Buying fruit in Cyprus

The cost of living in Cyprus is a lot higher than it used to be. But locally grown fruit is still excellent value, and great quality too. I like to pick up bargains, so I often pop down to Achna Froutaria first thing (well, about 7.30am) on a Saturday morning. I wanted some apples and oranges, primarily for juicing, so was very pleased to see that there were bags of them on the euro aisle. I looked quickly to check that none of them was obviously bad, and picked up one of each.

In the 'pink bag' (reduced, but not ready-bagged) section I spotted some Cyprus bananas - which taste so much better than imported ones, even if they go brown a little more quickly - and some figs.


When I arrived home, a little weighed down by my purchases, I put the euro-bags on the kitchen scales of out curiosity, and also checked the bill.

Rather neatly, I thought, I had managed to buy approximately:

3.5kg oranges
2.5kg apples
1.5kg bananas
0.5kg figs

That's 8kg in all - for a grand total of €3.70.

For those that prefer imperial measurements, 8kg is about 17.5 pounds weight. And for those who think in other currencies, €3.70 is approximately $5 (US dollars), or £3.20 in sterling.

It seems good value to me, anyway. And certainly both healthful and delicious.

Thanksgiving in Cyprus with friends

Last year I wrote about our good friends Mark and Joan, who provided a wonderful feast for Thanksgiving - an American feast which we have enjoyed ever since we lived in the USA for a couple of years, back in the early 1990s.

This year, we were invited again. Joan said she was not going to cook quite such a feast as she did last year, but when we arrived on Thursday evening, it looked, once again, like a sumptuous spread. All the more amazing because her hob/oven had broken, and had not yet been replaced, so most of it was made using a single burner!

There were: stuffed eggs with carrot sticks - standard Thanksgiving fare where Joan comes from:


Greek salad - since we were in Cyprus:


And a spread of other dishes - turkey breast, corn on the cob, butternut squash, brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, green beans.. and some Cyprus halloumi:


So we filled our plates, and then realised there was also a ham and potato casserole which had been simmering in the crockpot:


I had offered to bake a pie, but Mark and Joan prefer a lighter dessert, so she made a jelly mould with lots of fruit in and around it:


We ate it with yogurt.

All the food was all delicious, and the company was very enjoyable. After eating we played a game of Ticket to Ride, although I forgot to take a picture. Then we decided to pose for the occasion, using the delayed button on the camera. For some reason the lighting looks rather strange and dark, but I like the expressions of all four of us:

Washing our thick duvet...

Life is not all exotic beaches and Greek food in Cyprus...

I have written before about the difficulty of washing our thicker (9 tog) double duvet, which I like to do each summer. Cyprus is a dusty environment, and cats sleep on our bed.. and I've read all kinds of unpleasant articles about dust mites, and the like.

Although our single duvets, and our thin (4.5 tog) double one will go, one at a time, in our washing machine, there is no way that the thick one will fit. At our old house I would struggle to wash it in the bath, which was near the back door, and then lug it outside to the line. No fun at all. At this house, our bath is upstairs, but we do have an outside sink by the washing line.. however the sink is not big enough to take the duvet. So, if anything, it's even more difficult to wash.

However.. this year, a friend mentioned that she had discovered that a double duvet would fit nicely in one of the washing machines at the Larnaka Marina. Since Richard is a member there, we decided to try it ourselves. Of course, being good at leaving things until the last moment, we had not got around to doing this during the summer when it would have made the most sense.

Last week, when the weather turned chilly, I found myself feeling extremely cold at night under the thin duvet. So, finally, on Sunday, we decided to take the duvet to the marina. We even remembered to take some washing powder with us.

Unfortunately, we had not realised that it would not take coins. Richard called the friend who had told us about it, and she told us that we would need to buy a token at the office. But the office is closed over the weekend.

So we came home, and found a single quilt which I have not yet washed this year, and placed it, without a cover, over our light-weight (covered) duvet, for Sunday night. Cleo was happy:


I was too, as it was very cosy, and I slept well.

Richard had the day off on Monday (yesterday). So, mid-morning, we returned to the marina. Just before leaving ,I wondered aloud how we would get the duvet back when it was still wet... and we picked up a large black bin liner. I was rather glad to have remembered that.

