Orphanides stores - closing down in Cyprus - or not??

I've never much liked Orphanides, one of the big supermarket chains in Cyprus. I haven't been to the big one for years now; I found the layout disturbing, the prices high, and the lighting migraine-inducing. 

But we have used the small local one for odds and ends in between big supermarket shopping trips, just because it's five minutes' walk away.  I've appreciated it, and the staff have been pleasant and friendly.  I popped there maybe once a week, on average, for something small.

I speak in the past tense because, a couple of weeks before Christmas, I noticed that stock seemed to be surprisingly low at the our local Orphanides Express. My gut feeling was that perhaps it wouldn't stay open too long. Sure enough, an official announcement was made that the company was in huge trouble financially, and eleven of the stores island-wide would be closing.  

A day later I noticed that our local branch's Christmas tree had disappeared: 

About a week before Christmas, it was completely closed. I did go up to the door once, seeing a couple of cars parked outside, but there were only a few staff inside, one of whom gestured to me that it was closed to the public.

We heard from other people that the big Orphanides store was still open; it made sense, we supposed, for the smaller shops to move their stock to the bigger one, to sell it off.  Deals were discussed, and - we gathered - turned down.  I felt sorry for the many staff who were losing their jobs, but couldn't really feel that Orphanides was a huge loss. Its closure would mean more trade for the other shops, and I did notice that our local Achna Discount mini-market seemed to be getting regular supplies of new stock more often than usual.

Then today, I learned that our local Orphanides Express was open again. I popped in, looking for a couple of items, neither of which I found - but in addition to regular items on the shelves, there were fresh fruit and veg, meat and dairy products.  It wasn't back to full stock, by any means, but certainly seemed to be almost back to normal.

Maybe.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in the next few weeks.

Buying frozen peas in Cyprus

In general, I buy fresh fruit and vegetables at our local fruitaria. I walk there about three times per week, and we also buy crates of fruit/veg at the fruit stall opposite at weekends, for freezing and/or dehydrating. 

But although local fresh fruit in season is excellent, there are a few things that are - in my view - not worth buying that way. One of them is sweetcorn, which I'm afraid to say I still buy in cans. Frozen sweetcorn just doesn't have the sweet, crunchy flavour that I like so much. And it's not as if we have it very often. We've tried buying corn on the cob in season, but have never found any that we actually like in Cyprus. I don't know why.

The other things which we've tried fresh, but which are costly, time-consuming AND disappointing are broad beans, and peas. I can happily live without broad beans, although I don't mind them occasionally, but Richard loves them. And we're both fond of frozen peas, which are very useful as a quick, second or third vegetable as part of a cooked meal when we've run out of hob space, or time, or both. 

At least, in the UK we were fond of frozen peas. Pretty much any brand could be quickly heated in a pyrex bowl in the microwave, or brought to JUST simmering in a small amount of water, or very lightly steamed until just done. 

We tended to eat them two or three times every week, so when we came to Cyprus, we just picked up the least expensive brand at Metro.

BIG mistake. They were tasteless, almost mushy. Ugh. 

We tried another brand.  

No better.  

Then one day Birds Eye frozen peas were on special offer, two bags for the price of one. That price was still a whole lot more than any of the other brands, but we knew we liked Birds Eye, so we bought some as a special treat. 

And they were very good. We eked them out for as long as we could... and then made the decision that we would only buy Birds Eye peas from then on. Even though they were not cheap, it was pointless buying peas that we disliked, and which we would end up throwing out. 

So, for many years, we have continued buying this brand of peas, not even considering any other, and I had taken for granted that, no matter how much we could economise on other products, it simply wasn't worth it for frozen peas.

Then this week, the ladies who were staying in our guest flat said they had a few bits and pieces from the fridge and freezer, which they were defrosting and leaving open (as no more guests are coming for a few weeks) so they wondered if we'd like to have them, rather than throwing things away. 

One of the items was this brand of frozen peas:

- about a quarter of a bag. I thanked them and shoved it in the freezer, thinking that we probably wouldn't use them and then, in another year or so, they'll be so frosted up that I'll just throw them away.

Except that on Thursday, Richard did the last part of our evening meal. I'd cut up some potato wedges and put them to cook, along with baked tomatoes and stir-fried mushrooms; he said he'd make our cheese omelettes, and microwave some frozen peas. Unbeknown to me, he picked out the bag we'd been given.  I only realised when I saw the empty packet on the work surface. I sighed, and hoped they wouldn't be TOO awful.

To my delighted surprise, they were very good.  Perhaps not quite as crisp and sweet as Birds Eye, but very acceptable. 

I'm not a huge fan of Orphanides, and won't go to the big supermarket. But we have a local Orphanides Express, staffed by very friendly people, and it's extremely convenient if I just want to pop out for something that I can't get at smaller shops. 

So I took a look today. These peas cost €2.49 for 1kg.  The last Birds Eye peas I bought were €5.23 for 900g.  At less than half the cost, I think these will be our choice for the foreseeable future. 

It's still October... just!

...but this is what I spotted as I walked towards the local 'express' Orphanides supermarket this morning, to buy a few things I needed for this evening's meal:

I knew it had been early before. I had forgotten that, a couple of years ago I spotted the same tree, in the same location, on October 23rd. 

It's only just beginning to feel like Autumn. I haven't yet switched from shorts to jeans, or worn a long-sleeved top, other than a very light one one evening last week. But I suppose it would be a good idea to start thinking about the forthcoming festive season, even if it is still almost two months away. 

I have just signed up for NaBloPoMo (hence the new image in my sidebar) after realising how rarely I remembered to blog this month. NaBloPoMo is simply a challenge to write something here every day during November. That should result in more frequent but rather shorter posts. 

Cyprus appliances

There are those who assume that Cyprus is still a developing country. Or at least that it's fifty years or so out of date. People are often surprised to find that we have broadband internet, mostly good (and very inexpensive) mobile telephony, online banking and fewer power cuts than some parts of the UK. OK so there's no mains gas, the sewage system is still rather antiquated, and things rarely start on time. There's no grocery shopping on the Internet, and it's still very much a patriarchal society.

Many Cypriots employ 'maids' - often from Asian countries, who can earn more here than they can back home. Unfortunately some of them are not treated very well. We don't have the inclination, or the room, or the funding to employ someone to do the shopping, cleaning and cooking, no matter how tempting it might sometimes seem in hot weather.

But I do have a little army of servants in my kitchen, whom I instruct in the mornings and at other random times of day. Sometimes before 9am I have thanked the dishwasher for cleaning yesterday's dishes, told the washing machine to clean another set of clothes, instructed the juicer to make us some nutritional fresh juice for breakfast, informed the coffee machine that I need some coffee to take to Richard, set the breadmaker off to bake us some bread for lunch, and started the yogurt maker with another batch to be ready by the evening. I will have used the fridge several times without even thinking about it, and quite likely the kettle too. A couple of years ago we added a slow-cooker to the kitchen servants, and until recently I might well have arranged for that to be gently simmering away all day too:


And of course I rely totally on my computer to keep in touch with family and friends, store and organise my photographs, and write my blogs.

So yes, we have just about all mod-cons available in Cyprus.

And just like the rest of Europe, they don't seem to last. Unlike the old twin-tub washing machines that probably kept running for thirty or forty years, modern appliances seem to start wearing out after a year or two. Four years is considered a good life; seven outstanding.

It's four years yesterday since we bought and moved into this house. Four years since we bought some new appliances that we needed, putting our older ones in the ground floor guest flat.

I was mildly annoyed, a week or two ago, when my USB hub suddenly stopped working. I don't think it was even four years old; Tim bought it for me a while ago - so it may have been three and a half years old. It's done good service, in use constantly. Daniel and Richard told me it wasn't mendable, so Richard bought and set up a new one.

I wouldn't have thought anything more about it, until Daniel pointed out that the 'enter' key on my keyboard was broken. I hadn't noticed, but it was indeed rather wobbly. If I wasn't careful, it fell off completely:


But the keyboard was working fine, other than that, even if most of the letters had been rubbed off through constant use. I've had that keyboard for over five years, so it's done very well.

More worrying was to notice a crack running right the way through the crockpot part of the slow-cooker:


I spotted it last time I used it, after seeing that some liquid from the casserole I made had leaked out. The crockpot still felt fairly firm, but I had visions of Richard lifting a heavy chili out of the slow-cooker only to have the crockpot fall into two pieces dumping a lot of hot food down his front and all over the floor. It wasn't worth the risk. And although it's only about two years old, we bought it in Nicosia, and I very much doubt if a crack like that would be covered under the guarantee. I probably used something too cold in it. Or if I didn't, the company would say I probably did.

So I stopped using the slow cooker.

Then the electric kettle stopped working. It happened first a few weeks ago, when Daniel accidentally switched it on empty. Richard took it to pieces, determined that it wasn't mendable, put it back together... and found that it worked.



But the same thing happened (my fault this time) last week, and it didn't seem worth taking apart yet again. The kettle was over four years old, and thus probably on its last legs. Thankfully we had a whistling kettle that sits on the stove, which Tim gave me, so we used that instead. Slower, but worked perfectly well.

Then on Sunday, Daniel was cleaning the pyrex jug of the coffee-maker (four years old) and a piece of it broke out of the side:


Neither Daniel nor Richard will drink instant coffee unless they have no alternative; but we have a cafetiere as well, so it wasn't a huge disaster. However that only makes about two cups at a time, and we frequently have to make more coffee than that. Sometimes we have to make some regular coffee and de-caff in an evening.

So.

Yesterday, I was doing our accounts, as I usually do on Monday. And noticed that we still have quite a lot of money in our virtual 'family gifts' account - where we put money given to us jointly at Christmas or other occasions, so that it doesn't end up used for everyday items.

While we hate throwing out appliances, it does seem that they are disposable. There was no point keeping a broken kettle, coffee maker and slow cooker in the kitchen just taking up space. So I tentatively suggested that we might at least see what was available to replace one or more of these items.

After much discussion, we went to the big Orphanides. There were a surprising number of filter coffee machines, at a wide variety of prices. Neither of us is at all good at making decisions. It was easy to reject the very expensive ones, and the ugly ones, and the white plasticky looking machines. We narrowed it down to three possibilities quite quickly. Eventually Richard chose this Krups machine, since he knew it was a good brand:


While he was making the final decision, I wandered around the electrical department, and saw that they had slow cookers. They had the 6.5 litre size, which we bought before since it was the only one we could find anywhere in Cyprus. They also had the 3.5 litre size, which is what we had actually intended to buy a couple of years ago. The price wasn't too bad - so we decided we would get one of those too:


Then we looked at kettles. Oh my - so much choice. We quickly rejected the ones with plastic sides as I don't like the smell of the water boiled in most of those. I'd quite have liked one with glass sides, like the one we had before, but there weren't any. So we looked at several made of metal... and eventually chose this one, mainly based on its price:


I hate spending so much money all at once. But at least we didn't have to pay for the repair when our blender went wrong recently.

So... we were about to pay for these three items when I remembered my keyboard. Daniel reckons that supermarkets are the best place to buy keyboards and mice, as they're much better value than computer shops. Orhpanides had four different keyboards, all of them suitable for my needs, ranging from 15.99 euros to 19.99. I liked the most expensive one best. My instinct was to buy the cheapest... and yet, there was only a five euro difference between the two. And I do a lot of typing.

So - with a little persuasion from Richard - I chose this one:


... and we made our purchases. A moving-in anniversary present to our house.

Our blender, revisited

Last year, we bought a new blender. An attractive (as blenders go) glass jug, a Moulinex one with an ice crusher. Actually I thought it was last summer that we bought it; it was only in checking my blog that I realised it was as recently as November 2009.

The reason I wanted to know when we bought it is that it started to leak.

Actually, it leaked a tiny bit even when it was fairly new. Just a dribble; enough to be mildly annoying, but not enough to worry about. It worked well, and that's what mattered. I made soups and smoothies, and - more recently - humus and almond milk.

But the leak got worse. I thought perhaps I hadn't screwed the base part into the jug well enough when I removed it for cleaning. Then I noticed that one of the black clips holding it in place had broken. Daniel said that the gasket probably needed replacing, or at least reinforcing. I thought a gasket was a complicated part of a car engine so I was a little surprised to find that it was just a plastic ring.

Since the leaking was getting worse and worse, I thought I'd construct a suitable gasket. It was only when I tried to fit it that I realised another of the black clip things was coming loose. No wonder the base would not stay in place properly, making any liquids leak straight out.

When we realised the blender was only seven months old, we decided to take it back to Orphanides, where we bought it in the electrical department. Thanks to my rough and ready filing techniques (at least I keep everything of this kind) I managed to find the receipt fairly easily. I even found the original box it came in. We showed the saleswoman what the problem was, and she agreed that it was broken. At only seven months old, it was well within the two-year warranty. Richard filled in a pink slip thing, and the woman said she would phone in about ten days. She said it would be mended.

I was a little disappointed as I'd hoped either for a replacement or a refund (enabling us to buy a new one) - but it was only fair to allow them to attempt to mend it first. Not that we thought it could possibly be mended.

So, for a couple of weeks I used the not-so-good blender that works with the food processor.

Two weeks after we'd taken it in, I commented that we hadn't heard anything about the blender. 'Ah!' said Richard, 'I forgot. They phoned a few days ago and said it was ready. About twenty euros...'

Twenty euros? For something under warranty? That seemed a bit excessive. And despite it being a remarkably busy day yesterday (supermarket shop at 9am - NOT at Orphanides but Metro; bring-and-share lunch for 20 at our house to say farewell to some colleagues; other friends invited for an evening meal....) we thought we'd better go and collect the repaired blender at once.

The blender was there. There was a young man in charge this time, who showed us the repair - which in fact was a completely new jug -part. With all three black clips intact. 'Twenty-three euros', he said.

'But it's only seven months old,' Richard protested. 'It should still be under warranty'.

'Ah,' said the young man. 'The warranty covers electrical faults. If you just scratch the jug, that's your fault and not covered.'

'But we didn't scratch it,' Richard told him.

I really don't like protracted discussions of this sort so I wandered off to look at some other things in the shop. Five minutes later, I saw the young man on the phone talking animatedly in Greek. Another five minutes later, and Richard had the blender - and didn't have to pay anything. Evidently it was worth arguing. The young man had told him he couldn't do anything, because it wasn't an electrical problem. So Richard had asked to speak to the managing director. The young man called his supervisor, who apparently said it was fine, and no, we didn't need to pay anything.

