New year in Cyprus

We didn't do anything for New Year's Eve. Well... we had some friends for lunch, so we took the opportunity of starting our second Christmas pudding. In the evening we then watched the DVD of Nanny McPhee, which we thought was fun, with an all-star cast and some interesting extras. But we didn't go out, or even stay up till midnight.

Everything was closed yesterday, of course. And much of it today, too, but the church mother-and-toddler group started again due to popular request, so I went along to help. Only three or four mothers turned up but I think they had a good time. Richard decided to go back to work after taking all last week off, and Monday, although his colleague is probably off for the rest of this week too. But Richard always has a lot to catch up with.

But on the whole it's a very quiet week, with almost everything (including schools) starting up again next Monday, after Epiphany. It's cold, too. Lovely out in the sun during the daytime, but most buildings feel a bit chilly, and overnight it's distinctly cold.

What of 2007?

Well, the two major stresses of last year won't be happening. Daniel can't leave again - indeed, he's nearly half-way through his stint on the Doulos - and we won't be moving house again, or going through the difficult stages of selling in another country.

So it's the first new year in our own house in Cyprus; it's also the first new year without Daniel here, and the first with no 'children' in the home, since Tim is now 18. It may be the year when Tim learns to drive (a scary thought, but most parents seem to cope...). Perhaps most significantly for me, it's the first new year when we're not home educating any longer. Tim's done the first couple of months on his theology degree course, and is very much enjoying it - so far, anyway.

We're not really into 'resolutions' - they seem to be made only to be broken. But looking ahead, we have quite a lot of guests expected in the first six months of the year, so we hope to repaint the downstairs guest flat during January, in readiness for the first family who are coming for February half-term. We hope to have the outside of the house painted too - someone at one of the local churches is a British decorator who should be giving us a quote some time soon.

We'll have to think what to do about the carports too. We had planned to dig up some of the pavement to make a mini-garden one side, but are not sure entirely how to go about that - or whether we actually need both the carports, since we currently have two cars. We have some plants in pots which are doing quite well, but the citrus trees at least probably need to be planted in the earth as they get bigger.

I'm not entirely sure what I shall be doing long-term, so perhaps 2007 will reveal that. I'll be helping two mornings per week at the mother-and-toddler group now, and also hope to spend more time working on my home education site - the statistics show that most of the people who find it are looking for help with maths concepts of some kind, so there's a lot more I can write on that topic.

It would be nice to get to know some of our neighbours a bit better, and - connected with this - to make an effort to learn more Greek. Almost everyone has such good English that it's hard to be motivated to learn more than the basics, but now we've settled here it seems like a good idea to be able to communicate with the people who don't have English.

But beyond that, I've no idea...

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this!