Bits and pieces at the end of February

Although it's reasonably warm, the sky seems to be continually grey. We shouldn't find this surprising (after all, in the UK during winter the sky is rarely, if ever blue) but somehow we've got used to sunshine and clear blue skies, after nine years living in Cyprus. It hasn't rained much, though, which is a pity as the island still needs rain. But more is forecast. It's not till the end of May that we can pretty much guarantee constant sunshine here.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email, yesterday, in response to my message sent to Metro. They said that of the missing items we have noticed, two (veggie sausages and blackcurrant/green tea) are due to supplier problems, but should be in the next shipment. Cat litter is apparently back on the shelves, other than one brand, and although they were puzzled at my mention of almond milk, they assure me that almond juice has also returned. I assume we're talking about the same thing. The only item they will not be re-stocking is Pure margarine, due - apparently - to low demand. That's a pity, since as far as I know it's the only sort that's completely dairy-free and also avoids horrible hydrogenated fats. I must write back and ask if they have any other alternative for vegans or those who are lactose intolerant.

They did say that they always welcome feedback, so if anyone reading this in Cyprus has good - or not-so-good - things to say about Metro, let them know. Perhaps they will take them into account.

Communicating with the web-site Play.com is not so straightforward, however. They're a UK site who are usually my first choice for books or DVDs as their prices are good and they offer free postage anywhere in Europe. It's mildly annoying that they're now charging non-UK customers in euros, since I use our UK credit card and it charges an extra commission for changing to another currency, but it still works out better value than most other sites, and definitely better than buying in the rather limited bookshops on the island.

The vast majority of the time, Play.com are not only good value but speedy. DVDs are usually in our PO box about four days after dispatch. Books tend to take a couple of weeks, but then they come in a 'mailbag' rather than airmail; fair enough as we don't pay anything for postage, and I don't mind even when they take a month, as has happened once or twice.

In January we ordered four books for Tim's theology course, for the new modules he would be starting mid-February. I ordered two from Play.com, one from Abebooks, and one from Play Traders, who are Play.com's second-hand service - equivalent to Amazon Marketplace, I suppose. But with the huge advantage of free postage, just like the main site.

The book from Abebooks arrived in about a week, as did the book from Play Traders. When the two from Play.com weren't in our box by the end of January, I didn't worry. When a month had gone past, our guests were visiting and I didn't really think about it; Tim took a week's break from his studies, and said it wasn't a problem that he only had two of the books to start with. Indeed, two out of the three of his modules didn't arrive until a couple of weeks ago.

By Monday last week I was getting concerned. We decided to give it another few days, so I made an extra trip to the PO Box on Thursday. Nothing there. I even went in and asked the very friendly postmistress if by chance there was a parcel for us, but she said there wasn't. So on Friday morning I send an email to the info email address I had previously used for Play.com.

It came straight back with a message saying the mailbox was unattended, and that I should report any problems via the web-site. So I went to the web-site, found the help pages, and clicked the link for 'I have not received my order'. It told me to click the red button next to the missing items on the 'order history' page.

Fine. Unfortunately, on the order history page, only two items were showing the red button, and they were two books I had ordered early in February, and which had arrived within about ten days. Oops. Perhaps I had left it too long to report. I hunted everywhere for an email address, but there were none. There was a phone number for the UK but not one I could use from Cyprus.

So, in despair of being able to contact them (and distinctly concerned about Tim's necessary books) I clicked one of the red buttons for a book that had arrived, to see what happened. There was a comment box there, so I wrote a message saying that this particular book HAD arrived, but that I wanted to report two others which hadn't.

On Saturday morning, I had an auto-response from Play.com, saying - yes, you've guessed it - that they were sorry about my missing delivery, and would dispatch a replacement as soon as possible. A replacement for the item which had arrived, which I did not want replacing. Sigh. Evidently they had not read my comment. Still, I hoped a real person might do so before the parcel actually got sent - after all, someone presumably has to actually put the items in the jiffy bags and get them addressed.

On Sunday, I received an email saying that my missing item had been dispatched. Oops. Too late, then. However... this email DID have a phone number that could be used from abroad, which I was supposed to ring if the original parcel actually arrived, so I could return the replacement. But I could only call on Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm.