It's good to know that consumer rights are upheld in Cyprus, at least sometimes, if one pushes hard enough.

It's also very good to have a fully-functioning blender.

December in Cyprus: bills, shopping and a general day

Not that it feels any different from November. The weather is still unseasonably warm. When I walked to the PO Box this morning, I was wearing a fleece; but by the time I arrived at Tots I was pretty warm, so I took it off. And while I expected to feel chilly during the course of the morning, it didn't happen. I carried it home, and didn't feel the need for an extra layer until about 3pm.

From comments I've received on this blog, and on Facebook after the posts I link to there (by no means all of them), and the occasional related email I've received, it appears that people who read this are primarily interested in four things:

• What the weather is like in Cyprus

• What I actually do from day to day

• What it costs to live in Cyprus

• What I cook and eat

Posts about plants typically attract the odd comment, usually from someone who's found the post via a search engine. And posts about places of interest in Cyprus are usually ignored completely, or so it appears.

Not that I intend to stop writing about interesting places, if we happen to visit anywhere new. But, wanting to please my public, so to speak, I shall attempt this month to write more on the above bullet-pointed items. Unless, that is, a stream of comments tell me that - as it appears to me, sometimes - those are rather tedious topics and I should write about something else.

So. I've covered today's weather in the first paragraph. Sunshine, and around 23C in the shade, I suppose. As it's been for most of the past month or so. Chillier once it gets dark - at around 5pm - but not really cold.

What I did: paid for the next years's PO Box rental (30 euros), collected mail (mostly bills), helped at Tots - the mother-and-toddler group run by Larnaka Community Church, but open to anyone. Walked home with friends, read email/Facebook, wrote a longish email and one or two forum posts, uploaded photos from Picasa to Kodak Gallery, so I can order some prints tomorrow. Laundry in the machine and then hung out, since it's a mains water day. Watered the plants, since it hasn't rained for a week. Filled drinking water bottles from the mains tap. Popped around the corner to Orphanides Express, since we needed some more milk and cheese for the cauliflower cheese I planned to make for tonight's meal. Chatted awhile on Instant Messenger with Tim, as he was deciding which essay topic to write for his Ethics class.

Then I cooked, and we ate, and I froze the rest of the large cauliflower which I bought yesterday: we'll get at least four meals out of it.

So much for my day. I'm now blogging... ! Richard is doing something on his laptop, but in a few minutes we'll switch off and probably play a board game.

And for those interested in the cost of living - from our perspective, anyway - my visit to Orphanides Express cost us just over 21 euros. For that, I bought a 2kg bag of cat food, 2 litres of milk, 400g Cheddar cheese, 1kg Greek yogurt, 1 litre of lemon squash, and 7 free range eggs. Dairy products are not cheap in Cyprus, and free-range eggs are particularly pricey. But I can't quite bring myself to buy the other kind.

As for the bills: in the last two months we've used up 120 euros of electricity, and in the past three months we've used 23 euros of water. That's in the main part of the house where we live; both seem very reasonable. In fact, given the scarcity of water in Cyprus, the water bill seems remarkably low considering that I run the washing machine three or four times per week, and the dishwasher probably five times. And of course we have showers every day, and are not economical about flushing the loo.

We also had bills for the guest flat: around 75 for electricity; slightly more than last year, but then we've had people staying fairly often this year. The water bill for the guest flat is just over 40 euros; it's unusual to be more than in our part of the house, but then it covers the period when the guest flat tank was leaking, and had to be replaced (and thus completely emptied out) a few months ago, and also we watered the plants outside, using guest flat water, every other day during July and August. The date range, strangely, for the water bills is July to October.

(Note: if you want to convert euros to some other currency, I'd recommend the oanda.com currency converter. If you want to find out imperial equivalents to the metric weights or Celcius temperature, the easiest way is to go to Google and type something like '400g in ounces' - and the first result will show you the exact calculation)

New blender in the house

It's nearly three months since I wrote about our blender problem. Our trusty (and very good) blender had broken; the one attached to the food processor simply isn't as good. And somehow, fruit lumpies aren't as appealing as fruit smoothies.

Still, the rest of August passed us by. Then we went to the UK in September. I suppose we could have brought a blender there, to bring home; they're rather less expensive in the UK. But they're very heavy, and we were about at our limit of luggage.

October somehow passed us by. Suddenly we discovered that it was November. And, without thinking, we arranged for people to come here on Sunday, and I said I would make some soup....

Then it struck me, a few days later. Soup needs a functioning blender that produces purée rather than lumps. But Richard was in Egypt for a few days. So it wasn't until Friday that we were able to go and look for a new blender.

We went to Orphanides. I don't much like it as a supermarket; it's too big, and the displays are too high, and I don't like the lighting. But for electrical goods, it's not bad. And, indeed, they had about eight different blenders on display. One made by Bosch, one by Black and Decker (both of which I thought were power tool makers, not in the market for kitchen gadgets). One by Philips, if i remember rightly, and the rest by Moulinex.

We rejected one that was really a smoothie maker only, and one that had a huge base, and was remarkably ugly. As we were pondering, an assistant came up and asked us if he could help. So we told him what we wanted, and he said he recommended the big ugly one. Not that he said it was big and ugly... he said it was long-lasting, and any customers who bought it were very satisfied.

We said we liked the Moulinex, so he told us which one he recommended. It was the most expensive, by about twenty euros. I had been looking at one which looked rather smarter than the rest, with a black and silver-grey base (which would match some of our other gadgets), and a button for ice crushing. I suspect it was the ice in the smoothies that proved too much for our last blender, so the idea of one with a feature of crushing ice seemed like a good plan. The assistant shook his head somewhat, but in the absence of any other factors we decided to buy that one. I had tried looking online for reviews, but with no idea what would be available at Orphanides, it wasn't very helpful; and we needed the blender as soon as possible.

Then we found that we could use some of our accumulated Orphanides bonus card points, and get a twenty euro discount. Even better.

As we unpacked the blender at home, I did wonder if we'd made a terrible mistake. The manual said that the ice crusher was 400 watts, implying (though not stating) that the basic liquidiser had less power. Some of the blenders were powered at 500 or even 600 watts. Would it be enough to do what we wanted? I also realised it was glass, so that while it certainly looks attractive (for a blender) it's quite heavy:


That evening, I made us some fruit smoothies. And they were smooth. It's getting a bit chilly for ice-cold drinks, but we enjoyed them anyway.

Sunday evening, I liquidised the soup, after making it in the slow cooker and then cooling (the blender has dire warnings not to put in liquids hotter than 80C). That, too, worked very well. And wasn't as heavy as I had feared, even when full.

So, all in all, I'm impressed.

Christmas Eve in Cyprus

Yesterday, I iced our Christmas cake, and did my not-very-artistic person's approximation to decoration which at least gives it a bit of colour. I also made another 24 mince pies. I even wrapped the two presents that needed wrapping, and sorted out the various parcels that had arrived in the post.

I felt so organised!

All we had to do on Christmas Eve was collect our turkey from Metro, with a few other groceries and 'nibbles' for Christmas Day. And perhaps some laundry, since the mains water would be on. And the windows really need cleaning. Oh, and we cook the turkey on Christmas Eve, so we can slice it and then simply re-heat on Christmas Day, but Richard does that part. But really... Christmas this year was going to be very straightfoward, I thought. Five friends are coming to lunch, and then Richard has to collect two colleagues in the evening, who coming for a week; he'll bring them here for some cold food in the evening but that's no trouble at all. We would buy some crackers and nice cheeses at Metro, I thought, and there would be leftovers from lunch, and of course the Christmas cake.

