Brief cameos from May in Cyprus

Not only have I rather neglected this blog in the past few weeks, I've hardly used my camera, either. I'm not sure why. But here, for anyone interested, are a few brief updates from the past month, along with the rather paltry contents of my camera... 

Firstly, a scene that I thought very pretty when we drove past the Salt Lake one evening at sunset. We just stopped at some traffic lights so I didn't have time to try different settings on the camera. I didn't even keep it still enough to be sharp - but the silhouettes are quite attractive:

The Salt Lake is still very full, given that it's the end of May. We've had a couple of quite heavy rain showers this month, and even today there was a little rain. The long, relatively cool spring is very pleasant. While people in the UK are currently basking in (or complaining about) temperatures of 25-28C, I've acclimatised sufficiently to find similar temperatures in Cyprus pleasantly cool. 

The downside of a longer, wetter spring is that mosquitoes seem to have bred out of all proportion, and we've even had some 'no-see-um's' around, giving nasty bites that swell like those of biting spiders. Last night we made the mistake of having a couple of windows open after dark. This morning I found hundreds of little mosquitoes all over them. Apologies to animal activists... but I showed no mercy. 

The majority of May has been taken up with the closing down of the office about a kilometre away where Richard has been working for many years.  His colleagues are leaving, for various reasons, and the costs - particularly electricity bills - were becoming far too high. So the organisation has down-sized, and Richard will now be working from home. He was in the middle of the first sabbatical he had taken in over twenty years, so had to put that on hold for a while, to move equipment and furniture, and re-organise a couple of rooms in our house. He had already taken over what was Daniel's room as his study; he has now completely redesigned the 'studio' in our guest flat as a video editing suite. 

Ten days ago was the official closing date of the bigger office; we got together with the workers (past and present) and their families, and the trustees of the organisation in our home for a big lunch and party to celebrate the last twelve or so years. Change is not necessarily a bad thing, and it was good to catch up with so many people - but I didn't think of getting the camera out to record such a momentous occasion. Ah well.

Since then, Richard has worked hard to clear out the rest of the office, culminating in a skip last Friday. It will be handed back to the landlord at the end of the month. He would like to resume his sabbatical in June, but may have to spend some weeks on sorting out some technical things first. 

Although the office relocation has taken up almost all of Richard's time, and much of our emotion for the past month, life has continued as ever, spending time with friends, playing games, and so on. 

Earlier in the month, we attended a Greek Orthodox wedding for the first time. It was in a local church with magnificent paintings up high, and a large number of people in the congregation. The bride is the daughter of some of the people we have known longest in Cyprus. 

Then, last Friday evening, at the regular informal 'cell group' we belong to, Richard and our almost-ten-year-old friend Lukas had an enjoyable half hour experimenting with some old brass goblets which we had no use for (but Lukas loved), filling them with different amounts of water and testing the pitch. Richard's iPhone was able to tell them the approximate note, and Lukas eventually played a tune - of sorts. 

It was what we thought of as a typical 'home education' moment - I'm not sure if one would class it as physics or music, or just a bit of exploratory science, but it's the kind of thing that arises spontaneously and which we would miss, now we're empty-nesters, if it weren't for our nearby friends. 

Oh, and for anyone wondering about my broken toes... they seem to be mostly better. I made my first trip to a local shop on my own about a week ago, and even walked to the Anglican Church on my own yesterday (it being Pentecost Sunday in the Western calendar). But they're still not 100%, and my pace is a great deal slower than I like to walk. 

Tuesday evening games-fest II

It's nearly eight months since my good friend Joan and I, in the temporary absence of our husbands, held a five-hour 'games fest' evening. It so happens that this week, once again, our menfolk are away at the same time. So we thought we might try a re-run.  Not that it was quite the same... for one thing, I knew I would not be able to walk even as far as the local Souvlaki Express.  I thought I had bruised my toes badly three weeks ago. The advice and observations of various knowledgeable people, combined with the rather slow healing process, suggets that two of them were in fact broken. So I'm not walking anywhere at present. 

