Happy New Year from Cyprus

After much reflection, I think I prefer 'twenty-ten' to 'two thousand and ten'. It has something of a ring to it, and - more importantly - is shorter. And I refuse to get involved at all in the controversy about whether 2010 (however pronounced) is in fact the first or the last year of a decade. I'm happy for it to be both, at the same time.

December seems to have raced past, although, at the same time, it seems quite a long time since Tim came back to spend just over a fortnight with us. The time since Christmas certainly vanished, and yesterday was our last day together until - probably - April. I never like goodbyes, although I don't find them as painful as I did the first time we left him in the UK, and returned to our empty nest. Well, empty of offspring. The three cats are still very much part of our lives.

Indeed, the cats have begun to get used to having to share a human, from time to time. Yesterday afternoon, Cleo was on my lap and Sophia decided she wanted to be on me too. So she climbed onto my shoulder. It was a bit of a squash, but quite amicable.


Then Tim sat down, and I realised we hadn't taken many photos of him over Christmas, other than in the Settlers games which I'm writing about elsewhere now. So Richard took one.


After we'd eaten in the evening, we played a third game of Seafares of Catan (one of our Settlers expansions) just to reinforce the game in our minds, and finished by about 9pm. Tim then went to finish his packing, and we all set our phone alarms for 2.30am. I said goodbye to him anyway; I am NOT good with disturbed or late nights, and didn't know if I'd wake at all. I asked if he'd like me to go to the airport, and he said yes, of course he would, but he didn't want me to feel rotten the following day, so totally understood if I didn't go.

I really didn't want to get up at 2.30. I could easily have gone to sleep again, particularly as I woke two hours earlier after a vivid dream in which none of our alarms worked, and Tim missed his flight! Thankfully they did all work, and after five minutes when I nearly did fall asleep, I crawled out of bed and put some clothes on. Tim was pleased, so I'm glad I went.

The new airport at Larnaka is much more impressive than the old one. It looks, as one friend remarked, like a 'proper' airport. I suppose it was silly to try and take a photo in the middle of the night, but I did anyway:


And then, as is traditional for us, I took one of Tim and Richard with the luggage, on their way in:


He had checked in online so only had to leave his main luggage - 16.7kg so well under the limit. He had chosen to fly with Cyprus Air, since they're more flexible than the cheaper airlines about hand luggage, and - as you can perhaps see in that photo - he really wanted to take his bass guitar back to the UK with him. It only has a soft case, so he couldn't check it in. Flying on New Year's Eve gave him a very good price, no more than the cheaper airlines anyway. And as it turned out, it was an excellent choice of flight, because the plane was almost empty, and he was next to three empty seats... which gave him plenty of room to stretch out and have three or four hours of sleep.

He got in touch when he landed, and again when he was on the train back to Birmingham. Daniel and Becky were also en route there at the time, so I hope they've all met up, and got to know each other a bit. None of them has been online so I assume all is well.

As for me.. we did get back to bed about 4am, but I then stayed half awake until Tim sent his promised text message to say that he'd had no problems getting the bass guitar to the gate, in addition to his backpack. I suppose that was about 4.15. I then slept soundly for about three hours, and was woken by Sophia.

I tried to rest this afternoon but couldn't get to sleep. I don't do at all well on broken nights. I probably had six hours of sleep last night, which is more than many people get, but without at least seven (unbroken) I do feel excessively tired the following day. I don't think I've done anything constructive today. We're invited to a small gathering this evening with a few friends, and have said we'll go for an hour. I don't think there's any way I could stay awake till midnight tonight. I find it difficult enough at the best of times.

So, as we're going out in half an hour or so, and will then collapse into bed afterwards, I'll take this opportunity to wish anyone who reads this a very happy New Year, and every blessing for 2010. However you decide to say it.

Ups and downs of life, feeling a long way away in Cyprus

I'm glad Christmas Day went so well. Boxing Day was good, too. We had some other friends over for lunch, who left mid-afternoon, and in the evening we watched a DVD together.

I knew I'd feel anxious on Sunday, because that's the day when Daniel and Becky were leaving Singapore - flying at 9.40am, so leaving the Doulos around 6am. Would they get up in time? Would they get everything packed? Would they be over their (generous) luggage allowance? Would Dan's guitar be all right if it was checked? What would happen if the first flight was delayed?

There are so many things a mother can worry about, even when her children are grown up and long-gone from the nest.

Tim was playing at St Helena's Church, so I went with him. It was a pleasant service, and good to get out of the house. Shortly after lunch Daniel sent a text saying they were in Dubai, soon to board for their second flight. No mention of any problems with luggage, so I assumed everything had gone well so far.