No problem. Why do people get so stressed out, I wondered. In the evening we watched a DVD of 'A Christmas Carol', and then I slept soundly.

We left the house shortly after 8.30am to go to Metro. I was still feeling relaxed; I'd made a careful list of the things we needed to buy - some general, since we didn't go to the supermarket last Friday, and some for tomorrow and Friday (when just about everywhere will be closed).

We had ordered a 5kg turkey about ten days ago, so Richard stood in the queue by the meat counter, while I went around the supermarket collecting things from the list, and returning every few minutes to see how he was doing. He got chatting to a lady in the queue, and I managed to find everything I was looking for. Even fresh cranberries, which only appear in Cyprus for a few days prior to Christmas. So far so good.

Browsing the vegetable section, I looked in the bargain bins where they have ready-bagged cut-price offers. Evidently they're trying to get rid of a lot of things prior to shutting for two days, since there were three bags of very nice broccoli and a large bag of french beans just sitting there. I thought I could blanch and freeze them, so I picked them up too. And enough crackers to feed several large families. And some green paper napkins in case we had run out (we hadn't. When I got home I found an identical packet which I must have bought last time we were there for the same reason).

Finally, Richard got to the front of the queue, after waiting about forty minutes in all. It was the longest queue I'd ever seen in Metro! In previous years, he's gone on his own to collect the turkey, since we did our main shopping a few days earlier. But this year, everything seemed so simple.

When the turkey appeared, it didn't look very big. It was marked as 4.7kg, and looked like a very large chicken. Still, I thought, that must be about ten pounds, and I know the old calculation for turkey was 'one pound per person' of uncooked turkey. So it should be fine for seven. We could always do some sausages too, we thought. A pity not to have many leftovers, but never mind. Perhaps there weren't any bigger turkeys this year.

The bill was about as much as two weeks' worth of groceries, plus a little over, but given that we didn't shop last Friday, and won't be shopping this Friday, I thought that was pretty good.

It had taken us nearly two hours by the time we got home... an hour longer than usual. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the crowds and the lights, but wanted to go to our PO Box to check if any more cards had arrived. So we drove there, and sure enough there were several more cards. Plus a parcel (addressed, bizarrely, to our home rather than the PO Box... but this IS Cyprus, and the postal service is strangely efficient at times). And two slips of paper saying that parcels too big for the PO Box had arrived, so we would need to collect them from the Post Office itself.

Unfortunately, the Post Office was closed. A note was on the door saying it would be shut all of the 24th, 25th and 26th. And since it's also shut on Saturdays and Sundays, I won't be able to collect these last parcels until next Monday. Never mind, it will be nice to have some extra presents to look forward to, if that's what they are.

Then we went to the office guest flat, where Richard's work friends will be staying, and realised we would need to get some milk and bread for them, at least, since not even the bakeries will be open tomorrow.

By the time we got home it was noon... and the breadmaker had just pinged, so we had lunch early, around 12.30. And I realised I was very, very stressed. I hadn't done any laundry, or cleaned the bedrooms (which I usually do on Thursdays), or the cat litter. We had piled all the supermarket shopping on the kitchen counter-tops, other than that intended for fridge or freezer, and hadn't put any of them away. I had stupidly bought a pile of vegetables for blanching, the turkey didn't look very big at all, and I REALLY missed the boys. Particularly Tim, who has done all the Christmas cooking for the past few years!

So.

We put away as much as we could. The cupboards and freezers are bulging. I started cutting up the french beans so I could at least get the blanching and freezing out of the way, and Richard walked around the corner to Orpahanides Express, so he could buy a few things for the work guests coming tomorrow.

When he got back, he said that in the meat section he saw several turkeys that were much bigger than the one we had bought, at a lower price per kilogram! He wondered if we should buy a bigger one, and freeze the one we bought at Metro for some other occasion - perhaps Easter. Orhpanides meat isn't as nice as Metro, but I was beginning to worry about the size of the Metro turkey too, so when I had finished the blanching of the vegetables, we both went to Orphanides Express. sure enough, the turkeys were MUCH bigger. There were four of them just sitting there, and the smallest said 6.7 kilograms. We ummed and aahed, and eventually chose one that looked a good shape. When weighed, it was actually a little over 9kg which in old money is around 20lb... a ridiculous amount for seven people, but should give plenty of leftovers.

I also found myself in that strange pre-Christmas mode of almost - but not quite - picking up all kinds of extra things, 'just in case'. Like frozen Southern fried chicken. Or frozen apple-and-custard strudel. Or a box of Magnum ice creams. It wasn't even as if I was feeling hungry (though they all looked unhealthily delicious) - just that feeling of 'Oh! We don't have anything like that in the freezer, maybe I should get one!' My rational self reminded my panicking self that the supermarkets are only shut for TWO DAYS and we have enough food in the house to last at least two weeks, probably considerably more.

So we only bought the turkey. Even that seemed like a slight aberration as we had already bought one a few hours earlier, but we managed to rationalise that one.

Richard made the stuffings - one lemon and mushroom, although he managed to forget the mushrooms, and one simple sausagemeat - and has put the turkey on. Of course, being a much larger one than we expected, it will take considerably longer to cook. We think it should be ready by about 9pm, which means he can start carving around 10pm... so much for a reasonably early night.

I still need to make some soup, which we're going to have as a starter for lunch tomorrow, and a trifle which I like as an alternative dessert on Christmas Day. And hang out the laundry and change the cat litter and then mop the floors...

Sigh.

All this has nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of our Saviour in a poor, and probably dirty stable, which is the single reason for our celebrating.

Happy Christmas, anyone who has manaqed to read this far.

Where to find picture hooks in Larnaka on Saturday afternoon

This morning we painted the stairs and landing. This afternoon, we decided to hang our family portrait gallery (a mixed bag of framed photos over the years) on the wall next to the stairs.

Problem: we needed more picture hooks.

Further problem: the shop where Richard bought the previous hooks, EOL, has been closed for the August break, and he was almost certain it was still closed today.

But we knew we had seen them in supermarkets, and we also knew that Cyprus is, slowly, becoming more European, meaning that supermarkets at least are now open on Saturday afternoons. When we first arrived here, nearly 9 years ago, everything closed at 1pm Saturday and re-opened Monday morning. Hours are gradually extending, and supermarkets are now open until about 8pm, even on a Saturday (though not, of course, on Sundays).

We also needed some light shades. The last ones we bought, at our old house, were from Orphanides supermarket so we decided to go there and hoped we might find picture hooks too.

Alas, Orphanides had very few light shades. We did manage to find one small one suitable for a bedside lamp, which we needed. But no sign of picture hooks.

Still, we also found some broccoli, which Metro (our usual supermarket) had run out of yesterday.

Next stop: Chris Carrefour supermarket, which has recently been refurbished and redesigned after the merger with Carrefour. We were impressed to see that it now has one of those sliding ramp type escalators where trolleys lock in place, so they can be taken upstairs. Previously there was only a rather clunky lift, if it was necessary to take a trolley between floors.

Unfortunately, Chris Carrefour had even fewer light shades than Orphanides. Nor did it have any picture hooks.

