Life is not all power cuts in Cyprus...

... although, ironically, just as I was about to start this post, my screen went blank as we had our earliest power cut so far, at 1.00pm. The longest, too - electricity didn't come back until 3.30pm. The freezer was still fine, and thankfully it isn't too humid today. I was just thankful that I wasn't in the middle of anything important.

I seem to become less enthusiastic about the beach each year, but we have been a couple of times with friends. The first time, nearly two weeks ago, we arrived to see a disembodied head lying in the sand:


Lukas was very happy to be buried up to his neck by his siblings, despite having to keep still ... and although it looks rather dangerous, he was able to kick sand off his feet and could easily have jumped up at any point.

The following Sunday, the same family came to us, as we do alternate weeks, for an afternoon of games (or a film for the children) followed by a cold meal. And because we ate early, they hung around for a while afterwards, which was fun. Elisabeth is now thirteen months old, and while she doesn't have the strong attachment to me that her sister Helen does, she does like coming for a cuddle now and again. And with Tim home, there are even a few pictures with me in them:


Jacob suggested a game of bananagrams, which can be played by any number of people for varying amounts of time. And, as we learned, at varying levels. So we got it out, and did a few rounds together:


Katie enjoyed 'helping' me at first:


Helen wasn't too happy as the only letter she likes is H - and we objected to her removing all the Hs from the game. So Richard offered to read to her - something he doesn't do very often, but is extremely good at:


Helen often asks me to read the story of 'Ping', but usually gets bored after a few pages. But with Richard reading, she listened to the entire book. And was so enthralled that Katie decided that it would be more fun to listen too than it was to help me spot words with my tiles: