Christmas Eve

Although there are four Sundays in Advent, the fourth one is followed by less than a week - just three days, this year, in the final runup to Christmas. So rather than continuing my Advent posts, this is my annual Christmas Eve one, but continuing the daily updates.

December 21st was the fourth Sunday of Advent, and the church we're connected with had a communion service with carols rather than a more traditional 'nine lessons and carols'. I went to that, and enjoyed it, then chatted to some friends afterwards.

It's been our custom for many years to go out to eat at Alexander's on the last Sunday before Christmas. We got the idea from some friends many years ago. I can't technically say it's a 'tradition' because it wasn't handed down to us by parents or predecessors, but it feels like one. So at 12.30 we drove to the marina and then walked the few hundred metres to Alexander's.

Richard had the stifado, which he said was excellent. I had a mushroom omelette, which looked quite interesting, but wasn't as great as some meals I've had there. Still, it was filling and it's good to try something different. 

October in Cyprus: kittens, eating out and cooler weather

So much for good intentions. I didn't write a single post last month. So this will be a summary (though probably not brief) of our life here in Cyprus over the past month...

Kittens

At the start of the month, I became aware that we had unexpected visitors. There were two very young kittens, wandering around and crying just outside our boiler room, at the back of our house.

We often see kittens in our neighbourhood, sometimes in one of our side yards. There are a lot of feral cats in Cyprus. They are useful for keeping down the rats and snakes, and the female cats sometimes have two litters per year.  There are sometimes national campaigns to catch, neuter and return feral cats but there are far too many cats for this to make much difference. Historically Cypriots have not liked to neuter cats, so that doesn't help. 

There's a grey cat who often appears in our street. We call 'Mama cat' as she raised three kittens in our side yard in the spring. When these tiny kittens were wandering around I saw her nearby and assumed she was their mother, and that she had gone out hunting or perhaps just to take a break from them. 

But if she was their mother, we quickly discovered, she wasn't looking after them. They looked quite hungry and were mewing loudly. I didn't want to interfere. Touching young kittens can drive a mother cat away, after all. But the little voices were plaintive. So I gave them a bit of yogurt, and they fell on it, lapping rapidly. A few hours later, with still no sign of a mother cat taking care of these kittens, I gave them some of Lady Jane's crunchies (or 'kibble', as I understand the term is now), moistened in a little water. They ate those too, gobbling them down. 

Then they mewed for most of the night. So we decided to buy them some kitten formula, and some kitten food sachets. A visiting friend bought them some other kitten food, too. The kittens seemed quite weak by this time so we realised we would have to be more proactive. Richard built a barricade to keep them in the boiler room, as we were worried about them getting into the road and not being able to get out of the way of a car fast enough. 

Thankfully they were able to lap kitten formula milk from a saucer so we didn't have to bottle-feed, as we did with the seven feral kittens we fostered for six weeks at our old house, over nineteen years ago. We guessed that these kittens were about four weeks old. They loved the wet food from the sachets too, though we were careful not to give them too much at once. And they ate the kibble without any need for adding water. 

However, although we now only have one house cat, we can't keep these kittens. Our existing Lady Jane would not allow it for one thing. For another, we have a very allergic daughter-in-law, so we had agreed already that we won't take on any more cats. And, much as we love having a cat, it is something of a bind at times. We can't go away spontaneously, and when we plan to go away we have to organise a cat-sitter. Usually our close friends do this, but it's not always possible. 

We put photos on Facebook a couple of times, but it seems that none of our local friends want kittens. 

So Richard got in touch with a nearby cat sanctuary, who said they don't take kittens until they're at least twelve weeks old, and have had their first vaccinations. Then they try to find homes for them, and they have a much wider audience on Facebook (and elsewhere) than we do. 

Thus, a month later we are still fostering them, feeding four times a day and taking them out for half an hour to our other side yard where there are plants and fake grass, to give them a chance to jump and run and play. They had their first vaccinations last week, and the vet said they seem to be very healthy. 

We haven't given them names; we refer to them as the little girl kitty and the little boy kitty. I hope that someone, eventually, will adopt them. 

Guests and eating out

We've had several human visitors in the past month, too. We do like having our ground floor used as a guest flat. A long-standing friend and colleague stayed for a few days, with a friend, at the end of September.  They left on the last day of the month, and in the evening some even more long-standing friends arrived for a few days' break. It was wonderful to see them. They spent a lot of time on the beach, soaking up some sunshine (which, they said, had been rather lacking in the UK this year).