But we did find some little wooden dowels, which Richard needed for Dan's cabin bed.

It occurred to us that Kleima, a kind of general store with everything from fridges and TVs to toys and tools might have lamp shades. We had no idea if it would be open - but discovered it was, until 4pm.

As we parked in the Kleima car park, we were startled to see something we had not seen for some months - raindrops on the windscreen! Naturally I grabbed the camera and snapped a photo.


It only lasted a few seconds, but was still rather amazing for August.

Unfortunately, it became unbelievably humid later in the evening. I don't know if there's a connection.

In Kleima, there were no light shades.

On the other hand, they did have picture hooks...

So we then spent an hour starting to sort through our framed photos and decide some kind of order to hang them.

Moving house, the long version. Tuesday.

Tuesday was set for completion day. The vendor told us that he had some contact in the Land Registry office, so it might be a bit quicker (typical for Cyprus!). He also said that his tax wouldn't be sorted out fully until about noon, and that he would call Richard's mobile phone to tell us when to go there. Not 8am as our lawyer had suggested, to get first place in the queue.

So we all went to the new house, with the contents of our freezer in cool-boxes in the back of the car. Richard had switched the freezer and fridge on before we left on Monday night so they could get cold enough. We were astounded at how much frozen food we had...! I was also surprised at how full the huge new freezer (a seven-drawer upright) became.

We didn't feel at all inspired to paint, but decided to do our bedroom. We had chosen a pale creamy colour, much more suitable than the blue, and with all three of us working it only took a couple of hours. At 11.30 Richard suggested we go to the old house to have something to eat, realising that if we were indeed called to the Land Registry office at noon, we might be sitting there until past two o'clock, getting very hungry.

It was excellent foresight. Just as we were finishing our lunch, the vendor called saying we should go there at once. So we gulped down some too-hot coffee, and - with a little confusion - found the correct place.

The vendor wasn't there.

So Richard phoned him, and he said he was still at the tax office! But he would be there soon. So we waited about half an hour, thinking we could have had our coffee in a more leisurely way...

It was a strange place. Very busy, with doors that banged every few seconds and people rushing in and out. Thankfully it was air-conditioned. Unfortunately the seats were uncomfortable and hardly anyone thought to close the doors carefully. About 12.30 the vendors came in, went and talked to one of the officials, and then asked us to sign some papers.

We usually like to read what we're signing, but they were all in Greek - so we trusted that everything was all right, and signed anyway. We also had to produce our copy of the contract. Then the vendors had to go and pay yet more tax, and told us to wait about an hour!

So we did so, entertaining ourselves in the meantime by writing a lengthy list of things we knew we would need for the new house - like extra bins, dustpan and brush, rope to tie items onto trucks on moving day, new toaster... thrilling stuff.

Eventually the vendors came back having paid their capital gains tax, and shocked at the amount which was twice what they had expected. In the UK, this tax is only due on second properties, or those used for rental. But here in Cyprus, it's payable - at a rate of 20% - on any house sale. it's not surprising that people move so rarely!

We waited a bit more, then were asked through to the other office where we had to hand over our passports and the paper giving us permission (as foreigners) to buy a house. Then they told us to go back to the waiting room.

So we waited yet more, talking a bit with the vendors about details of the house - like the washing machine problem, and how to change the water filters - and eventually, at two o'clock - when everyone else had gone from the outer room, and the place was about to close - we went back to the inner office where we had to sign yet more paper, and hand over the bank draft for the balance on the house. We also had to pay for the deeds transfer. We were told it was £500 more than the lawyer had told us, so our bank draft was not enough. We phoned him, and he said that the Land Registry people were correct - he had made a mistake. Thankfully they didn't mind a cheque for the final amount, so we wrote that, relieved that there were no more serious problems.

So at last we were the legal owners of this house. We didn't receive the deeds then - I don't know why the computers couldn't just print them out, but apparently not. They will come in the post.

What a relief.

We spent most of Tuesday afternoon buying the bits and pieces on our list, pleased to discover that Orphanides non-grocery departments were having a 10% off sale. In the evening we tried in vain to pack the rest of the bits and pieces that were still lying around in our rental home, but there seemed so much clutter - despite a month's packing - and I was so tired I had to get to bed before 10pm.

An afternoon in Nicosia and a cultural evening

It started when we learned that the Bristol Old Vic theatre school were doing a tour in Cyprus, showing Shakespeare's 'As you like it'. Their Larnaka performance is this Saturday, at Theatre Antidote and we would love to have gone to see it. However we had already booked with our church house group to go to Kourium, to see - oddly enough - Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Nights' Dream' on Saturday night.

But, since there was a Thursday night performance of 'As you like it' in Nicosia, we decided to go to that. Tim likes Shakespeare but hasn't seen many live performances (well, neither have we...), the Old Vic company have a great reputation, and Richard and Tim wanted to visit a couple of other places in Nicosia anyway. The prices weren't even particularly high. So after lunch yesterday, we filled up with petrol and drove to Nicosia.

The car air-conditioning is just about working, but it's not very effective and I was partially in the sun all the way, so it's a good thing that it only takes about 40 minutes to get to the outskirts. We wanted to look in the Super Home Centre store first and reckoned it was big enough that it would probably be open all day, rather than closing for a couple of hours over lunchtime for siesta, as most shops do. Sure enough, it was open so we spent half an hour wandering round. Unfortunately there's something about the lighting in that shop that makes me feel queasy after more than about twenty minutes, so we didn't hang around.

We were hoping they might have some good beds - we've promised Tim a new bed when we move house -but the choice was limited. Nor did they have any bookcases other than veneered plastic-looking ones, and rattan - attractive, but not very big, and the cats love to sharpen their claws on rattan. They didn't have any widescreen TVs, and their general choice of kitchen appliances etc was slightly worse than those in Larnaka. Nor did they have any curtains. We did see some quite nice rugs that were machine washable, and may consider those when we've actually moved, but we didn't buy anything.

Then we went across the car park to another store called Mega-Mart, which turned out to be not very mega at all, although quite interesting. It had an eclectic mixture of ornaments, lighting and furniture, plus kitchen bits and pieces, crockery, and so on. There were some very attractive country style wooden bookcases, but the prices were unbelievably high.

Tim wanted to visit a couple of music shops, as we're considering getting an electronic piano rather than buying the piano we've currently borrowed. He would really like something at concert pitch and has been impressed with some electronic pianos recently. They'll never be quite as nice as a good quality real piano, but then we don't want to pay several thousand pounds! His keyboard is actually good enough for him to do future exams on (it's a full keyboard, fully weighted, touch sensitive, etc) but that's going to live in the 'studio' room in our guest flat, and we'd like a piano of some sort in our main living room. Behringer are apparently bringing out a new electronic piano in a couple of months, which is excellent value, and has an action which Tim particularly likes. However as it's new, he doesn't know what it will sound like or whether he will like the feel of it, so he's considering other options too.

We hunted for the Kawai shop in vain. The address was from a three-year-old Yellow Pages, so perhaps they've moved. We did find Nakas, [NB most of their web-site doesn't work in Firefox, unfortunately] but they were closed for siesta, re-opening at 4pm, and it was only quarter to four when we arrived. We didn't plan to sit around outside in the excessive heat (despite Nicosia being distinctly less humid than Larnaka, it's usually even hotter) so we went on to look for the Mitsubishi showroom to check what they had second-hand, since Richard's looking for a four-wheel drive car to use for work, and also to have a rather better vehicle than our current 17-year-old Lancer.

