Tim's 21st birthday

The main reason we are in the UK at present, rather than any other time, is so that we could be with Tim for his 21st birthday. Nearly two years ago, we had to fly all the way to Malaysia to be with Daniel for his 21st (which coincided with Richard's 50th).

Tim's first comment was one of surprise at how many gifts and cards were awaiting him. Having lived in Cyprus, he's used to the vagaries of the postal service, and the tendency of some people to send parcels containing presents for us all - sometimes including Christmas ones, which would arrive any time from September until early December. But this year, having seen so many relatives recently, there was a large pile on the table:

He opened cards first. Here are the ones that had arrived (though more came later):

The first gift he opened was from our friends John and Heather, who are Tim's godparents. He was surprised and delighted to be given a traditional style pocket watch! He said it was something he'd always wanted, but never thought he would own. He then wondered how to wind it, and how to set it... and we realised that he has never before owned a wind-up watch!


He played around with the settings on my camera to get a nice picture of the watch:

We then had to remind him to open his other parcels! These were all things bought from his 'wishlist' - but since he set it up a long time ago, and adds things to it as they occur to him, he'd quite forgotten that most of them were there.

Here are three CDs he was given, reflecting his somewhat eclectic tastes in music:

Here are the books he was given by various relatives: four fantasy fiction, and three useful books for his studies. Three generous cheques are sitting there too:

Three DVDs from his wishlist. Mr Holland's Opus is one of my favourites too. We have it in Cyprus. We haven't yet seen Mama Mia, though Tim tells us we should. But he doesn't think we'd like 8 simple rules, which is apparently an American TV series:

Our one disappointment was that the present we had ordered for him had not yet arrived. He hadn't actually decided what he'd like until last Thursday, which didn't help; up until then he had been asking for a bike. Then he decided it wasn't such a good idea after all. I suggested several possibilities - since it was his 21st birthday, we wanted to mark it with something special. Eventually he agreed that he did really want a digital SLR camera, and we were able to find an older model which was much less expensive than a brand-new one, but exactly what he wanted.

We were very pleased when a courier arrived with it mid-morning, although it meant there was no chance to wrap it up. That didn't worry Tim unduly:

He soon sorted out the various parts that came with it, and fitted the (new) lens he had bought inexpensively from Ebay to go with it:

For many years Tim has been chief cake-maker in our family. I think he's made all our cakes, including his own, since he was about 13. But he's made a lot of cakes recently for family visits, and didn't feel like making one this year. So it was up to me. Thankfully it turned out all right:

I had bought a pack of 24 candles, but six of them were pink and Tim really does not appreciate pink. So I just put on seven: one for each three years of his life.

In the evening he'd asked if we could take out a few of his closest friends to an Indian restaurant. Two of them were unable to make it, so there were just eight of us:

We had a very good evening, with excellent - and very filling - food.

As a final picture, this is Tim with his best friend, who has recently become his girlfriend, Jo:

So, I am now officially the mother of two adults.

Several more days out of Cyprus, and a walk in the park

Since last Wednesday, we've seen most of my family, which has been enjoyable. One brother and sister-in-law came for the day on Wednesday, the other came on Saturday and stayed the weekend. My sister and her family came on Sunday, so there were ten of us for lunch. On Thurday we drove the half hour into Alcester to see my father and his wife for the day.

Friday lunch-time we went out with the new vicar of Christ Church for lunch, so we could get to know each other somewhat, and so he could learn about Richard's work. On Sunday Richard did a ten-minute chat in the morning service, and a longer tea-time presentation with discussion in the afternoon.

Since my family were still here, I opted out of the tea-time meeting, and instead went for a walk with my sister and her family, and their dog Dylan. I'm by no means a dog person, but Dylan is really a very amenable and friendly dog.