In the evening we were asked out to drinks and nibbles at Richard's colleague's house, to celebrate a special birthday. I knew Daniel's plane was due to land about 7pm (UK time) so by 9.30 was starting to wonder what was happening... and then a text message arrived, saying they'd landed safely and were awaiting their luggage. Later on he sent one saying he'd met up with Grandpa - who was meeting him, and taking him to his home for a few days - so I relaxed, and slept well that night.

Unfortunately neither Daniel nor his Grandpa slept well that night. My father had chest pains and was admitted to hospital. Not good timing since the rest of the family were due to spend Monday with him. He had some kind of heart attack and is still there, waiting for further tests, although apparently he seems to be fairly well in himself. It was a great shock as he has seemed so fit and healthy.

Meanwhile our time with Tim here has been racing past - several games of Settlers in several variations, a couple of DVDs, good food, and time to relax. He returns to the UK in the early hours of Thursday morning, and is looking forward to seeing Daniel later in the day, and meeting Becky. However we will miss him, as always. Living in Cyprus has many advantages, and I'm mostly very contented, but I don't like being so far away from the family.

This week in between Christmas and New Year always feels like a strange time of year, winding down from the celebrations, eating up leftovers, not quite getting back into routine. Richard has been in the office a few times, but has also spent time at King Malu, which is now booked to be moved into the water in a couple of weeks.

Christmas in Cyprus

I'm very glad we live in Cyprus this year. The UK has been suffering bitter temperatures, along with snow and ice. People might idealise white Christmases, but in reality they disrupt plans, make heating bills soar, and generally make people cold and miserable.

Whereas we have had one of the warmest Christmases I can remember. It must have been about 20C during the daytime, and sunny for most of the day.

I woke up early, and finished the food preparation I'd planned. I made 36 mince pies (I had made the pastry on Christmas Eve, so it wasn't difficult). I made a trifle, too, since I didn't expect the visiting children to eat Christmas pudding. I made some ice cream, and I put two puddings on to steam. Tim got up about an hour and a half after I did, and peeled several large potatoes, cutting them into small pieces for par-boiling and roasting. Then, since we'd cooked the turkey the day before, and it was neatly carved, covered and refrigerated, I cleaned the kitchen and had my shower, and we then opened our presents. As always it was lovely to have new books and DVDs, and I was also very pleased to have been given expansions and extensions for our current favourite games: Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne.

At 9.15 Tim left to walk to Larnaka Community Church where he was playing the keyboard, so I had my breakfast then tidied up a bit more, and left around 9.40 to walk there myself. It was an hour service with no sermon; nice to catch up with friends from various places (since some of the Protestant church congregations in Larnaka don't have a Christmas Day service) and we were home again by 11.30.

Our friends arrived shortly after 12, and we had an enjoyable day. The food was all ready just after 1pm:


and there was something that everyone liked. We had a pause after eating before producing dessert, since we were fairly full of turkey, home-made cranberry sauce, sausages, potatoes and various vegetables.

After Christmas pudding, mince pies, brandy butter, trifle, ice cream, dried fruit, and coffee, we cleared the table and reduced it in size, so we could play one of the Settlers expansions. Most of the children decided they'd like to watch the end of the first Narnia film, which they started watching a week or so ago, and when that was finished they thoroughly enjoyed seeing the 'extras', about how the film was made. Even Katie, who is four, was entranced by this, and Helen (fifteen months) was conveniently taking a nap.

Since this blog is about Cyprus, I've started a new one solely devoted to our games of Settlers and describe our Christmas Day game, the first scenario of Seafarers of Catan, in detail there. Suffice it to say it was a good game, if a little shorter than we expected, and we can see that there's a lot of potential for this new version of the game, once we get used to it. We also look forward to playing the other expansion in future.

After we'd finished, and packed everything away, we chatted with our friends, who are soon going away for six weeks so we shall miss them. Around 6pm we produced the Christmas cake, and various other bits and pieces of food, and everyone had something to eat although none of us was particularly hungry.

Then Helen sat on my lap, while Tessie sat on Tim's, and we helped her learn to pat and pet Tessie gently. Both seemed to enjoy it.


After that we listened to Tim, accompanying Marie on violin, playing a Vivaldi piece which Marie has been preparing to play at her uncle's wedding. Then, after more chatting and nibbling at snacks, our friends left. We loaded the dishwasher again, and I cleaned up the last few bits that wouldn't fit in it (since we were entertaining other friends at lunch-time today) - and got to bed shortly after ten o'clock. I thought I might read for a while, but was so tired I couldn't even manage one chapter.

Christmas greetings from Cyprus

I'm sure we only just started December. Although, thinking about it, December 1st is a LONG time ago.