By then I had already had enough of shopping, so I stayed in the car and read - thankfully I had remembered to pick up the book I was currently reading - while Richard and Tim had a look at what was available. They were pleasantly surprised to find prices much better than they had expected, although there isn't a huge choice of used cars. Once we've moved and settled in to our new house, they may return for a test-drive.

We returned to Nakas, and Tim tried out their least expensive Clavinovas, but wasn't impressed. The better specification ones cost several thousand, so we're not considering those.

Since we still had plenty of time, Richard suggested we look at one of the new indoor shopping centres. After some driving around (Nicosia is a sprawling city, very confusing for visitors) we found it. It looked just like a British indoor shopping centre, even down to a multi-storey car park. Rather a good idea in Cyprus since it meant the car was parked out of the sun! There was a big Orphanides there, where we bought some juice and water, although as it was all on one floor it seemed huge. I prefer the Orphanides in Larnaka where there are three storeys.

Most of the other shops in the centre seemed like typical shopping centre places... SockShop, various small clothing boutiques, a stationer, and so on. Boring. Next-door to Orphanides there was a home furnishings shop, but I couldn't face another shop by that stage. Richard loves shopping even when not planning to buy things (I know this is supposed to be a female trait, but in our family it's the other way around) so he wandered around that, while I sat on a convenient bench and read some more.

The only two places to eat in the centre were McDonalds (which we never go to - ugh) and Pizza Hut, which was tempting - but as Tim is not eating any dairy products, that was no good. So we left and drove for half an hour (how can any city be so huge?!) and found a Goody's. Richard and Tim had club sandwiches with chips (Tim carefully removing his slices of cheese) and I was pleased to find there was a salad bar, so I had a large bowlful with quite a variety including an excellent tuna/pasta salad.

Then we drove to the Russian Cultural Centre, which we found very easily as it's marked on the map, after slight confusion when we saw that it's Greek name was the Russian Political Centre. There was a large foyer with a lot of paintings on the walls and some comfortable chairs. The doors to the theatre opened at 8pm and we were glad to be early, as it meant we could get good seats near the centre. By 8.30, it was pretty full and it only started about five minutes late - not bad for Cyprus!

There was a minimalist set, no backdrop and no curtains at the front of the stage. Twelve actors were involved, most of them taking more than one part. We were entranced almost immediately, and very much enjoyed it. The seats were nowhere near as comfortable as those in Antidote Theatre, but there was a break of about half an hour in the middle, when about half the audience rushed outside to smoke! We were horrified when we first came to Cyprus, to realise how prevalent cigarettes are, but at least they're now banned inside theatres and cinemas.

The second act didn't begin until about ten o'clock, by which time I was pretty tired - I usually get up about 6am, and am NOT a night-owl - but I managed to stay awake. I was somewhat irritated by two people behimd me who started chewing gum during the second act... a disgusting habit, with loud chomping and smacking of lips. So rude in a theatre! I thought it must be teenage boys, and was quite shocked when the play ended, and the house lights came up, to realise it was two nice-looking American ladies who must have been in their sixties! However by covering one of my ears I managed to block out most of the chewing noises and concentrate on the play, which continued to be excellent, including some very well-performed songs and a couple of short basic dance routines.

All in all, highly recommended. There's only one more performance in Cyprus (the one at Theatre Antidote on Saturday) but they may be touring elsewhere. Advance booking recommended.

By the time the play had finished, it was 11.15pm and I was nearly asleep on my feet. I sat in the back of the car and must have dropped off almost at once, since it felt to me as if the journey home took no more than ten minutes!

It occurs to us that we've been out more in the evenings in the past week than we have for many months. Youth group variety night last Friday, music school concert last Saturday, Famagusta service on Sunday, theatre in Nicosia last night, and theatre in Kourium (just beyond Limassol) on Saturday. When we arrived back, Sophia greeted us very noisily, informing us in no uncertain terms that she was NOT impressed at our being out so often, or so late!

Disappearing from the shelves...

We're getting used to the vagaries of Cyprus supermarkets. Well, we should be after eight-and-a-half years! Seasonal fruit and vegetables make sense. We miss oranges in the summer, and grapes in the winter, but realise it's better for us - and the environment in general - to have fresh locally grown produce (on the whole) rather than fruit that's forced and then shipped across the world.

We cope, too, with things occasionally vanishing from the shelves entirely. It's happened once or twice with vanilla essence (extract). The disgusting artificial vanilla flavouring is there, but no essence. So we do without. No big deal. Last time I was in the UK we bought a large bottle from Lakeland, and that should last us a couple of years, at least. Peppermint essence hasn't been available for a couple of years now, but again - it's not a huge problem. We only want it about twice a year, anyway, for making peppermint creams or choc-mint ice cream.

It's more of a problem when water filters vanish, but they soon reappear. Last time we wanted to change the one in the kitchen, we had to wait a couple of extra weeks. The mains water tasted a bit chemically, but we could always buy bottled water.

A bigger problem still is that Biokill - our insecticide of choice - has been gone for about six months now. It's environmentally friendly, and (most important) safe for all warm-blooded animals. Such as cats - and of course people! So I usually spray the insides of our kitchen cabinets with Biokill, to keep away ants in the summer, and all entry points to the house to deter cockroaches. But Biokill has not been seen since last summer... and I'm not sure what we'll do once insects start appearing again.

However none of these compare to the huge problem we found this morning: there was no Marmite in Metro! They reorganised the shop a while ago so we thought perhaps it had been moved, but no - it was gone. We couldn't even find the place where it should have been.

Perhaps only other Brits can appreciate the enormity of this. How can we manage without Marmite? I eat it with peanut butter, with cheese, with cream cheese and coleslaw. It's a great source of B-vitamins, and it's delicious! Of course a medium (250g) jar will last us a couple of weeks now that Dan's not at home any more, and we still have about half a jar left so it's not quite an emergency yet. We just hope this is only temporary and that it will be back soon. We know from experience that there's little point searching in the other supermarkets: if something's gone from Metro, it's almost certainly gone from Orphanides and Chris too.

When we lived in the USA we survived by asking all guests to bring out Marmite - in the large, 500g jars, which aren't available here - and when we ran out, we managed to find a small and expensive 'British foods' shop which, joy of joys, sold Marmite. But we don't have any guests coming for awhile, and as it comes in glass jars it's not something that can be posted.

Perhaps life in Cyprus isn't as easy as it sometimes seems...

Saturday: appliances

On Friday night our food processor died.

We bought it nearly two years ago at the Thrift Store, for £25, so it's done well. It was an amazing purchase, really. One of the Moulinex Ovatio range, with a large bowl, a good size blender, a citrus juicing attachment, and it even had storage space for most of the tools inside the main bowl. I used it for coleslaw, for grating cheese, for squeezing fresh oranges for juice and lemons for cooking, for making pastry and cakes, and even - at first - for kneading dough for bread. Late last year it started making rather painful noises when kneading dough, so we thought perhaps it was wearing out.

