Another week over...

 Wasn't New Year just a few days ago...? How can it be nearly half-way through January already? Time has a way of racing past, faster and faster and I really don't know where the last week has gone.

Part of that, I acknowledge, is that I've had quite a bad cold. Which I'll come to later... 

On Friday January 5th, we went for a walk along the sea-front to check our PO Box. And there, as so often happens at this time of year, we found ELEVEN Christmas cards. All from the UK, posted on different dates between the 5th and 17th December. 

So much for official 'last posting dates'. It all seems quite random. 

That nearly doubled the number of cards we received for the 2023 Christmas season, so I put them up along with those we had already received:

 

We do appreciate the cards that arrive. If you happen to be reading this and are one of the people who still sends us a card each year, then thank you very much. But we have been rather shocked at the amount of postage necessary to send a card to Cyprus from the UK. So please don't feel that you must! Electronic greetings are also welcome. It's rather sad that, even if folk post cards early in December, they can take a month to arrive. This is why I always keep the latest cards in an envelope along with our tree and decorations, and put them up the following year. 

So these, which we displayed right through December, are actually the cards we were sent for Christmas 2022 (many of which didn't arrive until early or even mid-January 2023)

The traditional times for taking down Christmas decorations range from January 5th (Twelfth Night) through to Candlemas (February 2nd). But having had ours up since December 1st, I felt that it was time to take them down on January 5th... so we made sure the knitted wise men arrived at the manger even though it was a day earlier than Epiphany:

In the evening, Richard helped me take everything down, and packed it away much more neatly and efficiently than I can manage when I'm doing the un-decorating alone.

And so, that was Christmas. 

Winding back a few hours, on that same Friday, which felt like a very long day, one way and another, I went to hang out the laundry I had done in the morning, only to find it still rather wet. I put it on to spin again, and nothing happened. Well, the washing machine made a lot of noise, but the drum did not turn at all. 

Uh-oh.

The washing machine, which was eight and a half years old, had been playing up for many months: I could no longer select the programme I used the most, and had to use a different one. Sometimes it was hard even to find that. We wondered about seeing if it could be fixed, but thought it (a) unlikely and (b) probably expensive. 

With a second major thing not working, we realised the time had come to buy a new washing machine.  Our previous one lasted nine years, and ended dramatically by boil-washing some clothes that never really recovered. Eight-and-a-half isn't significantly less. And whereas we were happy to buy a used (and probably elderly) steamer at the thrift store, just a day earlier, we didn't even look for a second-hand washing machine.  A steamer might be used ten or twelve times in a year, and we can manage quite well without it if we have to. A washing machine is used at least 150 times a year, with just the two of us, and I would find it extremely difficult to cope without it. 

So we went out to our favourite local white goods store, George Theodorou, after perusing their website, and ordered a new machine. To be delivered on Monday. And while many things have become more expensive in the past decade, I was slightly surprised to realise that our new washing machine was forty euros cheaper than the one we bought in 2015. And it comes with a five-year guarantee.

Our washing machine is located on an outside utility balcony, inside a biggish metal cupboard.  It works well; it's right by the washing lines, and it's not taking up space in the kitchen. 

But also in the cupboard, next to the machine, we tend to accumulate things like old cardboard boxes, ends of cans of paint - particularly when they're still in use - and unused cat litter trays. I also had a large bag of polystyrene beads for beanbags. At one point we had four beanbags, but one of them was damaged by one of the cats, and we didn't really think we needed four.. so I rescued the filling, and thought it would be useful for topping up the three remaining beanbags. The fillings tend to get squashed, so the bags become less comfortable with time.

It was, I think, a good idea. But I did that probably five or six years ago, and had not done any topping up. I also hadn't realised that the large bin bag in which I put the spare beads was a biodegradable one. And it started to biodegrade. I had noticed a few beans leaking out but hadn't done anything about it... and the slight leak, just a week or two earlier, had turned into a major cascade...

I might have left this for weeks, even months longer, although a high wind could have caused beans to go flying all over the place. But knowing that a new washing machine was coming on Monday was an excellent motivator. So on Sunday I set to work with a jug and a new bin liner... 

Richard helped, and between us we managed to tidy up the inside of the cupboard effectively, getting rid of some almost empty (and dried up) paint containers, and throwing out some of the beans which had become very grubby. 

On Monday the new washing machine was delivered and installed, and the old one taken away. I hadn't realised that the door was so dark, I couldn't see the laundry going around inside. But I guess it doesn't matter. 

