Plants and rain in Cyprus

Yesterday, the forecast was for high gusts and wind, so - for once - Richard didn't go sailing.

Instead, we decided to do a bit of gardening. If that's the word. We don't have any garden as such, but we do have a patio in front of our guest flat, where we keep a good number of plants in pots. We also have a small number of plants outside the front door of the main part of the house, at the top of the outside stairs.

We knew that the two hibiscus, which had never done very well, had finally given up altogether a few weeks ago after their pots became waterlogged. We could see that our citrus trees were looking straggly, and needed pruning, and I also knew that I should replace the top inch or two of soil around them with some fresh compost.

Then there was a long planter which has lain empty for some months, and a couple of others which were away in cupboards. Oh, and three plants which Richard gave me for Christmas, which were still in their original small pots and needed to be planted properly.

And I had some birthday money.

So we went to the Cosmea Garden Centre, which is only five minutes away from where we live, and browsed. I can be very indecisive in garden centres, but this time I found what I wanted fairly quickly. We also bought a couple of bags of mixed compost, and a bag of little stones for water preservation in the summer, and some insecticide after asking for advice on aphids. Unfortunately we don't seem to have ladybirds here, so the only way to protect our plants seems to be to spray them.

When we got back from the shop, around 11.30am, the sun was directly on the patio. So we decided to wait until the afternoon.

At two o'clock, I procrastinated.

At three o'clock, I noticed that the sky was grey, and we even had a few spots of rain. When they stopped, I hurried down to deal with the plants. It rained a bit more, and then it stopped.

Richard transplanted the two cyclamen and yellow kalanchoe at the top of the stairs out of their little pots and into their planter, and they look better already:


He pruned the orange tree, then I dug out the top inch or so of old soil and replaced it with fresh compost and some white stones to retain moisture in the summer:


We did the same with the lemon tree. They both look much better. The only problem is that we've probably left it too late... they've already blossomed this year. There are one or two tiny fruit that may or may not remain; it would be nice if we had more than one of each.


It rained some more, and we took shelter, then it stopped.

I found the two unused planters, and filled them with old stones and soil from the citrus plants, then some fresh compost near the top. Then I planted an antirrhinum and a couple of petunias into each one - both bedding plants that tend to do well in Cyprus, although in previous years we've put them out around November rather than April. But at least they should last a few months before it gets too hot, and the antirrhinums may self-seed.


We couldn't find anywhere obvious to put them (this is perhaps why we hadn't used them previously...) so I put them at right-angles to the rest of the plants, near the few steps that go up to the patio from the street.


To replace the two hibiscus, I bought a fuchsia, and another plant whose name begins with C. Unfortunately, I had forgotten its name by the time we got home, and it didn't have a label. I have no idea whether the fuchsia will survive the long, hot summers of Cyprus. I haven't seen them here before. But the other plant looks fairly hardy:


In my enthusiasm, I had chosen 12 bedding plants, including three pansies. I hadn't thought about exactly where they would all go. Three more petunias went in the planter which had no plants, and I then found three medium sized individual pots for the pansies.


By the time we had finished, the patio looked a dreadful mess with soil and footprints and general dirt all over it, made worse by the light rain that had interrupted our labours every so often. It was too wet to sweep up, and there was far too much for a mop and bucket.

So, as the water shortage is nowhere near as severe as it was a year ago (there is now, I'm told, over 30% of capacity in the reservoirs) we did something very Cypriot: got out the hosepipe, and washed it down. Not as thoroughly as our neighbours would, and with my conscience pricking. But it did get it clean pretty quickly. Then I got out the mop and bucket to do the last of it, and the outside stairs which by then had gathered rather a lot of muddy footprints too.

I put the mop and bucket away. I took the photos shown above. Then I heard a crack of thunder, and hurried inside.

For the next twenty minutes or so, we had pouring rain. Enough that the roof leaked a little, and certainly more than enough to water our new plants in very effectively. Perfect timing, really.

Spring ambles towards Summer in Cyprus

When we first came to Cyprus, we didn't think Spring existed here. There are no snowdrops, no daffodils, no primroses. No clear season when apparently comatose trees and bushes suddenly show signs of new life. No glorious blossom bursting into life.