We decided to spend some Christmas money on a breadmaker, which has been a wonderful buy (used nearly every day) and so the food processor was used a bit less. But we'd overworked it, and on Friday it finally decided to give up altogether. I was trying to grate some cheese at the time, so it wasn't a huge problem. I just got out the old-fashioned hand grater. Richard said perhaps we should think about buying a new food processor because it's such a useful gadget. We even had a load of points on our Orphanides card, giving us £20 off so on Saturday morning we went to see what was available.


They did have the Moulinex Ovatio duo 3 model in stock. But we were rather shocked to see that the price was £100 - which, considering that's Cyprus pounds, is about twice as much as it would cost from Amazon UK. Unfortunately Amazon don't ship appliances outside the UK. There were some other food processors that were a little cheaper, but none of them looked nearly as good.

Richard asked what we mainly used the food processor for, and I realised that the most important thing was citrus juicing. I needed to make some lemonade that morning as we'd run out. We still have oranges on our tree that we should pick and juice in the next couple of weeks. So we looked at juicers. There were nice-looking expensive juicers that would do carrots and apples etc as well as citrus fruits, but I didn't know how often I'd use one.

There were smaller versions of the same, but they didn't look very strong. And there were ordinary citrus juicers of varying shapes and prices. One of them was only £8, so we decided to go with that one. It has a pouring spout, a lid, and two size of cone for squeezing different sizes of fruit, so it seemed like a good model.

Then we thought we might look at the Thrift Store on the way back. They sometimes have second-hand food processors there - unknown or cheap models, but since I didn't need one for juicing or kneading, I thought we could pick up any old thing. The only time we'd ever seen a Moulinex food processor there was nearly two years ago when we bought it.

There weren't any in the usual place.

Then Richard spotted it, nestling behind some other appliances. Smaller than the one that had died, but it looked almost new: a Moulinex Ovatio duo 2. For £26.

We bought it. We tested it. It even has a centrifugal juicing attachment for making apple and carrot juice! We won't be using this food processor for kneading bread, and we won't be using it for citrus juicing since the new citrus juicer works well, so perhaps this will last longer than two years.

Amazing coincidence? No, I don't have the faith to believe that chance could dictate our finding exactly what we wanted, at exactly the right time, twice. Particularly when we've never seen Moulinex food processors at the Thrift store any other time in the eight years we've been here. Evidently God really does care about even our smallest needs.

(PS I had not realised quite what a difference in quality there is between our old digital camera and the one we bought last summer. The first food processor picture was taken on the old one...)

Breadmaker, breadmaker, make me some bread...

Once upon a time we had an elderly breadmaker, which a friend gave us because she couldn't get it to work. I managed to make some quite good loaves of bread with it, and also had some terrible results. Particularly in the winter and summer where Cyprus temperatures can be extreme. To make it worse, the machine had only one setting that worked (the basic loaf - no variations) and only one possible size (about a 500g or 1lb loaf) which wasn't really big enough for the four of us, even if the bread was successful.

Time passed and we gave up trying, and the breadmaker sat on a shelf gathering dust. I did try making bread by hand a few times, but it was so messy and such a lot of effort that I didn't bother. We have a perfectly good Perseus bakery just around the corner, so it was much easier to buy bread there for lunch each day.

Nearly two years ago we bought a second-hand food processor, and found that it could make and knead dough. So for a while I baked bread again, the hard work done by the food processor. Although even then it was a bit of a hassle, as it meant I had to start before 10am and stay around all morning to deal with the rising and punching down and baking. But it was great bread...


Then the food processor started making graunchy noises whenever I made bread dough. Perhaps we were working it too hard. And life got busier, or I got lazier, and we went back to buying bread at Perseus. Not so tasty or nutritious, but still very good.

Then I found myself pondering breadmakers again. A new one, with lots of settings for different types of bread, and different sizes. Perhaps it would even be better temperature-controlled, to allow us to make bread in extreme temperature conditions. I read reviews, and noted the ones that sounded the best. We were given quite a lot of Christmas money from various relatives, and I thought about it some more. On the Thursday before Christmas we went to a party, and the hostess had baked some wonderful bread, using a Severin breadmaking machine. I was so impressed, I thought we might go and look for one for ourselves.

Christmas Eve, and I had to buy one or two last-minute ingredients which I'd forgotten. We went to Orphanides, not our usual supermarket, but a bigger one with two upstairs floors containing clothes and electrical goods. We went to have a look at breadmakers. There were only three in stock: two Morphy Richards fastbake machines, and one Severin, like the one we saw on Thursday. Similar price, similar capacity. Both machines that did well in reviews. I would quite have liked the Severin... but there were no English instructions. Only a short booklet in German. We could have waited until January for some new stock, but Richard decided we'd get one there and then. Probably wise, or we might not have got around to it for ages.

So we bought a Morphy-Richards fastbake, complete with clear instructions and a guide with lots of different recipes. I studied it carefully.

On Christmas Day after church I found a power socket (rather lacking in our house) in our bedroom, and put in ingredients for a wholemeal loaf, exactly as described. I set it off, then forgot all about it until mid-afternoon. It had evidently risen, and then sunk again. It was like a loaf with a crater. It tasted all right, but rather dense. The troubleshooting guide wasn't much help. Yes, I did measure the ingredients successfully. No, it certainly wasn't too hot in the room.

On Tuesday I tried again. This time I did it in the kitchen, and it barely rose at all. Indeed, it didn't even mix the ingredients in properly. So we ended up with a floury brick. It just about made toast, but was chewy and generally not very nice. Perhaps the kitchen was too cold... the booklet did say that under 15C results weren't necessarily very good. It wasn't sunny on Tuesday, and the kitchen could well have been colder than that. It might explain the lack of rising, but I've no idea why it mixed so badly. Again, the troubleshooting guide was no help. Yes, I DID measure accurately!

So I went to play.com and ordered a book about making bread for breadmakers. One of the reviews I read of this machine said that the only problem with it is the recipe guide.

On Wednesday, I tried the dough setting. I used my favourite wholemeal honey recipe from my food processor bread days, did the kneading and first rise in the breadmaker, then turned it out, punched it down, rose it in a bread tin, and baked in the oven. This time a beautiful loaf emerged, just like we had previously. Very successful.

But I really wanted the breadmaker to do the whole thing, so today I tried the same recipe (ie NOT one of those in the machine booklet) on the ordinary setting. I kept an eye on it. The sun was shining so the kitchen was warmer. And it came out well. Rather taller than I expected, and the top - which rose beautifully during the rise cycle - made a little crater. But it was good bread and we were pleased with it.


Tomorrow I may try a smaller size, since it was actually too big for us. It might be a better shape - since the same baking pan is used for all sizes - as it wouldn't be so tall. Or we might eat the leftovers (currently in the freezer) from the last two loaves, and wait until the recipe book arrives.

Shopping, online and offfline

So, today we spent the most we've ever spent at Amazon UK in one day! Richard will be going to a conference in the UK in about three weeks, so we've ordered things to meet him there. Postage on orders over £19 is free within the UK, although it takes an extra five days. To Cyprus, it's extortionate :-( They don't even count it as part of Europe, although postal charges here from the UK are exactly the same as they are to Western Europe. Usually a friend with a BFPO box lets us use that if we order from Amazon, but she won't be there until September now.

We ordered a few DVDs in the sale, and the new Harry Potter book - at last - since it seems to be best value at Amazon. We also went ahead and ordered a Canon digital camera, as we'd been pondering in the past week or two. It wasn't quite the cheapest place online, but they were doing a free case with this particular camera, and we tend to trust Amazon on the whole. It was certainly better value than most of the other shops that we know of that have offline stores in the UK, and as far as we know it's not available here. We also ordered some extra memory to go with the camera.

