the church services tomorrow aren't till 10am so we should be able to sleep a little later than usual.

I don't know quite what we'll do tomorrow, or even when we'll open presents. In recent years we've done this first thing, before church, as we've had guests for lunch (or gone elsewhere). But with nobody coming, we'll have all day to open gifts if we want to. At some point we hope to phone Daniel, although it's possible that the entire crew of the Doulos will have relatives phoning tomorrow, so no idea if we'll actually get through.

Gone....

Sometimes things go very s-l-o-w-l-y in Cyprus. 'Tomorrow' can mean 'some time when I get around to it'. Things get put off and put off...

So when our ex-landlady phoned Richard earlier this week so she could pass on a couple of letters that went to our old house, and told him the house was going to be knocked down the following day, we just thought that meant that she had permission to demolish it. We really didn't think it would start before Christmas. And assumed that, once it was knocked down, the rubble would sit there for weeks, maybe months.

The following day, a friend who lives in our old street phoned and lunchtime and said that she'd just seen a sad sight... a crane sitting on top of a pile of rubble that used to be our house.

On Friday, she told us that most of the trees had been cut down too, and the basement levelled, and the patio removed...

So today we finally went and had a look. I didn't really want to - after all, we spent eight-and-a-half years of our lives there: all the boys' teenage years, all our experience of home education. All the other houses we've lived in are - we assume - still standing. We knew this one had a limited life even when we first moved in, but even so it was quite a shock to see the site. All that remains is the garage, a tall Cypress tree that needs permission before it can be cut down, and a palm tree right a the front. Every bit of rubble and rubbish has gone.


We're trying not to think about the lovely orange tree, and the several lemon trees which we watered carefully for eight summers, and the bougainvillea that did so well on the front porch...

Feasting and fun on Friday

Yesterday we were invited to a lunch-time party for the organisation we used to be seconded to. Many of them have gone to the UK or elsewhere for Christmas, but there were about 15 adults there, plus two children.

There was a buffet-style cold meal, where we all brought a contribution, which worked well. Then we played an approximation to the 'White Elephant Gift Exchange' game which has been popular in the USA for many years, and is gradually becoming known in Europe. The idea in a nutshell is that each person playing brings a low-value gift - either something they've bought, or something unwanted from their home. It's wrapped with no labels, disguised (eg in a huge box) if wanted. Rather than drawing numbers, we just went around the room - each person either unwraps a gift from the pile, or 'steals' an already opened gift they like the look of. If someone has a gift stolen from them, they can choose another gift from the pile to open, or can themselves choose to 'steal' anything already opened, other than whatever they have just lost.

The gifts were an interesting mixture, some naturally more popular than others. The first person opened a large package which contained merely a small plastic water-pistol. Nobody expected that to be stolen, but the two-year-old child playing decided to take that when it was her turn. One of the gifts was a three-pack of long spaghetti, another was a small jar of baby food, both of which looked and felt as if they could have been a candle. Neither of those was stolen at all!

A pack of juggling balls was stolen at least twice, as were two small Starbucks mugs, rather to my surprise. The most popular gifts, stolen the most, were - unsurprisingly - a large scented candle, and two boxes of chocolates. More surprising is that Tim ended up with the candle (he got to play last) and Richard with one of the boxes of chocolates. I had the other chocolates stolen from me in the very final round... and since there seemed no point stealing from either Richard or Tim, I opted to open the last remaining gift which turned out to be exactly what it looked like: a shop-made Christmas pudding. So now we have three...

After the gift exchange, we played a Christmas version of Pictionary in teams, and after that a game I had never seen before. Three teams were each given a packet of marshmallows and a packet of (uncooked) spaghetti, and told to build a tower as tall as possible.

Our team discussed strategy for a bit, then started building a pyramid using the spaghetti pieces in pairs, which worked well until we realised it wasn't strong enough for the second layer. As there was a time limit of ten minutes, we then worked harder (and more randomly):


We did eventually get to three storeys and it was fairly sturdy.

The second team didn't seem to discuss strategy at all, and forgot about making it all. In the end they produced a tower which looked like something created by Dr Seuss:


However the third team decided to take the challenge seriously. The person organising the game said that the tallest tower he had ever seen built in this way had four levels, so they determined to make theirs five levels high. And despite it looking distinctly precarious, it worked... standing alone for a minute when time was up:

Weary and wounded on Wednesday

I had to get to some cooking eventually. Eventually turned out to be yesterday morning. Richard usually brings someone home to lunch on Wednesdays so it seemed a good idea to make at least a few mince pies...

