This is Cyprus...

Introducing... Ezekiel

2009-06-29T22:11:00.004+03:00

No, we haven't found another cat.

This is Ezekiel:

- my new Mac mini. It arrived on Sunday by a fairly complex route (If you're interested... Richard ordered it from Amazon UK a couple of weeks ago, as they had the best price. Macs are extremely expensive in Cyprus. It was sent to the office of his sailing friend, who was in the UK for a couple of days last week. Richard was in Egypt for the past week, and flew back on Sunday. His sailing friend collected him from the airport, and passed over the Mac mini, plus various essential connectors. )

If it looks small for a computer, that's because it is. Amazingly small. Here's where we put it, initially, on top of my previous computer, Elisha:

Why the exotic names? Well, thereby hangs another tale. Our first computer was originally lent to us by an organisation we were working for at home, about 18 years ago. Their computers were all named after Old Testament prophets, and the one I had was called Elijah. When we finished the work, we were given Elijah to keep. It went with us to the USA, and - with a few modifications here and there - back to the UK, and then to Cyprus. It probably lasted about nine or ten years before it finally gave up the ghost in July 2000. By that stage it had become my computer. Daniel and Tim were given my parents' old one (which, naturally, we named Samuel, after the boy prophet) and Richard had a laptop.

We'd been given some extra Christmas money which we hadn't used, so we went ahead and bought another PC, for my use. The obvious name was Elisha (the prophet who succeeded Elijah in the Old Testament, and who was greater than him in various ways).

Elisha has served me very well. It, too, has had various organ transplants over the years, but has been remarkably reliable. It ran Windows 98, and then Windows 2000, and has never needed re-installing.

But the rest of the family went over to Apple Mac notebook computers about three years ago. And slowly started working on my resistance, telling me my next computer would have to be a Mac. Elisha carried on working, and my general philosophy is that if it ain't broke, there's really no need to fix it, and certainly no need to replace it.

However, Richard started to get concerned that Windows 2000 won't be supported much longer, and will then be potentially dangerous to run. And in the past month or so, I've found it running more slowly; I even had programs - reliable ones, like Firefox - suddenly lock up on me. And then, three weeks ago, I saw - for the first time ever on that computer - a 'blue screen of death' when I closed it down. I was able to re-start, and in fact it's been fine ever since. But it did alert me to the fact that, at nine years, it IS an old computer. And I really didn't want to get to the stage I did, nine years ago, when trying to rescue files and information from the old computer was extremely difficult.

And I had a lot of accumulated birthday and Christmas money sitting in a bank account. So I finally gave in, and said I would have a Mac mini.

And when it arrived, I felt it should be called yet another prophet starting with E. The obvious choice was Ezekiel, whose book in the Old Testament is fairly metaphorical and graphical, full, so to speak, of bells and whistles.

So much for how the Mac arrived and how it got its name.

Yesterday afternoon, Richard attached it to my monitor, mouse and keyboard, and switched it on. We downloaded Firefox, using the built-in browser (Safari). We installed the Canon camera software (from CD) and Picasa for the Mac, and checked that I could upload photos. We installed Neo Office, and Avast! anti-virus, and Yahoo! Messenger, and KompoZer. All of which worked fine, to my great relief. We even installed our little webcam, and waved at Tim in the UK, who happened to be online at the time. Oh, and we installed Crossover Mac, since I have to use Internet Explorer for our online banking in Cyprus, and also wanted to continue to use Quicken.

By then I'd had quite enough of installing and clicking and moving files, so we gave up and I read email, and looked at Facebook, and generally got used to a different computer. I was very glad I had read, a couple of days previously, Real Live Preacher's thoughts on the Mac, because I found exactly the same (minor) problems as are mentioned in that article.

This morning, Richard plugged Elisha back in again. I then moved all my documents, and websites, and photos, and Quicken data to my external hard drive which I hadn't used much at all, other than for video editing. Tim told us how to transfer all the Firefox settings from PC to Mac too (and if you want to do it, here's how: use START then RUN on the PC, and type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles - with exact upper and lowercase as given. I couldn't even find the backslash key at first! Having done that, a bizarrely named file appears, which had to be copied onto the external hard drive. Then, back on the Mac, the contents had to be copied into ~/library/Applications support/Profiles)

This afternoon, it was back to the Mac. We did that Firefox thing, and suddenly Firefox looked as it used to on the PC, with all my bookmarks and sites on the top bar, and the same selection of home pages, and even the Firecat add-on skin.

Then we installed the printer and the scanner, and ArcSoft Photo Studio (all from CDs), and I moved all the documents I wanted onto the main Mac hard drive, and checked that everything worked. To my astonishment, it did. And while navigating around the hard drive isn't the same as Windows, and I found myself in a bit of a muddle once or twice, I mostly figured out what to do.

I was slightly shocked to see that I had already used up 30 gigabytes of a 120 gig drive. That does include 10 gig of photos, but even so, it seems a lot. On the PC, my main hard drive was only 9 gig, and the larger internal hard drive was about 30 gig. I struggled to keep the main one to have less than 8 gig stored on it, but the larger one never had more than about 20 gig on it (including the photos). I had thought a Mac would use less space for its operating system and software, but apparently not.

My only worry - and this is what I really intended to blog about - was that the Mac Mini was still sitting, a little precariously, on top of the PC. A place where cats like to sit. So I suggested that, perhaps, we could move it to the shelf where the broadband router sits.

We had a look at the back of the computers, where there was an extreme muddle of wires:

Thankfully, Richard understands wires. So, after switching everything off, he started dismantling everything, in preparation for removing Elisha and moving Ezekiel. The shelf where the router was sitting was on an old white TV unit, perpendicular to the main computer desk, with the printer on top.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the cables for the speakers and (more importantly) the screen were not long enough to reach around to the place where we put the Mac.

So, I suggested, we could move the white unit to the place where Elisha sat, just shifting the desk a little to the left.

So we moved the wires again, and moved the unit in place. It looked good, and we realised that the scanner could go next to the printer - which is where we had wanted it to go before, but it couldn't because it, too, had a wire that was too short.

So Richard started plugging things in again:

Everything was fine, until he came to plug in the router again. And discovered THAT wire was too short for its new position, since the phone socket is in the wall behind the desk. He did contemplate going to the office to get the tools he would need to build a longer wire... then realised he could make an extension using the phone wire.

Looks nice and tidy, doesn't it?

Except that the phone wire didn't work. He had wondered why there was so much phone wire lying around... perhaps it was faulty all along.

Then I thought I might move a little unit where I keep computer CDs into the corner where the printer unit used to be. And when I'd done so, Richard realised it would be the perfect place for the router, back approximately where it was, so the wire would be the right length.

Of course, it may be a problem if one of the cats decides to sit there, but it's not such an obvious place for them.

So here's how it looks:

The printer looks ENORMOUS compared to the little Mac. And there are a few untidy-looking wires for the router hanging down there - but no doubt I'll get used to them in time.

My desk has more space now, too, since the scanner is no longer on it. Instead I have the external hard drive sitting in the corner. There's much more room for the mouse, and - no doubt - for the kind of paperwork clutter that seems to accumulate on desks when one isn't looking.

It's hard to get it all in the same shot, but here's my best effort:

- and as I come to the end of this lengthy post, I realise it's the first thing I've done properly, on my own, using Ezekiel (ie uploaded photos, reduced their size, imported them to Blogger, and written a post). Doesn't seem to me that Macs are much different from PCs, really, other than the few minor irritations mentioned in the post I linked to.

Oh, and one other thing. My PC had a little digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner. I kept track of the time using it, more than I realised. There is no such clock on the Mac, and for some reason I didn't put on my watch today. I have glanced around at the clock and see to my horror that it's after 11pm. I usually switch the computer off by about 9 or 9.30, so I can wind down before sleeping. Evidently I need to move the wall clock, or wear a watch more often.

Update five minutes later: Tim read this post, and then pointed out to me, over Instant Messenger, that there is in fact a clock which is in the top right of the screen rather than the bottom, and not so obvious, if only I set it correctly.

What a relief.

Cool cats... probably impossible in Cyprus summers

2009-06-23T16:55:00.007+03:00

It's hard enough for humans to stay cool when the shade temperature is 30C or more, and the sun temperature several degrees hotter. Summer came later than usual in Cyprus this year, which was wonderful. But I have little hope that it will get cooler again for at least three months now.

In the attempt to stay reasonably cool, we have naturally exchanged our jeans and fleeces for shorts and tee-shirts, our socks and trainers for sandals or flip-flops. Moreover, being people of the 21st century we use ceiling fans, and - when it's humid, or when a computer is on - air conditioning set to 28C. We are, of course, quite spoilt. Even thirty years ago we would simply have had to survive the heat... although, of course, we would not have had computers at home.

