Christmas Eve in Cyprus

Yesterday, I iced our Christmas cake, and did my not-very-artistic person's approximation to decoration which at least gives it a bit of colour. I also made another 24 mince pies. I even wrapped the two presents that needed wrapping, and sorted out the various parcels that had arrived in the post.

I felt so organised!

All we had to do on Christmas Eve was collect our turkey from Metro, with a few other groceries and 'nibbles' for Christmas Day. And perhaps some laundry, since the mains water would be on. And the windows really need cleaning. Oh, and we cook the turkey on Christmas Eve, so we can slice it and then simply re-heat on Christmas Day, but Richard does that part. But really... Christmas this year was going to be very straightfoward, I thought. Five friends are coming to lunch, and then Richard has to collect two colleagues in the evening, who coming for a week; he'll bring them here for some cold food in the evening but that's no trouble at all. We would buy some crackers and nice cheeses at Metro, I thought, and there would be leftovers from lunch, and of course the Christmas cake.

No problem. Why do people get so stressed out, I wondered. In the evening we watched a DVD of 'A Christmas Carol', and then I slept soundly.

We left the house shortly after 8.30am to go to Metro. I was still feeling relaxed; I'd made a careful list of the things we needed to buy - some general, since we didn't go to the supermarket last Friday, and some for tomorrow and Friday (when just about everywhere will be closed).

We had ordered a 5kg turkey about ten days ago, so Richard stood in the queue by the meat counter, while I went around the supermarket collecting things from the list, and returning every few minutes to see how he was doing. He got chatting to a lady in the queue, and I managed to find everything I was looking for. Even fresh cranberries, which only appear in Cyprus for a few days prior to Christmas. So far so good.

Browsing the vegetable section, I looked in the bargain bins where they have ready-bagged cut-price offers. Evidently they're trying to get rid of a lot of things prior to shutting for two days, since there were three bags of very nice broccoli and a large bag of french beans just sitting there. I thought I could blanch and freeze them, so I picked them up too. And enough crackers to feed several large families. And some green paper napkins in case we had run out (we hadn't. When I got home I found an identical packet which I must have bought last time we were there for the same reason).

Finally, Richard got to the front of the queue, after waiting about forty minutes in all. It was the longest queue I'd ever seen in Metro! In previous years, he's gone on his own to collect the turkey, since we did our main shopping a few days earlier. But this year, everything seemed so simple.

When the turkey appeared, it didn't look very big. It was marked as 4.7kg, and looked like a very large chicken. Still, I thought, that must be about ten pounds, and I know the old calculation for turkey was 'one pound per person' of uncooked turkey. So it should be fine for seven. We could always do some sausages too, we thought. A pity not to have many leftovers, but never mind. Perhaps there weren't any bigger turkeys this year.

The bill was about as much as two weeks' worth of groceries, plus a little over, but given that we didn't shop last Friday, and won't be shopping this Friday, I thought that was pretty good.

It had taken us nearly two hours by the time we got home... an hour longer than usual. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the crowds and the lights, but wanted to go to our PO Box to check if any more cards had arrived. So we drove there, and sure enough there were several more cards. Plus a parcel (addressed, bizarrely, to our home rather than the PO Box... but this IS Cyprus, and the postal service is strangely efficient at times). And two slips of paper saying that parcels too big for the PO Box had arrived, so we would need to collect them from the Post Office itself.

Unfortunately, the Post Office was closed. A note was on the door saying it would be shut all of the 24th, 25th and 26th. And since it's also shut on Saturdays and Sundays, I won't be able to collect these last parcels until next Monday. Never mind, it will be nice to have some extra presents to look forward to, if that's what they are.

Then we went to the office guest flat, where Richard's work friends will be staying, and realised we would need to get some milk and bread for them, at least, since not even the bakeries will be open tomorrow.

By the time we got home it was noon... and the breadmaker had just pinged, so we had lunch early, around 12.30. And I realised I was very, very stressed. I hadn't done any laundry, or cleaned the bedrooms (which I usually do on Thursdays), or the cat litter. We had piled all the supermarket shopping on the kitchen counter-tops, other than that intended for fridge or freezer, and hadn't put any of them away. I had stupidly bought a pile of vegetables for blanching, the turkey didn't look very big at all, and I REALLY missed the boys. Particularly Tim, who has done all the Christmas cooking for the past few years!

So.

We put away as much as we could. The cupboards and freezers are bulging. I started cutting up the french beans so I could at least get the blanching and freezing out of the way, and Richard walked around the corner to Orpahanides Express, so he could buy a few things for the work guests coming tomorrow.