Joan offered to pick up some halloumi souvlaki (if that's not a total oxymoron...) on her way.  And since we'd both eaten lunch early, we ate that at once, while it was still hot, along with some rather spicy and delicious falafel which she had also bought.  

Then, not sure what we would play, I got down a selection of our games:

Joan suggested starting with Bananagrams, as it was at the top of the pile, and is a pretty non-competitive game that would get our brain cells going.  So we did this one, where I think I finished about half a second before she did: 

Followed by this one, where Joan was about two seconds ahead of me. I photographed this upside-down (as it was her grid) and rotated it, which is why it looks a bit odd:

Joan wasn't too sure about RUSED... I thought it was probably all right. It wasn't until posting it right now that I spotted NAJ. I'm decidedly dubious about that word... !

Here's my grid done at the same time, with the last two letters that I hadn't quite had time to place. I think I had more than my share of 'tricky' letters, although the two Qs were in my starting tiles, along with a U, so not difficult to play:

Then we did one more, and as far as I recall finished at exactly the same time:

Brain-cells now functioning, Joan asked about Boggle - a game I hadn't played in years.  So we did a few rounds - I think it was five in all. 

The timer didn't seem to be working so we just stopped when we'd both decided we were getting bored (or repeating words). As far as I remember, I won all the rounds - not that it mattered. 

After that, we switched to Upwords. Yes, a third word game - and this time, it was Joan who was the winner.  Quite interesting, really, that different kinds of word game must still use different kinds of skills, tactics and strategies. 

Here's our second game of Upwords, which Joan also won:

We did consider Scrabble, but we play Lexulous online anyway. We decided not to play Rummikub, since Joan's husband, who is not much of a game player, is usually happy to play it. So we decided to try a round of Settlers of Catan. It was just after 9.00pm by then and we thought it might be the last game of the evening. 

We were just placing our first settlements when my other good game-playing friend Sheila texted; we'd suggested she join us if she was able to get out, and she wanted to know if she could come.  So we removed our settlements and waited until she arrived.  A three-person game is more fun than two-player anyway, as it involves trading.  

This isn't the most flattering photo of either of them, but for some reason it's the only picture I took with faces in: 

Sheila won.  If she hadn't done so that turn, Joan would have done. I was trailing. 

It was a good game.

By then it was 10.00 and I was beginning to get a bit tired, but we thought we might play a quick game of Dixit  - something that isn't possible with only two people. The three-player rules looked as if it would make the game faster than playing with more people, and Sheila hadn't played before. 

I got so interested that I forgot to take any pictures during the game, other than this selection of cards:

It wasn't that quick. Shortly before 11.00 Sheila's husband called to say that the children were all fine, but that it was rather later than she had expected to be... we were a couple of turns away from the end by then. 

Sheila turned out to be extremely good at Dixit, and won - she was about three or four points ahead of Joan, who is also very good at it.  I was so far behind that they almost lapped me on the board. I'm not sure if it's just that my creativity is a different sort, or whether my being strongly a morning person (and thus mostly closed down after 10pm) meant that I was even worse than usual. It was fun, anyway.  

I was in bed by 11.30... 

Cyprus Immigration update

Two and a half weeks ago, we went to Immigration and made an appointment for today. I explained in that post what our situation is, and why, despite having lived here for 14 years (and owning a house) we need to apply, again, for permits.

They gave us a check-list of documents we needed. We had most of them with us - and the required photocopies - but not everything. So in the intervening time, we sorted out basic medical insurance - time-consuming, and an extra expense we really didn't want, and rather pointless as we already have coverage for hospital care and operations. We got new copies of the deeds of our house and found our marriage certificate. Richard went to the bank and got them to stamp the statements which we print at home, before photocopying again.

This morning Richard had some new passport-style photos done - it's always useful to have some spare - and we printed out the statements we get from the agencies that support us in the work Richard does here.