In the event, I made:

• two Christmas puddings
  
• roasted red pepper soup (courtesy of Jan Karon's recipe book)
• gingerbread (the cake variety)
• mince pies (24)
• lemonade (lemon squash)

The soup recipe is supposed to make 4-6 portions, but they must be enormous ones since the ingredients include a litre of chicken stock and two cans of tomatoes. We each had a portion at lunchtime and I froze six more individual portions. It's Tim's favourite soup and he sometimes eats it on Sunday evenings with some fresh bread. I freeze it in empty 250g margarine containers, very convenient and easy to stack. Not to mention a useful way of recycling.

As for the gingerbread, it's the first time I've made this recipe since we moved house. How wonderful - as I keep saying - to have an electric oven that really will do temperatures other than 180C! The gingerbread was perfect after 45 minutes rather than beginning to burn after half an hour, and so sticky it was almost impossible to cut. But very good to eat! It keeps well too.

I also made some flaxseed bread in the breadmaker, but that's easy enough. I make bread most days. Just throw in the ingredients about 9am and turn it out around noon.

By lunchtime, I was pretty tired. I realised that the one thing I miss about our old (and very tatty) kitchen is the table and chairs. We have our dining area right next to the kitchen in this house, but there's plenty of work surface in the kitchen, and it seems silly to carry mixtures to the dining table just so I can sit down. But three hours on my feet is quite tiring. I must be getting old.

After lunch I sat down for an hour to catch up with email, then was out at Larnaka Community Church for the children's Christmas service. I ended up helping in the kitchen more than expected, since someone else didn't turn up. But I got to sit at the back of the church for most of the service, where Tim was playing the piano and some of the youth group did some puppet sketches.


The children in the service seemed to enjoy it, wandering around informally and taking part in some of the activities.

I did a fair bit of clearing up afterwards - there were lots of refreshments available in the church hall - then walked home, by which time it was about 5.30pm. Tim - who left earlier - had put on some food. We had to eat earlyish as we were going out bowling with Grace Church at 7pm. Or so we thought... we arrived just on 7pm to find nobody we recognised, and (a few phone calls later) realised we were half an hour early. Amazing.

We hadn't been ten-pin bowling for many years - certainly not since we came to Cyprus, and possibly not since we had the boys. Twenty years or more, then. It's rather more high-tech than it used to be, with computerised scoring and individual names on the screens telling us when it's our turn. On my first attempt I somehow managed to knock over all the skittles. Unfortunately, my foot went a couple of centimetres over the line meaning that I scored nothing but an 'F' (for 'foul').

That was my best turn. Thereafter I scored 8 and 0 alternately until near the end of the first round (10 games is one round) when I managed to pull a muscle in my thigh. Suddenly I couldn't do the necessary action to let go of the bowl! I tried left-handed but it wasn't accurate enough to be worth doing, so I sat out and someone who came only to watch took over my game.

By the time we got home my leg was fine so long as I held it straight, but painful to bend. I limped up the stairs, wondering if I'd be able to get down in the morning.

Thankfully it's a lot better today.

Tuesday tiredness

It always happens.

I feel as if I'm doing quite well with Christmas preparations - one or two things to do each day as we approach the 25th, but nothing too strenuous or time-consuming. I don't hurry through preparations so as to avoid too much stress, thinking it will be nice to do just a little each day.

Then I wake up one day feeling utterly exhausted, for no apparent reason. Perhaps my brain has gone into overdrive or something. Or too many carols have worn me out.

But I never remember that this is going to happen. So when, yesterday, I had no enthusiasm for anything and kept yawning most of the day, it seemed very odd... I didn't get to the PO Box as planned, nor did I do any of the cooking I had planned for yesterday. Such as the first mince pies of the season...

Today I woke up with a slight headache. I never get much done on Tuesday morning as I help at the local mother-and-toddler group. Still, I did manage to leave half an hour early to give me time to get to the PO Box, where there were several Christmas cards waiting for us, and a book Tim needed for his theology degree course.