When he got back, he said that in the meat section he saw several turkeys that were much bigger than the one we had bought, at a lower price per kilogram! He wondered if we should buy a bigger one, and freeze the one we bought at Metro for some other occasion - perhaps Easter. Orhpanides meat isn't as nice as Metro, but I was beginning to worry about the size of the Metro turkey too, so when I had finished the blanching of the vegetables, we both went to Orphanides Express. sure enough, the turkeys were MUCH bigger. There were four of them just sitting there, and the smallest said 6.7 kilograms. We ummed and aahed, and eventually chose one that looked a good shape. When weighed, it was actually a little over 9kg which in old money is around 20lb... a ridiculous amount for seven people, but should give plenty of leftovers.

I also found myself in that strange pre-Christmas mode of almost - but not quite - picking up all kinds of extra things, 'just in case'. Like frozen Southern fried chicken. Or frozen apple-and-custard strudel. Or a box of Magnum ice creams. It wasn't even as if I was feeling hungry (though they all looked unhealthily delicious) - just that feeling of 'Oh! We don't have anything like that in the freezer, maybe I should get one!' My rational self reminded my panicking self that the supermarkets are only shut for TWO DAYS and we have enough food in the house to last at least two weeks, probably considerably more.

So we only bought the turkey. Even that seemed like a slight aberration as we had already bought one a few hours earlier, but we managed to rationalise that one.

Richard made the stuffings - one lemon and mushroom, although he managed to forget the mushrooms, and one simple sausagemeat - and has put the turkey on. Of course, being a much larger one than we expected, it will take considerably longer to cook. We think it should be ready by about 9pm, which means he can start carving around 10pm... so much for a reasonably early night.

I still need to make some soup, which we're going to have as a starter for lunch tomorrow, and a trifle which I like as an alternative dessert on Christmas Day. And hang out the laundry and change the cat litter and then mop the floors...

Sigh.

All this has nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of our Saviour in a poor, and probably dirty stable, which is the single reason for our celebrating.

Happy Christmas, anyone who has manaqed to read this far.

Family newsletter 2008

According to the BBC news site, round robin letters are annoying. Personally, I enjoy getting them and I hope our friends and relatives don't find them too irritating, since we continue to send one out each year by post and/or email. Here, for the record, is this year's missive with a few minor omissions such as addresses, and a few link additions:

Dear Family and Friends,

The latest installment in the lives of our family, beginning with the boys:

... the rest of this newsletter can now be found on our family website. See 2008 Christmas newsletter

Fighting a cold

I don't get many colds. The occasional sniffle, but it's usually gone within a day or two. At the first sign of a tickly throat or runny nose, I start taking echinacea/goldenseal drops in water (vile taste, but worthwhile) three times per day, and mega-doses of Vitamin C. Several grammes per day. I also cut out all dairy products, and sugar for a day or two, and increase my garlic intake. If I feel as if a cold is starting in the evening, I stir some honey and the juice of half a lemon into hot water, and drink that last thing at night.

It usually works well. Within 24 hours, the cold virus appears to have retreated into oblivion, cowed by my immune system and all that Vitamin C. Or so I imagine.

This usually only happens once or twice during the winter, at least since we've been living in Cyprus.

But this year, I've had to fight the battle at least three times already - and it's only mid-December. The worst of winter is yet to come. Indeed, one would hardly know it's Winter in cyprus, with daytime temperatures still around 20C, and almost continual sunshine.

But two weeks ago, I felt worse than usual. My assault on the cold virus did not seem to be working for a couple of days. I nearly gave in and went to bed late one morning, but then phone rang and I had to deal with something, and the moment passed. The following day, I felt fine again.

Then it happened again, on Sunday evening this week. I took some Vitamin C and one dose of echinacea/goldenseal. It seemed to be better, so I didn't take any more. I woke in the night with a tickly throat, and pondered going downstairs to get some more ammunition, but the night was chilly and the bed was warm... so I didn't. A foolish mistake.

On Monday, my throat was distinctly ticklish. But I had to get to the Post Office. So I took my drops and Vitamin C, and had some extra freshly-squeezed orange juice for good measure. I didn't put any yogurt on my muesli, and by the time I set out around 9am I wasn't feeling too bad. I had to walk rather further than I expected, but got home feeling as if I'd succeeded in throwing off the cold.

