A Cold and Frosty Cyprus

I know. It happens every year. Just as we think that Spring might be around the corner, as the days get longer... wham! We're in the middle of such a cold spell that it's almost impossible to stay warm.

December was bad enough; for most of the time Tim was here, hoping for a bit of sunshine, it rained or was grey and rather miserable. But although chilly, it wasn't bitterly cold.  Perhaps ten or twelve degrees, but the cloud cover meant that it didn't get much cooler at night. And our house isn't too badly insulated, at least compared to the majority of Cyprus homes.

Since we returned from our UK trip, it's been quite sunny, around 15 degrees in the daytime. Not too bad at all, I thought. We've been running our central heating for a couple of hours morning and evening, and the house has mostly stayed reasonably warm.

On Tuesday I could see quite a few clouds so took my camera when I went for my morning walk with Sheila. The flamingoes were in evidence, but I didn't want to get any closer to the Salt Lake, and my camera doesn't have much of a zoom... but for anyone interested, those little dots are hundreds of flamingoes; clicking the small photo should take you to a larger version:

And yes, there was a pretty sunrise too, if a little spoiled by the overhead cables....

But this weekend was predicted by the local paper to be the coldest in a long time. As it was due to be around 2-3 degrees this morning, I wore a very warm jacket and gloves when I went out for my walk with Sheila.  That on top of two other warm layers. I did shed the gloves after about three kilometres of fairly fast walking, but put them on again before I got home.

The cats are spending a lot of time either racing around the house looking for things to knock over...

...or huddled up near radiators.

Jane doesn't go out at all, other than on our balcony, but Alex has always liked running around the rooftops nearby, so we let him out when he asks in the daytime. Today he's been out briefly perhaps three times, quickly returning through the incoming-only cat flap. At lunch-time I opened it for him and a blast of cold air came through. He turned and looked at me with a shocked expression. Surely I couldn't expect him to go out in THAT...?!

This morning I stayed somewhat active and warmish in the kitchen. The oven was on as I made my next month's granola, and I also needed to process 5kg tomatoes that I bought (for a euro) yesterday at the local fruit/veg stall. I made around 800ml tomato ketchup:

I stewed another couple of kilograms gently, then froze in four portions to use in place of canned tomatoes in future.  And I also decided to dehydrate another kilogram and a half, to give me dried tomatoes to use in one of our favourite bread recipes.

The dehydrator gives out a lot of hot air. While it's not exactly an efficient way to heat the kitchen, it's a great by-product at this time of year.

Even so, I gave the central heating an extra hour boost twice during the daytime, something I almost never do. Just as well it's only infrequently this cold.

Here's what the hourly weather forecast showed when I checked it just a few minutes ago:

Yes, it's due to be down to zero degrees, freezing point, by 8.00pm.

Still, I really don't mind the cold weather nearly as much as I dislike the heat and humidity of Cyprus in Summer.

Ordinary days in an ordinary life in Cyprus...

I'm sometimes asked what I 'do' with my time, since I don't go out to work and no longer have children at home. I never know quite how to respond. I'm not a 'career' person; I've never had much ambition beyond a reasonably comfortable home and family life. I loved being a full-time mother of small children, and also thoroughly enjoyed home educating our sons as teenagers.

I dreaded the 'empty nest', but, over eight years later, I'm mostly contented with life as it happens. As I was trying to think about what to say in this post - at the end of a week where nothing much has happened, yet I feel that it's been quite busy - I saw this link on Facebook: What if all I want is a mediocre life?  I don't much like the word 'mediocre', but that's how some more driven or ambitious people see those of us who are contented to live life a day at a time, doing what needs to be done, offering ideas or sympathies or just a listening ear as required by those around us.  A 'small, slow, simple life', as the writer of that article puts it.

I'm a strong Introvert (INFJ, for those who know and/or care about such things) and need quite significant time alone regularly. I'm also the kind of person who needs an approximate structure to the week, if I'm to get anything done, and a list of tasks to cross off as they are complete. I tend to think in terms of 'projects', and if I have one, I throw myself into it. So far, my favourite is being a hands-on grandma, but that can only happen when I'm in the same country as my grandchildren. Last year, I did a knitting project to create a Nativity scene, as mentioned elsewhere; then in December I spent many hours sorting, uploading and arranging all my 2016 photos to create a year's 'Photobook' to be printed.

I call myself a writer, since people seem to want some kind of label, and I've always loved writing. I have many potential writing projects in differing stages of completion, but in recent years have not felt much inspiration. I run a few websites but haven't felt much inclination to update those, either, unless specifically asked to add something. I update my books and DVD review blogs regularly, and am attempting to write on this one at least once a week, but have mostly neglected my other blogs. Since I aim to read and review at least 100 books each year, I read for perhaps an hour (in total) each day.

I have an ongoing project which I wrote about a year ago, to scan our entire collection of negatives. I think I'm about half-way through. I answer questions on online forums, sporadically, and I'm also using both the Memrise and DuoLingo sites to attempt to revise my schoolgirl French and learn more Greek.  I do some knitting each day... and I do our household cleaning, laundry and cooking, as well as weekly bookkeeping (on the computer) to keep track of all our income and expenditure.

My typical day starts between 6.00 and 6.30am. At this time of year I have no wish to get out of the warm bed after a chilly night, but at some point the bathroom calls, so I throw on my walking trousers and yesterday's shirt as quickly as possible...

Alexander the Great and Lady Jane Grey are always pleased to see me when I let them out of the kitchen/dining room area where they sleep at night. They don't snuggle together much, but sometimes we see this:

By the time I've walked for an hour with Sheila (three times a week), read for a while, chatted to God, thought about the day, cleaned the house (main floor on Mondays, upstairs on Wednesdays), squeezed orange juice and had breakfast, visited the local froutaria [greengrocer] for more fruit and veg (three times a week), taken my shower and put on clean clothes, it's usually about 9.00 or 9.30 - sometimes later - and I'm ready to sit down at my computer:

Not that I do so at 9.30 every day. On Sundays I try and avoid switching it on at all, and once a month on Mondays I go to the Larnaka Christian Writing group. On other Mondays - or perhaps Fridays - Richard and I do a supermarket shop, or catch up with paperwork, or household repairs or maintenance. On Tuesday mornings Sheila comes over with her three younger daughters, and on Thursday mornings the three girls are here while Sheila teaches English to adults.

We eat a cold lunch most days, with home-made bread, and salad vegetables, perhaps some leftovers from a previous night's evening meal, or hummus, or dairy-free cheese and chutney, or sometimes home-made soup if it's really cold.  It's fairly leisurely and a good break in the middle of the day.

In the afternoons I usually have three or four hours at my computer before I need to start meal preparation. I don't sit there solidly; I have an application that tells me to take a ten-minute break every hour, and that's when I might hang out laundry, or potter in the kitchen, or do some knitting, or sit and read.

I cook almost everything from scratch, but when I make hot meals it tends to be enough for at least four people, sometimes eight, so unless we're entertaining there's usually plenty to freeze.  I follow - roughly - a four-week menu plan that means I don't have to think about what we're eating each evening. If I'm making a new batch of granola, or ketchup, or chutney, I tend to do that at the weekend. And yes, just like the writer of the article I quoted, I believe strongly in real food and budgeting and planning, but sometimes break my own 'rules'.

We eat around 6.30 - 7.00pm most evenings. One evening per week we eat at our friends' house, and one evening per week they usually come over, after eating, to play a board game with us. Richard and I like to watch a film on DVD once a week, and occasionally we have someone over for an evening meal. But friends and acquaintances keep leaving the island, and that's not something we've done for a while.

Other evenings I might read, or we might play a two-person board game, or we might have a video call with one of our sons in the UK... or we might sit at our separate computers and continue what we were doing in the daytime.

When we were planning to move here, around twenty years ago, friends commented that it was exciting, and that they could never uproot, and how brave I was to embark on such an adventure. I didn't feel brave; I didn't want to leave my comfortable UK life behind. But my family mattered more, so we moved to Cyprus, and adapted, and adjusted, and I'm contented - mostly - even if my life seems dull or 'mediocre' to others. 

Back in Cyprus

It feels like several weeks since my last blog post. Travelling can have that effect, as can the collision of two worlds. Normally when we are in the UK, we're focussed on the people and places there, and life in Cyprus takes a back seat. The reverse happens when we return home. It's as if, at some point on the aeroplane, one scenario is faded down, and the other faded up.

But when a crisis occurs, or someone we love is ill, or struggling in some way in the 'other' country, our focus moves to them, and it feels discordant, as if I'm in the wrong place, not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing. It was like that in December when our new granddaughter was in hospital in Carlisle, with the threat of a nasty infection. I could hardly concentrate on anything else until we knew that all was well.

Something similar happened last Sunday. I had mentioned that Cleo, our very elderly cat, had become disorientated and confused on New Year's Day. Perhaps, we thought, she had a stroke. But she wasn't in pain, and our friends in Cyprus were looking after her. As the days progressed I thought about her less. Then last Sunday morning, quite unexpectedly while we were at a church service, I had a sense of Cleo slipping away; an image in my mind of her being greeted with some surprise by someone who died a few years ago. I suppose I knew then that we were losing her.

When I opened my computer a couple of hours later, I had two emails from Sheila, our friend who was cat-sitting in Cyprus; the first one let us know that Cleo had stopped eating and, that morning, seemed to have lost the ability to walk. If nothing changed, she and another friend felt they needed to take her to the vet on Monday morning.

The second email, sent an hour or so later, simply said that Cleo had died. It must have happened around the time she came to my mind so strongly.

We felt numb at first, with that sense of being in the wrong place. Then sad, along with a sense of inevitability and rightness. Her time had come, and she slipped away peacefully in her own home. We felt worst about our friends having to see her go downhill so rapidly, and deal with what happened.

Daniel and Becky's close friends came over in the evening for a meal and a Settlers game, and it was good to be distracted, though I had an underlying sense of sadness and disorientation.

I don't remember what happened on most of Monday. I didn't take any photos at all. On Tuesday Richard drove them to have Esther's birth registered in the morning. He spent some time at Daniel's office helping him with some projects, and also sorting out some equipment he had ordered to take back to Cyprus.

On Tuesday evening, Daniel and Becky decided that it was time for David to have his 'main' Christmas present. For a long time they had been talking about getting him some kind of keyboard. They didn't want a 'kiddie' one with poor quality sound, but of course full-sized ones are expensive. They thought they should wait, in any case, until they know where they will be working next.

Then they managed to acquire an old but good quality keyboard that would otherwise be thrown away. Daniel checked that it was working, but didn't want David to have it amidst the excitement of Christmas and other presents. But on Tuesday evening they were starting to take down Christmas decorations, so David was given his 'plano', as he called it. He was thrilled, and quickly figured out how most of the buttons worked:

Meanwhile, Esther was growing stronger and more alert each day. Unfortunately being awake in the daytime did not mean that she slept any better at night, but it made a good opportunity for me to start reading some books to her, and she seemed to find the pictures interesting:

On Thursday we went into town, and Becky could not resist buying an inexpensive set of  four 'Tiger who came to tea' jigsaw puzzles from 'The Works'. David, it seems to me, is remarkably good at jigsaws; I've never before seen a child so young look at the colours and shapes, and deliberately find pieces showing faces or bodies to match one he had found already. He put the 12-piece jigsaw together in a couple of minutes, without any help, and then needed only a few hints to put together the 20-piece puzzle:

Our time in Carlisle was rapidly drawing to a close. I read large numbers of books, I played with David's Postman Pat figures, I helped him build structures with Duplo. He doesn't in the least mind his different worlds not just colliding but colluding: if Postman Pat has a breakdown, he calls Bob the Builder to help him. Mog the cat fell through the roof of the Duplo house and tried to make friends with Postman Pat's cat Jess. David himself was, by turns, Mr Strong and Mr Happy and Mr Slow.. and sometimes 'just David'.

Every so often he spent another five minutes at his 'plano', content to use a fairly low volume, and mostly very careful. I'm sure all grandparents believe their grandchildren to be uncommonly wonderful - as, indeed, toddlers are pretty much universally. At times he showed that he's still just a small child; he sometimes confuses words, telling us that a 'bandage' is a 'bank', for instance, or asking Becky to put Marmite on his 'Bridget' when he meant 'crumpet'.