The sun was shining yet again - surprisingly, although there have been two or three days of rain in Cyprus since we left ten days ago, it hasn't rained here at all! We walked to Highbury Park, and since we don't get much greenery in Cyprus I took a few photos:



What surprised us all was to see several patches of crocuses around the park. We all thought they were winter flowers only. If they're not crocuses, they're something remarkably similar:

Out of Cyprus, Day Six

On Tuesday, we had lunch with a friend whom I've known since 1971, since we were at secondary school together. She works near Birmingham University, so we arranged to meet on the steps of the main library. Despite my having attended university at Birmingham for three years, in the early 1980s, I had no memory at all of where to find the library. Fortunately, Richard knew exactly where it was and led us straight there from the only car park we could find that didn't require a permit.


We think of Birmingham as being one of the old red-brick universities. It certainly has a lot of red bricks, but in fact was only established 100 years ago.

Naturally I took a photo of Old Joe, the clock tower:


We met our friend at 12.15, and she took us to a newly-opened Starbucks in the Muirhead Tower. She treated is to sandwiches and coffee, and we even found some comfortable seats to sit and chat:

Since there's no evidence from that photo to show where we were, we opted for a mug-shot too:


Our friend had to return to work after all too short a time, so Richard and I decided to go into Northfield for a while. It used to be one of our favourite shopping centres, and although I'm not a fan of shopping in general, I felt as if we should at least look at a few more shops while we're here.

The indoor shopping centre looked much the same (although I'm sure it used to be called the Grosvenor centre... pronounced 'Grove-ner').. except for road-works outside:


In the main shopping street there were clearly moves to increase and improve the pedestrian areas. It reminded me a bit of the road works in Larnaka, except that the area was properly fenced off (a good move), and the workers were all wearing hard hats (which seemed a bit pointless, but is no doubt a safety requirement):


The shops, as elsewhere, were looking rather run-down. There were at least two 'cash converter' places, and several 'poundland' or 'priceless' or similar inexpensive shops attracting people hoping for bargains. We even saw a pawnbroker, which I don't ever recall seeing before. But there were plenty of places that were boarded up, and even some of the charity shops seem to have disappeared.

Still, we visited Holland and Barrett in the indoor centre, and also WH Smiths. And the car parking was very inexpensive.

In the evening, we decided to play a game... and although we thought about Rummikub, Richard and I were feeling withdrawal symptoms from Settlers of Catan, so Tim got out his set which is different again from the two we have recently played with:


My mother had never played before, so we did an open round, explaining and advising as we went. She used a new strategy ('place the early pieces nearby so as not to have to stretch...') - and beat us all soundly. She was white, and we just played to ten points:

Out of Cyprus, days four and five

On Sunday morning, Richard was due to have a short interview at St Stephen's, Selly Park, which is one of our long-term and generous supporting churches. We used to attend services there regularly, when we were first married, up to the time when we went to the USA in 1992.

The day was sunny, yet again, and although some of the trees have grown a little over the years, the building looks the same as it ever did:


The sunlight glinting through the trees on the nearby streets was stunning; no doubt someone with an expensive camera and fancy lenses could have captured it properly. I just snapped mine anyway, to remind me:


The interview was really to remind people of our existence, to let newcomers know what Richard does, and to give a few pointers for prayer. Afterwards we chatted with a few of our old friends, then went back to Moseley for a Sunday roast cooked by Tim.

In the evening, Richard did a similar interview at St Wulstan's Church, but I decided to go to Christ Church with Tim, as he was playing the piano. Afterwards there were a couple of presentations from people who had been to Malawi recently. Richard came to join us when he'd finished, and we caught up with yet more friends.

On Monday afternoon I took this photo of Tim, just because he was there, lounging on the bed, and because we'll soon have to say goodbye again:


In the evening we were invited to a meal with our good friends John and Heather. Their oldest son was married in the summer, and is now living in Iona; their younger son recently started university. That makes me feel old - we knew them before any of us had any children. But their daughter is now at home again, embarking on a new course soon:


They have a very comfortable gliding chair, which Tim and I both sat on for a while... Tim for longer than me:

Out of Cyprus, Day Three. Birmingham ArtsFest

The reason we flew to Birmingham last week was that Tim was singing, with the Bournville Young Singers (formerly Bournville Children's Choir) in a couple of concerts in Birmingham ArtsFest. Otherwise, he might have stayed a bit longer in Cyprus.