Monday morning, I went to the PO Box again, wondering if the parcel might have arrived at last. It hadn't. So at 11am (which is 9am UK time) I phoned the number, wondering if that too would be some automated system. To my slight surprise, it was answered almost instantly by a helpful man to whom I explained what had happened. He told me he would send out the missing books at once, and that there was no problem about the replacement book that I didn't want - all I had to do was send it back and they would refund my postage. He even sent a confirmation email for that, and I had an auto-email saying that the correct books were dispatched later that day.

So, we shall see...

Supermarket update

This morning we went for our weekly trip to the supermarket again. Metro (I only discovered today that they have a web-site) is our favourite, and we usually go there first thing Friday morning. (Well, we actually go around 9am usually, which is almost the middle of the morning for me, but for Richard it's first thing).

Last week I mentioned several missing items, which worried us somewhat. This week we were relieved to see that the shelves didn't look quite so empty as before. Of the items we could not find last week, we did find:

Walls sausages, frozen (I bought two packs)
Bertolli margarine (I bought four containers - only 250g size)
Rombouts brand coffee (though not the style we usually buy)

However there was still no sign of any kind of vegetarian sausages, dairy-free margarine, blackcurrant-and-green-tea or almond milk. Nor any cat litter, of any variety. Just as well I managed to find two of the last ones in the country last week...

The Marmite shelf was looking a bit depleted too, so I bought two jars, just to be on the safe side. Large ones aren't available here so the largest size we can get is 250g.

Since I found the website for Metro, and since they have a form to fill in for feedback or comments, I sent a note to let them know we were missing these items and hoped they would soon stock them again. I don't know if it will make any difference, of course.

The Gas-man Cometh

In Cyprus, there is no 'town gas' (or mains gas). Most people have gas cookers, however, and use bottled gas to power them. At our last house, this is what we did. Each gas bottle lasted about two weeks before we had to change it; we could buy new ones at the supermarket or have them delivered. We opted for delivery, thinking the 25c charge was worth it to avoid the back problems that seemed to go along with carrying heavy gas barrel around. We kept five of the bottles, so had to phone to have more delivered about once every two months. When we moved here in 1997 each one cost about £2.50 to refill; by the time we moved last summer, they had more than doubled in price.

At our new house, the ovens are electric, but the hobs are all gas. More significantly, there is gas-powered central heating. Small bottles of gas would last almost no time in the winter, so the gas is kept in a huge barrel that sits at the back of one of the carports. When we moved, the previous owner told us that the gas man would arrive every two weeks to top it up. As described here, we didn't actually see the gas-man until the start of November, but until we started using central heating regularly, it didn't matter. Just using the stove-top hobs requires relatively little gas, after all.

Payment schedules are pretty flexible in Cyprus. The first time the gas-man came, he filled up our barrel and told us it would be about £50. He asked whether we wanted to pay then, or next time. So we opted for 'next time', as we didn't happen to have that much cash on us. Then, as we were away from Cyprus for most of November, we left the cash in an envelope, in case he came again..

The next time I saw him was at the end of the first week in December. I paid him for the first time, and he asked if we were using the central heating. Then he said he would come every two weeks during the winter. We weren't really sure how long the gas would last, with heating on for a couple of hours each morning and evening (but then we weren't heating the guest flat) but by the time three weeks had past, we worried a bit that we might run out. Of course we didn't expect him over the Christmas break, and as the New Year break approached I became even more concerned.

Then he arrived, about 5pm on the day before New Year's Eve. He said it was a busy time of year! Richard asked if he would take a cheque, which made life easier, so we paid him for both the previous delivery and that one, so we were up-to-date.

Then we didn't see him for nearly two months. I'm not sure quite how we managed to miss him, as there's usually at least one person in the house, but we were relieved to know that the gas wasn't running out. In our mail-box we received bills dated 19th January, and then 6th February, letting us know he had filled up. I thought perhaps he would be back again early this week, and made sure I was up and dressed by about 8am each morning, leaving vast amounts of cash in an envelope in case he came when only Tim was about.