Well, maybe it's the middle of the month... I just wrote all our cards and newsletters a day or two back, after all. Or so it seems. The history monks really go wild in December, and suddenly, here we are, without warning, on Christmas Eve. The shops are now shut, so if anything hasn't been bought, it's too late.

We didn't do any decorating until this week. I thought about it at the weekend, but it wasn't until Tuesday that we did our final bits and pieces of gift buying locally, and also found this year's poinsettia at a local plant shop.


In the afternoon, I asked Tim if he would get out the tree. He even put it together. I always like rediscovering decorations from previous years; not that I'm really into nostalgia, but they feel like familiar friends.


I put out our usual small candle decorations too, and found the Christmas tablecloth. We were having some friends for a meal Monday evening, so it was nice to have the house looking Christmassy at last.


When we ordered our turkey, ages ago at the start of December, we wisely asked to have it available on December 23rd. Last year we did our shopping on Christmas Eve, when the supermarket was packed. It was quite stressful. But yesterday there was hardly anybody in the supermarket. We bought rather more than just the turkey - in fact we managed to spend sufficient to be given two free bottles of wine - but it took less than an hour. No queues, no noise, no overwhelm from crowds.

We played games in the afternoon and evening yesterday, so I didn't get a lot else done. But today I didn't have anything planned. I thought I would do a bit of baking, and relax. Richard was out working on King Malu again. Tim had a short music practice this morning and a youth band practice in the afternoon. A nice peaceful day.

I went out to the Froutaria this morning. The day was pleasantly warm and sunny. Tim was making two sorts of stuffing for the turkey, which we always cook on Christmas Eve. He had it in the oven by about nine o'clock, and we enjoyed the aroma of roasting turkey all morning.

I thought I might make some mince pies until I remembered that the oven was fully occupied with a large bird. So instead I made royal icing for the cake. I put the marzipan layer on it on Tuesday. When I'd rough iced it, there seemed to be a fair bit of icing over, so with vague memories of having piped a decorative grid on a Christmas cake when I was at high school (many, many years ago) I delved into my cookery books until I found instructions for making a greaseproof paper icing bag. I even found some plastic nozzles in the back of a drawer.

I'm far from artistic, but I was fairly pleased with the result:


There was still some royal icing over, so I added a few drops of peppermint essence and some more icing sugar to make it rollable, and cut out about twenty peppermint creams. Then I also made some dairy-free chocolate fudge. It had a sad accident when Sophia, driven wild by the smell of the turkey, leapt onto the work surface. We found a pawprint at one end of the fudge... but, alas, forgot to take a photo.

Richard got home about 5.30pm, and set to work carving the turkey, and placing it tidily in a large roasting pan, which is now in the fridge. He shut the cats in the living room, where they tried every trick they could think of to get through to the kitchen:


Eventually their pitiful cries, reminscent of half-starved feral cats, gave them their reward of a few scraps of turkey.

Then we bought a meal from our favourite takeaway place (Souvlaki Express), and, just for a change, played a game of Carcassonne. We're all tired, and I still need to make some mince pies... but perhaps that can wait for the morning. I'm certainly not as stressed as I was last year on Christmas Eve.

Buying eggs in Cyprus

Some of the people who read this blog are remarkably observant. I was interested in a comment on this post about shopping in Larnaka when I was asked how on earth I could buy seven eggs.

It was a good question.

Most boxes of eggs in Cyprus, as in the UK, contain either six or twelve eggs. Or possibly fifteen; the free-range eggs we buy from Metro usually contain fifteen eggs, with three of them being extra value (fifteen for the price of twelve). And the next time we bought eggs, it was at Metro.

But a couple of days ago, I had to pop to Orphanides Express again for a few items, including more eggs. So before I decanted them into the fridge, I took a photo:


An unusual shaped box; I suppose if it were truly hexagonal they would be quite efficient for stacking, but since the edges are rounded I'm not sure why they're made that way.

And you might think, looking at it, that there are only six eggs... so I carefully opened the box in the kitchen, and took another photo, to reveal the neatly placed central egg:


I'm so used to these boxes, even though they only seem to apply to this particular brand of free-range eggs, that I'd quite forgotten that seven isn't the usual number for egg purchases.

Games again

Yesterday was a day full of board games.

In the morning, our young friends Marie and Jacob came over to play Risk with Tim.


They didn't come until about 11.45am due to other commitments, and had to stop around 1.15 when Richard came home, so we could have lunch. The game was inconclusive at the end, but it looked as if Tim and Marie were fairly even, while Jacob was clinging onto Japan, and had nothing else.

After lunch, their mother Sheila joined us, and I played too, in a five-person Settlers of Catan. I forgot about taking a photo, but it was a good game. Sheila and Tim were ahead of the rest of us after an hour or so, both at 11 points... either could have won, depending on the throw of the dice. In the end, Sheila pipped Tim to the post.