So on Saturday, we dropped him - in our borrowed car - at the Friends' Meeting House, for a rehearsal, then drove into Town. Parking was easy enough near the Post Box (we even remembered to go a little way down the hill, near the Registry Office, where we could park for four hours at 2.50 rather than two hours at 5 pounds!).

Birmingham City Centre is looking much smarter than it used to, since the renovations in recent years. It was fairly crowded, too, but not overly so at 10am. We looked in a few shop windows, including one specialist board games shop, where we saw our favourite games in the window.

The most important thing to do was to buy our train ticket, to get down to Sussex on the 24th. Previous attempts at doing buy train tickets on-line have not worked, but leaving it to the last minute is also not a good idea, since prices soar within a week of travelling.

The girl in the information centre was very helpful, and the price was extremely good, although Richard is puzzled as to how the route works. I'm sure we'll figure that out nearer the time.

Next stop - after browsing several other places nearby - was Primark, a large and inexpensive clothes shop that we usually visit when in Birmingham. We needed a few more shirts and one or two other things, and ended up with a little more than we intended, since I really like the turquoise that seems to be one of this year's Autumn colours.

By this time it was nearly 11.30, so we wandered back to the location of the first concert (due to start at noon), looking for somewhere to have coffee. We were pleased to see a Costa coffee place inside Waterstones, just around the corner from the Pallisades ramp, right next to the concert location. So we popped in there for some cappuccinos, and a chance to sit down.


We went outside again just before twelve, and saw the choir assembling. Richard got out the video camera, and then we were delighted to see some old friends who stopped by to say hello.

The choir did well, amidst traffic noises, with a fair audience gathered around by the end.


They then hurried off to their second location, while we decided to have a sandwich, and sit down again for twenty minutes. We found a Pret a Manger restaurant which had organic, additive-free sandwiches at surprisingly reasonable prices, and bought a slightly odd rhubarb drink. The food was extremely good.

Then we went down the pedestrianised New Street (very different from how it used to be):


The sky was still blue. This is one of the old council buildings - the museum, perhaps? I never know which is which - contrasting with the ArtsFest booths (in white) and a modern looking stage (in black).


Then I had to take a picture of the Central Library. When we first moved to Cyprus, I missed the libraries so much. Tim has made good use of them since living in Birmingham, and visits the huge Central Library about once a month as well as using the local library, and, of course, his university one.


We had thought the second Bournville Young Singers concert would be outside, but eventually found them inside the library plaza (which I believe is called Paradise Place now):


Again, they did very well, despite one of the girls being overcome by the heat part-way through. Richard left me to go and pay for some more parking time for the car, since our four hours were nearly through, which meant I had the video camera. About two-thirds of the way through the concert, the battery - which we hadn't fully charged - gave up. And Richard had the spare one with him.

So I whipped out the still camera, and took two minutes of the barbershop group on the video setting, until the disc space ran out. We later realised we had left the main video camera lead in Cyprus, so the only one we've been able to upload so far is this brief section of the barbershop song.

I've never before embedded a video in a blog post, but will see if I can do so:



It wasn't until a few hours later that I realised that the song they are singing - some tavern song, apparently - is the same tune as 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'!

After the concert we went out into the sunshine again:


But had no problems resisting the lure of the Monarch-sponsored 'beach' set up right outside the library:



Tim wanted to buy his student bus pass for the next year, so we went to the appropriate place. Unfortunately he discovered that he didn't have all the necessary paperwork, so that was no good. We then went into the Apple Mac shop, in a different mall, so Richard and Tim could look at the various computers and other technology for a while.