But there was no sign. On Tuesday I heard a loud noise, and saw a huge blue gas van delivering gas to our neighbours, but although I couldn't really remember, I didn't think our man had a blue van. Anyway, it drove off again without coming here.

Today, I'd almost forgotten about it. The weather's getting warmer, and I realised that if the gas did run out, it wouldn't be a disaster. We could always cook on our various electrical appliances, and we have a couple of electric heaters (and an air-conditioner that will switch to producing heat, if needed). I was a bit later getting things done, and - wouldn't you know it - just as I was getting out of the shower, around 8.30am, I heard the doorbell and a loud knock on the door. And a truck outside.

Richard and Tim were still asleep, so I threw on my clothes, pulled a towel over my hair (feeling thankful I don't have the long hair I used to have), pulled on my slippers, and raced downstairs, just in time to see the truck starting to drive away. Happily, the driver saw me and stopped. 'I thought you were not in Cyprus!' he said. I said I was in the shower - which was probably obvious from the wetness of my hair - and that yes, we did want gas.

Then I wrote him a rather large cheque for this visit and the last two. He asked for a phone number so that next time he can ring to check if someone is going to be in before delivering, which sounds like a good idea.

I'm greatly relieved that we're not about to run out of gas. We so appreciate having central heating!

Ash Wednesday

Tim had a busy day today. There were two services for Ash Wednesday at St Helena's Church, where he's the organist, and he might have been playing at both of them. The first was at 9.30am so he got up unusually early (for Tim) shortly after 7.30. Much to the disgust of our scheduling cat Sophia, who tried to herd him back into bed again!

He was also assisting in a puppet show as part of an assembly at one of the local schools, theoretically at noon, with a rehearsal at 11am so he didn't come home after the service (at which there was, after all, no music and only about 12 people). The assembly ended up being late so he wasn't home till 1.30pm. In the afternoon he did his hour's practise on the piano, then worked on his theology course; after supper he had to go back to church for 7pm for an evening service (where he did play). I don't think I've ever been to an Ash Wednesday service, despite nearly 40 years of being an Anglican in the UK. Apparently ashes are put on people's heads, made from burning last year's palm crosses (from Palm Sunday).

As for me - well, my day started much like yesterday. A little more relaxed, as there's no toddler group today, and since Richard's away we weren't expecting anyone for lunch - usually the bookkeeper, who only works on Wednesdays, comes to lunch with us when he's in at the office.

So I started filing the various paperwork (bills, receipts, etc) which I dealt with yesterday, then decided to do a bit more filing. We seem to have mountains of paperwork, and neither of us is very good at sorting it. It lives in the study, taking up increasing amounts of space.

We do have to keep financial records for 6 years, since we're still registered as self-employed in the UK, filling in tax returns annually for the UK tax office. To be on the safe side, I keep 7 years' worth, and have them in box files sorted by year. Of course, we probably don't need to keep ALL financial records - supermarket receipts and water bills from 6 years ago aren't likely to be of any interest to a tax inspector - but I keep them all anyway. Well, almost all. I have started throwing away small till receipts (60c for bread rolls on a Sunday evening, for instance...) but even that goes somewhat against the grain.

Anyway, today I decided that my bulging current files were getting too large. So I emptied out the box file containing the 1998-1999 financial records, re-labelled it, and filled it instead with the 2005-2006 paperwork. Then went through the stuff I wanted to throw away, ensuring I tore out and destroyed bank account details and full names where relevant.

Of course it all took far longer than the half hour I expected, as I got inspired to sort out really ancient tax information (child benefit letters from 1996... requests to fill in tax returns from 1995....) and a whole folder full of 'miscellaneous' which had sat at the bottom of the cupboard for the past six months. Mostly rubbish, with one or two items of nostalgia.

Then I sorted out a few items that had moved from the guest flat to the main part of the house while our visitors were here last week, and returned them to our homes. Then I tackled the job of trying to sort out our vast amounts of piano and other music. We have one elderly piano (in the guest flat living room), one keyboard/drumset/several guitars etc (in the studio), and one digital piano (in the main living room). I made some rough categories and organised them in a way that seems to make sense.