We arrived at Immigration at 10.45, allowing plenty of time before our 11.00 appointment. We had barely sat down outside before 'Mr Richard' was called, and we went in.

The young woman behind the desk was friendly in a reserved kind of way, and spoke very good English. She asked for our passports, marriage certificate, house deeds, and so on - we produced them to show her and handed her the photocopies, and all was going well until we reached the 'proof of income'. We had six months' worth of bank statements, and the evidence of income in the past four months, as well as spreadsheets from last year.

However, there was no 'contract'. No 'proof' that our income will continue. And while she accepted that we own a house, and that we've had sufficient income over the past many years, the yellow slips are 'forever' - and so she can't authorise them without either a contract or evidence of a pension. So we reached an impasse.

'What can we do?' we asked. She shrugged, and said that we could go to Nicosia and talk to an Immigration lady there (she gave us the name) and persuade her that we had enough income to live here, and then if she agreed (and, presumably, stamped something to say so) then everything would be fine. All our other documents were in order.

We said that we didn't really have any way to prove anything. It doesn't even make sense to do so - if we were employed in Cyprus, we might become redundant at any point. I don't see how one can prove anything, income-wise, other than what one has received in the past. But the lady was adamant. She did ask another lady in the same office, and they had quite an animated discussion in Greek - but both were agreed: they had never before come across a case like ours, and did not have the authority to grant a permanent yellow slip. There are no longer any temporary ones available.

Then she said, 'But you are legal anyway. You don't really need a yellow slip; you are Europeans.'

I felt as if my jaw dropped several centimetres.

'But...' we said, 'the papers said that we might be fined...'

She shook her head. 'Don't believe them!' she assured us. 'Nobody will arrest you, there are no fines.'

So we thanked her, and left. Who knows what we should believe. Obviously she didn't tell us in writing that we are legal and don't need yellow slips. But since we do have Alien Registration Cards we're not unregistered. We have a house, we pay car tax (using the ARC number). And we're Europeans....

We're not entirely sure what to do. It's annoying to have taken out extra medical insurance if we didn't need to (we hope, of course, that we won't have any reason to use it) and frustrating to have wasted so much time on gathering the documents together and double-checking that we had all we need, as well as the appointments. Without any further 'evidence' of income, there doesn't seem much point going to Nicosia, only to be refused.

So... our status has not changed. It's encouraging to have been told unofficially that we're living here legally, and it's certainly never caused any problems not having current yellow slips. But it would have been nice to have some closure!

Cyprus May Day

Somewhat predictably, for Cyprus, it's quite warm today. Around 27-28C in the shade outside, according to the UK Weather site. Then again, that site claims that we're having wall-to-wall sunshine today, which isn't true. The sky, right now, is decidedly grey. I don't think it's going to rain, but it looks as though it could.  The forecast is for a few degrees cooler over the next ten days or so, and that's fine with me. I know that in another month I will probably be feeling uncomfortably hot, and we'll start discussing whether or not we want to use air conditioning at night. Not yet, though. Not before June at the earliest.

I'm still wearing jeans, although I finally gave up wearing fleeces a week or so ago, using instead a very light-weight long-sleeved top; I shed that a couple of days ago. A tee-shirt and jeans is very comfortable; I'm in no hurry to progress to shorts. We still have our medium-weight duvet on the bed, too, although when I change the sheets tomorrow I may think of switching to the light-weight one for a few weeks, before it becomes too hot to use anything but a single sheet on top of us at night.

Today is a public holiday in Cyprus, in a low-key kind of way. Schools and banks are closed, and probably the Post Offices. A lot of shops are shut, too, but not all of them. Bigger supermarkets tend to ignore minor public holidays, and stay open for at least a few hours.  Not that I'd be going anywhere... my foot is still somewhat uncomfortable, and becomes painful if I walk too much. Richard has been driving me even to the local froutaria, which feels very decadent but probably a good idea, since I would very much like my foot to heal as rapidly as possible.