But now we realise that of course Cyprus does have a Spring season. It might feel like a British summer at present, but it's the best time of year as far as I'm concerned. Summer will come all too soon, with heat, humidity, and general apathy and tiredness on my behalf. But right now, we're at the height of Spring. How to tell? Here are a few pointers that happened this week:

• I switched the 9 tog duvet for the 4.5 tog duvet on the bed
• I stopped wearing trainers and socks, and got out my sandals and flip-flops again
• I stopped wearing a sweatshirt all day
• We kept windows open until it started to get dark
• We switched the central heating off entirely
• I had to start watering the plants on the front porch
  
• Richard didn't need to use the electric water heater to supplement the solar heating for his evening shower
• I saw this blossom near St Lazarus Church in Larnaka town:

It's not summer yet, because I'm still wearing a sweatshirt in the evening; I do need to use the water heater for my morning shower; I'm still wearing jeans rather than shorts, and Richard hasn't yet shed his sweatshirt!

Birthday and farewell again to Tim

A year ago, both Daniel and Tim were home for my birthday. It was Dan's last Sunday in Cyprus for two years, and we celebrated by spending the day in Troodos. It was a wonderful birthday.

Yesterday I had another birthday. They seem to come round every year. It was also Easter Monday in the Eastern calendar, which means that it was a public holiday in Cyprus. As was Friday. That meant that a few parcels and cards I'd been told to expect from the UK had not arrived, since the Post Office was closed from Thursday afternoon until (probably) today. That's OK. I actually quite like having things to open after my birthday.

More significantly, perhaps, I was once again extremely tired. Greek Orthodox celebrations of Easter are extensive. They take it much more seriously than we do in the UK, with fireworks and bonfires and parties, and then - on Sunday - barbecues, after fasting from meat during Holy Week, even if they didn't follow the stricter fast for the whole of Lent. Easter Monday then seems to be a day to sleep, but since I get woken by Sophia around 6am each morning, that was no good for me.

Still, by the time I'd had my shower and breakfast, I felt almost human. Richard and Tim got up around 9am and I had a few parcels and cards to open, which was very nice. Tim and Richard took some photos of me, most of which were remarkably unflattering... but this one of me with Richard wasn't too bad:

Then I realised I hadn't taken many of Tim in the 12 days he had been in Cyprus, so I took a few which were much better than the ones of me:

Since Tim was home, he made me a cake, using some techniques he learned from Richard's mother, and also some advice from other friends here in Cyprus not to use self-raising flour (since the quality here is terrible) but plain flour with baking powder. It turned out extremely well:

A friend arrived Sunday evening to stay in our guest flat, so she was with us for lunch, which was nice. In the afternoon, Tim spent some time with the cats. Here he is with Sophia:

.. and managed to check in online, at the Cyprus Airways site. That meant he didn't need to be at the airport until 4.30pm, an hour before his flight was due. He packed his main luggage in the morning, including several theology books that he wanted to take back to Birmingham, and then collected other bits and pieces for his hand luggage later on. We don't THINK he forgot anything, but may well discover something in the next few days.

The airport is only about five minutes' drive away, which is a good thing considering how often we go there:

.. and since I've taken so many pictures of Daniel at the airport, I thought I'd better take a few more of Tim too:


It wasn't as traumatic as saying goodbye to Tim last Summer, but I still had a little weep after we'd left him. I don't suppose it will ever become easy. Only four months till we see him again, though, so not as bad as last time, when we knew we wouldn't see him for eight months.

I was in bed and asleep by about 9.30 last night. We'd asked Tim to send text messages to let us know he'd got safely on the National Express coach, and when he eventually got back to my mother's house, where he lives. He sent three text messages in all. I did wake briefly each time Richard's phone bleeped, and stayed awake long enough to hear him read the messages. All went well, and to my relief I fell straight asleep again.

Sophia let me sleep until 6.30am this morning, so I feel much more refreshed.

Re-painting in our guest flat

We finished painting our ground floor guest flat a little over two years ago. Mostly in pastel shades of cream/peach/light brown - whatever we happened to have in, mostly.

In the last couple of years, we had more guests than we expected - mostly family and friends from the UK, but also some friends of friends. This year, so far, the flat has been booked almost constantly. We're really pleased about this; we hoped it would be well used, and it certainly is.

However, with only short gaps between visitors, I've been washing bedding and towels, quickly checking kitchen supplies, making up beds.. and not really doing anything else in the flat. Our guests usually leave it clean, so I've barely needed to do any dusting or mopping.

And I haven't really looked at it.

I had noticed, however, that the walls by the stairs in the main part of the house were looking rather grubby. Like this:


and this:

and had been thinking for a while that I needed to touch up the paintwork. (Colours aren't accurate in these pictures. The paintwork is actually a very pale apricot.)

This week, for the first time in months, we had a five-day gap between visitors in the guest flat. So I had more leisure to wash the bedding, and sat down for a moment in the main bedroom. I was a bit startled to notice that one of the walls looked something like this:

further along it looked like this:

.. and another wall looked like this:

I have no idea how long they have been like that. Perhaps a year or more. Maybe the marks were more visible due to bright sunshine, or maybe I was just feeling more observant. We remembered that we only painted three of the walls, so some of those marks may have been there for over two years. Maybe some of them are due to old marks creeping through the paint.

Anyway. Since we're about to enter another phase of back-to-back guests (so to speak) until around mid-June, I thought I'd better do something about these walls during this gap.

I procrastinated.

On Friday, knowing that the next person to stay was due Sunday evening, I decided - tired though I was - that I'd better get around to it. So I looked for the list I had made of all the colours we used when painting the house.

I found the list... of all the rooms in the main part of the house. The hall and stairs are the same as the living room and my study, in a shade called 'Warm Apricot 1' . I'd made a note of the paint shade for the kitchen in the guest flat, too. But there was no record of what colours we'd used in the guest flat living room or bedrooms.

Oops.

So Richard looked in our paint cupboard, and found four cans with paint that looked approximately right, although there was no Warm Apricot for the stairs. We took them downstairs. He found an inconspicuous part of the guest bedroom wall, and tried the two that looked closest.

I sat there, watching paint dry. It wasn't very interesting, but I was much too tired to do anything else. Alas, neither of the colours was correct.

So.

No left-over paint for the room, and no idea what colour it was.

Then we remembered that we had used some leftover paint just to make it acceptable for our earliest visitors, intending to re-do it at some point. Only.. that was nearly two-and-a-half years ago. So we had to options: (1) leave it (2) buy some new paint and do the whole room. It was certainly tempting to choose option (1) but although our last visitors must have coped with the strange marks on the walls, if they noticed them, I didn't feel comfortable leaving them for the next few occupants. And I definitely didn't want to think about painting towards the end of June, which is the next time the flat is likely to be empty for more than a day.

Friday was Eastern Good Friday. I'm sure when we first came to Cyprus, it was a public holiday with everywhere closed. Sure enough, the banks and Post Office were shut.. but all the shops appeared to be operating with normal opening hours. So we went to see if our favourite paint shop was open, and it was.

We decided that, rather than choosing yet another shade, we'd buy a biggish can of 'Warm Apricot 1'. We thought it would look good in the guest flat master bedroom, and we could then also use it for the marks by the stairs.

I then spent a couple of hours in the afternoon doing the first two walls of the bedroom. Once I'd started, of course, I knew we'd have to finish. Richard took over for an hour or so, doing some tricky patches around the air conditioner:

.. then I finished it. I was worried it might need a second coat, but by the time we'd washed the brushes it was 10pm and I was SO tired I could barely keep my eyes open.

Yesterday morning, Richard went out sailing for the day. He left about 8.30am, which is quite early for him. I decided to get the guest bedroom sorted out in the morning. Thankfully the paint had dried evenly, and although it's not perfect it's MUCH better than it was. Well worth doing.

The floor was very dirty, particularly the area which is usually behind the bed, and impossible to get at. So I cleaned that. I scraped scraps of paint from the light and power switches. I even managed to push the bed and bedside cabinets back, and put the curtain pelmet up.

Because of the sunlight, the camera didn't use flash for that, and the colour is close to correct in that picture.

Then I decided that, as it was a lovely sunny day, I might as well wash all the curtains from the room, since they hadn't been done for over two years and were probably very dusty. Sure enough, they dried in a couple of house, and thankfully didn't need ironing. Meanwhile, I cleaned the rest of the guest flat, including doing the bedroom windows, which of course looked extremely dirty with the curtains gone!

By late afternoon, I had the curtains back and the bed made up for our next visitor:

There was still a slight smell of paint by mid-afternoon, despite having several windows open, so I put half a cut onion in a saucer of water to absorb it. By this morning, I could barely smell paint at all.

We still haven't done anything about the marks on the wall by the staircase, which - if anything - are worse than the ones in the guest bedroom. But we can do those any time.

Whether or not we will actually get around to them remains to be seen...

Tired is an understatement

We live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood of Larnaka.

But that means that when it isn't quiet, for whatever reason, it's hard to sleep.

It's been a busy and enjoyable week. Last night, Richard and Tim worked on the recording Tim had made in the morning, to mix the sound and sort out problems, so that Tim could make a CD for his friends. I spent a quiet evening catching up with email and Facebook and so on, and then went to bed about 10pm. I read for half an hour, and then fell asleep.

So far so good.

I woke shortly after Richard got in bed, some hours later. It must have been about half-past two; I tend to have four-hour sleep cycles, and he said it was shortly after two when he got to bed. Not that he'd been working all that time, but he was reading a good book, and wasn't tired.

I was dozing off when the dustmen arrived. I hadn't expected them at all, since today is Good Friday in the Eastern church, and a public holiday in Cyprus. They usually come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our district, but I'd quite resigned myself to having no rubbish collection until next Wednesday, since of course Sunday is Eastern Easter, so Monday will be another public holiday. So part of me was glad to know that they had come. Another part of me wished they hadn't come quite so early, and that they didn't make so much noise. Cyprus dustmen are very, very noisy. They do a great job, but they don't do it quietly.

Eventually I heard the dustcart drive away. I was about to sleep again, when I heard fireworks. Ah yes. I had forgotten about fireworks throughout the Easter weekend. I believe it's midnight on Easter morning when they are officially set off. Perhaps also midnight on Good Friday; I don't remember. But in recent years, they seem to be set off at random times over the whole holiday weekend. I'm sure I must have slept for at least a few minutes, but I counted at least fifteen separate fireworks - or firecrackers, perhaps - during those wakeful hours.

Finally there was a long pause. Perhaps, I thought, everyone had finally gone to bed. I was just drifting off to sleep when ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ sounded around my head. A mosquito. When the weather in Cyprus starts to get warmer, the mosquitoes appear. Not malarial, and we don't even feel the biting any more. But they are extremely irritating in the middle of the night.

I think I caught it eventually. I also must have fallen asleep despite at least two hours of wakefulness, because suddenly it was early morning daylight, and Sophia was walking over me miaowing at the top of her voice, informing me that it was time to get up. It was quarter past six. Considerably better than quarter past five, which is when she was waking me before we put the clocks forward a couple of weeks ago, but I really wished I could have slept longer than six fifteen.

However, once it's light I can't sleep. So I got up. I had a coffee after lunch in the hope that it will keep me awake until around 9.30pm tonight. I really don't like being this tired. I find myself forgetting words, and losing track of what I'm saying or why I've gone into a room.

I hope there aren't too many firecrackers or mosquitoes tonight. At least the dustmen shouldn't come...

A week with Tim home in Cyprus

The past week, unsurprisingly, has whizzed past. It is very good to have Tim home again, even though it's for such a short time.

It's been a very sociable week since I last posted. Thursday morning, I took Tim to meet some new friends who live just a few minutes' walk away. The three-year-old daughter took to him instantly and he was persuaded to read her a story. Thursday afternoon, he went out and about with Richard doing a few errands.

Friday morning Tim went into American Academy, a local private school where he volunteered regularly a year ago. He was, I'm told, greeted with great enthusiasm. He spent the morning there, including helping another friend set up a puppet show for their end-of-year assembly.

He got home about 1.30, just in time for a lunch with 12 people, for Richard's colleagues and their families.



One family stayed chatting awhile afterwards, then Tim went to visit the church group for 6-11s, followed by leading a band practice for the inter-church youth band. That was followed by a pizza/souvlaki night for the youth group, plus sleepover (which of course really means 'not much sleep-over'), then Saturday games in the Salt Lake Park and lunch. He got back mid-afternoon, shattered!

Sunday morning we all went to St Helena's Church for their Easter service, since Tim was playing the piano - lots of good old hymns, and a packed building with plenty of visitors. Then we had invited some friends to lunch, where we ate the 'spare' turkey we had kept from Christmas, and - since there was one in the fridge, still - a Christmas pudding.

The friends stayed chatting till about 6pm... and once again I was extremely thankful for our dishwasher!

Monday, Richard took the day off, and spent a considerable amount of it mending the winch that brings our shopping up to the main part of the house. It involved a lot of driving around Larnaka asking for spare parts, and being directed elsewhere. Tim was very tired and didn't do very much.

In the evening, we were entertained to a delicious meal and Scrabble game by some other new friends who live nearby:



On Tuesday morning I helped at the Tots Easter party, which was enjoyable and went well, but left me totally exhausted! Tim had thought of coming too, but was so tired that he slept for most of the morning. In the afternoon, he got the downstairs studio sorted out and set up to do some recording, and in the evening he went to Lighthouse, the Christian group for international students, and caught up with yet more friends.

Wednesday morning, some of the youth band came over and spent the morning recording vocals with Tim in the studio. Richard's part-time bookkeeper came to lunch, then Tim went back with them to spend time in the office looking at some new equipment.

In the evening we went out for an excellent meal cooked by some other friends, who wanted Tim to help with various computer issues. Ironically we found that Richard could do part of what they wanted, and I could also do some of what they wanted, so Tim supervised a little and helped to mend a flute that was lying around...

And so the week disappeared.