I turned on the computer just before lunch and was pleased to see an email from Daniel, who we hadn't heard from in over a week. He suggested it would be a good day to phone, preferably around 7pm his time. The Doulos has just arrived in Bacalod in the Philippines, and that's six hours ahead of Cyprus at this time of year, so shortly after 1pm I phoned. He said it wasn't such a good time after all, since people had suddenly arrived to load water on the ship - one of his big responsibilities as Waterman when they arrive anywhere new. So he had to supervise it for a while. He asked if I could phone back around 8pm his time, which was actually more convenient since we usually eat lunch around 1pm.

It was so good to talk to him. He said it was an enjoyable voyage - they've been at sea for about four days - and he's been taking things easy as he was getting so tired during the recent dry-dock. Loading water was hectic, but he hoped the next few days would be reasonably relaxing. They do get two days off over Christmas, then afterwards will be preparing to welcome the new group of people who will join them in Manila later in January. Unbelievable to think it's almost a year since he went.

I did remember - at last - to post this year's Christmas newsletter and photos on this blog. So that's something. And will probably go and make some mince pies in a few minutes.

But I'm still pretty tired.

Christmas Family Newsletter 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

We knew this would be a year of change. It seems as if it's mostly been a year of farewells....

The rest of the 2006 family newsletter can now be found on our family website.

Christmas carols at the Protestant Churches in Larnaka

We thought it was going to be pretty quiet this year, unlike last year where we seemed to be out most days at this time of year, with concerts, theatre performances, services and parties. No inter-church concert this year, and with Dan away we won't go to the municipal band performances or watch him in any theatre plays.

But with connections, now, with three local churches (Tim being the organist at St Helena's Anglican Church, me still mostly attending Larnaka Community Church, and Richard sometimes attending Grace Church) there are quite a few Christmas events going on. I already wrote about the Christingle service last week at St Helena's. Yesterday we knew they were having their main Carol Service, the first big service with Tim as choir director although the choir is really just a group of people who have two or three practises only for any special event - not a regular or formal choir.

Then we heard that Grace Church were having a carol service followed by potluck lunch in the morning, and some carol 'jamming' yesterday, so we decided to go. Tim and I went to the other churches first and Richard took our food contributions directly to Grace. Pleasant meal, friendly people, nice atmosphere. Sadly most people left after lunch and it was only a few who did the carol jamming - Tim ended up on the keyboard - but it was fun anyway.

Then Tim had a carol practice at 4.30 for the group who will go carol-singing in hotels on Christmas Eve, and at 6.30 was St Helena's main carol service, followed by mulled wine and refreshments. Very enjoyable.

At Grace Church we booked to go bowling on Wednesday evening, and noted that they will organise a walk on Boxing Day and a party on New Year's Eve. They seem to have many more social events than the other churches!

Tim and I will be going to a children's Christmas service on Wednesday afternoon, organised by the Community Church mothers-and-toddlers group, and he'll be playing keyboard for an informal group from St Helena's who sing carols in the rest homes for the elderly on Thursday. Then the inter-church group will sing carols in hotels on Christmas Eve with Tim conducting, and he'll play at the Midnight Service at St Helena's....

Also, of course, there will be morning carol services on Christmas Eve, which falls on a Sunday, and also services a little later on Christmas morning, although for some reason Grace won't be holding a Christmas morning service this year.

Last night the Chaplain at St Helena's asked Tim if his fingers ever got tired with so much playing. He said not often... that his brain gets more tired than his fingers. Only another week and all the Christmas carol mania will be over... but then, I like carols. It's nice to have so many opportunities to sing so many for once!

Christmas preparations in general

Ten days away, and we seem surprisingly organised. A bit worrying, really. Mincemeat made yesterday, will do some mince pies tomorrow. Cards and newsletters posted. Presents bought (almost everything online - so much nicer than having to go shopping). Turkey ordered.

We even put the tree up last night, and the cards we've received so far. It's strange that while there's a standard date for taking down decorations (ie twelfth night - 6th January) there's no agreed date for putting them up. Some people start as early as December 1st, some as late as Christmas Eve. We tend to find an evening, or weekend, when we're all at home and last night was about the only possible evening this week. We don't make a huge thing of Christmas but since we have the tree and decorations, we feel we might as well give them an airing once a year.


We're not sure quite what we'll do on Christmas Day. We like to have guests for lunch when possible, but the people we've spent Christmas with for the last few years have all left the island in the past few months. The people in our house group are all going to their home countries for Christmas. And a few other people we've invited already had invitations elsewhere. So it may be just the three of us...

Friendly Post Office

One of the nice things about living in Cyprus is that the locals are - basically - very friendly. They're also pretty relaxed. That can be irritating if you want a workman to do something in a hurry, and have to accept that 'tomorrow' means 'any time in the future that isn't today'. On the other hand, it means that people aren't in a hurry. Frequently if I just want to buy one or two items in a supermarket, people standing in the queue will wave me ahead of them.

Yesterday afternoon around quarter to five, I finally had the last batch of Christmas cards and newsletters ready to post, along with three small parcels, so I walked to the Post Office. Most of the cards - 55 of them - were for the UK. After putting stamps on the parcels and the few non-UK cards, I sat down at the customers' table in the Post Office, where there's one of those little water twirly things for wetting stamps, and got started. There are always at least two stamps on any item in Cyprus: the main one, and a 1c stamp for the refugee fund. Unfortunately the PO had run out of 30c stamps, and also 15c stamps (they never seem to know how many cards will be sent to the UK at this time of year!) so I was given 55 each of 25c and 5c stamps.

Just as I had done about three, the Post Office assistant came round the counter and sat down with me. She has very little English (unlike the main Post Office lady) but smiled at me, and said, 'I help?'

There was nobody else in the Post Office at the time, and I suppose she had nothing else to do, so I smiled and thanked her. She took some of my cards... and managed to wet and stick them about twice the speed I was managing! Nobody else came in, so she stayed until we'd finished, and it took about 15 minutes in all. I thanked her again, profusely, and she smiled and said, 'I not help... you be here tomorrow!'

When I told Tim, he said - a little cynically - that they probably were worried I'd be there for hours, and they wanted to close at 5.30. I prefer to think that this was a friendly gesture across cultural boundaries. Whatever the motivation, I very much appreciated the help.

Theatre and Christingles...

This afternoon we borrowed the two daughters (aged 7 and 5) of some friends of ours. Antidote Theatre were putting on a new show for younger children - theoretically 3-6 but older ones were there too. It was in a tent on the stage, with benches and cushions, and a sort of animated show of drawings as a backdrop to a story. Only about half an hour long, and it worked very well. Richard helped them with the video animation, and decided to film the show so we could send a copy to Daniel, and offered to take our friends' daughters.



St Helena's Church had their Christingle service in the evening. So we brought the girls home for an hour or so, for a bite to eat and time to play with our cats, then went to the church - which was packed! It was good to hear Tim, now confident in his role as organist. It was a lovely service, all the more enjoyable with a small girl on my lap, even if I was slightly nervous about so many candles, which seemed a little precarious in the oranges! I had to hold mine to the side, while ensuring that none of the children in my vicinity accidentally scorched anyone else's hair!

Ups and downs

The Christmas cake looks as though it turned out fine. I turned the oven off after four hours, but left the cake in as it cooled down. This morning I wrapped it in greaseproof paper and foil, and put it in an airtight container. Other than feeding a couple of times with more brandy (if I remember) I don't need to worry about it again until a few days before Christmas, when I'll do the marzipan and icing.

So that's one thing to cross off my list.

I also wrote three cards. That means there are only about 75 left to do.

I went to the PO Box this afternoon, expecting a few items I'd ordered from Play.com to have arrived. As I got there, I remembered that Richard's colleague still has my PO Box key, which we gave him while we were away so he could check for mail. Very irritating. But I did post a parcel to Daniel (a few music books we'd ordered that arrived just after we left, and a CD Tim has made for him).

Which reminds me, anyone who reads his blog, he's updated it a couple of times this week - not much text, but there are a couple of new photos. Not mentioned on his blog is that the Doulos is currently having lifeboat inspections by a company in Italy. The lifeboats are safe (ie they won't sink!), and the crew have been complimented on their hard work, good attitude, and extensive safety training. On the other hand, the lifeboats are very old and may well not pass the new international safety requirements.

On the way back, I popped into Argos. It was nearly three months ago that we ordered a pair of fluted lightshades from them. We were told they would take 4-6 weeks to arrive. Well, I suppose this IS Cyprus. We were just wondering if the order had got lost or forgotten, when I had a phone call yesterday (asking for 'Mrs Shoe') telling me they had arrived. And indeed they had, packed nicely in a carrier bag, for someone called 'Richard-Sue'. I didn't need any identification, and as soon as I said Richard's name they produced it. That's a good side of life in Cyprus: tust and friendliness.

