I wondered, at the start of the month, whether I would remember to write about the details, albeit mostly rather dull, of a month in Cyprus, semi-aestivating in the air conditioning.
And suddenly, it's the last stretch... not that September will be significantly cooler, but the days are getting shorter and by the end of September we should at least have stopped using the air conditioning.
Sunday 23rd
As with every other Sunday, I started by watering the plants, then went for a 2km walk. I'm not keeping my phone with me every moment, as I used to do. So on days when I only walk in the mornings, I don't even register 5,000 steps. I'm more interested in what my app calls 'heart points', ensuring I reach the minimum of twenty if possible, aiming for heart health.
We were expecting our closest local friends in the afternoon: four of them this time, which is more than usually come now. So I put a loaf of bread on (in the breadmaker), and decided to try a vegan pseudo-'cheesecake' from a recipe I found online some time ago. It suggested a complex crust using seeds, dates and nuts but I thought I'd keep it simple and use a standard cheesecake base with digestive biscuits and spread. Somewhat ultra-processed, but when it gets cooler I'm going to see if I can make digestive biscuits myself, to avoid that problem.
When I'd made the filling it didn't look all that big; it was supposed to serve eight, so I hoped it would be sufficient for six of us. And when I licked the spoon it didn't taste very lemony, either. So I got out some frozen strawberries, found another recipe online, and made a strawberry sauce to go on top.
As we'd eaten more salads on Saturday evening, I got out a curry - a chicken korma - from the freezer, and we had that for lunch along with pitta bread and the usual extra bits I get out to go with curry. And a smoothie - I've made a lot of smoothies this summer, based on watermelon with added frozen fruit.
And then I put on a second loaf of bread, while putting the first one in the oven (not switched on). I'm still concerned about ants, although I hadn't seen any for a couple of days. They can appear from nowhere, or so it seems, when there's something attractive to them.
We played Cities and Knights with our friends while their daughters (one teenager, one no-longer-teenager) watched a film, then a game of Mountain Goats, and then we had our usual shared cold meal. The vegan 'cheesecake' was appreciated, although it didn't taste very much like cheesecake to me!
Monday
Another walk to the fruitaria first thing. Less than a kilometre in all. But once again it felt hot and a bit humid so I didn't do a longer walk. There weren't many 'new' (or 'baby') potatoes left, but there were some in 750g boxes. I prefer to choose them, but that wasn't possible so I bought a box. Probably the last week for new potatoes.
It wasn't actually the last Monday of the month but it felt as if it should be, so I paid the bills online which I usually reserve for the last Monday. The Internet bill, which includes Richard's phone contract, and the credit card which has 40 euros' worth of petrol used in August, and a few other things Richard had used it for, including the two rotisserie chickens we'd eaten earlier in the month. I also paid the water bills.
Paying online is a lot quicker than going to the different offices (and there's no way I could walk there in this heat), but it still takes time; I first have to print the bills, as they arrive by email, and download them too, in case we need them - we've seemed to need a lot of utility bill statements over the years, and they're easy enough to store on my computer.
I had to make some more oat milk, too.
I didn't do a whole lot in the afternoon, but I did manage to finish the book I was reading, and write a review.
I didn't make new salads until the evening, which is when I boiled the new potatoes, too. A couple of them started to fall apart; evidently they were starting to get older.
By the end of August, my inspiration and creativity for new salads is beginning to wane, so I made a couple that I make regularly: tomato/peach salad and mushroom/green bean salad. They are two of my favourites, and easily done, although the mushrooms and green beans have to be cooked. But I did remember to use the kitchen aircon.
Richard had arranged with a friend to do some work on his boat in the evening. By the time he got back it was 8.45 and he was pretty tired, so we didn't go for a walk. That meant I only clocked up 10 heart points for Monday, but I'm sure it doesn't matter occasionally.
Tuesday
I watered the plants and did a slightly longer walk than on Monday. It's odd that, although the end is in sight by the last week of August, I was beginning to feel more drained than ever.
Later in the morning three friends came over for board games, for the first time in about six weeks on a Tuesday, due to their travelling and other commitments. We played Kingdom Builder and a few rounds of Scattergories.
It was an enjoyable morning, but I felt quite drained by the end of it. I found it difficult to get into anything much in the afternoon.
We still had plenty of potatoes and a couple of other salads left from Monday, so I made two more: tuna with avocado and cucumber, and the beetroot salad that I only started making this summer, but which we both like very much.
A friend was coming to help Richard with some woodwork at 7.30, then staying for a Cities and Knights game, so once again we didn't go out for an evening walk. I expect it will get easier when the temperatures and humidity drop a little.