Although it's satisfying to have things sorted, it's somehow exhausting - not physically but mentally. To relax, I sat down and did a code-cracker puzzle followed by a Sudoku. It's like exercising a different muscle, I suppose. Different cognitive processes.

So that took up most of my morning...

I don't seem to have done much this afternoon. I wrote several emails, some of them quite long. Read blogs. Looked on online bookshops at various theology books that might be of use to Tim (but mostly are out of print). The computer can take up so much time, and I'm never entirely sure why.

Shrove Tuesday

Every so often, people as me what I 'do' now the boys are no longer being home educated. And sometimes I feel the need to write a lengthy post outlining what happens on a fairly typical day.

Of course no two days are identical, and today isn't just any old day, but I feel inspired anyway, so...

6.15am - Woke up. On my own. No cat walking over my face or knocking over lamps! Richard's in Egypt for a couple of days so he wasn't there either. It was very peaceful.

6.20am - Went downstairs to make a cup of orange-and-green-tea. Orange being the fruit, green the colour. Not an ugly kind of stripy tea. At the start of the year I decided to get over my caffeine addiction so I gradually cut down on my two daily cups of coffee, until finally I gave them up. Fruity green teas are much more refreshing, anyway. Oh, and I put out some more cat food and fresh water.

6.30am - Took sanctuary in my study after stroking various cats and letting them in and/or out as required. I find I need what we used to call 'Quiet Times' in evangelical circles in the 1980s. I'm currently re-reading 'Your God is too Small' - and various bits of the Bible. And, as Richard would put it, I chat to God about the day ahead, the family, various situations I know of. And drink the orange/green tea, of course.

7.30am - Put on the electric water heater. Solar power is fine in the summer, but it just doesn't get water hot enough for showers in the winter. Then I unloaded the dishwasher. I still love being able to say that. I appreciate my dishwasher (which we've had since we moved last summer) every day. Then squeezed a few oranges - so inexpensive here, though I do sometimes miss the orange tree from our other house - and clementines, so we'd have some fresh juice for breakfast. Using the electric juicer, of course.

7.50am - The water was hot enough, so I did a quick clean of the bathroom (two minutes) and had my shower. Then gathered up some laundry to put in the washing machine, and set that going. Then breakfast - muesli topped with some of the fresh orange juice, and a good dollop of thick Greek yogurt - and a glass of juice. Then washed the juicer.

8.20am - A quick dust of the dining-room and kitchen. We get a lot of dust in Cyprus so I do the main rooms a couple of times each week with a feather duster thing that works very well. Then a dry mop of the floor - which is all tiled, no carpets anywhere - followed by a wet mop. And a quick clean of the loo/cloakroom.

8.45am - Woke Tim to let him know I was going out, wrote a card for an upcoming birthday, let various cats in and out as required, and then walked to the Larnaka Community Church hall, where I help at Mothers-and-Toddlers on a Tuesday. I put out the chairs, the rugs, the tables, the toys etc, and then mostly work in the kitchen. Today the main leader was making pancakes as it's Shrove Tuesday - I watched in amazement as she threw ingredients in a bowl without measuring them, whipped them to a perfect batter, then used THREE frying pans at the same time to produce perfect pancakes, which were much appreciated by the mothers. Probably more so than the children.

11.30am - Helped clear up after the group, putting away toys and chairs, vacuuming rugs etc.

11.45am - Walked to Post Office, as we're expecting some books and I needed to post a card and a letter. Only a bank statement in the box. Oh well. I'll go again on Thursday.

12.00noon - Walked home.

12.15pm - Felt a bit tired and decidedly warm. Let cats in and out as required. Folded and put away laundry still on the line from yesterday, and hung out today's from the washing machine.

12.30pm - Tim was out at a rehearsal for a puppet sketch, then going on to his piano lesson, so I decided to have lunch early. Toast topped by humous, cheese and warm baked beans. Mmmm.

12.45pm - Switched on computer. Quickly read about 40 emails that had arrived. Vegged out for half an hour on the quote-puzzler site, followed by today's IronSudoku. Medium level, quite satisfying.