The cats are not so fortunate. They can (and do) tend to follow us around in the hope of air conditioning. They also sleep a lot more during the summer. And they are moulting (shedding) fur all the time... but not as much as they would probably like to. I am very thankful not to have to wear a fur coat.

Sophia, most sociable of the cats, often sleeps on the back of the sofa in my study:

Cleo has always liked high spaces. Here she is on top of the DVD bookcase, perhaps hoping that the ceiling fan will waft some cool air in her direction:

Tessie really doesn't like high places, but even she will jump onto a lowish bookcase and hang her paws over the edge:

Sophia isn't impressed when Tessie does this, however, since she considers the dining room bookcases to be her particular spot. It's where she likes to sit when we're eating:

Cleo isn't usually interested in such low spots - here she is on another occasion, on top of one of the non-fiction tall bookcases in the living room. She's very beautiful, but not particularly photogenic:

Tessie, on the other hand, is remarkably photogenic. This time she's trying out the bottom shelf of a dining room bookcase (the last one... authors beginning with W on the bottom shelves). Perhaps she's figured out that heat rises, so it might even be cooler down lower. Or perhaps it's that she really does not like heights:

One thousand books in ten years

2009-06-21T20:10:00.005+03:00

I have just entered the 1000th book review on my book reviews blog.

I don't know exactly what it was that made me decide to keep short reviews of everything I read... I'd done so periodically since I was a child, but never kept it up. However I determined, at the end of April 1999, that I would write down notes about every book I read. Perhaps I was getting irritated that I couldn't remember whether or not I enjoyed something when I thought about re-reading!

I managed to keep it up. Eventually I started blogging reviews rather than writing them down, and over several months transferred all the ones I'd written in a notebook onto my blog. In 2002, 2003 and 2004 I didn't read many books at all - less than 75 each year - but in 2005 I managed 90, and since then have read well over 100 per year.

If that sounds like a huge amount of time spent reading... it isn't, really. I read quite fast, and usually only for about half an hour in the morning, and perhaps half an hour in the evening. Unless, of course, something's particularly gripping or I need to relax during the day. I don't watch any television at all, and watch perhaps 20-25 films (on DVD) at most in a year.

Since Cyprus doesn't have libraries with good selections of English books, I have a good excuse to keep on collecting more. Particularly since I have four or five friends who like to borrow books regularly! I was delighted to be invited onto the panel of reviewers for The Bookbag site a couple of years ago, since they regularly send me new books to review for them (I usually put shorter versions of these on my book blog).

And, although I've probably used these photos before, here are a few of our bookcases. These are the first four fiction ones in the dining room:

.. and here are the two non-fiction ones (secular on the left, Christian on the right) in the living room:

I can recommend a blog for anyone wanting to keep track of books they read, with longish reviews. I also keep much shorter reviews in four places online: Visual Bookshelf (which is part of Facebook); AllConsuming (a bit buggy, but it also enables me to track DVDs watched); Bibliophil (the first one I found online, which has a facility to input corrections, and an export option) and my current favourite, GoodReads, which is what provides the reading widget in the sidebar of this blog.

In praise of the Cyprus froutaria

2009-06-21T17:04:00.005+03:00

When we first moved to cyprus, nearly twelve years ago, we did almost all our food shopping at a supermarket (Metro). We bought bread at a bakery (Perseus), but although I knew there were some 'froutaria' shops (roughly equivalent to UK greengrocers, selling fresh fruit and vegetables) there weren't any particularly close to where we lived.

Then we moved. Within easy walking distance are two froutaria shops. At first, I went to one that's about two minutes walk away. These little shops tend to sell other groceries too, so they're a quick place to pop to for milk, or butter, or anything else we might run out of between supermarket shops.

But I was never entirely comfortable with the fact that people smoked in the shop. Besides, the prices - and quality - seemed no better than the fruit and vegetable section in Metro. So I didn't go there very often.

It took about a year before I tried the Froutaria Achna, which is five minutes' walk from our house. It took me about five minutes to be convinced. It's an excellent shop, with a wide variety of seasonal fruit and vegetables, at good prices. Better still, as with most of these little froutarias, there's always a row of produce at greatly reduced price. I go there usually twice a week now.

I always look in the reduced section first. Until about a year ago, it was outside; then they remodelled the shop, so it's now inside, meaning that it keeps better as it's out of the sun. The plastic bags for selecting produce are colour-coded: green for the main section of the shop, pink for the reduced section. There are also extra-reduced bags, already packed, in clear plastic bags, at one euro each.

Yesterday morning I walked there at about 7.20am, before the heat of the day. I wanted a few oranges, a few tomatoes, and perhaps some cucumbers.

I saw a one-euro bag of carrots that looked very good quality. We can always use carrots....

Then I saw some nice looking french beans, in the reduced section. I knew I could freeze them....

Then I saw some peaches that looked extremely good, also in the reduced section....

... I was limited only by what I thought I could carry home. This is the problem with visiting a Froutaria: I always buy more than I intend to, because the fruit and vegetables look so good.

This is what I bought:

That's 2kg strawberries, about 3kg carrots, around half a kilogram of vine tomatoes, about 1kg french beans, about a third of a kilogram of cucumbers, six oranges, sixteen peaches, and six kiwi fruit.

The cost? Just over eleven euros. The only things not in the reduced section were the oranges and the kiwis. I don't know how this compares to other countries, but it seems pretty good value to me.

The mains water was on yesterday, so at about 10.15 I decided I'd better sort out the fridge and freeze some of the vegetables. I'd bought a bag of reduced bell peppers at Metro the day before, and also some mushrooms. I knew I wouldn't use them this week and they won't keep that long.

So I washed, cut, blanched and froze all the french beans. I did the same (without blanching) for the mushrooms and the peppers. I sorted through the strawberries; a few were too squashy to use, but at 99c per kilogram, I can hardly complain. I decided to make a large fruit salad with some of the peaches, and the better strawberries, and a couple of oranges and kiwis, and a can of pineapple, since we were expecting several guests for our evening meal. Then I froze some of the slightly squashy strawberries to use in smoothies.

I did take a half-hour break, about noon, to sit down and read, since my back was starting to ache. And I took a quarter-hour break for lunch. But with that, and also preparing potatoes and ice cream and one or two other things for the evening, I didn't even get in the shower until nearly 4pm. It always surprises me how long it takes to do simple jobs like freezing vegetables. Probably more so in the summer when I tend to work more slowly, although I did put the air conditioning on in the kitchen for a couple of hours.

I'm glad I did it, though. I love fruit salad, and there's half a bowl left for me to eat this week. I'm also very pleased to have portion-sized bags of beans, peppers and mushrooms, which will make them so much quicker to use when I want some to go in (or with) our meals.

A little hint of ecological awareness in Cyprus

2009-06-19T16:40:00.003+03:00

Cyprus is not very good from the ecological point of view. There is almost no recycling, for instance. There is a lot of over-packaging in supermarkets. People waste water, even though it's severely limited many years, and run their air conditioners far cooler than necessary. They replace things rather than mending them, and prefer new cars to second-hand. The excellent thrift stores (we know of three in Larnaka, now) are mainly used by ex-pats and refugees rather than Cypriots.

It's cultural, of course. And so, if anything is going to change, it needs to come from Cypriot groups, in a way that makes people take notice.

A few months ago, we were surprised to receive a piece of junk mail informing us that Metro (our favourite supermarket) was 'going green'. A little ironic, given that this was printed in full colour on glossy light card, both sides (one in Greek, one in English), and delivered - I assume - to every mailbox in the town, where the majority would go straight into the bin.

Intrigued, I read it. Metro, it seems, had decided to make an ecologically sound long-lasting bag, which would be available for several euros (or equivalent in loyalty card points) so that people would not have to use the plastic carrier bags so much.

A good start. And, to be fair, Metro is a long way ahead of the other supermarkets in its supply of organic and health food produce, even though it seems limited compared to what we're used to in the UK.

We didn't buy one of these new 'green' bags, because I already have about half a dozen re-usable cloth bags which I take with me when walking to the local Froutaria, or Orphanides Express. But when we go to Metro, we like getting plastic carriers, since we re-use them as bin liners. In a country where toilet paper generally must not be flushed, it's important to have closed bathroom bins, emptied regularly. Supermarket carrier bags are ideal to line them.

I don't think the new green bags have really caught on. We go to Metro about once a fortnight, and haven't seen anyone toting one of these re-usable bags yet, although no doubt there are some people who bought them.

Today I was even more surprised to notice that the carrier bags at the tills no longer bore the blue Metro logo and text that we have become accustomed to. Instead, the logo was in a green circle, with the slogan 'eco-friendly Metro superstores' around it.

Eco-friendly plastic carrier bags? It seemed like a contradiction in terms!

Looking a little closer, we saw in the little box at the bottom:

This bag is made of Polyethylene containing a special degrader. It is recyclable just like all plastics and has a limited life when left in the environment, since it degrades by light, oxygen and heat and then along with humidity it becomes food for microorganisms (just as happens with all natural elements, ie wood, leaves, branches etc).