A few hours later, the three of us walked around to Jörn and Sheila's for a six-person adult only game of Settlers of Catan. Actually it was a seven-person game, since their visitors Peter and Christin also joined in, but they played as a team. It was quite an interesting game too. I was remarkably tired, and not really concentrating at all, and seemed to be lagging behind. It looked like a race to the finish between Sheila (brown), Richard (red), or Peter and Christin (green). Only Sheila had building spaces left, and she'd taken the longest street card although that wasn't necessarily permanent, so she had 10 points on the board. Richard had nine points; Peter and Christin also had nine, Jörn had seven (after losing the longest street card), Tim had seven, I had eight... although I really wasn't counting at all, and somehow thought I had seven. I was pretty sure Sheila was going to win.

Then I noticed that I, too, had another building spot. I had the cards to build, too. And - having just bought a couple of development cards in the previous round, and having already played a couple of knights - I realised I could actually play a third knight and take the largest army card, since nobody else had it. I almost didn't... but, shrugging inwardly, thought I might as well, then anyone else (such as Sheila) would then need four knights to take it from me and it might prolong the game a little...

So I was rather surprised when Sheila told me I had 11 points, and asked if I had a victory point card. I did... I'd picked that up right at the start of the game - which meant I had won. I didn't actually believe it at first and counted my points a couple of times... but she was correct. Just as well she counted up, or I wouldn't have noticed.

Hurricane in Larnaka?

Yesterday, it was drizzling a little in the afternoon. But we've had so much rain recently that I thought nothing of it. Tim - who got back to Cyprus on Tuesday evening, for a couple of weeks - was out with some of the youth group, and arrived home around 6.15.

Five minutes later, we heard wind whistling around the house. We saw lightning flashes, although the thunder seemed to be a long way off. The wind got stronger, and we heard some crashes, as if things were being blown over. Then some hail fell, and finally rain. The lightning continued for at least half an hour, along with the wind. Tim was very glad that he got back when he did; I called Richard, who was still at the office, and he said he'd stay there until the rain eased, since he walked rather than driving.

The wind gradually died down, and Richard eventually got home about 8.30. There was a slight leak over the stairs, but not as bad as usual, so I didn't think any more about it.

Until this morning, when I popped out around 7.30am to buy some oranges, and was greeted by this site on our downstairs patio:


I righted the three plants which had blown over - they seemed undamaged - and decided to leave the cleaning of the dirt until it had dried up somewhat.

Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door. Richard's sailing buddy - another Tim - was there. He said he'd happened to drive past the main sailing club last night, and it looked as if there was a lot of devastation with high winds, and also high waves. He thought Richard's boat was undamaged, although somewhat blown over, but wanted to get down there to check, and perhaps help to right some of the damage. So Richard got up quickly, grabbed the camera and some rope, and headed down to the club.

He was relieved to find that his boat is indeed fine, as far as he could see, but, as he wrote on his Wayfarer blog, the high winds caused a fair bit of chaos and some damage. If you follow that link, you can see the photos he took.

I don't know if it was technically 'just' high winds, or a hurricane, or even a tornado. Whatever it was, it was short-lived but probably caused a great deal of devastation. Just having three plants knocked over was very minor.

The annual Christmas card writing day

My neck is aching a bit this evening, and my right hand feels a bit sore. One of my fingers feels as if it's about to develop a blister. Why, you might ask? The reason is that although I do a great deal of writing, it's generally - to be literally accurate - typing. During the vast majority of the year, my hand-writing is minimal.

But, since I finally finished the newsletter on Thursday, Richard popped to the office to print 100 copies of it this morning since he'd been too busy yesterday. He then went to spend the rest of the day working on King Malu. I'd had grand ideas about writing all our Christmas cards before the end of November. And then during last week. I even thought I might post the ones to the UK at the start of last week. It didn't happen, of course. And the last posting day is creeping up.

I've posted cards as late as about 20th December sometimes, and they've still arrived on time, but I would really prefer to send them earlier. Like Monday. And since I really need to allocate a whole day to writing our Christmas cards and folding the newsletters, and we're out to lunch tomorrow, it had to be today.

Over the years, I've learned to be reasonably organised about this. It doesn't come naturally to me, so I have to be fairly strict about keeping lists of addresses - in my little red book - and who we've sent Christmas cards to each year - in a bigger red folder. While we were in the UK in September, I bought a good number of cards which I liked - better value and much nicer than most of what we can buy in Cyprus. And I recently ordered some more return address labels from Vistaprint - a company which apparently doesn't have a very good reputation, but I've always been pleased with the service.