The programme names seem a bit random; I've tried three different ones so far, and they all work well. The cycles are rather quicker than those on the previous machine, which is a plus point. 

On Thursday, when I went out for a walk with Sheila first thing, the flamingoes were right on the shore. It had rained a bit, and evidently there were plenty of fresh little pink shrimp by the shore. 

We can't get too close, or they become frightened, and my phone zoom isn't great - but I was quite pleased with this picture. 

2023 broke all the records for warmth, at least in Cyprus, and December was no exception. As I said in a previous post, I don't think the overnight temperatures dropped below ten degrees (Celcius, of course) and the daytimes were mostly 20-23 in the shade. 

Early January remained warm, too. But on Friday, for the first time, my phone showed slightly cooler temperatures when I got up:

And, indeed, it rained - not much on Friday afternoon, but today has been very grey, with rain more than once. A report in the Cyprus Mail said that snow is falling in Troodos. 

Perhaps winter is, at last, arriving. 

Oh, and my cold...

I had a slight sniffle on Monday that barely affected me. I walked with Sheila as usual first thing on Tuesday, but felt exhausted when I got home and very 'coldy' for the rest of the day. It was  really quite bad on Wednesday, then started to improve. It's pretty much gone by now. I didn't test for Covid; mainly because most of our remaining free testing kits have dried up entirely. But I checked several sites to see if there were any clear differences. I was sneezing a lot (common with colds, very uncommon with Covid). However I didn't have a headache, other than slight pressure around my sinuses on Wednesday (headaches are very common with Covid), nor did I have any aches and pains anywhere else. I was a bit tired, but not in a debilitating way. And my coughs were productive.

All of which is probably far more information than anyone reading this cares to read, so I'll end here. 

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

While I'm not rigid about traditions, nor superstitious, I like to take our Christmas decorations down before January 6th. It's what I grew up doing, and it always feels like the right thing to do. The Christmas season is finishing; today is a public holiday in Cyprus for Epiphany.  Schools have been closed since just before Christmas and will re-open on Monday. That's not relevant to us, but somehow it makes the past week feel like a relaxed, post-Christmas period before the year gets going.

I thought my young friends might like to help me take decorations down on Tuesday, but their oldest sister was still here, back from the United States for two-and-a-half weeks, and she had been asking to play our game Dixit. So Sheila and her four daughters came over for the morning, and we played Dixit, followed by a few rounds of Ligretto. Then I taught them Kingdominoes, the new game which Tim bought us for Christmas.

So the decorations stayed up for a few days longer, which was appropriate as we finished the mince pies and various cakes. And on Friday, I took everything down. Four more Christmas cards had arrived that morning, so I put them, with the others for this year, in a large jiffy bag to put up in December.  I packed the decorations away, probably more efficiently than my small friends would have managed, and then started to take the tree apart.  Helped - or not - by Alex:

Alex is the kind of cat who accepts pretty much anything. He's good-natured and friendly and doesn't mind things changing around him. His sister Jane, by contrast, doesn't like anything to disrupt her day. So she spent the morning racing around the living room, clearly very disturbed by the fact that all the decorations were going away. She wasn't too pleased when they went up, but she'd got used to them. And now we were making yet more changes...

Today, when Richard went out, I set to work to dust and clean the house, as I usually do on Saturdays, after changing the sheets on our bed. The trouble with dusting is that it makes me notice when things are out of place, now that more surfaces are visible without decorations on them. I re-organised a couple of bookshelves, to make space for some new or recently read books and I also did a couple of loads of laundry. I sorted out the closets on our landing, too; one of them has central heating pipes running through it, so does duty as a kind or airing cupboard in the winter. It's useful on damp days, when the laundry is almost - but not quite - dry.  But there were other things in there, including several pillows that we've acquired recently, and a duvet that belongs in our guest flat..

Once I've started this kind of thing, I tend to keep going until it's finished. I don't know how many times I went up and down the stairs, moving books and bedding. And I still hadn't finished the dusting.  I started about 10.30am and didn't finish until almost 1.00pm.  After lunch I swept and mopped and vacuumed, and the house does look and feel a lot fresher and cleaner, which is good. But Jane was even more disturbed by all the movement, and since I kept going she decided to attack Alex instead. It wasn't just play-fighting, but the ears-back growling vicious fighting that she does when she sees another cat outside, or when Alex comes in smelling of another cat. He takes the brunt of anything that annoys her.

However, after I'd eventually finished, and showered, and sat down at the computer to check email and Facebook, Jane was happy again.

Sometimes traditions or schedules are the only way we get things done. We've been saying for months that we need to play more of our board games. We play Settlers of Catan and/or Cities and Knights at least once a week with our close friends. We don't forget simpler games such as Dixit, Ticket to Ride, or Kingdom Builder, and we're not going to forget Kingdominoes; it's the kind of game that we'll probably play fairly often when we have a spare half hour or so after another game.

But other games - in particular Puerto Rico, Agricola, Above and Below, and Grand Austria Hotel - are a great deal more complicated. So we don't tend to play them very often - and then, when we do, we have to re-read the rules and it takes awhile to get into them. But equally they're not games we want to play too often. About once a month works well.  So we decided that we'll play one of them per week, on a Saturday evening.  If we remember...

Epiphany and Twelfth Night in Cyprus.

Today is the last day of the Christmas Season. Next week, schools will start, businesses will re-open, and life will get back to an approximation of normal. As I explained last year, Epiphany - 6th January - is a big deal in Cyprus. The Greek Orthodox Church (unlike some other branches of Orthodoxy) celebrate Christmas on December 25th like we Protestants do, but Epiphany is marked too.

Not that we did anything special this year. It's a public holiday, and I had vaguely thought that, if nothing else, I would take down the Christmas decorations. After all, Epiphany is also known as Twelfth night.. right? Or so I had believed for many years. Indeed, this is apparently what I was still convinced of as recently as 2008 when we took down our Christmas decorations on January 5th, a day early, as we thought...

However, by last year I had done some research, and realised that Twelfth Night starts on the evening of January 5th. So, if one is going to follow tradition, decorations should come down at some point on the day before Epiphany. I'm not really into tradition, but this time of year seems as good at time as any to put away reminders of Christmas, or we'd get so used to them we might forget they were there.

It wasn't until yesterday evening that I suddenly remembered that there was some confusion over the date of Twelfth Night. So I looked it up again, and then, since I wasn't doing anything else for twenty minutes, I decided I might as well take everything down. 'Everything' being a bit of a misnomer as we don't really do a lot of decorating for Christmas.

First I collected the various candles and their holders that we place around the house, and our somewhat stylised Nativity scene, which we were given when we first moved here. I took down the Christmas cards too - rather reluctantly, since some of them only arrived this week, and it's highly likely that there are a few more still to come. This is the sum total of our non-tree decorations:

Next, I un-decorated the tree. That didn't take long. It looks rather a scanty set of items here, some of them slightly odd... they're quite an eclectic mixture. Some with memories attached, some because we like them, and some which just appear in the decoration box each year... 

Then the tree lights. We bought these about ten or twelve years ago - inexpensive ones, since they never seem to last more than a year or two. Evidently these ones were good value, however, as they're still going strong. Last year we just bundled them up, and they were a bit tricky to untangle when I put the tree up a few weeks ago. So this year I attempted to put them in the Christmas light holder, with not a lot of success... 

Finally, after putting everything else in boxes, it was time to take the tree apart and pack it away in its box. Sophia always seems to find this part very interesting:

Then all the boxes were packed away in a high cupboard in my study, and we sat down to watch one of my Christmas DVDs - the excellent 'King's Speech', which our sons recommended highly to us. 

Ups and downs in Cyprus..

I don't really know what happened to last week. It was quite a shock to discover, on Saturday, that I hadn't taken a single photograph since Epiphany, nine days earlier. I suppose life was back to normal after the Christmas break, with the addition of a new colleague for Richard staying with his family in our guest flat.. but evidently nothing worthy of recording with my camera.

So on Saturday morning when we went out for a walk with the new colleague and his toddler daughter, and I enjoyed the blue skies, and warmth (for January), I did manage to remember one picture of the Salt Lake, taken from the park area:


I reflected on how pleasant it is to live in Cyprus at this time of year, free from snow and bitter temperatures. It's cool enough to need a duvet at night, and a bit of heating evening and morning, but warm enough that in a sweater and fleece, I felt almost too hot by the end of the walk.

In the evening, Tim suggested another game of Settlers-by-Skype. And even though Richard was rather tired - he had gone back to the office Friday night after the house group meeting, and did not get home until nearly 6.00am!! And then got up four hours later - it seemed like a good idea:


Tim totally creamed us both. For those who know about Settlers of Catan, this was the final board:


Tim played white, and won with 12 points. I had six on the board. Richard had five on the board, and a victory point card. So Tim's score alone was the same as ours added together... a resounding victory.

