Out of Cyprus: shopping in town, new games, another meal out

Tim really needed to get some work done. So we decided to take Daniel and Becky into the City Centre for a few hours. I had the idea that I might spend some of my birthday money on a new game or two... I was particularly interested in the 'Traders and Barbarians' expansion of Settlers of Catan, since it apparently contains several interesting variants on the main game. We knew there was a good Games Workshop shop near where we usually park, so that was our first port of call.

I hate making decisions, and spending money even when I've been told that I MUST spend it on myself. But we browsed, and I pretty much decided that this expansion looked like a very good one. We were also interested in several variations on Carcassonne - not expansions, but different games altogether. I had already played the 'Hunters and Gatherers' variation, which our friends own; but didn't think it quite as good as regular Carcassonne. However, we rather liked the look of another game - another standalone - called Discoverers.

There were many games that didn't interest me at all - violent ones, for instance - and we decided against getting a double-12 set of dominoes as the set was so very heavy, and our space flying back to Cyprus is going to be limited.

Having ascertained that the shop was open all day we decided to return later - which game me more time to ponder.

We went and had some coffee in one of the malls, and showed Becky the famous bull statue of the Bull Ring. We spent some time in Waterstones bookshop but didn't buy anything other than a couple of good value DVDs. Then we decided to walk along the canal for a while. While there, we saw that one of the narrowboats operated a cafe, and thought it might be fun to eat there, despite their dubious spelling and punctuation:


The photo doesn't make it obvious, but they had two Gs and an apostrophe in what should have been 'baguettes' .

We were able to find a table for four, and Daniel and Becky - who were on the MV Doulos for so long - felt right at home eating on board a boat, gently moving in the water:


The food was very good, and pretty good value too.

We'd paid for four hours of parking, so decided to wander back. We went into the Games shop again, and I bought the two games we had looked at, plus another called Thurn and Taxis, which had won an award in 2006, and is made by a German company (Germans seem to make by far the best games). When I later looked it up online, it's given excellent reviews.

We decided to try out the new variation on Carcassonne, which proved quite interesting and different in several respects. Here's how the board looked at the end


Daniel did try seeing if he could use the card left over from the tiles (which had to be pressed out before they were used)....


.. but we decided it was simplest just to recycle them.

In the evening, we were all asked out to an Indian restaurant by some good friends and had a most enjoyable meal. At the end we were each given an After Eight (made by a company I would never buy from... but since they were given, we at them anyway and enjoyed them) and our friends' son challenged us to turn the wrappers inside out without ripping them.

I succeeded and was told I had made a Darth Vader helmet:

Out of Cyprus: day in Alcester

On Wednesday, we spent the day in Alcester with my father. We caught up on the past six months or so - including being reassured that he's recovering well from his bypass surgery in February - and I had more birthday presents. Then we had an excellent lunch, and Tim installed some hardware for him.

Then we all went out on a walk to a nearby nature trail. I am really appreciating the UK in the spring, which is very different from Cyprus springtime. Not so warm, but we've had sunshine every day so far. Not a drop of rain, although I gather some is predicted for tomorrow.

We rarely see ducks in Cyprus:

and we thought this bridge rather spectacular, with the reflection:

I was intrigued by this tree, with roots growing on the outside:

On the way back we walked through Alcester village, where some of the houses look as if they should have fallen down a long time ago:

We also walked around the churchyard, and saw this slightly unusual clock, angled so that everyone in the town can see it:

We had some tea, but Tim was feeling tired and a bit migrainey so we left around 7.15, and were back in Birmingham by 8pm... and then played another game of Settlers of Catan.

Out of Cyprus: Italian restaurant in Moseley

As I said in the previous post about my 50th birthday, we planned to go out to eat in the evening. Richard and me, our two sons, their girlfriends, and my mother. Since we had almost no idea what places were good value, good food and acceptable to everyone, and since Tim is the most organised of us all, he suggested a small Italian place on Woodbridge Road, easy walking distance for most of us.

Tim told us that the meals were pretty big, but we decided to have some large garlic breads as a starter. We had four of them, which looked huge - like enormous naan bread rather than standard garlic bread - but they were soon mostly eaten. Here's what was left after about ten minutes:

For the main course, Richard ordered a pizza. Which was, indeed, enormous:

He couldn't manage it all, so Daniel (who is vegetarian) helped him out with some of the cheesy part.