So, around 11.30 this morning - after doing a bit of shopping, and checking email, and Facebook, I could procrastinate no longer. Since Richard wasn't coming home for lunch, I set everything out on the dining room table, along with the obligatory cup of coffee:


At 11.45 I started at the top of my typed list in the big red folder, and wrote some cards. Of course, I think about each person as I write them. Sometimes I add a little extra note. I fold a newsletter to put inside the card, then write the name of the person on the front - on a sticky label, if the envelope is too dark, seal the envelope, and put a return address label on the back.

By 12.15 my hand was already starting to ache a little. I had done fifteen. Richard printed me 100 newsletters, and I expected to use most of them. It was going to be a long day.

I took a five minute break, then continued for another half hour. I managed sixteen that time. Perhaps I'd got more into the routine of writing, folding, sealing and writing again. I made some cheese on toast, then - not wanting to disturb my endeavours - ate it in the computer room, while I read some more email.

Naturally the cats were most interested in what I was doing. They're not allowed on the table, of course. They know it. But it doesn't stop them:


That was Sophia, at about 1.30, when I'd done another couple of batches. Then Cleo arrived;


She is bright enough to know that the red folder is of supreme importance, so she sat on it. She didn't realise I'd taken out my reference list, so I could check off each name as I wrote the names on the envelopes.

I kept going. It wasn't until I had nearly finished that Tessie appeared, and decided it wasn't really all that interesting:


At last, they were all done. 69 cards to post to the UK on Monday, and 28 for local friends. I suppose it's a bit odd that we still send over twice as many to the UK as we do to here, even though we've now lived here for twelve years. But about twelve of the UK ones are for relatives, and another significant number are very dear friends we have known for more than twenty years, some of whom have come to stay with us in Cyprus. Then there are a handful of people who we met here, but who have now returned to the UK. And there are some people who we've mostly lost touch with, but I don't want to lose contact altogether. The list has reduced quite a bit since we've been here, as people have moved on and not given us their new addresses, or perhaps we haven't heard from them in years and finally decide to give up.

Having written all the cards, I took another short break. Then came the last stage: writing addresses on the ones that have to be posted. That's what made my neck start to ache. I put the cards in alphabetical order (approximately) then went through my address book, finding and copying the addresses. I suppose it could be more automated if I kept the addresses on computer and we printed labels, but we tried that before and it never seemed to work very well. Besides, I do like thinking of everyone again as I write their addresses.

Tessie decided I had been doing boring things for too long, and came to sit on the address book:


But I persuaded her that my lap was more comfortable, and finished the last few.


I have a large number of cards left over - probably enough for next year. What worries me, though, is that I have seven copies of the newsletter left. There should have been one in each envelope, and there are 97 of those. So I should only have three left. It's possible, of course, that I somehow managed to leave one out...I can't believe I left out four. And there's no way I'm going to open every envelope to find out!

Procrastination is a great thing, in moderation

It's been weighing on me for a few weeks, now. The annual newsletter, that is. I started writing it, full of good intentions, towards the end of November. Then we heard the news that the MV Doulos will no longer be allowed to sail after the end of the year. It was possible that Daniel and his girlfriend might be coming to Cyprus in January. So naturally, I had to wait until we knew for sure what they were going to do before finishing the newsletter.

It was last weekend that we heard that they are going to Carlisle for three months, to work in their organisation's audio-visual department. So they won't be coming to Cyprus until April, which was the original plan. So I could write the newsletter on Saturday, write Christmas cards on Sunday, have the newsletters printed at Richard's office on Monday, and then post them on Tuesday, when I went to the PO Box.

No problem... but somehow the metaphorical weight of this newsletter had increased. I did search for a few relevant photos, and exported them to a useful size. But on Saturday, we did our big shop, so I had to put vast amounts of groceries away, and fold up the carrier bags to re-use. We were given some lemons earlier in the week, so as the mains water was on, I thought I'd better make our first batch of lemonade for the season. The laundry on the line was dry, so I had to put all that away in between rain showers. I even did a bit of ironing. And of course I had to fill the drinking water bottles. And I do a couple of Facebook games at weekends. In the evening we were out for a game of Settlers. And so the day went by, and I didn't write the newsletter.

On Sunday, we were expecting friends in the evening for our breakaway get-together of part of our renegade cell group. So I needed to make bread (three loaves), and soup (tomato) and our first batch of mince pies - not for the evening but for the following day. And I really needed to do some general sweeping and mopping, and keep up with my email, and Facebook. And I realised that I needed to look at the anthology that I'm going to produce for the writing group. Our friends came at 4pm to watch the musical 'Annie', and then we had an enjoyable evening together. So the day went by, and I didn't write the newsletter.

On Monday I was hosting the writing group, which includes one person who is allergic to cats. So I dusted and swept and mopped again, and vacuumed all the soft furniture, and then - since I had some extra time - I even cleaned some of the windows. And spent a bit more time looking at material for the anthology, so we could discuss it at the meeting. Since it's the last one of the year, we all brought some finger foods and had lunch together. And in the afternoon I did some laundry, and read and wrote email... and the day went by without me writing a newsletter.

On Tuesday I help at Tots. I did get to the PO Box first, which wasn't easy since I'd stubbed a toe quite badly on Monday morning and it was rather painful on Tuesday. I was thankful to have a ride home after Tots. And am always so tired by the end that I couldn't do anything much in the afternoon, other than sorting through the mail, and putting away the laundry, and writing some lengthy emails.

On Wednesday, I knew I had to get to the newsletter. But Wednesday is the day when I clean the upstairs and make the bed with clean sheets, so I determined to do that first. I did a very good job. I cleaned the entire house on Wednesday morning, and made up Tim's bed as well as ours, since he's coming back for Christmas. And I made some bread, and a slightly more organised lunch than usual since we were entertaining Richard's book-keeping colleague, and his small assistant at King Malu.

Then I'd offered to play games with our friends' children in the afternoon, so that was another couple of hours. By the time I got home I needed to start cooking for our evening meal, and when we'd eaten Richard suggested some board games.

So I still hadn't written the newsletter, but at least the house was sparkling clean by the end of Wednesday.

Today, the boy who usually spends the morning here wasn't coming, so I knew I had to write the newsletter. But first I had to proof-read Tim's latest essay, which he sent me last night, and which has to be handed in tomorrow.

Then I looked at my 'task' list in gmail, and was a bit shocked to see just how many things I'd neglected in the past few days. And I remembered a few short, urgent emails that I needed to write. So I did those. I made an online payment that was outstanding. I finally got around to ordering prints of the past five months' worth of photos which I'd uploaded to the Kodak gallery. I wrote reviews of the last two books I'd read. I realised that the Bibliophil.org site where I've kept my full list of books for the past few years really isn't functional - it hasn't been, for a few months now - so I searched for a new place to have as backup (Goodreads being my prime book list) and decided to try Shelfari. So I had to export and import the list.

In fact, I got right up to date with everything on my lists for the past few days. Other than one item...

.. and finally, I had nothing left on the list other than the newsletter. Procrastination had to be put aside. It didn't even take me particularly long to put in the photos, write a bit more, and adjust it to fit on one side of paper. Tomorrow Richard will print it on his office colour laser printer, and I hope to post them next Tuesday. Or possibly even Monday.

But if I hadn't procrastinated about the newsletter for so long, I probably wouldn't have got all those other things done...

Rain in Cyprus

So, after a couple of weeks of wall-to-wall sunshine, and unseasonably warm temperatures, we had some rain yesterday. Half an hour or so late morning - quite heavy - and some light rain in the evening. That was fine: we do need the rain, after all.

This morning, we woke up to more rain. We were up in good time, and by about 8am the rain seemed to have stopped, though it was still rather grey. Richard hoped to start painting King Malu today, so we decided to do our big monthly shop at Metro supermarket, first thing.

We spent a horrendous amount of money for one - admittedly very full - trolley of groceries. There weren't even many fruit and vegetables, since I get most of those at the local Froutaria. We picked up three bags of the slightly older apples, oranges and carrots which were on special offer, but no more. I did buy quite a bit of meat - chicken breast was on special offer, and we also bought some stewing steak, mince, and boneless chicken thighs... my supply of frozen meals is running low so I need to make some more slow-cooked dishes.

Then there were the 'staples', which tend to be pricey in Cyprus. Dishwasher powder and salt, cat food, canned tomatoes and baked beans, frozen peas, coffee, molasses, several kilogrammes of flour, sugar, and so on. I bought some pineapple juice, rice milk and Weetabix since Tim will be home for Christmas in about ten days. Yes, this is - I hope - basically sufficient groceries for the next month, at least, other than the things I buy locally. Oh, and the turkey which we've ordered, and the cranberries which I hope will be available in another couple of weeks.

But still, adding up the amount mentally as the items went through the till was a bit shocking; the bill was in fact slightly less than I had estimated, but still more than I can ever remember spending before in one supermarket visit.

Perhaps it's so long since we've been there that the prices have gone up without me noticing..

The weather stayed fine while we were shopping, which was just as well since it took a while to load everything into the car, and we would have got rather wet if it had been raining.

Unfortunately, the winch system that we should be able to use to bring our shopping upstairs is not working at present. So it looked as if we were going to be up and down our stairs,carrying in supermarket bags, for several minutes. So we were rather pleased with our friends Sheila and Marie drew up in their car, and asked if they could come and change the books Marie had borrowed. Of course, I said... and wondered if they'd like to help carry things in! They obliged willingly, so we only had two trips up and down per person.

We chatted awhile, then Richard went off to King Malu, to work on the inside since it was too damp to paint the outside. I unpacked the groceries and put most of them away, then sat down to read and write some email.

About half an hour later the heavens opened. And it poured. We've seen some heavy rain in Cyprus at times, but I don't remember ever seeing quite such a concerted effort as this storm. It kept going for at least two hours, solidly.

It's very difficult to capture rain in a still photograph, but here's my best attempt. If nothing else you can see how grey the day looks in our neighbourhood. The flat roof over the road is shining with rain, and if you look hard you can see rain splashing off the street. At the bottom right of the picture you can actually see some rain, caught by the camera:


Even that doesn't show the incredible downpour. I think Terry Pratchett described best what we had today, in his excellent book for children, 'Truckers':

'..the kind of rain that is merely an upright sea with slots in it '

The problem with heavy rain is that our roof still leaks over our indoor staircase. So I placed not just the bucket, but the large coolbox on the stairs to catch most of the rain:


It was only dripping into these receptacles, but by the time the rain ceased, there were at least 5cm of water in each of them.

I shall be interested to see how full the Salt Lake is now.

Walk in the Salt Lake Park in Larnaka

Yesterday morning, after popping to Orphanides Express, and making some bolognese sauce to simmer in the slow-cooker all day, I went to collect three young friends to take for a walk while their parents were in a meeting. They live near the Salt Lake Park, so after some discussion we headed for the shortest direction, via the roads rather than the nature trail.

Our destination was the little playground. It's been vandalised, sadly, so the see-saw doesn't work and the 'den' is rather broken. But the swings are fine. The two little girls enjoyed the 'baby' swings in their various ways:


And their brother spent some time on the bigger swing. Then the two older ones played on the slide, and the climbing place, moving much too fast for me to attempt any photos. Then, getting bored of what they were 'supposed' to do, since they are home educated, they spent considerably longer dragging branches of trees to the broken den, trying to figure out what to do with an old wooden slat they found, and generally co-operating in all kinds of imaginative play.

There were no other children there at all. On one bench there was a man, smoking, who left soon after we arrived. On another bench were a young couple, probably teenagers, talking and cuddling. And there was a rather lonely looking dog whose ears pricked up any time anyone walked another dog through the park - he even went off to play with some of them - but then came back and lay down. He was quite friendly. I hope his owners find him and that he hasn't been abandoned.

After about an hour or so, the sky was turning grey and I had a sense that it was going to rain. Probably quite hard. 'No problem', said one of my young friends, 'the buggy has a rain-cover'. I pointed out that would be fine for the small person occupying the buggy, but the rest of us didn't want to get soaked. Or, at any rate, I didn't. We might be short of rain in Cyprus, and I'm happy when it does happen to rain... but that doesn't mean I want to be caught out in it.

So we headed back, on a rather circuitous route directed by the oldest child, where we saw that there is a significant amount of water in the Salt Lake now, although the foliage still all looks very brown:

My camera was still playing up - I suppose I really ought to change the batteries, as it keeps telling me to, but so long as it continues to take pictures it seems a bit silly.

As we walked back - and that probably took another half hour with the lengthy route - the sky lightened. Perhaps I was wrong, I thought. Thankfully the children didn't seem to mind, and were happy enough to be going home.

When we got back, their parents were still in their meeting so I suggested we play a game. They produced 'Labyrinth', something I vaguely remember playing with my sons when they were about seven or eight, although they got bored after a few games. It requires some logical and spatial awareness, but there isn't much scope for strategy, and one game is much like another.

As we played, we heard the roll of thunder. Then the sky darkened again, and it started to rain. Not very heavily at first but by the time we finished the game, it was pouring down. I stayed until it cleared up, and then went home, along streets that were full of huge puddles.

A new game: Carcassonne hunters and gatherers

Today was, once again, sunny and reasonably warm. I spent the morning, as I usually do on Wednesdays, cleaning the upstairs, making the bed with clean sheets/duvet cover, and also preparing food for lunch. The book-keeper at Richard's office is in on Wednesdays and usually comes home with him for a meal, so as well as making a fresh loaf of bread, I usually make some kind of bar cake (freezing the majority for future use) and perhaps some egg mayo.

In the afternoon, I spent a couple of hours with three home educated children, learning a new game: Carcassonne, hunters and gatherers. Their mother, who needed a break, had gone out for a walk with their youngest sister, and the fourth child in the family was fast asleep on the sofa.

It was the German edition of the game (the family are bilingual) so I couldn't have a quick look at the rules. Well, I could have done, but it wouldn't have helped me understand! However, since I do know how to play the ordinary Carcassonne game, it wasn't too difficult to pick up despite some slightly confusing explanations, and I learned more as we played. Not a bad game, although I think I slightly prefer the original Carcassonne.