They took us out to eat twice; once at our favourite Lebanese restaurant, Al Sultan, and once at our favourite everyday restaurant, Alexander's.  At the Lebanese restaurant we ordered a meze for two, which was more than sufficient for four of us. At Alexander's we had individual meals; I had the vegetarian moussaka, one of my favourites, with grilled vegetables. I learned about this option only in the past year and like it so much better than having a huge pile of chips alongside a moussaka. 

Later in the month we had some other guests who were here for just over a week, and who took us out to our favourite Cypriot meze restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. Meze for two there is also more than sufficient for four of us. 

Indeed, it was quite a month for eating out, something we do quite rarely on our own. But in the middle of the month we went out for a 'platter for one' at Al Sultan, to celebrate Richard's birthday:

We managed to do justice to most of it (though we left most of the extra Arabic bread). 

And towards the end of the month we were treated to yet another meze at Kyra Giorgena, by Richard's cousin-once-removed and her travelling companions. They were visiting Cyprus and spent just one day in Larnaka. 

Bathroom repairs - again

We seem to have had a lot of trouble with our bathroom, one way and another, since it was installed in 2016. There was a team of people who did it originally. While much of the work done was excellent, unfortunately the plumber cut several corners. This means we've had to have several extra repairs in the past few years. 

Most recently we found the points of two screws poking up into the bath, and the base started feeling  spongy, as if there was water below. Richard checked underneath and found several problems, including some totally disintegrated wood supports.  That meant that all the builders' foam had to be pulled out, and concrete put in to replace it. 

Thankfully our young and very competent friend L was here for a few days in the middle of the month, and able to do this for us. 

It meant that we had to shower in my study for about a week, after removing all the things stored in it, but, happily, we're now able to use the bathroom shower again. 

Weather

At the start of October the temperatures were still in the 30s during the daytime, although thankfully less humid than it had been a month earlier. We were still in tee-shirts and shorts, with just a thin sheet at night. We had stopped using the air conditioning in the middle of September, but were still using the ceiling fans until a few weeks ago.

By the end of October, we had put our light (4.5 tog) duvet on the bed, and have started wearing long trousers. First thing in the morning and in the evening I even put on a light jacket. 

Sometimes by the end of the first week of November we have a sudden drop in temperatures, but there's no sign of that predicted this year. Just as well, since we'll have to have our central heating serviced before we use it. We had a new boiler installed in February, and as it's still under warranty, we have to have an official service. But we can't do that until the kittens have moved out of the boiler room. 

And also...

During October, Richard made a brief visit to Egypt, I finished knitting some more baby hats, and continued updating images and links on my book blog. We played lots of board games, watched a few DVDs, and I did some daily Duolingo. We hosted a barbecue for a few friends a few days after Richard's birthday, and at the end of the month I made this year's Christmas cake. 

March draws to a close...

On March 20th, there was a solar eclipse which was seen in totality in the UK. We only had a little bit of an eclipse here in Cyprus; not enough to have been aware of it at all, had I not seen it on the news. The last eclipse that was of significance here was in 2006.

Still, we got out the binoculars, and just about managed to focus two small dots on the floor, with a tiny chunk taken out of the two tiny images of the sun at the height of the recent one, just for the record:

On Monday, we achieved a hat-trick of eating out: three restaurants, three Mondays in a row. I wrote about the first two restaurants already; this time, the visiting friends gave us a choice so we opted for Alexander's, the place we have been to most often, which has a wide variety of food, with large portions at reasonable prices.

I didn't feel like anything more adventurous because I had developed an ear infection, the first one I can ever remember suffering from. I treated it with garlic-infused olive oil, which seems to be the currently recommended method. Although it was extremely painful on Monday, it was rather better by Tuesday, and almost entirely cleared up by the end of the week.

On Thursday I decided to take my camera on my early-morning walk with my friend Sheila. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, and I realised I hadn't thought much about the wild flowers and blossom that are so in evidence at this time of year, particularly after such a wet winter.

March, as I have often mentioned before, is known - for good reason - as 'yellow month' in Cyprus:

However there are plenty of other colours if one looks around - I don't much like pink, but this dusky pink blossom was quite attractive against the sky:

I always find the 'bottle brush' trees amusing; the name is so apt:

The trail had been getting very overgrown in recent weeks, with grass and bushes growing tall and leaning over onto the trail; as well as attracting insects, this can make for quite a wet walk if it's been raining.

