Farewell Daniel...

So... this morning we took Daniel to the airport. A pretty sociable time of day, really, given the number of night-flights that happen from Larnaka. We got to the check-in queue about 8.45am, for a flight at about quarter to eleven...


His luggage was rather overweight on our bathroom scales when he finally finished packing last night, but didn't register nearly so much at the airport. We think the case wasn't fully on the conveyer belt... whatever the reason, his bag (which we thought was nearly 5kg overweight) was checked in easily. Not that they tend to quibble on Cyprus Air about a few kilos. Dan's backpack (his hand luggage) was about 12kg but they didn't weigh that, or query its size.

It's not been an easy week, counting down to today. Dan's said goodbye to dozens of people, some of whom he might never see again if they leave Cyprus before he returns. He didn't finish tidying and organising his room, but I can do that in the next few weeks, a little at a time. Sophia, his cat, has been quite disturbed all week, but when the rest of us got back from the airport this morning she was asleep on our bed and seemed reasonably content. She was all right when he went away for two months last summer, other than being a bit more attention-seeking than usual.

But two years is a lot longer than two months, and I'm not sure it's quite hit home to any of us just yet. I've been tearful most of the week, particularly yesterday and first thing this morning, but now feel almost numb. Life has to go on, of course, but - as I always suspected - the 'letting go' phase of parenthood is unquestionably the most difficult so far.

New Year's Eve

2005 has been a year of milestones, as outlined in our Christmas newsletter. A good year, on the whole. 2006 is going to be much more of a challenge: primarily because Daniel is going to be leaving home in ten days' time, to join the Doulos. He's feeling the mixed anticipation of looking forward, yet hating the thought of goodbyes and of actually leaving.

I'm feeling something of the sort too, but without looking forward to his being away. I'm thrilled that he's strong and healthy, that he wants to be more independent, that he has so many talents. I'm even more pleased that he's never given up on God, and that he's embarking on two years of missionary life and travel. And I'm thankful that he's been happy to stay at home until he's past 19, and even more that we've home educated for the past eight years.

I remember, when Dan was small, I was already aware of the rapid passing of the days. My baby had become a toddler, my toddler was fast turning into a small child. Tim, my second baby, wanted to grow up even faster. I found myself wishing children didn't change so fast, that I could somehow freeze time. Then we met a family with a child who would never grow up. He had multiple serious health and mental problems, meaning he would never walk, or eat independently, or stop wearing nappies. He couldn't talk, and had to be taken everywhere in a custom-designed wheelchair. He had to have medication injected each day, and was going to be entirely dependent on his family for the rest of his life, however long that was.

I was humbled, and saddened. I also realised that it's right and good for children to grow up, to develop new skills, and eventually to become independent. I started to give thanks for the contented passing of the days, and my children's growing skills, rather than regretting the swift passage of time.

In retrospect, nineteen years seem to have whizzed by. They've been the most fulfilling of my life, and I don't feel ready for the 'empty nest' just yet. I'm glad Tim will still be here for at least another year or two, although I'm sure he'll want to be independent before long.

This week, there's a lot to do. Dan's been working on de-cluttering his room, and the last couple of workbooks from his home education coursework. He's worked out what he wants to take with him (maximum 20kg, plus hand luggage) and done an initial packing. He has one more drum lesson, and perhaps one more clarinet lesson. He's teaching himself German. He's practising his juggling and working out how to make more clubs when he's on the ship:


He also wants to learn to cook. Tim started cooking about nine years ago and is now competent at almost any meal. Dan hasn't been interested in any cooking other than making salads and herbal teas (from dried herbs). But on the Doulos there aren't many options for vegetarians, and in the two months he was there in the summer, he got very bored of white rice and vegetables. Apparently there are extra little kitchens where people can make their own meals if they want to - on occasion - so he wants to know how to cook a few favourites.

I learned to cook by following recipes, and Tim seemed to pick it up by osmosis (and reading), as happens in home education. But Dan hasn't, and I don't really know how to teach him. But we've decided that for the next week he'll choose the menus for our evening meals, and cook them too, with me directing. Tonight we started with basic spaghetti and an onion/garlic/tomato sauce. One of Dan's favourites, and pretty simple. He also cooked frozen peas in the microwave, and stir-fried courgette slices in oil:


It turned out fine, and I'm sure he'll turn into a competent cook once he's more confident. So long as he doesn't get distracted...

Oh, and there's one more thing I've agreed to do. Something I never expected to have to do when we decided to continue with home education after our initial trial. Indeed it's a bit of a standing joke in some British home ed circles, due to something written in the book Free Range Education. One of the mothers who contributed ended her piece by saying that an added benefit of home education was that she would never again have to sew on name-tapes.

But guess what Dan needs for his time on the Doulos? Name-tapes! All the laundry is done centrally, and although small items go in a mesh bag, all the trousers and shirts and so on need to be labelled clearly. We still have plenty from his time in school in the UK, so this is going to be a big task for me this coming week.

I usually prick my finger several times when sewing, so if there are a few tears in my eyes I can always explain them away...

Christmas family newsletter 2005

December 2005

Dear Family and Friends,

2005 has been quite a year of milestones for the whole family....

... the rest of this newsletter can now be found on our family site, at the Christmas newsletter 2005 page.

Bits and Pieces

Daniel posted on his blog again today, about preparations for returning to the Doulos for two years. It's only five weeks till he leaves, and there's still a lot to do. I haven't quite come to terms with him being away for that long yet, either. Of course he's the age when many of his friends are off to university, most of them in other countries. But at least they come back for Christmas, and during the summer. We do hope to go and visit him at some point in a year or so, wherever they happen to be (probably somewhere in the Far East) but it's still a huge separation. The 'empty nest' must surely be the hardest part of parenting by far... and I'll still have Tim at home for at least a year or two.

Dan's trying to finish his NCSC coursework - he only has about six workbooks left to complete, and is working at odd hours to fit them in. It turns out that he doesn't need the level 2 qualification at all, at least for now, but having got so close it seems silly not to finish it and get the certificate. Tim had a terrible cold last week and didn't do anything much; this week he's catching up on sleep and working a lot on music, since he's organising and playing for the inter-church Christmas concert in about ten days. At one point he had hoped to have finished level 2 by Christmas as well, but I think next Summer's more likely at the current rate of progress.

Dan's also experimenting with 'real' herbal teas. He loves the ones that come in sachets, but they won't necessarily be available in the various countries he'll be visiting on the Doulos. We can send him some via airmail, but he thought he'd try making tea with a spoonful of mint. Apparently it was quite pleasant, although a bit odd as he didn't strain it. He's wondering if he could use a cafetiere to make it in future, although I said a teapot and strainer would probably work better.

Tonight Richard and Tim are out with some friends from church, seeing the film of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I didn't want to go: it was my least favourite of the books, and I'm easily scared. I couldn't even watch the serpent in the second movie, and didn't risk the third, with the dementors in it. No way would I want to watch the final part of this one. Dan decided not to go either, being (like me) not much of a movie person anyway. Tim was in two minds, but eventually went to be sociable.

Oh, and I learned something a couple of days ago. Feeling I was rather stuck-in-a-rut with my mince pie making, year after year, I thought I'd follow the advice in one of my recipe books and make some with puff pastry. Not that I made puff pastry; I had some ready-made and frozen. I rolled it out as thinly as I could and made the first batch. They looked like this:



- with some of the lids fallen off completely. They tasted OK, I suppose, but rather fatty. By the time they had cooled down fully, they were even less appealing. A day later, they were soggy and really not very nice.

So today I made a regular batch with ordinary short-crust pastry, made with 1/4 wholewheat flour to give a bit more texture. I made 36 this morning and see that there are 18 left....

What happened to the past week?!

So, our freight came and I was pretty occupied with finding space for books, and kitchen utensils.

But it didn't take THAT long, yet I don't seem to have written anything much for over two weeks. I suppose it's another odd time of year... cooler, but not cold. Dark evenings, but warm sunny daytimes. Only three weeks until Christmas, but despite the climate here being similar to that of Bethelehem, it doesn't feel like Advent. Even though we have Advent candles at our church, and poinsettias decorating the window sills.

Tim's had a really bad cold for the past week, and although the rest of us seem to have avoided it - so far, anyway - I've felt tired and a bit headachey for the past couple of days, and Dan's had a 24-hour gastroenteritis type of bug. At least, we hope it's a 24-hour one. The worst of it took place this morning. Even boiled water wasn't staying down at first, but I remembered a doctor's tip to give fizzy drinks, and dug out a bottle of Sprite left over from some party. It contains valuable electrolytes, apparently, and sure enough he found that was acceptable. Funny how something basically rather unhealthy can have good results during sickness.

Organised people are 'ready for Christmas' by about the end of November. One day perhaps I'll join their ranks, but I doubt it. We do better than we used to: most of the family's gifts were sorted while we were in the UK in October, and there are only one or two more to order. Online buying has made life a great deal easier in that respect. I made my Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago too. That always needs about six weeks to mature, ideally, and for once it should have it.

But the mincemeat and Christmas pudding ingredients are still sitting in the cupboard. Dan's thinking about a Christmas card design but hasn't yet produced one. We were thinking of taking some family photos but haven't got around to it. And our annual newsletter is no more than a few jottings in the back of a notebook, so far.

There's also a fair amount to do before Daniel joins the Doulos for two years. Such as booking his ticket to Germany on Jan 11th or 12th, where he has to go first for a conference! He also needs a new passport: his current one is a children's five-year passport due to expire at the end of next year. Apparently it can't be turned into an adult one, instead we have to buy a new full one. Shouldn't be a problem, but it means getting photos and going to Nicosia to the British Embassy. And probably hanging around for a few hours.

He probably needs one more vaccination before leaving, and we also need to sort out his medical and travel insurance, and the insuring of his laptop computer and clarinet while away. Oh, and I need to sew name-tapes onto some of his clothes... something I thought I wouldn't have to do any more once we started home educating. Just as well I kept the ones we didn't use!

Still, our church and some of our friends are generously helping with his financial support for the two years he'll be away, so that's very encouraging. And he did have most of the necessary vaccinations before going on the short-term trip in the summer.

Freight.. or fraught?

When we were in the UK, sorting out our house to sell it, we had to look through a huge number of boxes. As mentioned below. Although, as Daniel pointed out, we had survived without all that stuff for eight years so we might as well get rid of it all, we decided to bring a fair amount out to Cyprus where we intend to settle for the foreseeable future. I think we're only bringing about a third of what was left, and very little of the furniture.

Then, having roughly estimated what we wanted to bring, Richard started contacting freight companies. Hunting through the Yellow Pages yielded dozens of possibilities, but most of the phone calls were frustrating in the extreme. They didn't send things to Cyprus. They only did entire containers. They couldn't insure anything. They weren't operating any more. And so on...

We did get a few quotations, but they were fairly high.

Then Richard contacted a number he was given by Cyprus Airways, a special offer on air freight since he's a frequent flyer. He didn't want to trust Tim's new keyboard to sea freight, despite its strong flight case, and Tim wanted it within the next month or so in Cyprus. Previous experiences had taught us that even if sea freight is estimated to arrive within a couple of weeks, it's more likely to be at least a couple of months.

The company (called Signet) were very helpful, and gave a good quotation. They collected the keyboard when they said they would, and a colleague picked it up from Larnaka airport a couple of days later.

So Richard asked if they knew a company who did sea-freight, and they said they did that too. Their quotation was the best we had been given, insurance was not much extra. We would have to deal with the freight (or organise its delivery) once it got to Limassol port, but we didn't mind that. Having seen how some sea-freight is treated at the port, Richard felt he would prefer to supervise it himself anyway. We know someone with a transit van which we might be able to borrow if we need to collect it ourselves.

So we had the freight collected, we posted a cheque, and we had an email saying that it would arrive at Limassol on 14th Nov, and their agent in Cyprus would contact us. They even gave us a number.

On Tuesday (15th Nov) Richard tried phoning the number. No reply. But he left it till the afternoon, and some companies only work mornings.

Yesterday he tried again. No reply.

So he phoned the company in the UK, to check the number. The lady he had dealt with was on holiday, and the man answering the phone said he would check for us. He said there was no record of our having sent anything....

Richard asked him to check again, and this time he said we had sent air freight not sea freight, and we should have received it weeks ago. No, Richard said, that was different. We have signed paperwork accepting our sea-freight, and an email confirming arrival of our cheque, giving information about the arrival of the ship....

All rather worrying, but thankfully the guy did eventually find our details. Apparently their filing system isn't computerised or well-organised - something we have come to expect in Cyprus, but not in England!

They also gave Richard a completely different phone number for the Cyprus agent. By this time it was nearly 6.00pm here, and the Cyprus agent office closed at 5.30.

This morning he tried again. He got through to someone who said that yes, they do have our paperwork, but the ship has been delayed and should arrive this weekend.

What a relief.

We don't hold out high hopes for actually getting the freight next week; previous experience has taught us that it can take up to a week to be released, and that inevitably there will be further delays. When we came out here eight years ago, we sent some freight which was due to arrive in the first week of November. It actually arrived just before Christmas and had two parcels missing. They were insured, and the contents replaced, but it was very annoying.

However the time-frame was quite good compared to others we've heard of: one family discovered their freight had been sent first to Malta, then to Greece (huh?), and was then on its way to North Cyprus... at a time when it would almost certainly have been lost irretrievably if it had arrived there. Thankfully they were able to get it diverted to the south in time, but in all they waited about three months rather than the expected three weeks.

Tim hopes the freight arrives before mid-December, since one of the items coming is a very strong keyboard stand which he wants to use in the inter-church carol concert. I'm in two minds: I'll be relieved when it's safely here, but I have NO idea where we're going to put it. I also suspect we're going to find that we want to extract one or two items from every single box so we won't even be able to leave it neatly stacked away somewhere.

Complicated...

I don't really like the phone. I much prefer email, and usually that's fine. Typically we might get one phone call in a day, although Richard gets plenty of work calls on his mobile.

This afternoon, though, I think the phone has rung seven times in the past four hours since Richard went back to work after lunch. I was expecting one of the calls: house-browsing online again, I found another one that looks interesting so Richard called the guy who's shown us two already, and enquired about it. It may be a bit further away than we want, since we walk nearly everywhere, but it sounds quite nice and well within our budget. The guy did indeed call back, and we should see it tomorrow.

I also had a call from the other agent we've spoken to, saying she's found a three-bedroom house that might suit us. No, I said, we definitely want four. OK, she'll continue looking.

Then there were two calls for Daniel, and three from Daniel, who's in Nicosia for the afternoon. Only forty-five minutes' drive away, but this has turned out surprisingly complicated.

Let me back-track.

When we moved here eight years ago, Dan had been playing clarinet for a year, was doing well, and loved it. A big priority was to find a teacher in Cyprus. We enquired at several music schools locally, but they all seemed to teach piano, guitar and violin only. None of the ordinary schools do music at all (other than a little recorder and guitar at some of them) so they were no good either.

Finally we heard about the Town Band, and the leader who taught woodwind. To cut a long story short Dan auditioned, was accepted, and had heavily subsidised lessons for a couple of years. Then he joined the band as he was both tall enough and advanced enough, and his lessons were free.

However the band leader isn't really a clarinetist. Most of the people who learn from him are almost beginners, whose only ambition is to get to play in the band. He doesn't teach at advanced level, and so for the past couple of years or so Dan's really been teaching himself. He plays for at least an hour each day, often more, but was worrying at the lack of an expert who can tell him if he's going wrong, help him with tricky techniques, and so on. Particularly since he recently bought a professional level instrument.

A few months ago we heard that one of the local music schools had a clarinet teacher. So Dan phoned them in early September. They said the teacher was away but would phone him when he got back. Every three or four days he called again, and each time was told a slightly different story. The guy was on a concert tour, it seemed. Encouraging in a way - he must be a very good player. But he didn't seem to be returning!

Then when we were in the UK, Dan had a call on his mobile from the music school, saying that the teacher never came back so they had found a new one who lives in Nicosia, and comes to the music school in Larnaka to teach. They said they would phone when we got back, and try to arrange a lesson for the first weekend.

We got back, and heard nothing. So Dan rang them. Ah, they said, the teacher isn't here. Try tomorrow.

Tomorrow came. Ah, they said, she's busy. She'll call you later.

She didn't.

He started phoning every other day, and getting a different story every time. She'll call you. She's abroad. The office is locked so we can't find her details. If he wasn't so eager to find a teacher it would have been funny...

Eventually he got through to someone who told him that she wasn't coming any more to Larnaka, but they did give him her number. Progress! He called her, and eventually managed to arrange a lesson in Nicosia at 6.15pm today. The lessons were enormously expensive by Cyprus standards, but he really needs them. Perhaps he could have them every other week once he's established a pattern, we thought.

In fact he heard on Saturday that he's been accepted by the Doulos to return for two years, leaving on January 12th, so these lessons will probably only be for four or five weeks before Christmas, assuming he and the teacher are happy with each other.

His friends the Antidote Theatre company go to Nicosia on Monday afternoons and said Dan could ride with them, but they leave here at 2pm. That was OK, he didn't mind hanging out at a coffee shop for a few hours beforehand.

His first phone call was to tell me that he wouldn't be able to get a ride home with Antidote. They were going out with someone to eat after the classes. He phoned to ask me for the phone number of the shared taxi ('service') firm. I didn't have the number but our Yellow Pages listed the Nicosia tourist information office, so I gave him that number.

Ten minutes later he called back. The last service leaves Nicosia at 7pm (the lesson should end at 7.15) - and it's full anyway.

Uh-oh.

I did have a quick look online for bus timetables, but they're even worse: they stop at 6pm. Even after eight years here I'm not quite used to the appalling public transport here, but then we haven't often had cause to use it.

I was trying to think of people we know in Nicosia, where he could stay overnight if necessary, but that's no good: he needs to be at the theatre tomorrow morning for a rehearsal, as there's an extra performance of last year's play 'The Little Man's Best Friend' at a school on Thursday. Daniel plays the clarinet in this play...

Well, he said, he'd just have to see if he could get home with Antidote after all; however it would be very late. He'll buy a sandwich somewhere (I always worry he's going to get hungry!) and will let us know when to expect him. I don't think he even took his key but if necessary we can leave one under the doormat. Cyprus is pretty safe that way.

I just hope the lesson goes well and is worth all this hassle!

Cats

Somehow we've managed to catch nice photos of all four of our cats in the last couple of weeks.

Here's Cleo, our oldest and most nervous cat. She's seven now, but still as anxious as she was as a kitten. On bonfire night she hid inside Dan's sofa when fireworks started nearby. But here she is sitting out in the sunshine - alert, as ever. Probably she heard a leaf falling somewhere...


Sophia is Cleo's daughter, six-and-a-half years old now. She's highly intelligent, even for a cat, and belongs almost exclusively to Daniel. Or rather, he belongs to her. Here she is having found a very comfortable pillow on his bed:


Jemima is Sophia's twin. She's fluffy, conflict-avoidant, and considers me to be her human. She often sleeps till lunch-time, but here she is sitting outside late one morning:



Last comes Tessie, who is five years old. She is very friendly to people, and unfriendly to other cats. Mostly she tolerates our others, though she has spitting matche with Sophia sometimes. But she fights viciously against any other cats who dare to wander into our garden. Here she is nearly asleep (or perhaps trying to avoid the camera) on a sofa:


We're all 'cat people'. It makes life easier when a whole family is that way. We all quite like dogs too, but much prefer having cats in the home. When Cleo arrived it would never have occurred to us to have more than one cat at a time, but it's very enjoyable having four as they have such distinct characters.

Some photos from our recent trip to the UK

I was going to call this 'holiday snaps', but it wasn't really a holiday in any sense, although it was lovely to spend time with family and friends. Having lived out of the UK for eight years (and it's exactly that - today is the 8th anniversary of our arrival in Cyprus) I found myself noticing things I might previously have taken for granted. And having a digital camera, of course I took dozens of snaps which I shall never get made into prints. Here are a few to give a flavour of our visit... oh, and if anyone reading this isn't familiar with blog photos, any of them can be clicked to see a larger version. But on a dial-up connection that might be quite slow.

We began in Sussex, staying with Richard's mother. The boys both inherited some money last year and wanted to buy professional musical instruments after many years on student types. So we spent much time in the first week in music shops, mostly about half an hour's drive away. Tim selected this keyboard after playing a huge variety:

... and Daniel eventually chose a clarinet from Hanson's, a store in Yorkshire, which sent it down for him to try before buying. They're both very pleased with their purchases!

At the end of the first week we drove to Birmingham to spend a couple of weeks staying with my mother. The day after we arrived, my sister and her family came to spend a day, and in the afternoon we went for a walk with their dog to the local Highbury Park. I found myself amazed afresh at the beauty and greenery of Birmingham parks, and particularly liked this pond:

Daniel's birthday was approaching fast, and he was interested in some Irish tin whistles. We'd been recommended a shop in Birmingham called Hobgoblins, which turned out to be a very friendly place full of fascinating instruments, some of them quite unusual. He was able to play several of the whistles and chose four in separate keys.

We were amused at the wall surrounding the car park we found nearby. After reading the notice saying that cars which had not paid sufficient parking money would be clamped, Dan asked if they received even more drastic treatment if they were left for even longer...


Yes, it was a wall of crushed cars! We made sure we paid for a couple of hours. After spending time in Hobgoblin's we still had a bit of parking time left so we went for a brief walk and saw this astounding statue. The boys posed at its feet just to give an idea of the size. Rather incongrous in the middle of a kind of shopping centre, we thought:


The following weekend, after spending most of the week trying to sort out the various boxes in our house, we spent the day with some friends who live near the enormous Sutton Park. We went for a walk in the afternoon, and enjoyed seeing wild ponies:and wild mushrooms. Or perhaps toadstools. They were amazingly colourful and bigger than I had expected. Suddenly I could see why Enid Blyton wrote about them as fairy houses:

As well as continuing to sort our freight the following week, we spent time with lots of different friends. At the weekend we made a quick trip to the Cadbury shop which is quite close to our house, and I took this quick snap of the famous factory... people used to ask us if there was a problem with factory smells, living in Birmingham. We always replied that we loved waking up to the smell of freshly-made chocolate!


After that we drove along a road I used to take quite for granted - the Bristol Road, or A38, a two-lane dual carriageway that's very busy. It also happens to be lined with trees which were in gorgeous shades of yellow and red, as Autumn approached. In my teens I went along that road every day going to school, and barely noticed the colours.

Two days later we drove to Cardiff to spend nearly a week with my sister and her family. On the way - or rather, not on the way at all! - we took Dan to Oswestry for an interview, as he's hoping to return to the Doulos ship for a couple of years, and so has to join the organisation officially. While he was there, the rest of us drove to Lake Bala. It wasn't as dark as it looks in this picture - it was mid-afternoon. I just haven't yet figured out all the camera settings, so the bright sunshine made it look as if it was dusk. Still, I liked the way this turned out:

We watched some ducks too, very tame and sleeping peacefully when we sat down nearby. Then a couple of women approached with toddlers in pushchairs. Immediately the ducks and nearby doves woke up and rushed towards them, quacking and calling. Evidently they associated small children with food, and sure enough a child started throwing them pieces of bread. Just like we used to when the boys were smaller.

On the way back we drove through Chirk, a small town which has a castle, although we didn't go in. We were a bit horrified to see this pollution pouring into the sky, although I suppose it's better to be in a country area than in the middle of a big city.


We were even more horrified when we realised where it was coming from: another Cadbury factory.


Finally we got to Cardiff. We did get slightly lost, but thank goodness for international roaming mobile phones (which, from Cyprus, aren't even very expensive). Dan called my sister and she navigated us to her home over the phone using her A-Z street map. Our time with her was a bit less busy, although we did a bit more shopping including buying some extra luggage. Cardiff is a lovely city; here's just one of the buildings near where we parked on our last day:

Finally we drove back to Sussex for a couple of last days before flying home. We'd almost forgotten how slowly night falls in the UK, and how beautiful some of the sunsets can be. This shot was taken from the car as we drove south, about 6pm.



The old rhyme about 'Red sky at night' was correct, as our first day in Sussex was lovely: mostly sunny, and quite warm. Indeed it was remarkably mild and dry for October during most of our stay.

Tuesday business

I had to go to the bank first thing this morning. Well, not really first thing since it doesn't open till 8.30. I got there shortly after it opened, and there was no queue. Evidently the best time to go. In the past couple of months I've gone mid-morning, and it's been crowded.

I had to transfer some money from our UK account to our Cyprus account, as I do every month. That one's straightforward. I asked about Internet banking too, since it would make life much easier for paying utility bills. I was given a lengthy form to fill out, with terms and conditions in English. I'm not quite sure what it costs (if anything) - the form didn't say. We don't pay anything for Internet banking on our UK account so I hope it's not much, but the t&c I read this morning did mention fees.

I also had to stop a cheque, something I've never done before. Yesterday our landlady called and said she hadn't received the rent payment for this month. Since I'd posted it on September 1st, it seems to have got lost in the post. The bank clerk checked our account, and it hadn't been cashed (which is good) so she recommended stopping it and writing another. The charge for stopping it was £4!! She did say that if the cheque arrives, we could delete the stop (at no added cost) if we let her know.

Shortly after 11am our medical insurance rep arrived. For some reason insurance here is always paid in person. One month I sent a cheque to the address on the invoice and it caused chaos: it took them about four months to track it down. So now I just wait until the rep arrives! Emergency care is free here, and ordinary doctor visits are inexpensive (about £10 or a little more) so we're only insured for hospital stays. So far we haven't claimed anything on our insurance, nor has any of us visited a doctor for two or three years now, so it seems as if this minimal plan is probably the best for us. It costs £100 per quarter for our family, which seems like a lot for those of us who take free health care for granted, but is far, far less than we had to pay when we lived in the USA for a couple of years back in the early '90s.

Daniel, meanwhile, really did have to be out first thing in the morning. There was a school performance of 'Fairytaleheart' by Theatre Antidote, who he worked for last year. This was one of last year's performances so they asked him if he would join them. It was in Nicosia, so they left at 7am.

As for Tim, he slept until nearly noon after his very late night with Richard in the office, mentioned in the previous post.

At 4pm we had made an appointment to view the house we discovered online. Unfortunately, when I spoke to the agent yesterday, the price is going up by another £20,000! Apparently it's been listed for a year but nobody has been interested, since the downstairs flat has been in rather poor condition. So the owners are paying for major renovations. We decided to have a look anyway, and were pleased to find it in a nice area - only five minutes' walk from where we live at present!

The couple who showed us around were very pleasant and helpful; however when they explained what renovations they were planning for downstairs, we were disappointed. The garden is already very small, and they're going to extend into it, making it almost non-existent both front and back. We don't need a huge garden like we have now, but we need a bit for the cats, to hang out laundry, and just to sit in. There's a little at the side, but not much.

I also felt the apartment block at the back was too close; it could feel rather claustrophobic. And there was no inside staircase from the ground floor to the first floor, just a marble staircase outside which looks very nice but would be slippery, surely, in the rain. There were some attractive balconies all around, but I don't like heights AT ALL so would be rather reluctant to use them.

Having said all that, it was really a very nice house with big rooms and lots of potential. If it wasn't being extended, and if the price wasn't going up, we might well be interested despite the tiny outside space. The downstairs does seriously need renovation, though: it's going to be rewired, repainted, re-floored, and even have false ceilings put in. There's also going to be a brand-new downstairs kitchen and bathroom. It will look very nice. But then again - it will be someone else's choice. We'd rather choose our own decorations.

Anyway, it was interesting to see. We'll certainly be keeping an eye out in that area, and on the site concerned. We still have to sell our UK house, after all; we're not yet in a position to buy.

After we got back, we had a visit from our landlady and her husband, and two builders who spoke very little English. They wanted to see where the roof was leaking. We showed them inside, then Richard got out his long ladder and showed them where he thought the problem was on the roof itself. One of the builders came down with an entire roofing tile in his hand, and said that was the problem. He will come back and fix it some time, but he doesn't yet know when. Of course, having taken away a tile, the leaking will be even worse if it rains again before he returns!

Monday activities

Some people are skilled in organisation and logistics. Unfortunately, in our family none of us is particularly gifted in these areas. As I'm at home, I mostly keep track of everyone's activities, but it's sometimes a struggle to remember what's going on. I'm glad the boys do so many things, but trying to fit meals and general life (not to mention the academic part of home education) around everything else can be difficult, even stressful at times.

After the summer, it always takes a while for my brain to get around so much action all at once. In previous years it seems to have happened more slowly, too. Schools started either in the middle of last week or yesterday morning, and it appears that most extra-curricular activities are starting this week too.

Monday is a 'music day' in our household. At 9am a friend arrives to give the boys aural music lessons - one at a time, and although in theory they have half an hour each they often chat, or talk about music in general, and she's often here till nearly 11am. This was the first aural lesson since June. Both boys play instruments but have hardly taken any exams; however they're both thinking about doing one or two of the higher grades, just so as to have extra paper qualifications. Besides, people in Cyprus seem to like certification. Aural music is part of the RSM and Guildhall exams, and although they've both picked up a fair amout through general musical experience, there are some gaps.

At 11am Daniel then has his drum lesson for an hour. That also happens in our house, and is fairly noisy! The cats are distinctly unimpressed. Dan uses drum pads for some of his practising, which makes the sound much quieter, but for the lesson they have to be removed. He seems to be progressing fast: his teacher says he could take grade 5 in the early spring, which is pretty good going as he only really started last October. But as he may be returning to the Doulos in February, there probably won't be time.

At lunchtime we had a guest - a colleague of Richard's who lives in Malta but is here for a conference. He stayed overnight at the office, and came here with Richard for lunch. Not a problem: we nearly always have bread-based lunches with cheese, salad, fruit etc, so as long as I know someone's coming it's easy enough to cater for them.

After lunch Tim usually does his piano practice, now it's September and there's no siesta-time (in July and August we're supposed to keep quiet between 1pm and 4pm) and later on Dan does his clarinet practice. However they spent most of the afternoon at Theatre Antidote, helping to set up lights for the premiere of their new performance, which is on Saturday.

At 6pm Tim had a singing lesson at one of the local music schools. This is something he's been hoping to do for some time, but only just got around to arranging. He said it went extremely well. Apparently he has an advantage over many of the students in that he can read music, and did sing in a choir when he was younger.

Then Dan should probably have gone to the Municipal Band practice at 8pm. However he couldn't remember if it started yesterday or on Thursday. Besides that, our car was in for a major service and some repairs, so he would have had to walk, and he was pretty tired. So he decided not to go. Just as well since we ended up eating quite late, nearly 7.30pm by the time everyone was home.

After supper, Richard went to his office to do some recording for Theatre Antidote - sound effects and so on for their new play. Tim went to help. They weren't back by the time I went to sleep around 10.30; Tim, who slept till late morning today, told me they didn't get back till 1.30am!! He hadn't noticed the time...

Jigsaws completed at last

I wrote this post at the end of July, talking about how we (mostly I) do jigsaw puzzles on our dining room table each summer, covering them with a thick cloth when we want to eat.

A couple of weeks later I wrote this post, describing the first three which I had completed, and the fourth which was partially done.

Today Daniel and I finished the last of them - a 2000-piece puzzle showing a bit of Venice, which has taken over three weeks. Longer than all the rest put together. We're not even sure why, as it doesn't look particularly difficult. There are a nice variety of shaped pieces, they fit together well, and there's plenty of interest. I even did the sky section first, thinking it would be the most tedious. Then the canal bits, as they were easy to sort out.

But for some reason the left-hand third, with all those buildings, has been extraordinarily tricky. Yesterday there were probably only about 300 pieces remaining to do, but they still weren't going in quickly. So I used my last resort: sorting by approximate shape. That helped, and this morning for about an hour and a half Daniel and I finished it. Phew!

Of course I could simply have abandoned that final puzzle. Either put it back in the box, or left it on the table until next summer. Part of the problem is that I feel in jigsaw-doing-mode during the really hot months, but less so now it's September. As Richard pointed out, jigsaws are supposed to be fun so it was a bit silly for me to be muttering and complaining about the Venice one.

But if I'd put it away, I wouldn't have known if any pieces had got lost. And if we'd left it till next summer, as I did once before with a puzzle that got boring by the end of August, we wouldn't have been able to use the table for anything else (such as table tennis) all year. And as we might be moving before next summer (indeed I hope we will) a mostly-completed puzzle would be very much in the way.

Six months of blogging... and it's Friday AGAIN!

Yes, I started this blog exactly six months ago. I can scarcely believe it's been so long. That means our sofas are six months old today, and they look good as new. Evidently a good choice, although we've been fairly careful with them and managed to stop the cats - mostly - from scratching them.

In celebration of this half year, I've finally changed the title background to a picture of the beach that I took back in May. It took me most of the afternoon, and I had to have significant help from Daniel to get it the right size. Hard to believe I was a programmer many years ago when I struggle to understand simple HTML and graphics programs. Not that I ever understood graphics!

Besides that, it's another Friday. Supermarket shopping, yet again. The checkout girl this morning was chatting to someone else as she passed our groceries through the till, then stopped in shock at the end as she told me the bill came to £265. I was expecting it to be about £70 or a bit less, and evidently she realised there was a mistake! So she quickly scanned through the itemised bill, and saw that she'd managed to charge me £203 for a bag of grapes (which should have been £3). Phew! At least that was easy to sort out; she entered a refund of £200 on the till and I paid the £65 which was much more reasonable.

But it did get us wondering... if I'd just been charged £10 extra for something, would we have noticed? I do usually glance at the bill when we leave, but I'm not sure if I'd notice if anything was overcharged, or undercharged.

I haven't done any more gardening this week. It's been humid even in the mornings, and more so in the evenings. Somehow that feels wrong in September. It's so odd how the months feel psychologically different. In June we expect it to be unpleasantly hot, and it's usually fine. In July we brace ourselves for the heat, and remind ourselves it's going to get worse, and make the most of it when it's not quite as bad as we expect. In August we smile and tell ourselves we're half-way through the summer; we do as little as possible and we get through. But in September, I feel that summer has outstayed its welcome. It should be autumn. The humidity should drop, and we should get some rain...

Ah well. We're going back to the UK for a few weeks in the last week of September, to see family and friends. When we get back we should be well into Autumn. Such as it is.

Richard does like the heat, and he decided to do some pruning this week. Our front garden gets even more messy than the back if it's neglected for a month or two, and some of the 'weed' trees were several feet high. So he spent two evenings pruning as much as he could to enable us to get out of the gate more easily, and yesterday evening he cut down a large tree outside Daniel's room, which was growing too close to the mains electric cables. That was a fairly major job needing a ladder and rope to ensure the tree fell the right way... no fun at all. But he was glad to have it done.

And what have I been doing this week? Well... other than catching up on email, and doing things like laundry that can't be put off, I've started cooking properly again in the evenings. We'd all had enough of cook-in sauces and other quick meals. I've also been trying to finish the 2000-piece puzzle we started weeks ago. I did the sky and canal first, thinking those would be the hardest and am now floundering with the buildings! I'd like to finish it this weekend so we can take a photo of the table covered in puzzles, then put them away.

Also I've been reading my way through the Harry Potter series. It's been a few years since I read most of them so I thought it would be good to remind myself of what they were about before reading the most recent one, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book Six). It's quite an experience reading them as a series one after the other: firstly I'm a little surprised that I've stayed interested enough to read them all, even the ultra-long books Four and Five. Secondly I'm impressed at the way the overall plot develops, with quite an apocalyptic feel to it. So hats off to JK Rowling... and now it's time to go and read a bit more of book Six, which I started last night!

Family complete again :-)

Daniel is home! After two months on the Doulos, he flew back today. Actually he left yesterday afternoon, from Durban in South Africa. First he had a short flight to Johannesburg on a local airline, then a long flight to Dubia via Emirates Air, and then this morning a shorter flight to Larnaka. We all went to meet him - the flight was on time, and his luggage arrived safely. We talked a lot, and looked at some of the photos he brought back on CD and had lunch. He's now starting to unpack.

He's planning to continue updating his blog with some photos and more anecdotes and descriptions of what he's been doing, so please do have a look at it, and leave him a comment! He's written a quick update today to say that he's back.

Weekend

We get a fair bit of junk mail here, usually tucked into one of the plants in the front garden. We tend to skim through it, since it includes supermarket sales and special offers, and then throw it out.

Late last week, one of the adverts we found was for a shop called 'Emporo' - from the photos it looked like a DIY/garden shop with a few clothes and even some food items. It was actually advertising a sale from July 12th, but said it was open on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays (when most other shops are shut). We looked at the little map given, and could see that although not close to our house, it was not far from some church friends of ours live. And we were invited to lunch with these friends on Sunday.... so it seemed like a good opportunity to call into this shop and see what it was like.

It didn't look very impressive from outside. Indeed, without the advert we would never have noticed it. It turned out to be rather a muddle of stock: garden furniture outside (rather over-priced), and sections inside for electrical goods (very cheap, on the whole), clothes, food (very limited selection) and general tools and so on. We browsed around a bit, and did pick up a few things that seemed like excellent value. Tim found an electric sander, something he's been wanting for a while, to sand the piano stool he and Richard built a few months ago. Richard found some very inexpensive cable ties.

I don't think it's a place we'll be visiting often, but it was worth seeing. When we mentioned it to our friends, they called it the 'weekend shop' and said they didn't think the electrical goods were much good. So I was relieved this morning when Tim tried the sander and found it very effective.

Meanwhile, I had my hair cut shorter again this morning (the hairdresser is open this week after all, she just wasn't there when I passed the shop last week. She's closing for the last two weeks of August).

Richard left for the UK in the early hours of the morning, when I was fast asleep - he's been rushing around all weekend trying to get things finished and ready to go. His blog explains some of the frustrations and general detail of what he's been doing. Thankfully none of the cats succeeded in stowing away in his luggage, although Sophia had been trying to do so when he brought home some of the equipment he needed to take.

I've had quite a few emails from Daniel too - and as the Doulos is now berthed in South Africa, they have an ADSL connection to the Internet. That means he was finally able to send us a few pictures, which I've now posted on his blog. When he returns in a couple of weeks, he hopes to bring a CD with a lot of digital pictures from other people, as well as films of his own to be processed.

Family blogging

The boys have both had blogs for a while, now, although they haven't used them much. Daniel started one to go along with his woodwind repair career, but although he keeps notes about the clarinets he's repaired, he didn't keep up-to-date on the blog. Maybe when he gets back, he will.

On the other hand, his Doulos blog is getting a lot of updates. Email was very slow at first, from Tanzania and then from Mozambique, but recently it's been arriving the day after it was sent. Perhaps someone fixed some problem somewhere. For some reason my blogrolling list doesn't ever seem to list Dan's blog as updated, but it has been several times. He's about half-way through his STEP program now, getting to the stage where he's definitely missing a lot of the food we have here in Cyprus - such as lots of fruit and cheese, and pasta.

Tim has been a team member on various blogs, but his most recent one is a Photo blog. Only two pictures so far, but when we get our new digital camera, I hope he'll keep it up to date.

Last night Richard decided he should join in too, so he's also started a blog, called 'I won't be long'. It's to be a day-to-day explanation of what he actually does. People often ask him, and it's hard to remember sometimes. Lots of media stuff, much of it technical. Now at last maybe I'll find out exactly how he spends his time at the office!

As for me, I'm slowly increasing my number of blogs, though I'm not sure I'll keep them all up. I prefer to have them subject-related. My most recent addition is one to do Internet quizzes and questionnaires - so many get passed around, and I didn't want them in this blog. I may start a blog for recipes once Summer's over and I get back to proper cooking again. And I'm keeping up my book reviews blog - so far I've apparently read 50 books this year.

PS The cats aren't telling us where they keep their blogs... we think they must spend most of the night online since they sleep all day at present.

Party food

We're having a celebration party tomorrow evening. To mark the anniversary on Tuesday. Not a huge party - I really don't like crowds of people - but about thirty of the people we're closest to should be coming. We ummed and ahhed for ages, first thinking about having some kind of party a few months ago, but as the weather got hotter I became less and less inclined to do anything about it.

However we'd mentioned it to our church house group so realised we had to do something. We thought about just doing something very low-key with the group, but we wanted to invite Richard's colleagues, and the people he used to work with who we're still close to, and a few others... at first we came up with forty names but managed to cut down to thirty. Plus a few young children who will probably be there, since we're starting at 6.00pm.

Food concerned me more than anything. We have plenty of space indoors and out, and there's certainly no chance of rain. Conversation won't flag: these are mostly people who know each other well, and we won't organise anything. But we didn't want to ask people to bring food (although one or two are going to anyway) - yet I definitely didn't want to spend a lot of time cooking! When Daniel had his 18th party last year, with about the same number of people, I did spent most of the day cooking. That was all right; it was in October, and the weather was cooler. But our kitchen is like an oven during the afternoons in July.

Still, there's plenty of fruit available. And people probably won't expect anything hot, so it's easy enough to buy crisps, nuts, grapes, watermelon, cheese and crackers, that kind of thing. I wanted to offer a bit more than that, though - folk are likely to be fairly hungry and want a full meal, not just snacks. So plenty of salads too: coleslaw is easy with a food processor, chopping up carrot and cucumber sticks is simple and we can buy hummus, tzatsiki etc. Plus there's a very easy (and scrumptious) dip which involves 500g natural Greek yogurt and a packed of dried onion soup mixed together. I can manage that much cooking...

Today we first went to Metro, our usual supermarket which is very close, and bought our regular week's shopping plus a few bits and pieces for the party. Then we went to a new (small) cash'n'carry type place that has a limited selection, but excellent prices on what they stock. Fruit juices in particular are extremely good value, and at this time of year people will need a lot of non-alcoholic fluid. However this place didn't have large bottles of Sprite or Coke, rather to our surprise. So as we weren't far from Chris Cash'n'carry (the newest of the big supermarkets in Larnaka) we decided to go there.

I'm so glad we did! It's probably the most 'British' of the supermarkets. It's laid out like a typical UK co-op, with wide aisles and low shelving. Much more relaxing than Orphanides, previously the biggest supermarket, and far more stock than Metro.

To my surprise and delight, we found what I think of as party food there. Not huge sizes, but the prices were reasonable for what they were. So in addition to several bottles of fizzy drinks, we left with some nice cheeses and sliced ham (etc), a quantity of frozen profiteroles which merely need to be thawed, and - wonder of wonders - some ready-made chilled quiches! I LOVE quiche, and so does Tim. We make them, of course, in the winter. But they're not something either of us want to cook in the summer, and never before have we seen them anywhere in Cyprus - other than one bakery which isn't near here.

I think we'll be returning to Chris cash'n'carry in future, though probably not every week. Their meat looked nicer than Metro's too, and they had more fruit and veggies.

Brief update

We're home again. The air conditioning seems to be dripping fluid so I'm typing in 32C heat with a noisy fan in the background, hoping the computer doesn't overheat.

The mini-cruise was wonderful in many respects. The food was superb - vast choice, enormous quantities, excellent service. No need to dress up at all, although some people did for the last night. We were at a table with a very nice couple each evening, an Australian Cypriot man and a Chinese lady. The excursion in Patmos was very interesting, albeit a bit rushed as we saw a cave, a museum, a monastery and a nunnery within a short space of time. The islands of Tinos and Santorini were also beautiful, although we didn't spend very long at either. Our cabin was comfortable and reasonably roomy. The staff were friendly and helpful. The sea was calm, the weather warm but with a pleasant breeze, and not humid. Accommodation was more like that of a hotel than a ferry, with towels provided and thorough cleaning done every morning.

Unfortunately, every silver lining has a cloud! It seemed as if something went wrong every day of our trip, although most of these were not related to the cruise itself.

On Sunday, the car overheated on the way to Limassol. This was the first long trip Richard had done since it was repaired a few weeks earlier after the same thing happened on the way to Nicosia. It wasn't a disaster: turning off the air-conditioning and switching on the heater meant that the temperature stabilised, although it's not much fun driving along the motorway in summer with the heating on! We got to the port in plenty of time and found we could park the car there, albeit at great cost. But no more so than the cost of getting a service taxi there and back would have been. We also learned that although meals were all included in the price, we would have to pay for all drinks at lunch and dinner - even water. Coffee and juice were included with the breakfasts, though, so that was good.

Shortly after we left, Richard had an urgent message from his colleague back in Larnaka, with a computer server problem. Thankfully after several texts to and fro, it was resolved.

On Monday, after the excursion to Patmos, the ship managed to bump into the side of the dock. I overheard someone say that one of the ropes had not been untied properly. Whatever the reason, the dockmaster insisted that we wait just outside Patmos until an inspector arrived from Athens to check whether it was safe to proceed. So we waited 16 hours. Far better in a ship than in an aeroplane, of course, but rather frustrating. Still, we were at least offered free drinks with our meals for Tuesday.

On Tuesday there was another, more serious server crash at Richard's office - this time with one of the London servers. It ended up being down for nearly 24 hours, potentially a big problem for several different people. As well as rapid text messages to and from Richard's Egyptian colleague, he heard from other people who were not receiving email, or hearing the radio station. Richard had hoped not to have to think about work while away, but ended up spending much of Tuesday evening (and Wednesday morning) troubleshooting via text messages (and a few voice calls) on his mobile phone.

On Wednesday it was Tim's turn to have a big problem, and it took him an hour to contact us as Richard had left the phone in our cabin while we sat outside reading. Four months ago, I wrote this post - about an electrical pole in our street being damaged by a drunk driver. The pole was fixed, but the crash seemed to have jerked a couple of power cables slightly out of their fittings in our home. All electrical cables here are overhead rather than underground. Richard mentioned it to the workmen at the time, and phoned the electricity board several times over the next few days, but although they kept saying they would come and fix it, they didn't. And somehow, we forgot about it.

Unfortunately, on Wednesday there must have been a stronger wind than usual. Tim arrived home from a music practice to find there was no power in the house. Suspecting a power cut, he looked outside, and saw one of the cables right out - loose, lying on a tree. Thank goodness for the tree, since otherwise it could have landed on the (metal) fence at the front of the house, making it live.

When Tim finally got through to Richard, we told him to go and speak to our neighbour over the road who could explain in Greek what had happened to the electricity board. Besides that, he's a safety officer! When Richard phoned back five minutes later, he learned that repairmen had arrived already - clearly this was an emergency! So power was resumed to the house.

Thursday's disaster was my fault. I managed to lose our digital camera. We were in Santorini, and had stopped for ice creams. I put down various things I was carrying as we sat on a wall to enjoy them. When we got up again, I was carrying a carton of juice and although I picked up everything else, I somehow must have forgotten the camera. When we discovered this, about ten minutes later, we hurried back to the spot but it was gone. We asked around, but nobody had seen it. It was two years old, we didn't even pay for it (we bought it with Nectar points accumulated over the years from our credit card) and it wasn't a great camera - but by that stage I'd taken 20 pictures intended for this blog. Richard took some with his 35mm camera too, but I'd hoped to use my digital ones today. I can't believe how sad I was about my poor little camera, which won't even be any use to anyone else since we have the cable here and I don't suppose the software's available any more as the camera's obsolete.

On Friday we arrived back in Limassol at 3pm - later than the original 11am, due to the delay after Patmos. The trip to Kos had been missed out, sadly. We found the car and it did start, but by the time we had reached the end of Limassol it was overheating dangerously. So we stopped and called the Cyprus AA, only to find that our subscription had expired. Apparently we had never received the renewal form. They did send out a recovery vehicle but we had to re-join the AA for this year, and also pay for the truck. Not a huge amount, but it was very annoying.

Still, we got home safely. We went to the youth group variety night which was very enjoyable. All four cats are fit and well. Tim coped fine without us. This morning I received two email messages from Daniel, so anyone following his Doulos blog can read those. We feel as if we've been away at least a fortnight, not just five days, and are much more relaxed despite everything! Richard took his photos to the local place to be printed, and they've come out reasonably although the colours are nothing like as good as we expect from UK printers. So we do at least have some pictorial record of our holiday.

Tonight we're going to an inter-church beach barbecue so I won't be posting any more today. Perhaps tomorrow I'll scan in some of Richard's photos and write about what we actually did!