We had a brief look into several of the ArtsFest booths as we wandered around, and stopped for a while to watch some break-dancing, and an act with someone made up to look like a statue. There was a lot going on, but we didn't go deliberately to any other events. We had a programme, but it wasn't exactly easy to follow!

We finally got back, pretty tired, about 5pm. I took out all our Primark purchases:


Not bad for about 33 pounds. This lot would have been a LOT more expensive in Cyprus.

Out of Cyprus, day two

We flew out of Cyprus on Monarch Airlines, for the first time. Theoretically a budget airline, we chose it because the dates and airports were most convenient. By the time one has paid for the seats, and the luggage, they're no cheaper than Cyprus Air. But several friends have used them this year, so we thought we'd try them. No meals are provided, but with a flight leaving Cyprus at 9.40pm, that wasn't a problem. Indeed, it's something of an advantage not to be woken up for aeroplane food, when trying to get some sleep.

The flight was smooth, and landed half an hour early - as many Monarch flights seem to - although the descent was sharp enough that I ended up with bad earache. Our luggage came through fairly quickly, and we were able to get a taxi to my mother's house. The driver evidently had a sat-nav unit, since his route was the best one we've seen from a taxi, and the fare lower too.

Yesterday was - a little to our surprise - bright and sunny. About 20C, I suppose. A lot less than it has been in Cyprus, but nice not to have any humidity. Besides which, I like getting back to jeans and trainers after three or four months in shorts and flip-flops.

Shortly before we left, when I was going to close my computer down, Tim came in with his memory stick and said he was going to save my Firefox settings. I wasn't entirely sure why, but yesterday he arrived in the bedroom where Richard and I are sleeping, carrying a large Apple computer - it looked huge compared to my tiny Mac Mini.

This computer, in keeping with our Old Testament name theme, is called Solomon. Tim bought it on Ebay a while ago, when his old notebook computer was getting unreliable, before he finally decided to buy a new one. He's planning on selling it again, but said he would leave it until we're about to go, so that I can use it while we're here. He brought down his rather nice flat screen, too:

We found a suitable corner of the room to set it up, and he then imported my Firefox settings. So when I switch on, it looks very like my Mac mini back home in Cyprus. Except for having a wide screen, and no photo of Daniel and Tim on the background...


So I was able to read my email, reply to a few, update Facebook, and one or two other things. It's not exactly the most comfortable of locations, sitting on the floor, but very nice to have this facility to myself.

A few minutes ago I was feeling uncomfortable again, wondering if there was some way I could raise the keyboard off the floor. My eye landed (not, of course, literally) on my carry-on luggage, which was sitting by the window. The perfect height. A box and Richard's notebook cover provide a mouse stand and pad... and I'm all set up:


Yesterday morning Richard and Tim walked - in the sunshine - to the friends who are kindly lending us their second car for the next fortnight, chatted awhile, then drove it back. In the afternoon, we all went to Kings Heath, the nearest biggish shopping centre. We could have walked, but were all fairly tired, so we drove. It's looking a bit run-down since we were last there. Woolworths, which closed earlier in the year, has turned into a Poundland, with a Clarks shoe shop as part of the old building. Holland and Barrett have moved to a move useful location, but with a much smaller shop - and thus less stock.

We popped into the Abbey, too, and asked if we could order a card for me to use for online banking. Much easier than attempting to do so on the phone, as we've done before. I do like the way the Abbey is so customer-friendly. No queues, any more; instead one takes a little ticket, and then sits down on the very comfortable red sets, awaiting a call to the cashiers. I was also impressed to notice, in one of the little private screened booths, one of the staff moving the screens so that one of the customers could feed her fractious and hungry small child.

We looked in several charity shops too, but none of the books leapt out and said 'buy me!'. My to-be-read shelf back in Cyprus is still bulging, and I'm beginning to think we've almost reached saturation point. Well, not quite. I still have books on my wishlist, and we have a few more Chalet School books to take back to Cyprus - mostly hardback editions which we only have in paperback.