But on Thursday, there was a grass-mowing vehicle driving up and down, and some nice clear verges:

I like the way that the council looks after the trail, at least most of the time. Here's another view, looking back where we had walked:

On Friday I walked down to the Post Office to check for mail; we get it delivered to a PO Box about a mile away. It's rather a boring walk down a busy main road. When I reached the main square by St Lazarus Church, I saw this decidedly non-religious Easter decoration, incongruous in its garishness:

I walked along one of the shopping streets, so I could buy some stationery at Estia, and then back along a less busy main road. Outside the municipal library (of mainly Greek books) I saw this monument:

I'm not sure who the lady in the statue is, but the offerings at her feet were no doubt presented as part of the parade on Wednesday, which was Greek National Day.

On Saturday morning, I went out to the froutaria, and there I spotted strawberries on offer: 79c for 500g. Strawberries have been in season for several weeks now, and these ones looked past their best. I wondered if the season was coming to an end, and decided it had to be jam-making day. So I bought a couple of kilograms of strawberries, and some extra sugar (69c per kg at the fruitaria) and spent the morning making six-and-a-half pots of strawberry jam.

I don't particularly like jam-making, but it's part of my heritage: my mother used to enjoy preserving more than any other kind of cooking. Both my grandmothers also made jam, and I honestly did not know that jam could be bought ready-made (other than at church stalls, when it was made by friends) until I was about eighteen. It would still feel like sacrilege to buy jam.

Last night we put the clocks forward by an hour; in the UK we called it 'British Summer Time' but in the rest of Europe I suppose it's just 'daylight savings' (as in the US) or maybe, simply, 'Summer Time'. 

Christmas Eve 2014

In some senses it feels like so little time since Christmas Eve a year ago when I posted a picture of my hastily-decorated Christmas cake.

This year's, other than being round rather than square, is remarkably similar:

Backtracking a little, I made more mince pies, printed out newsletters emailed by friends, and did various other bits and pieces during the third week of Advent, but the most exciting event was the arrival of our son Daniel with his wife Becky and our six-month old grandson David.  It's the first time they've come to Cyprus for Christmas since they were married. 

David is a total delight - as far as we're concerned, anyway. He's still waking a fair bit at night, and fussing sometimes while feeding, and getting angry when he's over-tired.  But during the day he's mostly a very happy little chap, who wants, more than anything, to walk. I'm loving being a hands-on Grandma for a few weeks.

Here he is when one of our small friends put a fluffy halo on him: 

Their first few days flew past, and at the end of the week we followed what has become a family tradition, and ate out at Alexander's on the sea front:

David showed a worrying tendency to want to drink beer: 

Thankfully the bottle was empty - and it was removed from him before he got his mouth on it!

On Monday I emailed our annual newsletter to various family and friends around the world, on Tuesday I iced the cake. This morning I made more mince pies and an extra dessert for tomorrow, then we did all the Christmas Eve shopping and Tim came over to make stuffing and cook the turkey. He also made a nut roast for Daniel, and some peppermint creams. He chopped some veg, and, this evening, peeled a large number of potatoes.

This afternoon I put our newsletter on our family site; in the evening I wrapped some presents. Richard carved the turkey ready for re-heating tomorrow, then we had our now traditional Christmas Eve supper of 'Souvlaki Express' take-away food. The turkey stock needs to be strained, and the floor badly needs mopping.. the tree needs to be stood up again as the kittens had another go at it yesterday, and I don't feel nearly as calm or 'ready' as I did last year.. but I can't think of too much else that needs to be done.

So, a very merry Christmas to anyone who happens to read this.

Two restaurants in Larnaka

Last week was quite a social one for us, with something happening every evening. Monday we played a (Settlers of Catan) game with two of our friends; Tuesday evening two other friends came over for a meal and a couple of (Rummikub) games.

Then we ate out on both Wednesday and Thursday. Two evenings in a row. This is almost unheard of in our household, where we typically pay to eat out three or four times per year at most. We're also sometimes treated to meals at restaurants by friends, which is very pleasant, but unless we have a lot of visitors staying that's not very often either.

One occasion when we always try to eat out is our anniversary, which fell last Thursday. Last year we had Tim with us, the year before Daniel... but this time, with both sons in the UK, we decided to have an evening with just the two of us, to celebrate thirty-two years of married life.