We're a little cynical. The bags may be recyclable, but since there is nowhere to take plastic (or, for that matter, glass or paper) to be recycled in Cyprus, other than the army base, it's not a lot of help.

Moreover,'Limited life' could theoretically mean anything from a few years to a few hundred thousand years. Still, it seems like a step in the right direction. This kind of thing might help Metro customers to become a little more aware of the importance of environmental issues - and perhaps the bags do degrade more rapidly than the ones they used to use.

The only problem is that they are thinner than the old bags. Which means that they break more easily.

Which means that we needed to use nearly twice as many as we used to...

Summer in Cyprus - time whizzes by

2009-06-11T17:34:00.005+03:00

Ten days since I last posted. I had to check my Google calendar to remember what we've been doing - and it's not much. Summer is undoubtedly here. My jeans and trainers have gone away, and I'm in shorts, a tee-shirt and flip-flops. The air conditioning is running in my study at the moment, as the computer is on and computers don't like temperatures over 30C.

There don't seem to be any more mosquitoes about - they don't like hot weather. Instead, there are cockroaches. Ugh. Since we're up a flight of steps, we only get flying ones that manage to get in the house, and they're the ones about to die anyway, or so rumour has it. The last couple of mornings I've come down and both times discovered two roaches, lying on their backs, giving a last wiggle. The yogurt pot technique works well, and has even been adopted by a couple of friends.

So.. a summary of the past ten days.

Monday 1st June: last proper meeting of the Larnaka Christian Writing Group before the Autumn. A half-hour walk to get there, but one of the members kindly offered me a ride home. I accepted gratefully since the weather seemed to have turned into summer overnight.

Tuesday 2nd June: I helped out at Tots, as usual - the local church-run mother-and-toddler group. I mainly work in the kitchen, plus clearing up at the end, but also chat to some of the mums when I have a free moment. I enjoy it, but the hall is warm. It closes in July and August, which is just as well. A ten-minute walk to get there on a good day, but it took me more like fifteen in the hotter weather. I was offered a lift home which I gratefully accepted.

Wednesday 3rd June: I change the sheets, wash sheets/pillowcases and towels, and clean the bedrooms on Wednesdays. And we have the bookkeeper at Richard's office to lunch. So cleaning and lunch preparation (even though it's just bread and cold things) takes most of the morning, now it's hotter.

Mid-afternoon, Richard took the older son of some friends sailing as a birthday treat, and I spent the afternoon with the rest of the family. Then we stayed to dinner, and a game of Carcassone. Very enjoyable, but I was shattered by the end of the day.

Thursday 4th June: my last morning until the Autumn for looking after a home educated boy who lives in Nicosia, while his mother attends a meeting in Larnaka. Not that I do very much - he brings some work, and some books, so I just offer space, chat a bit, and make him a drink. But it does mean I have to be up, dressed and breakfasted before 8am.

Friday 5th June: In the morning, we did a biggish shop at Metro supermarket, and I did some ironing. In the evening, some other local friends came for a meal, with their visiting young adult nephew. We had a good evening, and played a round of Tabloid Teasers, which they hadn't played before.

Saturday 6th June: Richard went sailing with two youngsters. I washed and hung out the throw on my study sofa, as it was looking pretty grubby. I went to the Froutaria and bought some more fruit and veg, and made us three more litres of lemonade (lemon squash) since we were running low. In the evening, Richard and I watched a DVD.

Sunday 7th June (Greek/Eastern Pentecost): Richard went sailing with some people whom he met at a gathering of Larnaka home educators. I decided I would go to the service at the new building leased by the Larnaka Community Church congregation. It's a little further away than the Greek Evangelical Church, where services used to be held, but I got there, walking, in fifteen minutes, which wasn't too bad in the heat.

Can't say I enjoyed it, other than the part where the nine-month-old baby of some friends wanted me to hold her for about twenty minutes. It was too hot (air conditioning is not yet installed) and sticky (chairs still have plastic covers, since there's work being done on the ceiling still). There were far too many people for me to feel comfortable, including, I suspect, quite a few visitors. The PA system howled around three or four times, which was very painful, and the whole atmosphere was too emotional for my liking. Still, it was interesting to see the new building, converted from a gym in the past few months, and to catch up with one or two people I had not seen for a while.

Monday 8th June (Kataklysmos): this is a major public holiday in Cyprus, celebrating not just Pentecost but legends to do with Noah's flood, since Larnaka was, reputedly, founded by one of Noah's grandsons. Booths selling local sweets and cheap toys (etc) are set up along the sea-front all week, and it seems that half the island is present. That doesn't include me. I went once, years ago. Never again.

Richard, however, went sailing once again, for the annual Regatta. Yes, that's three days in a row. It's a good thing I like my own space, and am very happy being at home with just the cats for company. I didn't do anything much - I did some cleaning and laundry, reviewed a couple of books I had finished reading on my book blog, did some more reading, wrote some email, spent time on Facebook and forums, and so on.

Tuesday 9th June: Tots in the morning, again. Even hotter than last week, so I was very glad of a lift home with some friends, who came in for a drink of lemonade and a chat for an hour or so.

Wednesday 10th June: I went out to the Froutaria shortly after 7.30am and noticed that there were some apricots on special offer. They will probably get cheaper still as summer progresses, but I decided that if I was going to make apricot jam it should be now, rather than when the weather is even hotter. So I bought a couple of kilograms of apricots, among other things, and made double quantities of my jam recipe, which produced about eight jars. I think we now have enough jam to last the next year or so, which is good.

I also made another jar of lemon curd although it looks as though lemons won't be available for much longer. They're basically a winter/spring fruit.

I didn't finish all that until midday, which gave me an hour to do my sheet-changing/laundry/bedroom cleaning, plus taking a shower, and organising cold lunch for Richard and the bookkeeper. I banked on them not arriving until at least 1.15, which is just as well as I wasn't ready until then.

This morning: I finally got around to ironing and folding the sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers from the guest flat, and also defrosted the little freezer in there as it was getting iced up, and didn't have anything in it anyway.

So.

Interesting.

I had felt as if I'd done almost nothing in the past ten days, but checking the calendar and completed task-list, it's more than I thought. The problem is that when I've been busy in the mornings, I don't seem to be able to do anything constructive in the afternoons - well, other than filling water bottles and watering the plants, when the mains water is on (every other day), and catching up with email, and Facebook, and forums. And chatting, from time to time, with Dan or Tim online. And of course sorting out our evening meals, but there are so many individual portions of leftover food in the freezer that I haven't been doing a lot of actual cooking.

Tomorrow evening we'll be going to a local independent house group, Saturday Richard will probably sail again, Sunday we're invited out to lunch with yet more friends, Monday I'm out for lunch again, this time with the Larnaka Christian Writing group. Oh, and I need to ensure the guest flat is clean, and make up beds, and buy a few groceries for it since our next visitors are arriving early on Tuesday morning.

Summer in Cyprus. Again.

2009-06-01T17:39:00.005+03:00

Spring appears to have morphed into summer, rather neatly, as May came to an end. For the first time this year, temperatures were above 30C in the shade in Larnaka yesterday.

For the first time since last autumn, we turned on the air conditioning for an hour as we went to sleep last night. A trend that will probably continue until at least September.

For the first time since last autumn, I wore shorts rather than long trousers or jeans today. Something else that will almost certainly continue until September, at the earliest.

It's no surprise, of course. Summer in Cyprus is pretty predictable, and while July and August are unquestionably the hottest and most humid, June and September do tend to be pretty warm as well. We've been spoilt this year, with a much cooler than usual May, and even a few rain showers. I really can't complain.

But I always forget just how draining the heat can be. I don't know why it is that 28C is fine, so long as I'm not actually in the sun, while 32 is exhausting. Why would four degrees make so much difference, I wonder?

We haven't had to use the electric water heater for about a month now; solar power gives us all the hot water we need. I haven't worn a sweatshirt or fleece, or even socks for a couple of weeks, even in the evenings.

Everything winds down in Cyprus during June. Schools have another week or two before they close for the summer. The Tots (toddler) group where I help each week will be closed in July and August. Some of our friends will be leaving the island to travel to the UK, or perhaps the USA, and neighbours will depart for a few weeks in the mountains. The only people who will be busier than usual are the hotel and restaurant owners, who will - we hope - be swamped with tourists, who are very happy to be in a country with guaranteed sun. Cyprus relies heavily on tourism.

I need to get back into the habit of doing housework first thing in the morning, then popping to the local shops, if necessary, before 8am, so I can aestivate for the rest of the day.

Mobile phones in Cyprus

2009-05-30T16:15:00.004+03:00

Until 2007, I didn't own a mobile phone. The rest of the family each had one, and used them extensively, but I find them intrusive, and many of them feel uncomfortable in my hands if I hold them for more than a minute or two.

However, I was almost the last person in Cyprus without one, or so it seemed. And there were a couple of occasions in the spring of 2007 when it would have been very useful to have one. Slowly, my resistance was broken down. Richard's mother was staying here for my birthday that year, and wanted me to spend my birthday money. So I thought about a phone. We went to a local shop, resisted all the blandishments of the assistants to buy a highly expensive phone with inbuilt phones, databases and (probably) coffee-makers, and chose a nice, neat-looking simple Sony Ericson model:

It wasn't worth getting a contract, even though they're as little as about one euro per month for low usage, so I opted for a pay-as-you go Sim Card. There were only two mobile phone providers in Cyprus, and we decided, for no particular reason, to opt for Areeba rather than CYTA. I had, as far as I remember, a five pound (in old Cyprus money) card initially, and they told me that my first top-up would be worth twice as much as I paid for it. So I also bought an eight pound top-up card, worth sixteen pounds with the doubling, for a total of twenty-one pounds of credit.

Since I only used the phone about once a month, and phone calls are very cheap in Cyprus, I still had about twenty pounds of credit by the end of 2007 when Cyprus joined the Euro-zone. So it transferred itself to about thirty-four euros.

By the end of April, I started receiving text messages reminding me that my credit would expire unless I bought another top-up card, since they only last a year. I still had about thirty-two euros of credit, so I didn't want to lose that.

I was slightly confused that I could not find Areeba cards advertised anywhere, until someone kindly explained that they are now under MTN.

So I bought a five euro MTN card, the smallest available, and topped up my phone. Unfortunately, I hadn't realised that a five euro topup only lasts 30 days, so around the end of May I started getting more messages... and had to buy a ten euro card to extend my credit by another year. So by the end of May 2008, I had about 47 euros on my phone.

During the rest of 2008, I did use the phone significantly more. When I was in the UK, I sent texts to Richard. When we returned to Cyprus, I sent texts to Tim in the UK. And when Richard travelled to Australia earlier this year, we had several text conversations, all of which cost a great deal more than the Cyprus texts that are just two or three cents each.

And about a week ago, I had a text message on my phone informing me that I needed to buy another top-up card, or I would lose my credit... which stood at €29. My goodness... I had actually used €18 worth of calls and texts in a year.

So, a couple of days ago, I popped into a local periptero and shelled out another ten euros for another top-up card:

Apparently I get 44 free text messages with this.

So I now have €39 on my phone. Even if I use up another €18 in the next 12 months, I'll still be well in credit.

In a little lightbulb moment, it occurred to me that when I phone Richard's mobile to remind him to come home for a meal, it would be better to use my mobile to call rather than the house phone. The cost won't be any different, and I might as well try and see if I can use up at least half of my outstanding phone credit...

Sunset over Larnaka Salt Lake

2009-05-29T20:58:00.004+03:00

On Wednesday evening, our visitors had to be at the airport by about quarter to eight. It had been a lovely day - as is expected at this time of year in Cyprus - but by the evening, there were quite a few fluffy clouds in the sky.

As we drove past the Salt Lake, which (after our extensive rains this spring) is still fairly full, we saw the most glorious view of the sun beginning to set over the lake, with the clouds glowing red and orange, and amazing reflections.

There was no way to stop on the way to the airport. But ten minutes later we were on our way home, and able to pull into a little lay-by. The sun was a lot lower - sunsets happen pretty quickly in Cyprus, without much dusk - but the clouds made the sky look very attractive. I took about ten photos in quick succession, of which the better ones were this one:

.. and, just a couple of minutes later, when the sun had almost vanished, this one:

Afternoon in Lefkara

2009-05-28T14:22:00.005+03:00

Last night, we said goodbye to some visitors who had been staying in our guest flat for the past ten days.

Today is a public holiday, for Ascension Day (in the Eastern calendar). Richard has gone sailing, so I have a day all to myself, and am trying to catch up with various things. Including this slightly neglected blog.

So here, without further delay, are a series of photos from last Friday, when we took our visitors on a trip to the village of Lefkara, part-way up the mountains.

As usual, we parked at the start of the main village of Pano (upper) Lefkara. A few years ago, this shop was thriving - full of the traditional lace, and other items, with friendly owners who loved to entice visitors in and ply them with lemonade, and hope they would buy there rather than venturing further into the village where prices were often less.

But for the last few years, this shop has been closed, with no signs of re-opening:

As we started to walk into Lefkara, we were surprised to see that several other shops appeared to be closed too:

Perhaps the global recession has hit Cyprus this way, in that there are fewer tourists, and thus many of the Lefkara shops - which appeal mainly to foreign visitors - are not able to continue.

However, when we reached the main part of the village, we were relieved to see that many of the traditional shops were open as usual, displaying their wares on the walls outside:

As well as the traditional tablecloths and other linen, there is, of course, a large amount of 'tat' designed to appeal, no doubt, to those wanting souvenirs with the word 'Cyprus' rather than traditional (and often expensive) Cypriot handicrafts.

One of our visitors collects small elephants. We had never really looked at the small ornaments before, and I was quite surprised to see just how many there were on display, some of them beautifully made (although others were far too ornate for my tastes)

After the purchase of two small elephants - one silver, one gold-plated and ornate - and a bracelet, our visitors treated us all to ice creams at a corner cafe.

It was a pleasant afternoon in an attractive village. We just hope the entire village doesn't end up as a ghost town within the next few years.

Saturday sailing in Cyprus

2009-05-18T12:25:00.006+03:00

I don't go sailing. Not that I have anything against boats - I'm quite happy to be on a ferry, and more than happy to visit Daniel on the MV Doulos. But I don't do at all well in sunshine. Just half an hour outside in the summer without shade would give me a migraine. On Richard's boat, there is no shade at all.

So, most Saturdays he goes out sailing with other people, which he loves to do, and I enjoy a peaceful day at home on my own.

But last Saturday, he agreed to take a family who live nearby who have become good friends in recent months. There are five children, one of whom is only eight months old, and thus too young to be taken on a dinghy. So since Richard and Neil, another sailing friend, hoped to take all the rest of the family out at the same time (two adults and two children in each boat) I agreed to go to the sailing club with them, and look after the baby. She's a lovely little girl who knows me quite well so I didn't anticipate any problems.

The day was warm, but not unpleasantly hot. The conditions were perfect for teaching beginners, with calm sea and very light winds. Between them, Richard and Neil managed to find sufficient life jackets (technically buoyancy aids) for everyone, including three-year-old Katie.

Even better, Neil rigged up an ingenious shade on the beach using the cover of his boat, an old broken trolley, some rope and some tyres.

Here are the first group getting into Neil's boat:

.. and here are the second group, getting into Richard's. You can see how calm the sea was!

They sailed in formation out into the bay:

... and then, after about forty-five minutes, back again.

Helen, I'm happy to say, was absolutely fine with me. I did have to stop her from eating small stones, but she was fairly amenable, and didn't seem to mind being offered large stones, or keys, or even a toy instead.

They went out several more times, in various combinations. The older children enjoyed the sailing more than the younger ones, and the parents both enjoyed it too! Here they are, towards the end of the day, bringing Neil's boat in:

Unfortunately for me, Neil and his family had to leave before Richard had finished his last trip. So they had to dismantle the shade cover in order to put their boat away, and I ended up with about 45 minutes in the sun. It wasn't too hot; it was about 3pm by then and there was quite a breeze. But the sun was too much for me. By the time we got home I felt utterly exhausted, and had a migraine Sunday morning. Still, Richard knows now to leave me in peace when I feel that way. After a few hours by myself I was able to sort out a few things for the guest flat and go to the airport with him to meet our next guests who arrived around 9.30pm last night.

Richard also wrote about this day out, with more photos of the actual sailing and also a map showing exactly the tracks of the boats in and out of the bay.

Playing Scrabble

2009-05-17T15:59:00.002+03:00

I've always enjoyed board games. Well, some of them. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Monopoly. Or games of pure luck such as Ludo or Snakes and Ladders. Nor do I really enjoy two-player thinking games like Chess or Mastermind, although I used to play them from time to time. I was even in charge of the Chess Club at my high school for a while, MANY years ago, though I'm not entirely sure how that happened.

I used to play board games with my siblings, and then when we had children of our own we played games with them, too. The word game Probe was popular for a while; in their later teens we played Mah-jong from time to time, and Rummikub fairly often. One year we had an ongoing Rummikub tournament to see if one of us really was the best player, or if it evened out over time. (In case you are interested, it was Daniel. Without any shadow of doubt. I still have the score sheets! In 2002, we played forty games in total. Daniel was first, with 633 points. I was in second place, with minus 74...)

Now our boys are grown up and have left home, you might think we play fewer board games. This is far from so. We have learned some new games in recent years (Settlers of Catan being a current favourite) and we have also found some Scrabble-playing enthusiasts. This in addition to playing extensive games of both Scrabble and Lexulous on Facebook with various people.