Late Sunday morning, as with the previous Sunday, I joined my friend Sheila and her three youngest at one of the local parks. Katie (five-and-a-half) is very good with Elisabeth (seven months):


Here they are on video a few minutes later, when Elisabeth was more safely anchored in the swing by her sling:

And here's my youngest-best-friend Helen, who was two in September, also enjoying the swing:


A while later, Sheila handed Elisabeth to me, so that she could climb a tree. I think she hoped I wouldn't be able to get my camera out while holding a wriggling baby, but I did:


Katie and Helen, on a nearby roundabout, were rather worried about this turn of events. And when Sheila reached the top, Katie explained how she could get down again...

... then went a little way up herself. Evidently a tree-hugger:


Little did I know that the spell of pleasant weather would come to a close. It must have rained for most of the night, and most of today too:


I did manage to walk down to the PO Box in a dryer patch this morning, where I found:

- six Christmas cards, some of which had taken a month get here
- the cover for my Kindle, ordered from Ebay on Christmas Day. So that took three weeks to get to Cyprus.
- my Holland and Barrett order, very well packed, all in excellent condition. That only took a couple of weeks to arrive.

There were also a pile of bills, and our Barclaycard statements for December. I can see why today - particularly given the grey skies, chilliness and almost continual rain leading to more leaks over our stairs - is considered 'Blue Monday'. Still, if today is the most depressing day of the year, the next few days should get better...

Disclaimer: I am well aware that compared to the vast majority of people in the world, I am very well off. A slight leak in the roof is nothing, compared to serious flooding in parts of Australia and elsewhere. Grey skies and rain are decidedly preferable to snow, and we desperately need rain in Cyprus. Even bills aren't too bad when we're able to pay them... and yes, I am thankful for my family, for good friends, for living in Cyprus, and - today in particular - for knowing that six more people thought of us around Christmas time, not to mention the safe arrival of my ordered goods.

But I reserve the right to use a bit of hyperbole...

Epiphany in Cyprus

Epiphany is quite a big deal in Cyprus. The population is mainly Greek Orthodox, but they don't celebrate Christmas today (unlike the Coptic Orthodox). However, it's yet another public holiday. Schools don't start again until next Monday, and most businesses and shops were closed today, other than the tourist ones.

A big tradition in Larnaka is that a large cross is thrown into the sea during the morning, and then several young men dive to try and retrieve it. In a slightly odd mixture of religious fervour and superstition, it's done after a ceremony by priests, and whoever finds it is supposed to have good luck for the rest of the year. We went to watch this ceremony once, many years ago, but it wasn't interesting enough to go again. At least it was warm today, and the sea isn't as chilly as it can sometimes be at this time of year.

Anyway, as it was a day off work, Richard and his sailing friend Tim decided that it would be a good day for their respective families to have a picnic on King Malu, recently returned to the water after her short dry-dock period. I had not been on her in the water at all, but, I was assured, the gangplank was complete, and the boat - despite an outboard at the back - able to be reversed into the berth so long as there wasn't too much wind.

They had thought about going out for a gentle sail today, but there wasn't any wind at all expected. So they went down at 8.30, hoping to get there before the traffic around the sea-front became impossible (due to the Epiphany ceremony), to turn the boat around to make it easier to get on and off.

Late morning, Tim's daughters arrived to collect me, and while it might have been quicker to walk, given the amount of traffic around the Larnaka marina, we reached King Malu eventually. She was, indeed, reversed into place:


And while the gangplank was a little scary, I made it to the boat. Here's the evidence - all four of us who were persuaded to join the guys:


Unfortunately the very slight motion of the boat from side to side was actually more disturbing to my insides than I've ever before noticed on any kind of boat. However, we were given halloumi and tomato rolls (very good they were too) and I felt better for eating.

Here's Richard's description of the morning, including details about manoevering King Malu around to make this possible.

We only stayed a little over an hour. Rather dark grey clouds were coming in overhead, and we didn't want to be caught in more rain.

We had to drive back along the sea-front... and to my surprise (having not ventured into town on Epiphany for some years) there were stalls and booths up right along. I suppose it's another chance to make money, catching tourists who aren't used to euros, and will happily buy junk while on holiday:

Water restrictions in Cyprus have been resumed

Ah well. It was nice while it lasted.