However, Thursday also happens to be Richard's sailing buddy's birthday. Just to confuse us (and it regularly does...) he's also called Tim. We worked out that we were married on his 21st birthday, although of course that was many years before he and Richard met. Tim and his wife wanted to celebrate both occasions with us, so they generously asked us out for a meal. They chose Militzes, a restaurant on the sea-front beyond the fort, where we've been a couple of other times with friends:

Since it's Summer, the place was open and we sat at a table for four near the street. Portions are usually quite big, so our friends suggested we begin with a salad, then continue by sharing some pourgouri and three 'main' dishes: chicken, kleftiko and some mixed beans.

The beans were good, and the kleftiko was wonderful... I'm not usually a huge fan of this traditional lamb dish, but it was extremely tender and tasty.

It was a very enjoyable evening out.

On our anniversary, we had considered trying a new Mexican restaurant we had spotted recently. But on the day, Richard said that he really felt like eating fish and chips... and preferably the ones served at Alexander's. So, as we have so many times before, we went to this relatively inexpensive and popular place:

While other restaurants in the area are often almost empty until at least 8.00pm, Alexander's always seems to have customers.

I pondered the vegetarian moussaka which I've had several times before, and like very much, but then realised that fish and chips actually sounded quite appealing. So I ordered that too.

How very British of us...

We enjoyed the meal very much:

Afterwards, as is usual at Alexander's, we were asked if we wanted anything 'on the house' - they offer coffee, ouzo, brandy, ice cream, and various other possibilities. Richard had some decaf coffee, and I opted for ice cream:

Then we went for a walk along the sea-front, and came home to watch a DVD which seemed appropriate for the occasion, and which we both enjoyed: the Steve Martin version of 'Father of the Bride'.

Another birthday rolls by

Although we've been 'empty nesters' for nearly four years now, I've managed to spend the last three birthdays with at least one of our sons. I wasn't entirely sure what one does for a birthday with just the two of us - but in the event, it was a pleasant and relaxing day.

I had a pile of presents that had already arrived or been passed to us from various relatives, first thing in the morning: 

They were DVDs and books - mostly from my wishlist - and a new webcam as my previous one was rather unreliable with the sound. 

Then we drove to Immigration - not something I'd have chosen to do on my birthday, but Richard was happy to spend the morning doing random things around Larnaka, so that was our first stop. I wrote yesterday about our experiences, past and present, with Immigration, so won't repeat that here. 

Next stop was the Land Registry Office, since we had managed to lose one part of our house deeds. We were told that it was an easy and inexpensive process to get replacements, so we went to the place where we first acquired them... only to find it totally closed down. 

We had parked in nearby Lidl - not the branch we had been to before - so thought we might as well take a look and see if it had anything more interesting this week: 

It didn't. I was seriously tempted by some delicious looking white chocolate with strawberry pieces, only to see, from the ingredients on the back, that it contained maltodextrin - one of those annoying migraine-inducers. But we wandered around the rest of the store in vain. Nothing that appealed was good value. 

So Richard checked the map on his phone, which gave directions to the new Land Registry Office, which we found easily. It was a lot grander than the previous one:

We spoke to a helpful receptionist who filled in the forms for us, and explained where to go. It was, indeed, quick and easy. We had to pay a grand total of 1.71 euro for new copies of both our deeds. It took about fifteen minutes in all, and involved five different workers... one to fill in the form, one to take our money, one to write the date and direct us to the lift, one to produce the actual deeds, and one to give the inevitable official stamps. 

It was only about 9.30 by the time we had finished all this. As we came out, we saw this:

Unlike me, Richard likes looking around shops, particularly new ones, so he suggested we take a look. It wasn't very interesting. Lots of junk - toys, ornaments, garden tools. There were some clothes, and we took a look at the 'crocs', since Richard needs a new pair, but they weren't very good quality. 

So, as the Land Registry Office is right behind Carrefour, we thought we'd take a look in there to see if they had any crocs. And we thought we might have coffee too...

Unfortunately, the café didn't open until noon. And they didn't have any crocs, nor indeed anything else that interested us. 

We thought we might drive by the Post Office to see if any mail had come: I walked there on Wednesday and picked up a fair amount, so was quite surprised to find all these packages and letters awaiting us: 

They included some bills, and books for review, but also some cards and yet more presents from relatives.  I was pleased to find that I had seven cards, which seems rather a lot for a non-special birthday:

Later on a friend called by with yet another. I had two e-cards as well, and about sixty birthday greetings on Facebook! Social networking is a wonderful thing. 

This is the pile of gifts by the time I had opened them all.... 

We spent an hour or so at home, then went out again to get a new printer cartridge at the place that does recycled ones. For some reason it was cheaper than the one we last bought, about three years ago. 

Without Tim at home, I wasn't going to get a cake, so next we took a look in Zorpas, a bakery which sells delicious looking cakes and desserts. We thought we might buy a couple of small ones, or two slices... but they were full of cream (Richard tries to avoid dairy products) and very expensive for what they are. I didn't want a cake THAT much.

By that time it was one o'clock and I was getting hungry. I'd forgotten to take bread out of the freezer, so Richard suggested we go to the café at the marina for toasted tuna sandwiches and salad, which was very pleasant. However I forgot about taking any photos!

In the afternoon we had a very good Google video (like Skype) chat with Tim, using my new webcam, for over an hour. I do like modern technology for keeping in touch with our sons. And we pottered at home, caught up with email and Facebook and so on.

Usually on Fridays we go to a cell group with a meal at our good friends locally, but they're away at present so the group was cancelled. Richard and I had decided to go out to eat - and since I don't like making decisions, we opted for our favourite inexpensive sea-front restaurant, Alexander's.  They had some new menu options but we went for tried-and-tested dishes...

Richard had fish and chips:

I had veggie moussaka:

One of the things I like best about Alexander's is that they almost always offer something 'on the house' after a meal. So Richard had a de-caf coffee, and although I was feeling extremely full (it's rare for us to eat out at all, let alone twice in one day!) I chose the ice cream. Last time I did that, one of the scoops was strawberry. This time it was yellow:

It was really very yellow, more so than the photo shows. It was artificial banana... not unpleasant, exactly, but rather odd. Anyway, I ate it all and enjoyed the chocolate part... and then was surprised how very cold I felt! 

Our 31st anniversary... and my 1000th post!

It seems somehow appropriate that my thousandth post on this blog - started over six years ago - should be about the celebration of another wedding anniversary. Not that 31 is a particularly significant number (unless you are interested in the different kinds of prime numbers in which case there's a detailed Wikipedia article about the number 31.) Last year's 30th ('pearl') anniversary was more of a milestone. But this is the year in which Daniel was married, and Tim finished his degree... and it could have been easy to forget about our wedding anniversary.

We have a guest staying in the guest flat but he was invited out to a meal with some other friends, so we decided to take Tim out with us for a meal. Last year only Daniel was with us - and while we liked to spend our anniversaries on our own, where possible, when the boys were younger, it's now a treat to have either of them with us.

Since we only eat out a handful of times each year, we don't know many restaurants in Larnaka. We didn't want anywhere with hot or spicy food in a Cyprus summer, and we didn't really want to try anywhere new that might prove disastrous. So, perhaps unadventurously, we opted for our favourite of the sea-front restaurants, Alexander's.

Tim took some photos of us, for the record, with his good camera, and I think this is probably the best of them:


Then I did manage to take one of him:


Since Richard and Tim both attempt to be dairy-free in their eating, we knew there were no Alexander's desserts that would be appropriate. So afterwards we drove along the sea-front towards McKenzie and the yogurt ice cream shop which also does regular ice cream, including some sorbets.

Richard opted for strawberry sorbet:


Tim decided on peach:


I was going to have a yogurt ice cream with fruit, but the strawberry sorbet looked rather good, as did the 'coconut/bounty' ice cream. So I had a scoop of each:


Alas, they were rather disappointing. The coconut ice cream wasn't bad, but the strawberry sorbet tasted very artificial. And the peach, as Tim said, tasted as if it had been made with canned peaches in syrup.

Still, they were cooling and refreshing. And the ingredients can't have been too bad since I didn't develop a migraine the following morning.

We arrived home again about 8.30 and Tim suggested a game of 'Ticket to Ride', since he had not played it for about six months. Cleo was delighted when we took the lid off the box:


It was quite an interesting game, which I thought Richard would win since he (playing red) took the only eight-train-track (worth 21 points) and had a lot of different missions. Tim (playing blue) took several extras too, and it was clear that some of the new ones overlapped perfectly with the routes he had already played.


However, I (playing yellow) managed, rather neatly (I thought) to play all my trains AND all my train cards. I only completed the original three missions I had kept at the start of the game, but I gained an extra ten points from the longest contiguous route, and I had not used any stations... and since Richard failed to complete one of his routes, I won: