Time rushes by..

... or perhaps, as someone once said, time actually stays where it is, and we rush along through it. I once heard a wise person say that, as one gets older, the passage of time gets increasingly rapid. This certainly seems to be the case, already - and I'm only fifty. Wasn't it just September? What happened to October? How can it be the end of the first week of November, already? Have Pratchett's history monks been playing even more tricks than usual?

I know of people who are 'pretty much ready for Christmas' by the start of November. I don't know if that's a sign of extreme organisation, or of wanting time to rush by even faster, or just general efficiency, not wanting a last-minute panic. Personally, I refuse to do anything related to Christmas until at least November. I thought I might make this year's Christmas cake some time this week, but the week appears to have vanished into the ether, and I keep forgetting to soak the fruit.

Delia might tell us to forget her celebration cake and spend lots of money on boxed mixes [thankyou to Rosemary for alerting me to this terrible heresy...] but I am not yet too old or frail to make Christmas cake. It's not as if it's very difficult, after all. One just puts the ingredients in a large bowl, stirs well, and then cooks slowly. If ever I reach the stage of being unable to do that, I shall probably buy a ready-made Christmas cake. I have never seen the point of boxed mixes, which are usually stuffed with unpronouncable and decidedly unpalatable ingredients.

The weather is feeling a little chillier, although Richard was out sailing today and said it was glorious on the sea. But now, at 4.45pm the sun is going down and I've just put my thin jacket on. Half an hour ago I went around the house and closed all the windows which I'd opened this morning. I popped out to the fruit shop just after lunch, and felt quite warm by the time I was home, but the evenings and nights are a lot colder than they were.

Cyprus is a strange place. People come and go; nothing seems to be permanent. Some good friends are just going away for five weeks, leaving soon; other good friends have just returned after a lengthy period away. People we know have decided to leave Cyprus for good; others, as they retire, often decide to spend the winter here, the summer in the UK. Life is transient anyway, but in Cyprus it's even more so.