I didn't understand what he meant by a 'bock' at first, until I realised that he was using it as the singular of 'box'. When I told him that one of them is a 'box' and two are 'boxes', he muttered, 'books and bookses'.  English is a very confusing language.

At last, it was time to leave. We had to book four pieces of checked luggage; in addition to the modest single case of clothes that we had taken out, we had been given a lot of Christmas presents, and bought some new jackets with Christmas money. We also had rather a lot of equipment which Richard had ordered, which needed flight cases to take them back.

Our flight was at 1pm Saturday from Liverpool. We had decided to drive to Liverpool on Friday evening rather than having to leave early on the Saturday morning; the weather was unpredictable (much of the country had snow, though we didn't see any) and we didn't want the stress of traffic jams or other holdups when we had a flight to catch. So we said our goodbyes and left around 7.15pm, just before David went to bed.

The drive was straightforward and took about two and a half hours; we stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn Express, which is much like a Travelodge but (in our view) somewhat nicer. Our flight was on time and, since we had so much luggage, two friends met us, with two cars, at the airport.

We mostly unpacked last night, feeling sad that there was no Cleo to greet us, but pleased that Alex and Jane seemed so lively and (after pointedly ignoring us for a while) very friendly to us, and each other.

We went to the PO Box this evening. There were 21 Christmas cards waiting for us. Some had been posted as long ago as Dec 12th; yet they had not arrived by the 27th, when we flew out. For some reason, post to Cyprus always seems extremely slow during the second half of December and we usually receive most of our Christmas cards in January.

So, once again, we'll keep them with the Christmas decorations and next December will display them all and think of the recipients as we put them up.

Family visits (not in Cyprus)

Ten days ago, we flew from Larnaka to Gatwick. Winter is not a time when we normally choose to be in the UK, but events came together this year in a way that really gave us little choice. I wrote in an earlier post about our new granddaughter, born a couple of weeks early in Carlisle (and now in excellent health). Naturally we wanted to meet her as soon as possible.

I had also mentioned back in September that our younger son Tim is now living and working in Surrey. At the time he had a temporary job and was living in temporary accommodation. So a great deal of his stuff (particularly books and kitchen equipment) was stored in Cyprus. In November he was offered a permanent post, and was then in a position to look for a flat to rent longer term. He found somewhere and took possession in the middle of December, but since he was spending Christmas with us in Cyprus, the only things he had bought for the flat so far were a bed, bedding, and some crockery.

After Christmas, Tim prioritised his stored stuff, and we booked two 20kg suitcases for each of us (yes, that's 120kg of checked luggage!) on our flight, and Richard - who is excellent at packing - worked out what would go where.

We needed two cars to get to the airport, and happily two of our friends were willing to drive us there. Checking in was no problem, the flight was on time, and all the luggage arrived safely. Since we got to Gatwick after 11pm we had booked overnight at the Travelodge which, as usual, offered good value and a large breakfast.

In the morning, Richard and Tim went to pick up the rental car we had booked. They were expecting to pick up a VW Golf. Tim was then planning to get the train from Gatwick to his new place, while we hoped to fit the luggage in the car in full estated form.

However, the only Golf available was 500 miles away from needing a service, so they were offered a free double upgrade. It's a car which Richard likes very much, and which easily took all the luggage, plus the three of us:

Our first view of Tim's flat was a bit mixed.  The living room area was bare and empty, the second bedroom filled entirely with packing material from Tim's purchases so far - but no furniture at all. However, we very much liked the kitchen. It's quite compact, but fully equipped with oven, hob, a large fridge-freezer, and even a dishwasher.

After we had brought the cases in, my job was to sort and tidy rubbish and packaging material, and unpack suitcases (other than the two containing books) while Richard and Tim went to collect a transit van, rented for the day, and then to drive around collecting various second-hand furniture that Tim had ordered through 'GumTree', a classified site that, in Surrey, seems to have a great deal of inexpensive and high quality items.

By the end of the day,Tim had acquired a sofa bed for us to sleep in, an office table and chair plus a computer monitor, an Ikea sofa (in pieces, still) a dining table and chairs, bedside cabinets, and - his favourite purchase - a gliding chair, all for a fraction of their worth. Thankfully, although it was very cold outside, it was not raining.

On the following day, which was cold and frosty, they returned the rental van and then we drove in the large car to Newbury, where my brother and sister-in-law were hosting my family's annual post-Christmas gathering. It's the first one Richard and I have been to since the tradition started about twelve years ago. Fourteen of us sat down to an excellent lunch, followed by present-opening.

Yet more of Tim's stuff had been stored in my father's garage in Alcester, and that had been transferred to Newbury, so we collected a couple of boxes of kitchen and computer bits and pieces, and his bass guitar. We drove back through freezing fog, which was not pleasant: a cultural experience that we have never had in Cyprus.

On the Friday we spent the day with Richard's mother in Sussex, with lunch at a garden centre; then we managed to find some winter jackets, reduced by 70% or more. I'd been wanting a new waterproof winter jacket for a long time as my previous one was over thirty years old and rather falling to pieces.

On Saturday Richard and Tim put his sofa together, and he bought some more important items: a biggish bookcase, a digital piano, and even a picture for his wall. His living room was starting to look quite cosy by the end of the day:

On Sunday - New Year's Day, though it felt like weeks since Christmas! - we visited Tim's church, which was friendly and welcoming, then had a rather worrying phone call from our friend Sheila who is cat-sitting for us while we're away. Cleo, who is now about eighteen-and-a-half, had been getting confused, wandering around in circles, and got herself into a tight spot where she had to be rescued after some furniture moving.

I happened to take a picture of Cleo shortly before we flew out; she was getting frail, and thinner than she used to be, but her coat was still reasonably clean, her eyes bright, and she was eating heartily. As far as we could tell, she was quite happy, and in full possession of her sight, hearing and other senses. She slept a lot, and had some arthritis and a swollen (but not painful) leg... but otherwise was fine.

We wondered if she had suffered some kind of stroke.  However, since Sheila assured us that Cleo did not seem to be in any pain or distress, we suggested waiting to see what transpired. There would only be emergency vet services on New Year's Day, and it's not as if a vet could 'cure' such an elderly cat (she's around 112 in human year equivalency). Cleo has rallied before when we thought she was on her last legs...and indeed she was better on the Monday. Worse again on the Tuesday, but then livelier and very friendly to Sheila for the rest of the week... at least, so far. More than one person has suggested that Cleo may be missing us.

Back to our UK trip... we played a board game after lunch before setting off for Alcester, where we admired my father's wooden Santa collection, some of which was on display on the mantelpiece:

We relaxed there for a couple of days, though my father was plagued with a nasty chest infection and I was suffering from a nasty lingering cough. Then on Wednesday we drove the longer distance up to Carlisle to meet Esther:

She was four weeks old yesterday, and still sleeps most of the time, though she's quite windy at night which keeps her parents awake rather too much. She's gorgeous, but not yet reacting much to other people. So, inevitably, we're spending more time with David, who, at two-and-a-half, is delightful. He rarely stops talking, and has an amazing imagination as well as an apparently insatiable appetite for books, something we're all happy to encourage:

I had a bit of an adventure with him yesterday when I took him out for what I thought would be a fairly quick walk around a few blocks, to give him some fresh air and let him splash in puddles. I didn't take my bag, thinking I wouldn't want my camera, only to realise after he'd led me along several different roads and paths that I had NO idea where we were... and did not have my phone to call for help!

Thankfully he has a much better sense of direction than I do, and although we must have walked for more than a mile he led me back to the end of his street and home in time for lunch.

When he's not being read to, or playing with his diggers, or Duplo, or Postman Pat figures, or doing jigsaws (I was impressed to find that he can do a 12-piece puzzle without any help, and a 16 or 20-piece one with only a few suggestions) he's role playing in some way; here he is, in a cool hat, having clicked on his imaginary seat-belt, and donned his imaginary sunglasses, driving a car:

It's going to be harder than ever saying goodbye when we return to Cyprus in another week.