This time - after a brief hiatus when we were given the token for a different machine - we managed to get it working. Even with this big machine, the duvet only JUST fit inside:


We went for a walk while we waited for it; the cycle lasted about an hour. It wouldn't quite fit in the bin liner when it was done, but most of it did. We sat it in the back seat of the car:


I wanted to put a seat-belt on it but Richard thought (correctly) that it would be fine.

Rather than lugging it up the stairs - it was still fairly heavy, despite a powerful spin - we hung it out downstairs on our guest flat washing line:


Despite it being a sunny day with a little breeze, it gets dark around 5.00pm now, and the duvet was not fully dry by then. I did manage to flip it over onto another line to allow the other side to dry, but we decided to leave it out overnight and keep the same arrangement with the added single quilt.

This afternoon, about 4.00, I went down to check again. This time, the duvet felt perfectly dry, so I bundled it up in my arms and brought it upstairs. I was going to put a cover on it, and put it on our bed, but this is what I saw:


I didn't have the heart to disturb them. Nor, if I am honest, the energy to try and fight with a clean duvet cover. Wednesday is the morning when I usually change the bedding anyway, so I put the sparkling clean duvet in Tim's room with the door closed... the temporary arrangement will stay in place for another night.

Water, water everywhere...

Our friends who stayed for a week left on Sunday night. The week of their stay had been fairly warm, with lots of sunshine. We had warned them that November in Cyprus can be quite chilly... and they returned to the UK just in time. On Monday, I woke to grey skies. I did manage to get out to the PO Box, the bank and the fruit shop, but by the time I got home again, around 10.30am, the sky was even greyer, thunder was rumbling around, and there was continual drizzle.

Unusually for Cyprus, the rain continued all day. Without a break. And got heavier and heavier, accompanied by some wind. Usually when it rains, it's torrential for an hour or so, and then the sun comes out. But we didn't see any sunshine at all on Monday. Rain came through our roof, and the wind was so strong that it also managed to come in a couple of other spots, in our bathroom ceiling and even in our bedroom. There must be more cracked tiles.

The sun did come out for about half an hour on Tuesday, but was followed by yet more rain. I don't think I have ever seen the street look so consistently wet:


The house was getting cold, too. Despite wearing four layers of clothing, I was chilly. So Richard decided that the time had come to service our central heating. That meant checking the pumps, basically, and making sure the boiler was working:


It didn't take all that long, and there wasn't much air in the radiators. So, happily, we now have the heating coming on both morning and evening when the house is less than 15C. As it has been.

It rained again on Wednesday. It's very good for the island, which so often suffers from lack of water. However, houses are not very well optimised for this kind of weather, and there have been flooded basements and leaking roofs all over the place. The Cyprus Mail reported that excessive rain caused problems - however, it IS good news that there has been so much rain so early in the winter, and that the reservoirs are now filling up rapidly.

We have our strategically placed bucket and cool-box as usual on the stairs to catch the worst of our leaks:


Today was dry, and even quite sunny in the morning, but tomorrow is supposed to be another day of continual rain...

Returning to Cyprus, and cooler weather

It's three weeks since I last wrote. The rest of the week after Tim's graduation raced past, with visits to and from other family members, meeting friends, and, of course, a few more Catan games. We said goodbye to our sons and daughter-in-law at the end of October and drove down to Sussex for a couple of days with Richard's mother, than back from Gatwick Airport nearly two weeks ago.

I know from experience that jet-lag is far worse coming this way. Not that I was particularly tired, but my brain feels foggy and unable to think creatively. It's only this week that I'm really feeling like myself again. Still, I did manage to do a few important jobs such as sorting the freezer out again, and baking this year's Christmas cake.

The day after we flew home, I walked down into town to our PO Box, relishing the rather cooler weather, and forgetting just how early the sun now sets, since the clock change. And having been out of Cyprus for nearly three weeks, I was aware of the skyline again as I walked home - so typical of Cyprus with the white buildings decorated with water tank and solar panels, the pine trees, and the wasteland, mostly brown after a dry summer:


I liked the colour of the sky, too, and the clouds which suggested that it wouldn't be too long before some rain: