About

 My name is Sue. I was born in the UK, but have lived in Cyprus since the end of October 1997. I thought we were going to be out of the UK for a few years; I had never imagined it would be more than twenty-five years. But we adapted and adjusted, and my husband even became a naturalised Cypriot citizen a few years ago. 

When we first arrived in Larnaka, I home educated our two sons, who were 11 and 9. I also kept a kind of online journal of our cultural adaptation, and our experiences. They were on a basic website which ran out of its free space some time in 2005, so that's when I started this blog. 

In more than a quarter of a century we have seen a lot of changes to the island, and to our neighbourhood. Some of them are mentioned in the posts on this blog. But I write in a long-winded and chatty style, so it's not a travel guide or even a detailed account of Cyprus life. It's my own point of view and opinions, sometimes with gaps of a month or more. 

My perspective has moved from full-time mother to empty-nester to - basically - retired. Our sons both live in the UK. Both are married, and we have two lovely daughters-in-law. One son works in London, the other in Carlisle. We have two wonderful grandchildren too, and wish we could see them more often.  

We have lived with quite a few cats since coming to Cyprus, one of them quite long-lived, two of whom didn't make two months, and others who departed this life (or vanished, never to be seen by us again) at different ages. We have just one cat now, Lady Jane Grey, who is an indoor cat. She is ten years old and highly territorial. 

We have close to 4,000 books - there are very few libraries here, and those that exist have only small numbers of English books. We also have about 500 DVDs. We're of the generation that prefers physical possessions rather than digital ones, although I do also have a Kindle which is used extensively when I'm travelling. 

I have written reviews of all the books I have read since March 1998, on my book blog, which is linked in the side panel. It currently has over 2500 posts. We try to watch a film on DVD once a week, and regularly catch up with TV series (again, on DVD) but sometimes life gets in the way. My DVD review blog, also linked in the sidebar, has just under 450 posts, going back to 2006. 

I belong to a local reading group and also a Christian writers' group, both of which meet once a month. We play board games regularly with local friends, too. We have a guest flat - the ground floor of our house - where we have family and friends to stay. We sometimes host friends-of-friends there when there's a gap in the schedule. 

I knit hats for asylum seekers' babies, play a few online games and puzzles, and create photobooks of our lives. I'm a strong introvert and need a great deal of time to myself; hence writing and reading are very important to me.

If you have questions, or want to know anything about Cyprus, please either use the contact form or comment on one of the posts. All comments are moderated, as unfortunately blogs like this can attract spammers. 

Updated: October 2024