Daniel and I both ordered spinach-filled tortellini in creamy tomato sauce. It didn't look all that big, and didn't come with anything else - perhaps we should have ordered a large salad between us - but was extremely filling:

My other ordered monkfish, which came with a bit of salad and a lot of saute potatoes, which she shared with anyone who wanted them:

All in all, we thought it very good food. It's apparently a very popular restaurant but we had no problems booking a table for 7 the day before; when we arrived there was nobody else there. However by the time we left, shortly before 8pm, it was filling up rapidly and becoming quite noisy.

So we came back to my mother's house, and enjoyed a family game of Settlers of Catan.

Out of Cyprus: my 50th birthday

The main reason that we are in the UK rather than Cyprus at present is that it's my 50th birthday today. I didn't want to do anything much to celebrate, other than to be with my sons. Tim wasn't going to be able to come to Cyprus, since Easter was early and his university term started a week ago, and although Daniel was intending to fly out on the 19th, he would not have been able to in the event, due to the volcanic ash from Iceland.

So, instead, Richard and I are here in England. And today is the big day. Do I feel any older? Not really... I expect I will always be about 26 on the inside.

I had several cards to open including this delightful one of a cat:

Daniel, ever creative, had produced this strangely shaped gift for me:

He had also made me a flat-pack birthday card which I had to assemble (not very complicated but rather clever):

The inside of the oddly shaped parcel from him and Becky turned out to be a chocolate orange, which I shall enjoy very much, and also some bottles of bubble mixture, which Dan said were for me to share with my youngest best friend in Cyprus...


Daniel and Becky then showered me gently with bubbles for a few minutes...


My brother and his wife were here at the weekend, and had left me a large parcel which turned out to be several books from my wishlist:

Tim had bought me a webcam (rather better than the ultra-cheap one we had already, which doesn't really work) and a mouse, since my one in Cyprus is partly broken.


Tim had also agreed to bake me a cake. He asked Daniel to cut out a circle of waxed paper for the bottom of the tin, which Daniel did with great care:

Richard had to pop out for another meeting, so Becky and Daniel taught me to play the two-player Settlers of Catan card game. Tim was very interested and helped me... I was a little bewildered by the complexity, but still managed to win. There's a lot of luck in it.

We decided that one candle was sufficient to represent my 50 years:

Although my sons are rather over-protective and don't like me to use large sharp knives, Tim did say I could use his chopping knife to cut the cake, so long as I was careful. Daniel then took this photo which he said made me look rather sinister...

I cut up half the cake, which we enjoyed very much. And because it was still slightly warm, and because Daniel thought a second piece would be rather nice, I then cut up the rest of it and we ate that too.

And Daniel, who is an expert in taking unflattering photos, caught me enjoying my cake...

Tim asked me what I wanted to do in the afternoon, and I said I'd like first of all to check my email and then catch up with blogging. So that's what I've been doing for the past hour and a half.

This evening we're going out for a meal, and the rest of the week will be quite busy with visiting other friends and relatives so I may not get another chance to write until we get back to Cyprus - which, volcano permitting, should be in eight days time.

Out of Cyprus: Canon Hill Park

On Saturday I did some shopping in the morning, walking a couple of miles, probably. One of my brothers and his wife arrived for lunch, staying the weekend, and in the afternoon they went out for a walk with Richard and me. We decided to walk down to Canon Hill Park, which is about a mile away and resplendent with flowers:

The way we went in was different from the one I was used to, and I enjoyed seeing slightly different views of the large ponds:

Although it wasn't particularly warm, it was sunny - yet again - and several people were out for a Saturday afternoon in the park. My brother was in his shirtsleeves, although Richard was still wearing a fleece and a body-warmer jacket:

Yet more photos of England in April...

So much greener than Cyprus, although the sky isn't as blue

We don't see ducks and geese at all in Cyprus, so it was nice to see them still peacefully nesting and swimming in Canon Hill Park:

Out of Cyprus: busy day and a short walk in a park

We spent five days in Sussex with Richard's mother, helping her to celebrate her birthday on the Sunday, and also doing some sorting and shredding of old paperwork. On Tuesday Richard had a morning meeting, also in Sussex and in the afternoon we drove to Birmingham to be reunited with Tim again.

One of the things we enjoy when we come here is catching up with various friends and relatives. Wednesday was actually a quiet day, just popping out to shops and chatting, and helping Tim re-organise his room. On Thursday we spent the morning and lunch-time with a friend who was recently bereaved and caught up on his last few months.