This morning Tim got up late again, and we went out to lunch with the new friends he met for the first time last Thursday. Very enjoyable indeed.

I don't seem to have got a great deal done amidst all the busy whirl of socialising. But it's been great to have Tim with us. He's still here until Monday afternoon, but I know the next few days will go extremely quickly.

Tim returns to Cyprus for a break

Tim's plane was due at 11.20pm last night.

I'm not usually much use for anything after about 10.30pm, being very much an early bird rather than a night owl. But I could hardly let Richard go to the airport alone to meet our younger son, returning after eight months away. He's only in Cyprus for 12 days before he has to return to his studies in the UK.

We arrived at the airport about 11.40pm. We waited about fifteen minutes, then Richard went to move the car (since parking is free for 20 minutes, but it's quite possible to check out of the car park, then drive around and park again...) but during the time he was gone, Tim arrived.

By the time we got to bed it was about 12.45, which was WAY past my bedtime. Then I was awakened by Sophia at 6.15am. I had set my alarm for 6.30 anyway since Thursday is the day when I look after a home educated boy, who arrives at 8am.

We didn't do a whole lot today. It was very good to have Tim home again.


Tessie is pretty pleased about it too.

This afternoon Daniel came online for a while, and sent me a post and some photos to upload on his blog.

I've managed to stay awake all day, which is quite an achievement. We had a friend to supper, who needed to discuss several things with Tim, and that's probably a good thing or I would have faded much earlier. But now it's 10pm and since Sophia will, no doubt, wake me at 6.15am tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. Tim has a busy few days ahead of him.

Cats in Tim's room

When Tim left home last Summer, the cats wandered in and out of his room occasionally. Cleo sometimes slept on his bed, since she likes her privacy, but since Tim was no longer there, the other two mostly preferred to be with us.

Then in mid-November we switched our central heating on. It seemed pointless to continue to heat Tim's room, so I turned his radiator off, and kept the door closed.

About once a week I've gone in to dust and mop, when I do the rest of the upstairs. When I do that, sometimes one of the cats will rush in, and look around, and perhaps get on the bed for a few minutes. They don't find it very interesting, usually, and don't stay long. If one of them does fall asleep in there, I remove her when I go out and close the door.

As I type, Tim is flying to Cyprus for a 12-day break over Easter.

So this morning, I gave his room another clean, and made up the bed. I left the door open, and it didn't take the cats long to discover it.

First Sophia curled up on his beanbag:


I suppose it made a change from her sleeping on the beanbag in my study.

Then Cleo decided to sleep on the blanket at the end of Tim's bed.

I don't know if he'll need the blanket; weather has been warmer recently, but today it's poured with rain and feels a bit chillier again.

Five minutes later, Tessie arrived. She and Cleo do not like each other, and hissed a bit. But then Tessie jumped up on the bed too and curled up to sleep:


So for a couple of hours, at least, all three cats were happily asleep in Tim's bedroom:

Spring has sprung in Cyprus

Today, for the first time this year, I opened the door to our utility balcony mid-morning today, and felt a blast of warm air. No, we don't have a tumble drier. It was just air from outside, which was distinctly warmer than air in the house. The weather site tells me it reached 24C today, and that's in the shade. So it was probably even warmer in the sun. This is more normal for this time of year than the 20 (maximum) we have been experiencing in recent weeks.

I'm still wearing a sweatshirt. I guess I might have taken it off if I'd gone out anywhere in the middle of the day, and I certainly had a few extra windows open until mid-afternoon. But whereas I like spring, I don't really want to think about Summer coming along all too quickly, as will doubtless happen within the next few months.

So. Another post about the weather, and it's been over a week since I last wrote. Time has a way of rushing past without me noticing it these days.

Still, I did spot that today it's exactly ten years since the first book review on my book blog. There are 975 reviews there in all. I'd hoped I might get to 1000 to celebrate ten years of reviewing books, but couldn't manage that.

I didn't actually start blogging about books in 1999, I hasten to add. But ten years ago exactly, I decided to write down the titles and authors of every book I read in a notebook, along with a brief review. I did this periodically as a child, but didn't keep it up, sadly. I actually started writing the reviews in a book blog rather than on paper in about 2006 (though I still keep a review notebook for times when I'm away).

Then I decided I might as well type in all the ones I had reviewed on paper, too, with the correct dates. It took me a couple of years, off and on, to get them all entered. As I did so, I found that my reviews became longer and more involved, and - I hope - more interesting. I try to link, where possible, to a site giving a brief bio of each writer, and although I don't get a huge number of readers, I'm always pleased when I realise that people have found the blog through some obscure search, particularly when it means that someone has been able to find a book whose title they had forgotten.