On Friday evening, our friends Mark and Joan (from the USA) came over for a meal and a couple of games. Joan also plays on Facebook, but our husbands don't. While there is, evidently, some luck in the tile distribution, there's also a great deal of skill in word placement. We play in a fairly co-operative kind of way, with a full two-letter word list printed out for all to access, and allowing each other to look up words before playing them in the Official Scrabble Words book. We also sometimes point out better placements to each other, if someone could make a much better move, and then allow them.

Online, it's quite common to score 'bingos' - the Facebook word used for using up all seven tiles in one move. But then on Facebook we have plenty of time. Sometimes I only make one move in a day. Not that I spend the rest of the day thinking about it.. but there's no time pressure. Playing 'live' is more difficult, even though we don't enforce any time limits as such. By the last round of the game, there had not been any seven-letter words. I had the word 'polite' in my hand, plus an N. I noticed a U and wondered whether UNPOLITE was a word. I didn't suppose it was (the reverse of 'polite', after all, is 'impolite'. But I looked it up anyway. To my surprise, it existed. Even more surprising, nobody took the space I wanted to use.

So I played a 'bingo' and also ended the game, as there were no tiles left, with UNPOLITE. And then took a photo since I don't think I can ever remember finishing the game with a bingo:

Since nobody exepcted me to go out, there were a few high-scoring tiles in hands, too, which counted against them.

Then we played another game, and Tessie decided to advise Mark on his moves:

It seemed to be successful, since he achieved his ambition of scoring 100. I was lucky enough to have another bingo: 'SMOKILY'. And then we had quite a discussion on how on earth one would use that word in a sentence. Other than something like 'I scored a bingo by playing the word "smokily" ' of course. Perhaps, 'He emerged smokily from the blazing room'?

I won that game, too, thanks to the bingo (using all seven letters in one turn gives a bonus of fifty). Joan decided I had scored an A grade, and then set to work to figure out how everyone else would be graded, if using the American system of percentages. It got very complicated, so Richard pulled out the calculator on his phone to enable exact calculations...

Yes, we still have the kinds of bizarre discussions we used to have with other home educating families when there were teenagers at home...

May hurries by in Cyprus, and Summer approaches...

2009-05-15T15:24:00.003+03:00

I'm not quite sure what happened to the first couple of weeks of May. It's a transition month, weather-wise. I'm still wearing jeans in the daytime, but no sweatshirt. For the past few days, I haven't even added an extra layer in the evenings. We're still using the thin duvet on the bed.. but I don't suppose it will be for very much longer.

Richard has started using water from the fridge to dilute lemonade rather than water at room temperature. Today I found our frappé maker, deep within a cupboard, and gave it a wipe, finding a place on the kitchen counter-top again. We had our first frappés of the year after lunch.

And, you might ask, what has been going on in our household in the past fortnight? I find that question hard to answer, but here are a few random highlights:

- a family from the USA stayed in our guest flat for just over a week. They found a place to rent very quickly, as well as some used furniture to buy, and yesterday Richard helped them to move. The husband will be working with Richard's organisation in a technical role. The rest of the family will be home educating - that's yet another home ed family in Larnaka.

- I looked after a three-year-old for one morning while the rest of her family were at a conference in another town. It was both enjoyable and tiring. I find three-year-olds delightful, and am always happy to read a story again.. and again... and again... On the other hand, I really do like my own space and time alone, and was not at all upset when, after staying for lunch, her family took her home again.

- We enjoyed a Sunday lunch gathering with Richard's colleagues and their families, where people could meet the new folk and we could relax together.

- We attended an independent Christian house group starting with a meal, rather like the one that used to meet at our house which (sadly) has now stopped. A big advantage of this newer one is that it is not affiliated to any one church congregation; another plus point is that children are involved too. It meets fortnightly rather than weekly, which may also be a good thing.

In addition, life has continued as usual... I've started trying to work out what to do with our family web site which has been at Geocities for the past nine or ten years. Geocities is closing later in the year, so if the site is to continue it will need to be moved and probably redesigned. This blog continued where the site left off.

Last night we went to play 'Settlers of Catan' with some local friends. Tonight some other local friends are coming for a meal, and to play 'Scrabble'. On Saturday Richard's taking a family sailing; I shall probably go along too, and sit on the beach with whoever is not sailing at the time. Soon it will be too hot for me to be out in the daytime at all, so I might as well make the most of this ideal weather where the seashore breezes make the temperature perfect.

On Sunday evening some relatives are coming to stay in the guest flat, so I'll be organising meals for them for the next ten days. We then - currently - actually have two weeks where the guest flat is empty, the longest gap so far this year. There are still a few gaps over the Summer months too, although we're having more visitors in July and August than ever before.

Life in Cyprus is - on the whole - very good.

Day out in Limassol including Kurium and Kolossi

2009-05-06T16:31:00.005+03:00

The only times we tend to see much of Cyprus outside our local area are when we have guests. Even then, it rather depends on how busy Richard is.

A friend from the UK came out recently, and spent a fortnight with us. It was a working holiday: she left her family behind, and spent most of her days in the office, doing some accounting and working on assets and doing other clever and complicated finance-related things with numbers.

On the Saturday before she returned home, we went out for the day. First of all, we went to Kurium (or Curium or Kourium or Kourion... depending on how people feel like spelling it). This is the site of the ancient amphitheatre a little beyond Limassol where there are annual Shakespeare productions, and where Richard filmed the Esther musical a couple of years ago.

The day was gorgeous. Sunny, with a light breeze, around 24C in the shade. There were some tourists at the site, including a couple of coaches doing guided tours, but it wasn't too busy.

After wandering around the amphitheatre and enjoying the views, we went to the covered area and looked at the huge house, now mostly in ruins, and some of the amazing mosaics that still survive:

Then on to the temple and cathedral on another part of the site:

Despite the day being pleasant, I had had more than enough sunshine by the time we got there, so I found a shady area and sat down, while Richard and our friend explored the site more thoroughly. I was entertained by a couple of hang-gliders who were flying to and fro not far away:

All that for €1.70 per person. Before Cyprus became a euro-zone, it must have been one Cyprus pound each, and they actually rounded down by a penny (since the exact conversion would have been £1.71). Even better, the price has clearly not increased for over a year.

After we had explored Kurium fully, we found a bakery and bought some olive and cheese pastries for lunch. Then we drove to the nearby Kolossi Castle, somewhere we had never actually visited before. Outside was a most unprepossessing café with red painted signs and high tourist prices:

So we didn't go in. Instead we went to the castle - another €1.70 each, much less expensive than the equivalent UK prices for such attractions - which didn't look very big from outside:

. but was surprisingly spacious inside, and very well preserved.

We all made it up to the top, despite my not being very keen on the stone spiral staircase!

Then, having seen the entire castle, we drove to Limassol sea-front, where our friend bought us some ice creams at a van which was conveniently parked in the car park.

Then we burned off a few of the calories by taking a stroll along the promenade, which has a sculpture park with some displays almost reminiscent of a Middle Eastern corniche:

Some of the displays were just strange:

.. and others distinctly bizarre:

All in all, it was a very pleasant day out. We left the house about 9.45am and were back in Larnaka by about 4.30pm, time for a rest before our friend took us out to eat at a nearby restaurant in the evening.

Plants and rain in Cyprus

2009-04-26T22:14:00.004+03:00

Yesterday, the forecast was for high gusts and wind, so - for once - Richard didn't go sailing.

Instead, we decided to do a bit of gardening. If that's the word. We don't have any garden as such, but we do have a patio in front of our guest flat, where we keep a good number of plants in pots. We also have a small number of plants outside the front door of the main part of the house, at the top of the outside stairs.

We knew that the two hibiscus, which had never done very well, had finally given up altogether a few weeks ago after their pots became waterlogged. We could see that our citrus trees were looking straggly, and needed pruning, and I also knew that I should replace the top inch or two of soil around them with some fresh compost.

Then there was a long planter which has lain empty for some months, and a couple of others which were away in cupboards. Oh, and three plants which Richard gave me for Christmas, which were still in their original small pots and needed to be planted properly.

And I had some birthday money.

So we went to the Cosmea Garden Centre, which is only five minutes away from where we live, and browsed. I can be very indecisive in garden centres, but this time I found what I wanted fairly quickly. We also bought a couple of bags of mixed compost, and a bag of little stones for water preservation in the summer, and some insecticide after asking for advice on aphids. Unfortunately we don't seem to have ladybirds here, so the only way to protect our plants seems to be to spray them.

When we got back from the shop, around 11.30am, the sun was directly on the patio. So we decided to wait until the afternoon.

At two o'clock, I procrastinated.

At three o'clock, I noticed that the sky was grey, and we even had a few spots of rain. When they stopped, I hurried down to deal with the plants. It rained a bit more, and then it stopped.