Then on Friday we had a very busy day. First Richard took some of the rubbish from Tim's room - mostly packing materials - to the dump. Then we took my mother to the supermarket at the Maypole to do a fairly big shop for the weekend. After that we collected Tim and drove him part-way to university, then on to some old friends for an early lunch which was most enjoyable. They were going out at 2.30 and our next appointment was at 3.00 so we stopped briefly at Bournville Park and went for a walk, enjoying the sunshine - even if it was a little chilly - and the greenery:

I'm not really a huge fan of daisies, but they're another wild flower that we rarely see in Cyprus. Here's a close-up of a few of them:

And a patch of grass covered with daisies, from further away:

.. and here's a bit of the river:

We didn't walk for long; our next appointment was coffee with the Vicar of one of our supporting churches. At 4.15 we left him and drove to Newman to collect Tim, then on to some of our very oldest (that is to say longest-standing) and dearest friends for a lovely evening with Mexican food, and time to catch up on the past six months.

Out of Cyprus: helping Tim upgrade his room...

Since we had rented a car for our time in the UK, Tim had asked us if we would go with him to collect a desk, chair and bookcase that he wanted to buy. He had a budget and several possible ideas; eventually he decided that he wanted a bookcase from Argos, and a desk from Ikea.

Tim has a pretty big room which is actually a loft conversion in my mother's home, so he can do pretty much what he likes in it. Here's the staircase up to his room, which gives him a lot of privacy:


Ikea is about ten miles away - we hadn't been there for a long time. Indeed, the last time we came, as far as I recall, we left both Daniel and Tim to play in the ball-pool for little children for half an hour or so... and they're now 23 and 21.

Tim knew exactly what desk he wanted, but wasn't at all sure about the chairs. The advantage of Ikea over Argos is that one can try out the various chairs on offer - so we did.

Not being very tall, I found some of them rather too big for me....


but Tim was able to choose one which he liked, that was within his budget, and we were able to resist the many appealing bargains we saw, being aware of our limitations in baggage allowance when returning to Cyprus!


So we got the things back, and bought the bookcase at Argos. And then Richard suggested Tim might move his bed out of the bigger part of his room, to the other side of the staircase. And then suggested he move his wardrobe... and his bookcases... and his piano...

Tim would have preferred to think about it for a while, but we knew future days were going to rush by, and Richard thought it better to get the room more organised before Daniel arrived (sleeping on Tim's floor). So they started moving furniture. Of course, it meant a lot more chaos and mess was created before any hope of organisation appeared...


I was called in to organise his books and DVDs, which I very much enjoyed doing, and also to start going through some of the piles of paperwork, sorting the important from the rubbish. We managed to collect quite a fair amount of things to take to the dump, including the packaging from the recent purchases and an old monitor which Tim had been given by someone else who couldn't get rid of it any other way.

Here are Richard and Tim finding a new place for Tim's electronic piano:


.. and at last, sanity reigned with his desk set up, and the new chair in place.

Out of Cyprus: afternoon in Brighton

While staying in Sussex, Richard wanted to visit the Chandlers at the Brighton Marina. I remembered going there some years ago, when we parked at one end... then walked what seemed like miles before we found the Chandler. Richard assured me we could park a bit closer... and indeed we did. But sadly, not a lot closer.

So we still had quite a walk along the marina - restaurants on one side, boats on the other. Lots and lots of dinghies and small yachts...


Not terribly interesting to me, but Richard loves looking at boats of all shapes and sizes.


After about a mile - I suppose - his mother was tired, and the weather was surprisingly warm so we sat on a bench while Richard went the last distance and browsed around the shop which we would also have found rather dull.

Then we went to Asda's to get some shopping, and drove through Brighton in a fair amount of traffic although it wasn't as busy as we'd expected:


After being out of the country for so long, I enjoy seeing the typical Brighton buildings which I would scarcely have glanced at 12 years ago:

And of course one has to spot the bizarre palace built at huge cost by the Prince Regent in the 18th century:

I'm not sure who this statue is... but it demanded a photo:

Spring, out of Cyprus for a while

It's probably 13 years since we were in the UK during April. Thirteen years where I have not really thought about spring flowers. Bedding plants are in full bloom in Cyprus right now - petunias, and geraniums, and marigolds, and so on.

So although I hadn't precisely forgotten about English spring flowers, they struck me afresh with their colour and brightness, arriving as we did on a surprisingly sunny day.


I didn't think daffodils were all that special when we used to live here, but suddenly I can quite see why Wordsworth wrote as he did about them from abroad


Here are some more:



Then there are polyanthuses and primroses:


and a wonderful display of hyacinths:


All these were taken in Richard's mother's garden. There are bulbs and other flowers blooming everywhere... and we've had warm, sunny weather. It was apparently 18C today.

I am typing on Richard's laptop where I keep making errors so it's taken me a long time just to type these two sentences... the next few weeks may be high on photos but low on text!