Wednesday
I went for a slightly longer walk first thing, then went into the guest flat to make up the bed for a guest who's arriving next week. I did some dusting, too, and realised that the fridge will need some cleaning as it was accidentally closed - I don't know for how long. Mould was beginning to grow on some of the shelves.
Oops. I didn't want to deal with that until I had a mask and possibly some rubber gloves, so I left it open and ran the dehumidifier which, I hoped, would prevent it from getting worse.
We did go for a short walk in the evening, then played a couple of two-player board games: Splendor Duel and 7x7 Kingdominoes:
Thursday
I found an unused disposable mask left over from the pandemic, and some old rubber gloves, and tackled the guest flat fridge with some bathroom spray supposed to eliminate mould. It all came off very easily. Probably vinegar would have worked. Then I cleaned everything again using regular washing up liquid. And made sure it stayed open when I ran the Roomba.
I made a couple of salads, but by this stage was repeating ones I'd done earlier in the summer. I finished reading a book and reviewed it.
The days were becoming a bit too much alike.
We went for a short walk in the evening, then watched a DVD: a surprisingly enjoyable lesser-known film, 'What we did on our holiday'.
Friday
I walked to the froutaria, I put on laundry. Richard had to see someone on the outskirts of Limassol, and I went too. It was after two o'clock when he'd finished, so we had a late lunch at a taverna. Then stopped for iced coffee at a 'Coffee bean' booth in a supermarket en route home. It was very good coffee.
When we got home I was exhausted - just sitting in the car is somehow very tiring for me - but I did manage to hang out the laundry. Then I checked my phone and saw that rain was predicted for the following day. I laughed inwardly. A few minutes' drizzle, perhaps, like the previous week.
In the evening we went, once again, for a short walk to Salina Park. Richard had been planning to sail with friends on the Saturday, and I mentioned that my phone was still predicting rain in the morning. His wind-finder app predicted high winds in the afternoon, and rain from noon. So he decided to cancel and reschedule for the following week.
Saturday
I woke up to the usual sunshine and warmth - mostly no more than 25-26C first thing, but quite humid. I looked at my weather app:
I went out for a walk around the local streets, and saw no sign of rain. No sign of wind, either. The trees looked very still. Was this, I wondered, the legendary 'calm before the storm', or was the app just wrong...?
It did start to cloud over by about 11am. So I brought in the previous day's laundry, and put it away.
At noon, to use another cliché, the heavens opened. The rain was torrential.
It started coming through the roof over our stairs, so I had to dash outside and get a couple of old washing up bowls to catch the worst of it:
Around quarter past twelve, we had alarms and alerts on our phones:
Well, yes; we had noticed...
Sadly three boats were out at one end of the island, and two of them sank after being dashed against rocks. The papers reported 700% of the usual August rain, and the worst summer storm for decades. However, since there's usually almost no rain in August, the 700% figure isn't quite as dramatic as it might sound.
But it was an astonishing amount of rain for the end of August, and - we hoped - might signal better news for the rather empty reservoirs.
It kept raining, off and on, until around 5pm. But there had been so much rain that there was no petrichor smell, and as it remained somewhat cloudy, it didn't increase the humidity. As an unexpected bonus, our windows looked sparklingly clean.
It was decidedly cooler, too, and we didn't use the air conditioner in our bedroom overnight.
Sunday
Once again I walked around the local area, appreciating the slightly cooler and less humid environment. The draining systems means that there are no longer the floods that we used to have, but there were still some quite large puddles.
There were also more than the usual number of fallen leaves, giving an almost autumnal appearance in places:
Once again we bought a chicken, potatoes and vegetables from Metro for lunch, for probably the last time in a while. The vegetables are only enough for one meal, and the potatoes for two. But the chicken usually lasts for at least four days of main meals.
In the evening we bought filled rolls at Zorpas, then walked to the renovated Salt Lake Park where we had a longer walk - and met friends there, including some we had not seen in a long time. So we stopped to chat, and then walked along the rest of the bridge and home again.
And, once again, we didn't need air conditioning overnight.
Monday
It feels untidy having the last day of a month on a Monday, but inevitably it happens from time to time. My hopes that the storm on Saturday might herald a slightly cooler September were dashed, as the temperature climbed to 33 degrees again. A tad less humid, perhaps, but not a lot.
So I did the usual Monday things, including the end-of-month ones (such as putting out recycling) which I hadn't done last week. In the evening we walked slightly more along the sea front than we had for a while. It's definitely pleasanter in the evenings, but then it's dark by about 7.30pm now.
But it was still hot and felt a bit sticky, so we ran the aircon for an hour overnight.
Thus ends another August in Cyprus.
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