About ten days before Christmas, I suddenly realised that our mains water tap had been flowing for two days, without any cuts. Prior to that, we had got used to the pattern of being on one day, for about 12 hours, then off for the next. That's how Larnaka did it, anyway. Other municipalities around Cyprus had different ways of trying to save water. Since we all have large water tanks on the roof, it shouldn't - theoretically - have made a lot of difference to our water consumption. It just meant that when the mains was on, we filled up water bottles to use on the 'off' days. Water from the tanks should be drinkable, if the tanks are air-tight, but we prefer fresh water that hasn't sat around in a tank.

A little gingerly, I kept trying the mains water over the next few days, so that we could have truly fresh water in a jug at the table, rather than from a bottle. Every time, it was on. We guessed that we were having freedom from restrictions over the Christmas break, starting early... and it's amazing, really, how quickly we became accustomed to having fresh mains water on tap all the time.

In the back of my mind, however, was the thought that it probably wouldn't last beyond Christmas. So on the Sunday afterwards, I made sure that all our drinking water bottles were freshly filled.

But the mains water continued to flow. Perhaps it would last until the New Year, I thought. On the Sunday afterwards, once again I ensured that the water bottles were full with fresh water.

To my surprise, it continued last week, too. Of course, Epiphany (January 6th) is another public holiday here, and considered part of the Christmas/New Year period. Schools were off until last Thursday. But the mains water continued pouring out of our taps on Thursday, and Friday, and over the weekend.

Yesterday, I did use older water from bottles to water plants, and filled up two or three of them with fresh water again. But the impetus wasn't so strong. I began to wonder if, due to the excessive amount of rain we had in November and December, we might have water on all the time. This morning, once again, mains water was on.

Then at lunch time, it wasn't.

I had a quick search to see if there was any information online, and sure enough I found this article: Water cuts to resume after Christmas wastage. Sigh. I would have liked the title better if the last word had not been there. I don't think we wasted any water; indeed, I'm sure we used less than we did in the summer, since we weren't watering the outside plants.

But apparently, when water is not restricted at all, people assume there's more than enough, and waste it. Excessively. To be sure, we've seen neighbours hosing down not just their patios, but the pavement and sometimes even the street outside their houses. It's a Cypriot thing, apparently. It seems very strange to us. Perhaps they've also been washing their cars more than they did (not that restrictions seemed to stop them). Or maybe they're just being less careful in general, leaving taps running, or having much longer showers.

So we're back to restrictions. I don't mind; the only difficult part is right now, not knowing when we're next going to have the mains water on. Going off at lunch-time was not part of the pattern before mid-December. Does that make today a water day (switched off early) or a non-water day (switched off late)? Will we still have water every other day, or will there be a new system altogether?

All we can do, cliched though it seems, is wait and see.

Eleventh Day of Christmas...

.. but we decided to take down the tree and other decorations anyway. They'd been up three weeks, after all, and I thought it was about time.

I'm pleased to say it took us all of forty minutes. Tim, being the tallest, took down all the Christmas cards. I collected up all the candles and tinsel and so on (having already washed and even ironed the two Christmas tablecloths) and un-decorated the tree. Then Richard did the very difficult job of putting the lights back in their box, while I took the tree apart. Then he piled all the boxes in a high cupboard in the study.

I thought it would take at least an hour.

We do still have the magnificent poinsettia we were given a few weeks before Christmas, but I shall just consider that as a house plant from now on. I know from last year's experience that it will probably live all year, this being Cyprus.

Tomorrow is Twelfth Night, and the Feast of the Epiphany, if anyone's interested. It doesn't often fall on a Sunday.

Christmas has offiicially ended

Yesterday was the feast of Epiphany. We didn't go and watch the young Greek Orthodox men diving for the cross, or the parades at the sea-front. It was too chilly, and having done that once - a few years ago - we didn't feel it was a necessary experience to repeat.

We didn't sing any Epiphany songs at church this morning, either, though it was nice to see three people from our house group, returned from the UK. Others will return in the next fortnight.

But I did take the Christmas tree and other decorations down on Friday, and even packed them all away rather than leaving them lying around in boxes for the next few weeks. I can't believe how efficient we're getting in middle age!

Schools start again tomorrow after the break, and I suppose Tim's music lessons will start again too. Not that he wants to do much singing at present as he has quite a bad cold. On Friday night he went to bed at 8.30, was asleep by 9pm, and didn't wake up until 11am Saturday morning! Well, other than at 3.30am when apparently he felt a migraine starting so came down to have some ginger stirred into pineapple juice, a sure-fire migraine preventative for both of us, so long as it's caught in time.

So, it's been a quiet Christmas, and an even quieter first week of the new year.