1.15pm - Checked website statistics, glanced at the news. Read a few blogs via Bloglines, which alerts me to new posts in about 50 blogs I read regularly.

2.00pm - Feeling a bit chilly, so made some decaf coffee. Let cats in and out as required.

2.10pm - Caught up on accounts. Which sounds straightforward but despite having done a maths degree many years ago, I'm not at all good at accounting. Just better than Richard, so I'm the one who does it. I don't actually mind, once I get started, and it's good to be able to sort through the various receipts and bills stacked up on my desk and get up to date. Even more satisfying is to count the cash I have in my purse and discover it matches the amount that Quicken thinks I should have. And even MORE so to log onto online bank accounts and find that they, too, match the figures. I paid two utility bills online, and this month's Barclaycard, and transferred some money to a savings account.... so easy from the comfort of my study!

3.00pm - Read more blogs. Spent fifteen minutes at the Babble site. Over 300 words in today's grid so I wasn't going to finish it, but I managed to find 100. Then I did some updates at my home education site - just minor ones, but that too takes time.

4.00pm - Wrote entries at two of my other blogs, and submitted one of them to a blog carnival. Wrote a couple of emails.

5.00pm - Read more blogs. Looked more at the BBC online news. Wrote two or three emails. Decided to write about today in this blog....

6.15pm - Tim was cooking this evening (hence my extended computer time this afternoon) - he makes excellent curries and had made garlic naan bread too. Mmmm. He had thought about making some pancakes, but neither of us was hungry by the time we'd eaten a large curry. And we chatted a bit, and I let various cats in and out as required...

6.45pm - Back to finish this blog entry. Which is what I've been doing for the past half-hour, and when I've posted it I shall switch the computer off and go to clean up the kitchen which probably looks like a minor bomb-site after Tim's been working there. Then I'll put out the rubbish as the bin-men come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tim's out this evening at the church international students' group, so I shall probably do some peaceful reading once the kitchen is clean.

Green Monday and a Power Cut

Today is the first day of Lent in the Greek Orthodox Church.

This year, unusually, Western and Eastern Easter fall on the same day (April 8th) so this week is the start of Lent for us all - however we have two days less in the Western/Protestant church since of course Shrove Tuesday is tomorrow, and Ash Wednesday, the day after, is the first day of Western Lent. Perhaps it's due to different methods of counting 40 days, but it seems odd to me that there would be two days' difference.

In theory, the Greek Orthodox Christians fast from meat during Lent. In practise, in Cyprus, most of them take little or no notice of this, although some do cut out meat during Holy Week (ie the week before Easter). When we first came to Cyprus, we were careful not to have a barbecue during Lent, not wishing to offend any of our neighbours. Eight years later, there is meat available everywhere, and few vegetarian options in restaurants.

I only wish some of them would think of fasting from cigarettes, since smoke is also around almost everywhere, including restaurants and public buildings. At best there's a small no-smoking area, but as it's usually in the same room as smoking, it hardly makes any difference. At least they've made supermarkets and banks non-smoking, as well as the airport, so that's a start.

Many of the Cypriots go on picnics today, which is known as Green Monday, and is a public holiday. The roads are usually packed with people out for the day. Richard took the day off but we haven't done much.

At 12.30, just before lunch, my computer suddenly switched itself off and we realised we had a power cut. These happen occasionally, not usually lasting for very long. Not a huge problem in the middle of the day. I was pleased that the washing machine had finished, as had the breadmaker, so I could hang out the laundry and we could eat the warm bread. We have a kettle that works on the gas hob, so we could make coffee after lunch - and as it's winter, the house isn't particularly hot so we didn't worry over-much about the fridge.

The power cut lasted two hours. By the end of it we were realising just how much we rely on electricity! Water pressure was poor - it's usually pumped electronically. The heating, although powered with gas, is also pumped by electricity and the timers are electric. The hob on the stove-top is gas, but the oven is electric - as is, of course, the regular kettle, the microwave, the steamer, the juice extractor, the dishwasher...

Perhaps the electricians were all out on picnics, with their mobile phones switched off. Two hours did seem a long time to be without electricity, and it was clearly a fairly widespread problem as someone who had popped into Richard's office (about a mile away) said there was a power cut there too. Meaning he had to go and start all the computers up again once the electricity was back on again.

(For anyone interested in Daniel's life on the Doulos, he's currently in the Philippines. There are some recent blog entries at http://brummieatsea.blogspot.com)

Imported goods starting to disappear...

Every so often, in Cyprus, some imported item vanishes from the shelves of our local supermarket - and it seems to be a temporary island-wide problem since all the other supermarkets stop stocking whatever it is too. That happened one year with vanilla essence, and another time (more significantly) with Marmite. It once happened with Linda McCartney veggie sausages, too, and a few other items. But each time before this year they reappear after a month or so. We were warned that this kind of thing happens from time to time, and told not to worry about it.

So, about three months ago when Pure margarine (the dairy-free soya version) disappeared, I wasn't too worried. It was a bit of a nuisance as Tim tries to avoid dairy products completely as they give him glue ear. But we don't do that much baking, and we found other products that had very small amounts of dairy products to substitute - or Bertolli, which we use as a spread.

But it didn't return.

A couple of months ago I realised that veggie sausages were no longer available. I much prefer them to regular sausages, but it wasn't a huge deal.

They haven't returned, either.

About a month ago I looked for my favourite London Fruit & Herb brand blackcurrant and green tea, which I like to drink in the morning. That, too, had vanished. There was still orange and green tea, and multi-packs, so I assumed they'd just temporarily run out of the blackcurrant.

But it's still not there. Nor were there any multi-packs this week - just the peach (which I find rather artificial) and the jasmine (which I don't like at all).

Bertolli has gone, too. And the frozen Walls sausages Tim loves. And Rombouts brand of filter coffee, which Richard drinks. And almond milk, which Tim has on cereal.

But worst of all, there was no cat litter. It wasn't just the type we usually get that was missing - the entire shelf, where usually there are at least three varieties and several bags, was empty.

What is going on?

Richard said he thinks he might have heard something about a dockers' strike - but if so, it's been going on a long time. And you would think the supermarkets would put up a notice somewhere, if they really are having trouble with imported goods.

Of course there are still plenty of local products available, and it's better for the ecology to use local items as far as possible, but there just aren't equivalents to most of these items. Cyprus-made sausages are not very nice at all, and they don't do a veggie version. Coffee isn't grown here at all, so it will be a big problem if that runs out.

As for cat litter... well, I thought rapidly. I guessed the other big supermarkets might also have run out, so on the way back from our weekly shop I called in at our local small supermarket, Kleitos. To my great relief they had three bags of cat litter remaining. The most expensive brand, but at least it was something. So I bought two of them immediately.

We're having quite a few visitors in the next few months, but most of these items aren't really transportable. So we just hope that whatever the problem is will soon be resolved.

No fumbling allowed....

We've had friends from our church in Birmingham (UK) staying in our downstairs flat for the past few days. They were surprised at the size - there are five of them and there's been plenty of space. The weather has been a bit dubious with some rain, but it's still a lot warmer than England at present, up to about 18C at times, and sunny too, off and on.

Before they arrived, we did a few last-minute jobs around the flat after finishing the painting, and bought a new duvet for the double bed in the main guest room. We chose an inexpensive one that wasn't too thick - we do have some blankets as well - since the weather is generally warmer than it is now.

We should be used to typos and mis-translations into English that appear on many items here, but I was still surprised at the number of errors that crept into the packaging on the duvet. And we were particularly amused at the instructions telling people not to fumble...

A plumbing job that cost minus 40c...

This morning I pottered around our guest flat, sorting out yet more of the books, tidying up various clutter, doing a bit of cleaning, and so on. And I put some towels in the washing machine.

Now, this is our old washing machine, one we bought nearly eight years ago, so it's mostly in retirement living in the guest flat. It was last used in October - quite a bit when we had a family of six staying for just over a week, and then once or twice when I finished washing their sheets and towels after they had left. Since then we've used a few hand towels downstairs, and some of them in the bathroom cupboard had got a bit grubby, so I thought I'd give them a wash today.