Richard transplanted the two cyclamen and yellow kalanchoe at the top of the stairs out of their little pots and into their planter, and they look better already:

He pruned the orange tree, then I dug out the top inch or so of old soil and replaced it with fresh compost and some white stones to retain moisture in the summer:

We did the same with the lemon tree. They both look much better. The only problem is that we've probably left it too late... they've already blossomed this year. There are one or two tiny fruit that may or may not remain; it would be nice if we had more than one of each.

It rained some more, and we took shelter, then it stopped.

I found the two unused planters, and filled them with old stones and soil from the citrus plants, then some fresh compost near the top. Then I planted an antirrhinum and a couple of petunias into each one - both bedding plants that tend to do well in Cyprus, although in previous years we've put them out around November rather than April. But at least they should last a few months before it gets too hot, and the antirrhinums may self-seed.

We couldn't find anywhere obvious to put them (this is perhaps why we hadn't used them previously...) so I put them at right-angles to the rest of the plants, near the few steps that go up to the patio from the street.

To replace the two hibiscus, I bought a fuchsia, and another plant whose name begins with C. Unfortunately, I had forgotten its name by the time we got home, and it didn't have a label. I have no idea whether the fuchsia will survive the long, hot summers of Cyprus. I haven't seen them here before. But the other plant looks fairly hardy:

In my enthusiasm, I had chosen 12 bedding plants, including three pansies. I hadn't thought about exactly where they would all go. Three more petunias went in the planter which had no plants, and I then found three medium sized individual pots for the pansies.

By the time we had finished, the patio looked a dreadful mess with soil and footprints and general dirt all over it, made worse by the light rain that had interrupted our labours every so often. It was too wet to sweep up, and there was far too much for a mop and bucket.

So, as the water shortage is nowhere near as severe as it was a year ago (there is now, I'm told, over 30% of capacity in the reservoirs) we did something very Cypriot: got out the hosepipe, and washed it down. Not as thoroughly as our neighbours would, and with my conscience pricking. But it did get it clean pretty quickly. Then I got out the mop and bucket to do the last of it, and the outside stairs which by then had gathered rather a lot of muddy footprints too.

I put the mop and bucket away. I took the photos shown above. Then I heard a crack of thunder, and hurried inside.

For the next twenty minutes or so, we had pouring rain. Enough that the roof leaked a little, and certainly more than enough to water our new plants in very effectively. Perfect timing, really.

Spring ambles towards Summer in Cyprus

2009-04-24T20:41:00.002+03:00

When we first came to Cyprus, we didn't think Spring existed here. There are no snowdrops, no daffodils, no primroses. No clear season when apparently comatose trees and bushes suddenly show signs of new life. No glorious blossom bursting into life.

But now we realise that of course Cyprus does have a Spring season. It might feel like a British summer at present, but it's the best time of year as far as I'm concerned. Summer will come all too soon, with heat, humidity, and general apathy and tiredness on my behalf. But right now, we're at the height of Spring. How to tell? Here are a few pointers that happened this week:

I switched the 9 tog duvet for the 4.5 tog duvet on the bed
I stopped wearing trainers and socks, and got out my sandals and flip-flops again
I stopped wearing a sweatshirt all day
We kept windows open until it started to get dark
We switched the central heating off entirely
I had to start watering the plants on the front porch
Richard didn't need to use the electric water heater to supplement the solar heating for his evening shower
I saw this blossom near St Lazarus Church in Larnaka town:

It's not summer yet, because I'm still wearing a sweatshirt in the evening; I do need to use the water heater for my morning shower; I'm still wearing jeans rather than shorts, and Richard hasn't yet shed his sweatshirt!

Birthday and farewell again to Tim

2009-04-21T15:51:00.004+03:00

A year ago, both Daniel and Tim were home for my birthday. It was Dan's last Sunday in Cyprus for two years, and we celebrated by spending the day in Troodos. It was a wonderful birthday.

Yesterday I had another birthday. They seem to come round every year. It was also Easter Monday in the Eastern calendar, which means that it was a public holiday in Cyprus. As was Friday. That meant that a few parcels and cards I'd been told to expect from the UK had not arrived, since the Post Office was closed from Thursday afternoon until (probably) today. That's OK. I actually quite like having things to open after my birthday.

More significantly, perhaps, I was once again extremely tired. Greek Orthodox celebrations of Easter are extensive. They take it much more seriously than we do in the UK, with fireworks and bonfires and parties, and then - on Sunday - barbecues, after fasting from meat during Holy Week, even if they didn't follow the stricter fast for the whole of Lent. Easter Monday then seems to be a day to sleep, but since I get woken by Sophia around 6am each morning, that was no good for me.

Still, by the time I'd had my shower and breakfast, I felt almost human. Richard and Tim got up around 9am and I had a few parcels and cards to open, which was very nice. Tim and Richard took some photos of me, most of which were remarkably unflattering... but this one of me with Richard wasn't too bad:

Then I realised I hadn't taken many of Tim in the 12 days he had been in Cyprus, so I took a few which were much better than the ones of me:

Since Tim was home, he made me a cake, using some techniques he learned from Richard's mother, and also some advice from other friends here in Cyprus not to use self-raising flour (since the quality here is terrible) but plain flour with baking powder. It turned out extremely well:

A friend arrived Sunday evening to stay in our guest flat, so she was with us for lunch, which was nice. In the afternoon, Tim spent some time with the cats. Here he is with Sophia:

.. and managed to check in online, at the Cyprus Airways site. That meant he didn't need to be at the airport until 4.30pm, an hour before his flight was due. He packed his main luggage in the morning, including several theology books that he wanted to take back to Birmingham, and then collected other bits and pieces for his hand luggage later on. We don't THINK he forgot anything, but may well discover something in the next few days.

The airport is only about five minutes' drive away, which is a good thing considering how often we go there:

.. and since I've taken so many pictures of Daniel at the airport, I thought I'd better take a few more of Tim too:

It wasn't as traumatic as saying goodbye to Tim last Summer, but I still had a little weep after we'd left him. I don't suppose it will ever become easy. Only four months till we see him again, though, so not as bad as last time, when we knew we wouldn't see him for eight months.

I was in bed and asleep by about 9.30 last night. We'd asked Tim to send text messages to let us know he'd got safely on the National Express coach, and when he eventually got back to my mother's house, where he lives. He sent three text messages in all. I did wake briefly each time Richard's phone bleeped, and stayed awake long enough to hear him read the messages. All went well, and to my relief I fell straight asleep again.

Sophia let me sleep until 6.30am this morning, so I feel much more refreshed.

Re-painting in our guest flat

2009-04-19T15:17:00.006+03:00

We finished painting our ground floor guest flat a little over two years ago. Mostly in pastel shades of cream/peach/light brown - whatever we happened to have in, mostly.

In the last couple of years, we had more guests than we expected - mostly family and friends from the UK, but also some friends of friends. This year, so far, the flat has been booked almost constantly. We're really pleased about this; we hoped it would be well used, and it certainly is.

However, with only short gaps between visitors, I've been washing bedding and towels, quickly checking kitchen supplies, making up beds.. and not really doing anything else in the flat. Our guests usually leave it clean, so I've barely needed to do any dusting or mopping.

And I haven't really looked at it.

I had noticed, however, that the walls by the stairs in the main part of the house were looking rather grubby. Like this:

and this:

and had been thinking for a while that I needed to touch up the paintwork. (Colours aren't accurate in these pictures. The paintwork is actually a very pale apricot.)

This week, for the first time in months, we had a five-day gap between visitors in the guest flat. So I had more leisure to wash the bedding, and sat down for a moment in the main bedroom. I was a bit startled to notice that one of the walls looked something like this:

further along it looked like this:

.. and another wall looked like this:

I have no idea how long they have been like that. Perhaps a year or more. Maybe the marks were more visible due to bright sunshine, or maybe I was just feeling more observant. We remembered that we only painted three of the walls, so some of those marks may have been there for over two years. Maybe some of them are due to old marks creeping through the paint.

Anyway. Since we're about to enter another phase of back-to-back guests (so to speak) until around mid-June, I thought I'd better do something about these walls during this gap.

I procrastinated.

On Friday, knowing that the next person to stay was due Sunday evening, I decided - tired though I was - that I'd better get around to it. So I looked for the list I had made of all the colours we used when painting the house.

I found the list... of all the rooms in the main part of the house. The hall and stairs are the same as the living room and my study, in a shade called 'Warm Apricot 1' . I'd made a note of the paint shade for the kitchen in the guest flat, too. But there was no record of what colours we'd used in the guest flat living room or bedrooms.

Oops.

So Richard looked in our paint cupboard, and found four cans with paint that looked approximately right, although there was no Warm Apricot for the stairs. We took them downstairs. He found an inconspicuous part of the guest bedroom wall, and tried the two that looked closest.