When we finished - with surprisingly close scores for three of us - I thought I'd take a picture of the board. But the camera kept telling me it was low on battery; the screen on the back didn't show anything, and the flash didn't work. So I wasn't quite sure what - if anything - I took. None of the four photos which somehow got onto the camera really showed the final layout well, but this is probably the best:


The theory is that these are the original inhabitants of Carcassonne, with forests which work roughly like cities, and rivers that work a little like roads, but have the addition of fish; the fields have deer, mammoths and tigers which also contribute to the game score. I didn't quite figure that bit out, so it's just as well I wasn't keeping the score.

Here are my young friends, who were my opponents in the game:



This evening I need to finish proof-reading the book Richard has been writing. I didn't do most of the things I had planned to do today - still no photos ordered, for instance. It didn't help that our Internet connection was off for most of the morning, and rather flakey this afternoon.

December in Cyprus: bills, shopping and a general day

Not that it feels any different from November. The weather is still unseasonably warm. When I walked to the PO Box this morning, I was wearing a fleece; but by the time I arrived at Tots I was pretty warm, so I took it off. And while I expected to feel chilly during the course of the morning, it didn't happen. I carried it home, and didn't feel the need for an extra layer until about 3pm.

From comments I've received on this blog, and on Facebook after the posts I link to there (by no means all of them), and the occasional related email I've received, it appears that people who read this are primarily interested in four things:

• What the weather is like in Cyprus

• What I actually do from day to day

• What it costs to live in Cyprus

• What I cook and eat

Posts about plants typically attract the odd comment, usually from someone who's found the post via a search engine. And posts about places of interest in Cyprus are usually ignored completely, or so it appears.

Not that I intend to stop writing about interesting places, if we happen to visit anywhere new. But, wanting to please my public, so to speak, I shall attempt this month to write more on the above bullet-pointed items. Unless, that is, a stream of comments tell me that - as it appears to me, sometimes - those are rather tedious topics and I should write about something else.

So. I've covered today's weather in the first paragraph. Sunshine, and around 23C in the shade, I suppose. As it's been for most of the past month or so. Chillier once it gets dark - at around 5pm - but not really cold.

What I did: paid for the next years's PO Box rental (30 euros), collected mail (mostly bills), helped at Tots - the mother-and-toddler group run by Larnaka Community Church, but open to anyone. Walked home with friends, read email/Facebook, wrote a longish email and one or two forum posts, uploaded photos from Picasa to Kodak Gallery, so I can order some prints tomorrow. Laundry in the machine and then hung out, since it's a mains water day. Watered the plants, since it hasn't rained for a week. Filled drinking water bottles from the mains tap. Popped around the corner to Orphanides Express, since we needed some more milk and cheese for the cauliflower cheese I planned to make for tonight's meal. Chatted awhile on Instant Messenger with Tim, as he was deciding which essay topic to write for his Ethics class.

Then I cooked, and we ate, and I froze the rest of the large cauliflower which I bought yesterday: we'll get at least four meals out of it.

So much for my day. I'm now blogging... ! Richard is doing something on his laptop, but in a few minutes we'll switch off and probably play a board game.

And for those interested in the cost of living - from our perspective, anyway - my visit to Orphanides Express cost us just over 21 euros. For that, I bought a 2kg bag of cat food, 2 litres of milk, 400g Cheddar cheese, 1kg Greek yogurt, 1 litre of lemon squash, and 7 free range eggs. Dairy products are not cheap in Cyprus, and free-range eggs are particularly pricey. But I can't quite bring myself to buy the other kind.

As for the bills: in the last two months we've used up 120 euros of electricity, and in the past three months we've used 23 euros of water. That's in the main part of the house where we live; both seem very reasonable. In fact, given the scarcity of water in Cyprus, the water bill seems remarkably low considering that I run the washing machine three or four times per week, and the dishwasher probably five times. And of course we have showers every day, and are not economical about flushing the loo.

We also had bills for the guest flat: around 75 for electricity; slightly more than last year, but then we've had people staying fairly often this year. The water bill for the guest flat is just over 40 euros; it's unusual to be more than in our part of the house, but then it covers the period when the guest flat tank was leaking, and had to be replaced (and thus completely emptied out) a few months ago, and also we watered the plants outside, using guest flat water, every other day during July and August. The date range, strangely, for the water bills is July to October.

(Note: if you want to convert euros to some other currency, I'd recommend the oanda.com currency converter. If you want to find out imperial equivalents to the metric weights or Celcius temperature, the easiest way is to go to Google and type something like '400g in ounces' - and the first result will show you the exact calculation)