We did, however, manage to buy a new egg-slice (much needed) for the huge sum of 69p, and in Poundland we found more liner sheets for cooking (for a pound), and some shampoo (which I forgot to bring - also for a pound). Oh, and a large selection of birthday cards for various family and friends over the next year. They are MUCH better value in England than in Cyprus.

Firsts and lasts in September in Cyprus

It hasn't been too bad a Cyprus summer, weather-wise. Only a couple of brief heatwaves where the temperatures went above 35C in the shade. I don't think they ever reached 38 or more, at least not in Larnaka. Mostly it was around 32-33 in the daytime (hotter in the sun, of course, but I don't go in the sun during the heat of the day).

September is still fairly warm, but the evenings are breezier, the mornings pleasantly cool: about 22C at 6.30 or so. The days are getting a little shorter, and all the businesses and shops which closed down during August are now open again.

Schools start again this week, and the first session of Tots after the summer break was on Tuesday. In the new Community Church building, with considerably more space:

I'm not sure what has happened to the pillars, and the carpet evidently needs replacing at some point, but the space and air conditioning are very welcome. As are the comfortable seats.

On Wednesday, our friends Marie and Jacob came over to play Risk with Tim.

I think they enjoyed it, though I heard one or two heated exchanges along the way. I guess that happens when attempting world dominion. After about two and a half hours, Tim eventually won.

On Wednesday evening, there was the last of the Cyprus home educators' weekly beach gatherings. Someone had proposed a sand-sculpting contest, but - being home educators - nothing much happened until nearly the end of the evening, when several of them decided on a co-operative effort:

There were children from the ages of eight to thirteen involved in this, from three different families. Here they are again, about ten minutes later, getting the last details right:


Here's a most unflattering picture of me, un-fetchingly draped in a blue towel (after a short swim, earlier), with my youngest friend Helen, looking at the sand sculpture. She would have liked to go and investigate more closely, but the older children would not have been too happy...

Marie also made a 'sand cake' since it was only three days away from Helen's first birthday:

On Thursday evening, Richard, Tim and I watched the last two episodes of the final Quantum Leap DVD. The penultimate one, where Sam became Elvis just before he was discovered, was a good one. The final one was... kind of bizarre. It ended too quickly, and while one part was satisfyingly right, I wish it had ended more conclusively. Ah well.

Friday morning, Richard conducted his last sailing class with Marie, Jacob, Josh and Nicole. He's been teaching them to sail, in pairs, during July and August. Friday was the last session; they were able to borrow four boats, and have a race, with their families watching and taking photos.

On Friday evening, we went to the last non-church cell group beach meeting of the summer. Some of the same people as Wednesday, some different. Helen was there again, with her family, and she got a little sandy:

We were still there as it began to get dark, around 7.30pm. So Richard experimented with the camera, trying to catch the beauty of the moon on the sea:

He understands the non-automatic features of the camera far better than I do.

Even after dark, it was still pleasantly warm. Helen was wide awake, and busy digging:


While the rest of us hung around, chatting, not really wanting the evening to end.

On Saturday, Richard went sailing as usual. That's only the last time for a few weeks - we're going to the UK for three weeks soon - so he should get a few more sails in during October, and maybe November, before it gets too cold and windy.

Saturday was also Helen's first birthday. The end of her babyhood, as she's almost walking. Well, she IS walking (up to seventeen steps unaided, so far) but not all the time. When we arrived at their house - being her best friend, I was invited to her party along with Richard and Tim - she came to greet me, and gave me a big hug:

We enjoyed a lively meal. I had taken some home-made ice cream, which always seems to be popular. Lukas got in a bit of a mess:

And even Tim, though not used to babies, had a cuddle with Helen as she played with one of her new toys:

Helen's a very cuddly child. I'm not sure what Eliana - who is seven months younger - thought of this:


Thus ended the first week of September. Today we had four friends to lunch - people Tim wanted to see. Now he's out at a youth group get-together, with more goodbyes.

We'll be in the UK until the end of September.