Alas for my expectations. By lunch-time, I felt shivery. Although my throat felt better, my nose felt worse. I continued taking the echinacea and Vitamin C, and eating clementines in between meals. I had some rather hot chili hummous at lunch-time. I ate three raw garlic cloves in the afternoon, as well as putting garlic in our supper. I had hot lemon and honey at bedtime. I even put some Olbas Oil drops on my pillow, to ease congestion and help me sleep.

I knew I had to be well for Tuesday morning, since it was the day of the toddler group Christmas party. And when I woke up, I did feel somewhat better. Still sniffly, but no longer shivery or achey. The walk there was fine. The party went well. The mothers has excelled themselves with the food, representative of their different countries. And the children ate barely half of it.

So, I gave in to the temptation to have a small piece of sweet potato cake, and a small piece of banana cake, and two totally amazing chocolate truffle balls. And then as I was clearing things away, I saw a Mr Kipling mince pie with the pastry top all broken. It called my name. I LOVE Mr Kipling mince pies. Then, when I asked the chocolate truffle ball maker what the ingredients were, she said 'chocolate and cream'.

So much for giving up all sugar and dairy products for the duration of the cold.

After the party, I walked down to the main Post Office, and it was packed with people. The queues were at least four or five people long, and there's hardly anywhere to sit. So I walked through the town, the reverse of Monday's route, to the small St Lazarus Post Office. Only one person in the queue there, so I got my stamps fairly quickly. Then I sat down at the table, where there was only one other person engaged on the same activity, and got all my stamps stuck in record time. I was greatly relieved to have everything in the post at last, even if they do end up being late.

Then I walked home. And in the afternoon, I felt achey, and tired, and decidedly brain-fogged. So I repeated all the cold-fighting procedures. Surely, I thought, the cold would have to give in sooner or later.

Alas, it still hasn't done so. On Wednesdays we usually have a colleague or two for lunch, and I tend to do some baking, and make some soup (in the winter). So I made some curried chicken soup in the slow-cooker, and some tomato bread in the breadmaker, and some gingerbread in the oven. Then I made another 24 mince pies. Every so often I left the kitchen to sneeze or cough somewhat, but I'd found some Ricola Honey and Lemon cough lozenges, so I sucked those off and on, and they helped suppress the cough (which was hacking and painful rather than productive).

In the event, nobody came home for lunch with Richard, which was probably just as well as I'd hate to give anyone else this nasty cold.

This afternoon, once again, I felt tired and very achey, and not really with it. And here I am, Wednesday evening, with a cold that has lasted three days. I don't remember ever having one that went on so long. It hasn't knocked me out, and I don't think it's turned into the flu, but it's distinctly unpleasant. I now have neck-ache so I think I'm going to make my hot honey and lemon drink, and get into a nice warm bed.

Attempting to post Christmas cards to the UK

After getting our decorations up on Tuesday, and hosting the work lunch on Wednesday, I realised that I needed to write our annual family newsletter. So I did that on Thursday, and gave it to Richard to print on the office colour laser printer on Friday.

He brought 90 copies home on Friday evening, but I couldn't do anything about it then since our house group meets here on Friday evenings.

So I set aside Saturday for writing our Christmas cards, and folding the newsletters. We keep trying to cut down slightly on the number we send out; I keep a list, and if we haven't heard from someone in five years or more, we consider whether to leave them off the following year's list. So difficult, though. I hate to lose touch with people.

Still, there are now only about 70 to send to the UK, which is thirty less than it was ten years ago, even though there are now rather more local ones to write.

It took me about four hours in all, with breaks for washing and hanging out laundry and other such thrilling tasks.

Next job: making a year calendar with photos of our cats. I've done this for the past two years, and sent copies to Daniel and also our parents. I did consider not doing it this year, but had a couple of very nice shots of the cats. Not quite enough: with only three cats this year, I needed four good pictures of each of them to make a year's calendar. So on Saturday afternoon I took several more, hoping that some would be acceptable.

I make the calendar at the BigHugeLabs site - I have to upload one photo at a time, giving the correct month and year, and then save each one on my computer. Unfortunately these are not high-quality; naturally, they want customers to pay to join their service to be able to produce high quality calendars. Equally naturally, we don't wish to do that. So, the first time I made them, Richard showed me how to open each image in my photo-editing program (Arcsoft Photo Studio, which came free with the digital camera), and then paste in the image directly from the higher quality version on my computer. Then a few extra adjustments, and voila!

I started the process on Saturday, and finished it on Sunday. Sunday evening we went to the office to print the calendars. A few photos had to be adjusted, and one or two didn't come out as well as I had hoped... but never mind.

This morning, I punched the necessary holes, collated the calendars, put the ones to send out in envelopes and addressed them.

Then, feeling quite pleased with myself, I set off to the Post Office, as I always do on Monday mornings, to collect mail from our PO Box and to buy stamps for all the cards and the four calendars I'm posting.

There was mail in our PO Box. However, the blinds were up over the Post Office itself, and it wsa locked, with a 'closed' sign.

Sometimes the postmistress does pop out for five minutes, but when she does so, there is usually a notice saying 'back soon'. Not this time.

I heard in church yesterday that the former President Papadopoulos died at the end of last week. It didn't make world news, and I rarely remember to check local news websites, so I had no idea until then. It occurred tome to wonder whether today had been made an extra public holiday in respect. But the banks were open, as were all the shops nearby. So I decided that probably the postmistress was sick, and they couldn't find a substitute.

So I walked through the town - where, as far as I could tell, everywhere was open - to the main Post Office.

It was shut too, with a scribbled notice on the door saying it would be closed to the public on Monday 15th December.

It seemed like terrible timing, when so many people are trying to post things for Christmas, albeit rather later than we ought to. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I came home again, carrying the mail from the PO Box as well as all the mail I was hoping to have posted.

I've now learned that today has, indeed, been declared a public holiday, as a gesture of respect towards President Papadopoulos. It seems rather odd that only the Post Office would be closed - not even the banks. And rather annoying, too.

But, this is Cyprus. These things happen, and there's no point getting uptight about them. Tomorrow I'm helping at the toddler group party, so I shall take the mail with me and go to the Post Office afterwards. Post Offices aren't open in the afternoon (other than Thursday) in Cyprus, so it has to be done in the morning.

Cats and Christmas Trees

I didn't have any great enthusiasm for putting up Christmas decorations this year. But we decided that if we were going to decorate, we should do so before today, since we were hosting a lunch for Richard's colleagues and their families.

We didn't get around to it on Sunday, or Monday, so yesterday evening was the last opportunity. So Richard got everything out, and put the tree together - helped, of course, by the cats. Sophia was most interested in the process of piecing together the tree branches:


Tessie tried to get inside the box, before I put it away again.


We've had this artificial tree for about sixteen years now; it looks a bit small against our tall bookcases, but it's in good condition so there's no point thinking of something different. And it does look at least somewhat festive now it's up and decorated:


Of course it looks better with the tree lights on, and the house lights off, although it's hard to capture on a photo:


After the tree was up, I put a few bits of tinsel around some pictures, and several candles in their Christmas holders around the bookcases. We also put out the small, somewhat stylised Nativity scene we were given when we first moved to Cyprus.

Cleo decided to join the lambs in the stable, but was a bit large for the scene:


Today there actually were 12 of us at lunch altogether, although only 11 at any one time since one person had to leave early and another came late. We had baked potatoes with toppings, and a bit of salad. I'd made some more mince pies, most of which disappeared; someone brought some clementines, and someone else brought some chocolate biscuits. All very enjoyable, and once again I was very thankful for the dishwasher.

I ordered some presents yesterday, and got out the Christmas card list, although I haven't actually started writing cards yet...

December in Cyprus

Although the evenings are chilly, the weather is really very pleasant at the moment. I'm sure it's usually cooler than this by now, but it's been around 20C for the past week, during the daytime, with sunshine most of the time. Today it did cloud over in the early afternon, and then poured with rain for about ten minutes.. but that's the first rain in a couple of weeks.

Of course, we do still need rain desperately. But water is coming in tankers from Greece, and a new de-salination plant is being built. In the meantime, it really doesn't seem too hard to cope with mains water only being switched on for about ten hours, every other day.

The plants are doing well, enjoying the cooler weather. Right outside our front door I have three plants, all of which were given to me as house plants. But we don't do very well with plants indoors - other than our poinsettias, they all start to droop and look miserable after a few weeks. But moving them outside seems to give them a new lease of life. Here's a kalanchoe that Richard bought me about a year ago. The pink flowers died fairly quickly, but it stayed alive through the summer, and now is a mass of pink again:



More surprising, at least to me, is a chrysanthemum plant that we were given, also around a year ago. It flowered nicely for about a week, then started looking very tired and sad. I've never had a chrysanthemum last for very long, but I put it outside, and cut off the dead-heads, and kept it watered through the summer... and around the beginning of November, it rewarded us with the most amazing yellow blooms which are still going strong:



I can't quite believe it's already a week into December. I never do much in preparation for Christmas before the end of November, and then always feel caught out when the first week of December races past, almost unnoticed. I was going to buy various presents online today, until I read that it's apparently the most popular online shopping day of the year. I don't want to overwhelm the online shop servers, or get my orders confused with other people's, so I'm going to leave it until tomorrow.

I've bought a load of Christmas cards, but haven't yet written any. That will take almost an entire day, quite apart from the hour or two necessary to stick the stamps on and post them. I've jotted down notes for our family newsletter, but haven't yet found relevant photos or even typed it. We decided that if we're going to put up a tree and do some decorations, we should do them before Wednesday when Richard's colleagues and their families are coming for a festive lunch, but we haven't done it yet. Perhaps tomorrow...

It's been a busy few days, for someone like me who's an Introvert and needs a lot of time alone. On Friday, our house group met here for about 45 minutes, to eat bread and cheese, and a lentil soup I'd had simmering in the slow-cooker all day. Then we went on to the inter-church youth group 'variety night' fund-raiser, where there were mince pies and other goodies for sale. On Saturday, I baked my first 24 mince pies, since we were invited to a 'tea' in the afternoon, with more cake and other goodies. On Sunday we were out for lunch with friends.

In addition, the German lady I mentioned in my previous post stayed in our guest flat until Sunday evening; I took her out to the local supermarket a couple of times, and helped her find things - communicating with sign language, and the few words of English that she knows, and some references to her English/German dictionary. Then I took her to church on Sunday morning.

This morning was the monthly meeting of the Larnaka Christian Writers' Association; rather than meeting in the home of the group founder, we met at the Craft and Hobby Centre in Ayia Eleni Street for a couple of hours, and then had lunch together. Good value sandwiches or salads, and excellent quality!

Tomorrow I help at the Toddler group run by one of the churches, and on Wednesday is the work lunch...

I really should remember how December seems to get full of meetings and gatherings, and get everything organised for Christmas before the end of November. But somehow, it never happens.

Complex cross-cultural confusion

And no, the confusion wasn't with a Cypriot.

We have a friend, L, who is German, and works some of the time in Israel. She speaks pretty good English, and stayed with us a few times at our old house. We hadn't heard from her in about three years, when out of the blue she phoned, about a month ago. She said that she has a friend, P, who needed somewhere to stay for about five days during December. Would we possibly be able to put her up?

I explained that we had moved, and now had a guest flat available. I checked the dates, and nobody else was coming. So we said, yes, that would be fine. P, she told us, is German, and also works in Israel, and doesn't speak much English. L said she would get back to us two or three days later with the flight times, once the tickets were booked.

So far, so good.

Sure enough, L phoned, and told us the airline number. She said that P would arrive at eight o'clock pm on Tuesday 2nd December. So we put 20.00 into our Google calendar for today, and an alert on Richard's phone. On Saturday I made up a bed in the guest flat, and mopped the floors, and this morning on my way home from toddler group, I bought some bread and milk to put in the fridge.

Then, shortly after noon, I had a phone call from Richard, saying that he'd had a message saying that P was already at the airport! He didn't take the car to the office, so he had to walk home (about fifteen minutes) and then go to fetch her.

Her flight, apparently, arrived at 8am, not 8pm.

P did not have Richard's office or mobile phone number. It seems that she didn't even have our home phone number. So when she arrived, and collected her luggage, and hung around for a while waiting for Richard to pick her up, she phoned L to ask what was going on. L is currently in Germany, and did not have our numbers with her. So she had to phone someone in Israel, and tell them where to go to find our home number. But by the time she rang it, Richard and I were both out... and L did not have Richard's mobile number.

L has worked with an organisation in Limassol, so she next tried phoning them. She got through to C, someone who we know slightly, but who does not know L at all. And C did not have any phone numbers for us. But she knew someone else in Limassol, A, who knows Richard fairly well. So C phoned A, and told him what was, by now, a third-hand story.

A was rather suspicious at the story of an unknown German lady waiting at Larnaka airport for Richard, so refused to give his mobile number. Instead, he phoned Richard, and asked him if this made any sort of sense to him. Richard said that yes, we were expecting a German lady this evening....

So A gave Richard C's phone number, and C told Richard what she had heard...

.. and sure enough, poor P had been waiting at the airport for about four hours by the time Richard arrived for her. And since she'd had to check in in the middle of the night, she was very, very tired.

She's now here, and - I hope - asleep in the guest flat. She has about six words of English, it seems, and we have about six words of German (Kaffee, bitte; ein bahn strasse; stillwasser - none of them terribly useful for explaining how to get to the local supermarket, or where to find the towels).

In Cyprus, 'pm' means morning, not evening. We are now wondering if the same is true in German, hence the confusion...