After about an hour, still doing other things, I noticed that there seemed to be an awful lot of foam inside the machine. And a lot of water, too. More than there should have been. I checked the dial, and it was on the third or fourth rinse, but water evidently wasn't draining away. Indeed, as I watched, foamy water started bubbling out of the powder drawer.

A few years ago this machine had a similar problem - something had gone wrong with the spinning mechanism. We called out the man who knows how to do these things, and he charged us about £15 which included a new part - I thought that was pretty good. In the UK they charge about £50 just to step over the threshold.

However Richard said he'd have a look at it this time. We did wonder if lack of use had somehow gummed up the waste pipe. Or maybe there was too much scale. Or something.

So he moved the machine out, and took off the top and side, and watched it. It spun and spun, but nothing came out. He unhooked the pipe and held it over the bathroom sink - and nothing came out.

So then we put a bowl on the floor and put the pipe over that, to see if water would drain out naturally. It did. Loads of it. We had to keep emptying it... it was very foamy, too. But there clearly wasn't any problem with the pipe itself, since water could - and did - come out of it. Except when the machine was trying to pump it out.

When most of it had drained away, we put the machine onto its rinse-and-spin setting. Water went into the machine, no problem. It rinsed for a few minutes, then it tried to drain. Nothing happened. It tired to spin. Well, it DID spin. But nothing came out, until we put the pipe down low again, and then it drained out via gravity. Just occasionally, when we held the pipe up to the sink, something did come out - but not much. It was very odd.

Once we'd managed to get most of the water out by this messy but effective method, Richard carefully tipped the machine on its side to have a look at the pump. He wondered if something had broken loose.

Within a couple of minutes, he had discovered the problem. Two 20c coins had lodged themselves at the entrance to the waste pipe. Any time the pump tried to work, they blocked the water!

I've no idea how they got there - well, I guess they were in somebody's pocked, undiscovered. But when we've left coins in pockets before, they've just clanked around in the drum, not got out to block the pipe.

Still, I suppose it was nice to think that instead of paying out £15 (maybe even more), we had actually gained 40c.

A Cautionary Tale

Since our first visitors of the year are arriving this weekend, we decided to paint the last unpainted room in our guest flat last night - the second bedroom. We couldn't decide on a colour, but thought that any of the paint we'd used anywhere else in the house would be fine, and we knew there was plenty left over. So Richard found a paint-can that felt reasonably full, and we could see a kind of light peach colour around the lid. It looked like the paint we used for our living room upstairs, the study, and the stairs and landing.

We started painting. It went on very smoothly and took not much more than an hour. It didn't even look too streaky. When we'd finished, there was a little bit of paint left in the tray, as often happens. We discussed the fact that along the stairs, even though we only painted them six months ago, a few finger marks have started appearing. I've tried wiping them off, but either nothing happens or the paint itself starts getting paler. The Cyprus paint range is better than it used to be, but doesn't seem to include washable matt paint.

So we had a good idea. I'd use what was left in the paint tray to go over the marks on the wall of the stairs. I did worry that the colour might have faded, or that it could be a slightly different batch, and was a little reluctant... but then the finger marks really didn't look very nice. So I got started, and - as you do - discovered several other marks before I'd used up the remaining paint. In fact I painted patches on just about every bit of wall there was. It did concern me that the paint looked rather darker than what was there before, but then paint always does look different when it's still wet... doesn't it?

When I got up this morning, I was not impressed. Everywhere I looked were patches of paint that looked completely different from the rest of the wall. Ugh. If anything, it looked worse than the finger marks. My first thought was that we would need to spend this evening re-painting the entire stairs and landing... and it wasn't an easy job, as some of the higher spots are very difficult to reach. But it really seemed as if the old paint had faded, or the newer paint hadn't mixed in properly.

As I gradually woke up, I started wondering if by mistake we'd used the paint from Tim's room, because it didn't even look like a slightly different shade. The new paint looked significantly darker. I couldn't remember what any of the paint names were, but I did remember that the living room etc and Tim's room actually had the same basic colour, with the difference being that the living room was shade '1' (ie very pale) and Tim's room shade 3.

