Greenery, construction, and a challenge for January...

Rather than continuing to recount my days in tedious detail, I decided to take photos every day, at least when I remember to do so, and write about them. Life in Cyprus has become normal to me, but visitors are still surprised at some of the things they see and experience.

Greenery

In many parts of the world, trees and bushes lose their leaves during the autumn months, and have bare branches during the winter. This is useful when there's a lot of snow, but that's not at all likely in the coastal areas of Cyprus.

We particularly liked seeing the citrus trees everywhere when we first arrived. Now we take them for granted, and this year the lemons on the trees look fairly small and sparse. Perhaps that's because there was so little rain until December. 

This, for instance, is a normal sight at this time of year, although usually there are rather more lemons on the local trees:

This is an example of an orange tree I saw while walking:

They look delicious, but we were warned when we first arrived here that most of the oranges next to the street are bitter ones. 

The rain - and there was a lot in December, although it's barely made any different to the reservoirs - has made everywhere look much greener. This photo looks like a country hedgerow; in fact it's not far from where we live, next to a roundabout:

There's a mixture of 'ordinary' bushes (albeit still in leaf) and what we used to think of as house plants, growing wild in many places:

There aren't many flowers at this time of year. There are some bougainvillea, but they're not looking their best. And we still have some geraniums in flower, but a lot of those have faded. The only flowers I saw blooming on a recent walk were these (and others of different colours) which, according to Google, are lantana plants:

Construction

It's not all greenery and citrus. Larnaka seems to have continual construction wherever we go: mainly office blocks and flats. I haven't seen ordinary houses being built in a long time. I don't know where all the owners or renters of these flats are going to come from, but many of them don't start construction until they have at least a few purchasers who have put down non-refundable deposits.

Here's one that was started some years ago, and has apparently come to a halt:

The closed shop underneath was once a video rental shop, and then a supermarket. It wasn't a very convenient or large supermarket, however, so it didn't last long.

Here's another potential construction site, advertising apartments for sale:

And this is just one of dozens - maybe hundreds - of blocks still being constructed. Some are more attractive than others when they're completed. Some are considered luxury flats. But they all indicate more and more crowding, and even the nicest looking flats lack the character of some of the older houses.

Challenge for January

I knew that January 1st was a public holiday, of course. All shops would be closed (other than the bakeries), and I had planned for that. I usually only shop on Mondays and Fridays anyway. So on Friday morning, I went out as usual, around 6.30am, to the fruitaria. 

It was closed.

'How nice,' was my first thought. Not for my sake, but for the staff, who work extremely hard. The fruitaria is usually open from 6am to 8pm six days a week, with slightly reduced hours on Sundays. 

'Oh well,' was my second thought. I only really wanted to buy oranges, for our daily breakfast fruit juice, and tomatoes so I could make some ketchup. But it wasn't urgent to make ketchup, and I knew we had at least three oranges still, which is sufficient to make two glasses of juice. 

So I went home, and used the last of the oranges from the fridge, and got on with the day. 

It was six weeks since we had last been to the nut warehouse, and we were running low on several kinds of nut. But my hunch was that it wouldn't be open either, and I knew we could eke out our supply for another week. Besides, Richard had pulled a muscle in his back and wasn't able to drive.

After lunch, I remembered Ioannides supermarket, and looked online to find out if that would be open. According to Google, it was. I don't usually buy fruit anywhere other than the fruitaria, but thought I could probably get a couple of days' worth of oranges. 

When I got there, Ioannides was closed too:

I briefly thought about walking a bit further, to Metro. I'm glad I didn't, as I learned from a friend, a day or two later, that Metro was also closed.

It turns out that shops are always closed on January 2nd in Cyprus. Despite having lived here for 28 years now, I had not taken this in. I hope I remember next year.

When I mentioned this in a brief post on Facebook, one of my friends said she hoped we had enough food in the pantry. And I responded that, yes, we could probably eat for a month on our stored food in cupboards and the freezer. It was just fresh fruit that I was hoping to buy. 

That got me wondering how long we could go without buying anything more other than fresh fruit and vegetables. It was just an idle thought, but in chatting it over with another friend the following morning, I heard about an online 'challenge' that some people took up, some years ago, to do exactly that. 

It's a time of year when we really do have plenty of food. We have meals that I've frozen, and leftover turkey, also frozen, and many other things that we can eat. Not to mention the many sweet things still left over from Christmas. This is what the 'dessert' table looked like on January 1st: 

We are, I know, extremely privileged that this is the case, in a world (and, indeed, a country) where so many are hungry. So I'm a tad embarrassed that before deciding to try this, I first checked that we had plenty of cat food (cans of wet food and kibble) to last until at least the end of the month. 

I don't very often take up challenges, and I adjust the rules (or make my own) when I do.  I'm still planning to go to the nut shop this Friday, to buy our six-week supply of nuts, dried fruit, etc. And I will continue to buy pure fruit juice, as Richard likes to drink that (diluted) rather than water, when possible. But those are all unprocessed or minimally processed plant-based foods, the kinds of things we're all supposed to be eating more of, anyway. 

I reserve the right to change the rules as and when I want to, and to end before the end of January if that seems like a good thing to do. But I shall try to update this blog - for my own interest, even if nobody else reads it - to keep some accountability. 

On Saturday morning, after walking with Sheila, I went to the fruit shop which, thankfully, was open as usual. I didn't just buy oranges and tomatoes - I always seem to pick up extra things that aren't on my list - but I did ensure it was only fruit and vegetables:

Two kilograms of oranges, 1500g tomatoes, and a few other items, total €7.29. We really appreciate these large, juicy merlin oranges which are currently 79c per kg. That's not all the veg for the weekend, of course; we still had pears, potatoes, broccoli, carrots and more in the fridge. 

This morning (Monday) is the other day when I tend to go to the fruitaria.  Once again, I made sure only to buy fresh fruit and veg:

2.5 kg oranges this time, 450g potatoes, another 800g tomatoes (I didn't make the ketchup yet) and other items as shown. Total €8.36.