I sat there, watching paint dry. It wasn't very interesting, but I was much too tired to do anything else. Alas, neither of the colours was correct.

So.

No left-over paint for the room, and no idea what colour it was.

Then we remembered that we had used some leftover paint just to make it acceptable for our earliest visitors, intending to re-do it at some point. Only.. that was nearly two-and-a-half years ago. So we had to options: (1) leave it (2) buy some new paint and do the whole room. It was certainly tempting to choose option (1) but although our last visitors must have coped with the strange marks on the walls, if they noticed them, I didn't feel comfortable leaving them for the next few occupants. And I definitely didn't want to think about painting towards the end of June, which is the next time the flat is likely to be empty for more than a day.

Friday was Eastern Good Friday. I'm sure when we first came to Cyprus, it was a public holiday with everywhere closed. Sure enough, the banks and Post Office were shut.. but all the shops appeared to be operating with normal opening hours. So we went to see if our favourite paint shop was open, and it was.

We decided that, rather than choosing yet another shade, we'd buy a biggish can of 'Warm Apricot 1'. We thought it would look good in the guest flat master bedroom, and we could then also use it for the marks by the stairs.

I then spent a couple of hours in the afternoon doing the first two walls of the bedroom. Once I'd started, of course, I knew we'd have to finish. Richard took over for an hour or so, doing some tricky patches around the air conditioner:

.. then I finished it. I was worried it might need a second coat, but by the time we'd washed the brushes it was 10pm and I was SO tired I could barely keep my eyes open.

Yesterday morning, Richard went out sailing for the day. He left about 8.30am, which is quite early for him. I decided to get the guest bedroom sorted out in the morning. Thankfully the paint had dried evenly, and although it's not perfect it's MUCH better than it was. Well worth doing.

The floor was very dirty, particularly the area which is usually behind the bed, and impossible to get at. So I cleaned that. I scraped scraps of paint from the light and power switches. I even managed to push the bed and bedside cabinets back, and put the curtain pelmet up.

Because of the sunlight, the camera didn't use flash for that, and the colour is close to correct in that picture.

Then I decided that, as it was a lovely sunny day, I might as well wash all the curtains from the room, since they hadn't been done for over two years and were probably very dusty. Sure enough, they dried in a couple of house, and thankfully didn't need ironing. Meanwhile, I cleaned the rest of the guest flat, including doing the bedroom windows, which of course looked extremely dirty with the curtains gone!

By late afternoon, I had the curtains back and the bed made up for our next visitor:

There was still a slight smell of paint by mid-afternoon, despite having several windows open, so I put half a cut onion in a saucer of water to absorb it. By this morning, I could barely smell paint at all.

We still haven't done anything about the marks on the wall by the staircase, which - if anything - are worse than the ones in the guest bedroom. But we can do those any time.

Whether or not we will actually get around to them remains to be seen...

Tired is an understatement

2009-04-17T20:17:00.003+03:00

We live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood of Larnaka.

But that means that when it isn't quiet, for whatever reason, it's hard to sleep.

It's been a busy and enjoyable week. Last night, Richard and Tim worked on the recording Tim had made in the morning, to mix the sound and sort out problems, so that Tim could make a CD for his friends. I spent a quiet evening catching up with email and Facebook and so on, and then went to bed about 10pm. I read for half an hour, and then fell asleep.

So far so good.

I woke shortly after Richard got in bed, some hours later. It must have been about half-past two; I tend to have four-hour sleep cycles, and he said it was shortly after two when he got to bed. Not that he'd been working all that time, but he was reading a good book, and wasn't tired.

I was dozing off when the dustmen arrived. I hadn't expected them at all, since today is Good Friday in the Eastern church, and a public holiday in Cyprus. They usually come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our district, but I'd quite resigned myself to having no rubbish collection until next Wednesday, since of course Sunday is Eastern Easter, so Monday will be another public holiday. So part of me was glad to know that they had come. Another part of me wished they hadn't come quite so early, and that they didn't make so much noise. Cyprus dustmen are very, very noisy. They do a great job, but they don't do it quietly.

Eventually I heard the dustcart drive away. I was about to sleep again, when I heard fireworks. Ah yes. I had forgotten about fireworks throughout the Easter weekend. I believe it's midnight on Easter morning when they are officially set off. Perhaps also midnight on Good Friday; I don't remember. But in recent years, they seem to be set off at random times over the whole holiday weekend. I'm sure I must have slept for at least a few minutes, but I counted at least fifteen separate fireworks - or firecrackers, perhaps - during those wakeful hours.

Finally there was a long pause. Perhaps, I thought, everyone had finally gone to bed. I was just drifting off to sleep when ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ sounded around my head. A mosquito. When the weather in Cyprus starts to get warmer, the mosquitoes appear. Not malarial, and we don't even feel the biting any more. But they are extremely irritating in the middle of the night.

I think I caught it eventually. I also must have fallen asleep despite at least two hours of wakefulness, because suddenly it was early morning daylight, and Sophia was walking over me miaowing at the top of her voice, informing me that it was time to get up. It was quarter past six. Considerably better than quarter past five, which is when she was waking me before we put the clocks forward a couple of weeks ago, but I really wished I could have slept longer than six fifteen.

However, once it's light I can't sleep. So I got up. I had a coffee after lunch in the hope that it will keep me awake until around 9.30pm tonight. I really don't like being this tired. I find myself forgetting words, and losing track of what I'm saying or why I've gone into a room.

I hope there aren't too many firecrackers or mosquitoes tonight. At least the dustmen shouldn't come...

A week with Tim home in Cyprus

2009-04-16T18:09:00.005+03:00

The past week, unsurprisingly, has whizzed past. It is very good to have Tim home again, even though it's for such a short time.

It's been a very sociable week since I last posted. Thursday morning, I took Tim to meet some new friends who live just a few minutes' walk away. The three-year-old daughter took to him instantly and he was persuaded to read her a story. Thursday afternoon, he went out and about with Richard doing a few errands.

Friday morning Tim went into American Academy, a local private school where he volunteered regularly a year ago. He was, I'm told, greeted with great enthusiasm. He spent the morning there, including helping another friend set up a puppet show for their end-of-year assembly.

He got home about 1.30, just in time for a lunch with 12 people, for Richard's colleagues and their families.

One family stayed chatting awhile afterwards, then Tim went to visit the church group for 6-11s, followed by leading a band practice for the inter-church youth band. That was followed by a pizza/souvlaki night for the youth group, plus sleepover (which of course really means 'not much sleep-over'), then Saturday games in the Salt Lake Park and lunch. He got back mid-afternoon, shattered!

Sunday morning we all went to St Helena's Church for their Easter service, since Tim was playing the piano - lots of good old hymns, and a packed building with plenty of visitors. Then we had invited some friends to lunch, where we ate the 'spare' turkey we had kept from Christmas, and - since there was one in the fridge, still - a Christmas pudding.

The friends stayed chatting till about 6pm... and once again I was extremely thankful for our dishwasher!

Monday, Richard took the day off, and spent a considerable amount of it mending the winch that brings our shopping up to the main part of the house. It involved a lot of driving around Larnaka asking for spare parts, and being directed elsewhere. Tim was very tired and didn't do very much.

In the evening, we were entertained to a delicious meal and Scrabble game by some other new friends who live nearby:

On Tuesday morning I helped at the Tots Easter party, which was enjoyable and went well, but left me totally exhausted! Tim had thought of coming too, but was so tired that he slept for most of the morning. In the afternoon, he got the downstairs studio sorted out and set up to do some recording, and in the evening he went to Lighthouse, the Christian group for international students, and caught up with yet more friends.

Wednesday morning, some of the youth band came over and spent the morning recording vocals with Tim in the studio. Richard's part-time bookkeeper came to lunch, then Tim went back with them to spend time in the office looking at some new equipment.

In the evening we went out for an excellent meal cooked by some other friends, who wanted Tim to help with various computer issues. Ironically we found that Richard could do part of what they wanted, and I could also do some of what they wanted, so Tim supervised a little and helped to mend a flute that was lying around...

And so the week disappeared.

This morning Tim got up late again, and we went out to lunch with the new friends he met for the first time last Thursday. Very enjoyable indeed.

I don't seem to have got a great deal done amidst all the busy whirl of socialising. But it's been great to have Tim with us. He's still here until Monday afternoon, but I know the next few days will go extremely quickly.

Tim returns to Cyprus for a break

2009-04-09T21:53:00.002+03:00

Tim's plane was due at 11.20pm last night.

I'm not usually much use for anything after about 10.30pm, being very much an early bird rather than a night owl. But I could hardly let Richard go to the airport alone to meet our younger son, returning after eight months away. He's only in Cyprus for 12 days before he has to return to his studies in the UK.

We arrived at the airport about 11.40pm. We waited about fifteen minutes, then Richard went to move the car (since parking is free for 20 minutes, but it's quite possible to check out of the car park, then drive around and park again...) but during the time he was gone, Tim arrived.

By the time we got to bed it was about 12.45, which was WAY past my bedtime. Then I was awakened by Sophia at 6.15am. I had set my alarm for 6.30 anyway since Thursday is the day when I look after a home educated boy, who arrives at 8am.

We didn't do a whole lot today. It was very good to have Tim home again.

Tessie is pretty pleased about it too.

This afternoon Daniel came online for a while, and sent me a post and some photos to upload on his blog.

I've managed to stay awake all day, which is quite an achievement. We had a friend to supper, who needed to discuss several things with Tim, and that's probably a good thing or I would have faded much earlier. But now it's 10pm and since Sophia will, no doubt, wake me at 6.15am tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. Tim has a busy few days ahead of him.

Cats in Tim's room

2009-04-08T21:00:00.003+03:00

When Tim left home last Summer, the cats wandered in and out of his room occasionally. Cleo sometimes slept on his bed, since she likes her privacy, but since Tim was no longer there, the other two mostly preferred to be with us.

Then in mid-November we switched our central heating on. It seemed pointless to continue to heat Tim's room, so I turned his radiator off, and kept the door closed.

About once a week I've gone in to dust and mop, when I do the rest of the upstairs. When I do that, sometimes one of the cats will rush in, and look around, and perhaps get on the bed for a few minutes. They don't find it very interesting, usually, and don't stay long. If one of them does fall asleep in there, I remove her when I go out and close the door.

As I type, Tim is flying to Cyprus for a 12-day break over Easter.

So this morning, I gave his room another clean, and made up the bed. I left the door open, and it didn't take the cats long to discover it.

First Sophia curled up on his beanbag:

I suppose it made a change from her sleeping on the beanbag in my study.

Then Cleo decided to sleep on the blanket at the end of Tim's bed.

I don't know if he'll need the blanket; weather has been warmer recently, but today it's poured with rain and feels a bit chillier again.

Five minutes later, Tessie arrived. She and Cleo do not like each other, and hissed a bit. But then Tessie jumped up on the bed too and curled up to sleep:

So for a couple of hours, at least, all three cats were happily asleep in Tim's bedroom:

Spring has sprung in Cyprus

2009-04-02T19:56:00.002+03:00

Today, for the first time this year, I opened the door to our utility balcony mid-morning today, and felt a blast of warm air. No, we don't have a tumble drier. It was just air from outside, which was distinctly warmer than air in the house. The weather site tells me it reached 24C today, and that's in the shade. So it was probably even warmer in the sun. This is more normal for this time of year than the 20 (maximum) we have been experiencing in recent weeks.

I'm still wearing a sweatshirt. I guess I might have taken it off if I'd gone out anywhere in the middle of the day, and I certainly had a few extra windows open until mid-afternoon. But whereas I like spring, I don't really want to think about Summer coming along all too quickly, as will doubtless happen within the next few months.

So. Another post about the weather, and it's been over a week since I last wrote. Time has a way of rushing past without me noticing it these days.

Still, I did spot that today it's exactly ten years since the first book review on my book blog. There are 975 reviews there in all. I'd hoped I might get to 1000 to celebrate ten years of reviewing books, but couldn't manage that.

I didn't actually start blogging about books in 1999, I hasten to add. But ten years ago exactly, I decided to write down the titles and authors of every book I read in a notebook, along with a brief review. I did this periodically as a child, but didn't keep it up, sadly. I actually started writing the reviews in a book blog rather than on paper in about 2006 (though I still keep a review notebook for times when I'm away).

Then I decided I might as well type in all the ones I had reviewed on paper, too, with the correct dates. It took me a couple of years, off and on, to get them all entered. As I did so, I found that my reviews became longer and more involved, and - I hope - more interesting. I try to link, where possible, to a site giving a brief bio of each writer, and although I don't get a huge number of readers, I'm always pleased when I realise that people have found the blog through some obscure search, particularly when it means that someone has been able to find a book whose title they had forgotten.

Learning Greek in Cyprus

2009-03-23T16:51:00.003+02:00

When we moved to Cyprus, at the end of 1997, we thought we would need to learn Greek. I had the advantage of having studied Ancient Greek as far as A-level, so I could at least read the alphabet and understand some basic words when I saw them.

I had to totally re-learn all my pronunciation, but modern Greek is phonetic, and it wasn't too difficult. There are plenty of books available, and we bought a good dictionary to enable us to 'decode' (as the boys put it) labels on food, or junk mail, or other documents in Greek.

However, we apparently look English. So we found that people in shops, or neighbours, would automatically speak to us in English. And Cypriots, by and large, speak extremely good English. Perhaps if we had lived in a small village in the mountains, we would have had to learn at least some Greek to be able to communicate at all, but in Larnaka it isn't necessary.

Still, I thought it would be good to speak the local language. We had no funds available for lessons, but there's an excellent free online course called Learn Greek. It was originally a radio course in the 1960s, so it's a bit dated. But it was made in Cyprus, and seemed like a good way to get started. There are lessons with Real Player audio files to listen to, about fifteen minutes each. There are also complete transcripts of each lesson, and a discussion forum for each.

There were some technical problems in our early years in Cyprus, which made us use this course less than we might otherwise have done, but the boys and I got through the first few lessons. Tim then learned some Greek at Cub Scouts, and Daniel at the Municipal Band, and both of them picked up some Greek just by mixing with bilingual and Greek-speaking friends at the church youth group, at the theatre, and elsewhere.

I kept thinking perhaps it would be good to learn a bit more too, and managed to get to about lesson 24 in the Learn Greek course. But it always seemed to get so complicated. All that vocabulary... even though only a few new words are introduced in each lesson, and one can listen to it as many times as one wishes.

I tried - half-heartedly - several times to get back to it. I would back-track to around lesson 18, and listen to it with confidence. Then I'd move forward, over a couple of weeks, until I got to lesson 23 or 24, but somehow I would feel defeated, and give up again. Or else some new technical problem would arise, making it impossible to listen.

About four months ago I decided to try again with Greek. I felt bad that I couldn't communicate at all with Greek children, and my new hairdresser was shocked that we had lived here eleven years without learning more than a few words. I agreed with her, and determined to try once more with the Learn Greek course.

I went back to lesson 18 again, and decided to listen to the same lesson every day for a week. That way, I thought, I could move through fairly fast.

I haven't succeeded in my aim. However, I did reach a milestone last week when I completed lesson 30. That's further than I've ever got before, and it's the end of what the Learn Greek site considers 'elementary'. Lesson 31, which I have now started, is considered 'intermediate'. And, indeed, it introduces past tenses in all their forms, which are new to me. It's beginning to feel a bit overwhelming again, but I'm determined to keep going.

The trouble is, when I listen to people speaking Greek, it's so fast that I don't pick up more than the occasional word. It doesn't come naturally to me to speak in anything other than English, and even when a shop assistant says words which I do know (such as 'two euros' in Greek) I don't 'get' it if I'm not expecting it. I look blank, apparently, so they repeat in English.

Moreover, I'm not an extravert, and I don't naturally speak in Greek to anyone. I find it hard even to say 'thank you' or 'hello' in Greek, for some reason, although I'm quite capable of doing so. And a couple of times when I have attempted to answer a simple question in Greek, to my embarrassment, I have spoken in French instead. It's as if my brain things 'foreign language'... and while my French is far from fluent, it's still more advanced than my Greek.

It isn't necessary to speak Greek here at all. But having lived here so long, I feel as if I should have at least a basic understanding of the language. I don't want to take lessons - quite apart from the cost, there would be a time commitment, and probably homework assignments which would make it feel like hard work. If I could get to the end of the Intermediate level of the Learn Greek course, I would hope to be able to communicate a little better - if only the Cypriots would speak slowly, using vocabulary I already know!

Rain in Cyprus... again!

2009-03-19T15:15:00.003+02:00

The early part of March was Spring-like, sunny and starting to get warm.

On Sunday this week, however, it turned distinctly chilly. I set out for church wondering whether or not to take my fleece, in addition to wearing a sweater. I was very glad I did. I wondered if I should have taken an umbrella too, since by the time I arrived it was somewhat overcast. But it didn't rain on Sunday.

I checked the temperature, and found it was only 16C. Pretty cold for Cyprus at the end of March.

I was mildly amused to read that the UK apparently had a heatwave on Sunday. People were flocking to beaches, and shedding their sweaters to go out in their gardens for the first time. The temperature? 15C. Evidently I have acclimatised more than I had realised.

It's stayed chilly here all week. Today was even colder. I put an extra thin sweater on under my warm hooded fleece, and by mid-morning had added a fleece too, and that's without going out of the house. All morning the sky became increasingly greyer, and it's now pouring with rain.

All good stuff from the point of view of the reservoirs, of course (assuming that there's also rain in Limassol and Paphos) but not much fun for visitors to Cyprus.