So I found the paint we had used last night. Was it 1 or 3, I wondered?

I was mystified to find it wasn't either. It had a code number on it, but no name (and I know there was a name somewhere...) and nothing else.

Then I had an 'aha' moment. The paint in our cupboard isn't ONLY the paint from this house. It also has some of the left-over paint from our old house. Tim's room there was also in a peachy kind of shade... maybe THAT was what we had used on the downstairs bedroom.

I hunted around and found a tin SND 1. Yes, that must be the one we wanted. So all we had to do was go over the wrong paint with that, and everything would be fine. I went and told Richard (who was still in bed) and he said he'd do it first thing.

As I was about to go out to mother-and-toddler group (where I help in the kitchen) I thought about the dangers of making assumptions. We had assumed, last night, that the paint we were using was the one matching our stairs. It wasn't. I was now assuming that SND 1 was what we needed, but was I sure....?

At the last moment, I remembered that I wrote down the names of the colours we used, when we bought them. Impressive, I thought at the time. I even filed them away in our 'new house' folder. So I got it out, and found the paperwork. And there I saw that SND 1 was actually the colour we used in our kitchen and dining room. SND stands for SunDown. The colour we wanted was Warm Apricot.

So, back I went to the paint cupboard. And there I found, right at the back, a tin of WA 3. WA - Warm Apricot. That's what we used in Tim's room here. So far so good.

I couldn't find WA 1 anywhere. Although I did find one large can that had the label obscured by paint, and a colour around the lid that looked right. Surely it had to be that...

I went and told Richard again. I left the can in the kitchen. I told him to check carefully rather than just painting wildly like I did last night....

And, thankfully, it did turn out to be the right shade. He went over my attempts, and it now looks fine.

Moral of this story: never make assumptions about colours of paint. Particularly if you're painting after dark, by artificial light. It's dangerous.

.. and yet more rain!

Yesterday was fairly dry, though distinctly chilly. For the first time, we ran the central heating all day.

I awoke this morning to the sound of rain, yet again. Pretty noisy around here with so many metal carports. I go out to our PO box on Mondays, a walk of about 2km each way, mostly down a main road. The rain was still pouring down by 9am so I put on my kagoule, grabbed some plastic carrier bags for any mail, and took my umbrella. It wasn't too windy, so the umbrella protected most of me but by the time I got home again the legs of my jeans were drenched.

Still, it was actually quite exhilarating in a strange sort of way. Chilly, too. About half way to the Post Office I wished I'd thought to pick up some gloves.

The forecast is for more of the same with night-time temperatures down as low as 4C. We certainly need rain; there have been rumours of water restrictions again this summer, after a very dry December and January. I really hope this current rain will make sufficient difference. Of course there also needs to be snow in the Troodos mountains, which apparently provides most of the water for the reservoirs when it melts in the spring... but it's cold enough. And the SkiCyprus webcam is showing at least some snow.

For families planning to come to Cyprus from the UK for February half-term in the next couple of weeks ... make sure you bring waterproof clothes and warm jackets!

After the rain

This morning I had to make a detour as I walked to church. One of our neighbouring streets, which I usually walk down, looked like this:


Yes, still at least 15cm under water, despite the rain having stopped some time in the night. Drainage is NOT good in Cyprus, but in 9 years I haven't seen flooding this bad...

Rain....

Just in case anyone thought it was always warm and sunny in Cyprus, let me disillusion you.

January and February are usually somewhat chilly. 5-10C overnight, 12-20C in the daytime. And while the sun does shine most days, at least some of the time, there are other days when I start to wonder if we should be building an ark...


Of course it's hard to capture the extent of the rain in the rapid click of a camera shutter. Note that the sky is greyer than it looks, and the rain has been pouring down heavily since at least 3am this morning. I know because Sophia woke us up around that time. Whether she was worried about the noise, or telling me that one of the other cats was out, or hungry, or just wanting attention is unknown. Suffice it to say we were not impressed.


This is the 'view' from my study window, over the rooftops nearby, possibly showing a bit more of the rain. That vertical line slightly to the left of the centre is the drainage from the balcony outside our bedroom which is directly above the study.