I also started uploading photos this afternoon, to DirectFoto, so I could order some prints, something I intend to do every couple of months, but keep forgetting. Unfortunately I got in a muddle as I apparently uploaded some before, which I didn't order. And my computer started complaining that it was low on virtual memory - something that happens relatively often when I have Picasa open. Bah. I left the rest till tomorrow.

I wrote the Christmas family newsletter, complete with photographs, about a week ago. Tim set up the colour deskjet printer on the 'guest' computer which runs Windows 98. My computer runs Windows 2000, and for some reason the deskjet printer won't work with that, so I have the black only laserjet printer on my desk.

But no problem, I emailed the newsletter to myself on gmail, then retrieved it on the guest computer.

I could probably have got hold of it somehow through the network. But it seemed easier to do something I understood, and I wanted to see what it looked like as an email attachment anyway.

When I printed it, the black ink looked smudgy. Tim installed a cleaning/setup thingy - the printer hadn't been used since we moved in July - but it made no difference. Indeed, each test print was slightly worse than the previous one. Evidently we needed a new black cartridge. We've had one refilled for the past few years, but I recalled that it wasn't very good last time, and it clearly hasn't lasted well, so it's probably at the end of its life.

But a new cartridge for this rather old printer costs over £20 in Cyprus. If they're even still available. The colour one will probably run out before long, too, and it costs even more to replace new. Which is totally ridiculous, since we can buy a new deskjet printer, complete with new cartridges, for under £40. Truly we live in a disposable society.

Tim suggested I take the file to the photocopy shop and have it printed there. But last time I asked about colour copies, they quoted me 50c per page. 80 copies at 50c each... that too would cost more than a new printer.

But we don't WANT a new colour printer. We only use it once a year. It was an impasse...

However Richard and his colleague have been discussing buying a colour laser printer for the office, for publicity (among other things). They were given a good price, and decided to order one so we can all print our Christmas newsletters on them. Assuming it arrives tomorrow. I might even get our cards and newsletters posted before the 'last posting date', which would be unusual.

Just to round off a rather mixed day, Tim was finishing the last few words of the third assignments for his theology degree course when his ibook notebook computer failed. Dramatically. The mouse ball thing refused to work at first, and when he tried to save his latest version using the keyboard, he got a grey screen (apparently the Apple equivalent of 'Blue Screen of Death') and couldn't do anything other than switch off. When he switched on again, the same thing happened. And again.

Richard thinks it's a hard drive problem. But, alas, the computer is just one month out of warranty. Even worse, there's no Apple repair centre in Cyprus. If it had gone a few weeks ago we could have taken it to the excellent Apple centre in Singapore...

So now Tim's downloading something (on my computer) to enable him to save all his data. Then he'll try reformatting and see if that helps. But he's very frustrated, particularly as he was within about an hour of emailing his essay to the course tutor. It's due tomorrow, though he may be able to get an extension if he has to work on the computer all day.

Still can't quite believe it's a week into December...

... but I thought I'd change the blog banner for a while to be more seasonal. And yes, it's a good example of the mixture of sacred and secular in Cyprus thinking. Huge nativity scenes are prominent amongst the municipal decorations... and right next to the manger is Santa Claus.

I bought ingredients for traditional Christmas cake last Friday. The kind that's dark, and rich, and has more dried fruit than cake. I use the classic recipe by Delia Smith which means that all the fruit has to be soaked overnight in brandy before baking the cake. And I kept on forgetting to do that. Finally I remembered last night, so this afternoon I mixed the cake.

I put it in the oven at 140C... something which our old oven wouldn't do. The cake is supposed to cook at that low temperature for four and a half hours. The oven at our old house was very good at cooking things at 180C, or even a little hotter, but that was its limit. I would wait till the gas was running low, and even then Christmas cake was usually done in about an hour and a half.

This one is electric, and goes down as low as 100C so it'll be interested to see whether it really does stay in for over four hours before it starts overcooking, and whether the taste is better. Of course, I should have made it three weeks ago, but there's nothing I can do about that!

It's been in for an hour and a half as I type, and is beginning to smell rather good...