Life is certainly much easier in Cyprus with online UK shops so readily available. Even eight years ago when we were first here, I was less inclined to use the Internet for ordering, and there were fewer options. My first port of call is always Play.com when looking at books or DVDs, since it's one site forward-thinking enough to offer free postage anywhere in Europe. We've had a lot of good things from there. But they didn't have the camera we wanted, and the book and DVDs we ordered were all more expensive from Play.com this time.

If it weren't for online ordering, we'd probably end up buying vast amounts of books and DVDs every time we were in England, and then having trouble with the weight of our luggage. Books are very expensive here, on the whole. There's an excellent bookshop in Larnaka, the Academic & General, which has a good selection of English books as well as Greek. But they always seem to charge the full UK price - in Cyprus pounds. So it's nearly 20% higher than list price, while Amazon UK and Play.com are typically 40% lower.

As it is, we tend to buy a year's worth of clothes when we're in the UK, although recently there have been better prices and more choice here. We're not into designer clothes at all, just ordinary casual reasonably well-made clothes. There are plenty of over-priced designer shops here, and a few old-fashioined factory outlets, but we've found quite a good selection of tee-shirts and shorts, of the type we like, in the middle floor of Orphanides - a supermarket which we don't use for groceries as the lighting is unpleasant, the aisles too narrow, and the stacks too high. However we do like their upstairs clothing and electrical departments.

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.

Shopping

Last night we went to look at ceiling fans. The Kleima showroom was still open at 7pm, although we had to navigate - probably illegally - around a real mess of roadworks to get there. Unfortunately we couldn't find any boxes with fans in them, so we had to squint up at the various types which were running on the ceiling of the shop. We couldn't find the very inexpensive ones anywhere. We did see some at twice that price - still good value - but they didn't appear to have any kind of cord attached. Does that mean they can only be on (lights and fan) or off? If so, that's no good. We would want to use the fan only overnight in the summer, and the light only in the evening in the winter.

Then there were others at £24.99, same price as last year. Considerably less than an airconditioner, of course, but we've managed without ceiling fans for seven years now, so we didn't get any. Although comments on yesterday's post have made me think that perhaps we should go back and have another look, at least for the bedrooms.

We went to Orphanides, the big supermarket with two floors upstairs containing clothes, linens, electricals, toys, and so on. We're going to need some new sheets soon - ours were second-hand eight years ago. I measured all the beds, because last time we were in that store we saw various types of sheet on special offer, but didn't know what sizes we needed. With fitted sheets, it's important to know!

Unfortunately we didn't find any suitable sheets. Either the sizes were wrong, or we didn't like the colours and patterns, or they weren't poly-cotton. It's vital to have sheets that can just be folded straight from the line. I do as little ironing as possible - perhaps twice a year.

However we did find some good-sized bath towels on special offer. We don't have a huge number of towels, and they're rather small - particularly now the boys are so big. We had a slight haitus when we picked up the colours we liked best, only to discover that there were several different styles of towel all in the same row, but only one style was on offer. However after checking at the till, we returned and found four colours which weren't too bad. Tim was very pleased when he got home, as he's been finding our old towels much too small.

There weren't any ceiling fans at Orphanides, so we didn't buy anything we intended to. But at least we have four new towels, which as I type are hanging out drying in the sunshine after their initial wash.

'Tyre'd? No, 'Exhaust'ed!

What fun cars are.

This morning around 9am we set off as usual for our weekly supermarket shop. Only we needed to get some petrol first. Half way to the petrol station, when we were paused at a crossroads, a motorbike pulled up beside us with the man on it pointing at the back of the car and obviously saying that there was something drastically wrong with it. In Greek, but the gesticulating was pretty clear...

The exhaust had been rather noisy for a while, and ten days ago we knew it would need changing soon, so I wondered if it had finally dropped off, or was hanging by a thread. So Richard pulled into the next side street and we got out to look.

Not the exhaust but the rear tyre on my side. It was completely flat. Too far to drive on to the petrol station, and we didn't have the foot pump with us...

So I stayed with the car and Richard went home to get it. Only five minutes walk but he took about twenty minutes... apparently when he got back he realised it was slightly broken but didn't have any screwdrivers at home, so he had to wake up Tim to borrow one from him before coming back.

Pumping was surprisingly effective and enabled us to drive on to petrol station (after a brief detour to the Thrift Store). There Richard used the proper air system to check all the tyres, and found that the rear passenger side tyre had lost some of its air already. Evidently there was a hole somewhere, so after filling it up again we drove to the place where he gets tyres changed. It wasn't all that long ago that we had new tyres so he hoped it would be fixable.

The engineer was available, and quickly found the end of a key embedded in the tyre. Then it was a simple matter to mend it apparently - it took about ten minutes in all, for which we were charged £4. Which is about £4.50 sterling or $9 US, if anyone's interested. Not unreasonable as a charge, although compared to normal Cypriot wages it was a huge amount for ten minutes' manual labour (a music teacher, for instance, gets between £6 and £7.50 per hour for one-on-one tuition).

Anyway we were happy to have it mended, and certainly didn't mind paying that charge. But... when the engineer lifted the car up so he could get at the tyre, we saw just how bad the exhaust was. Uh-oh. Evidently it needed changing immediately, not in a few weeks as we had thought. Ah well, the exhaust-changing place wasn't far from the tyre-changing place, so we drove on to there.

The exhaust man was able to look at the car immediately, but when it was up on the ramp he banged about at its underside and muttered a lot, and although he speaks very little English it was clear that there was more wrong than just the exhaust. His son arrived - who speaks more English - and we understood that the catalytic convertor - whatever that might be! - also needed changing. Our ordinary mechanic (who does all the main servicing, but can't do exhausts or tyres) had warned Richard that this would need changing before long so he wasn't too surprised, but of course it meant rather a longer job than just mending or changing the exhaust. It was also rather more expensive!

Unlike most of Europe, where exhaust service places have in stock the parts for a variety of cars, they build them from scratch here. So it took about an hour of welding and adjusting before it was all ready. We went over to Orphanides, the big supermarket which has clothes and house/garden items upstairs, and had a wander round. We did think about buying our weekly groceries there but we don't really like Orphanides - it's too crowded and the lights hurt my eyes. We also don't know our way around very well. So we just looked at some clothes and electrical appliances, then sat at the café and had a drink.

Eventually the car was fixed and we were given a year's guarantee. But it was past noon by the time we got to our friendly local Metro supermarket, and we were both extremely hungry and tired by the time we finally got home.

Jeans

Finding clothes in Cyprus is quite a chance adventure sometimes. In previous years we used to buy all the clothes we thought we would need in the UK on our visits back there, as they were cheaper and more widely available. But last year we didn't go back at all, and although Daniel hasn't grown much, Tim has. The problem is that Tim is considerably thinner than the average Cypriot teenager of his age and height. So he was wearing an old pair of jeans (waist 30 inches) with a belt to stop them falling down... but in the past couple of months they've looked distinctly short. They claim to be 32 inch legs. I don't know why jeans can't be metric like everything else!

We went to Orphanides on Monday, actually looking for other things such as socks, and discovered that although it's not advertised, they seem to be having a sale of previous stock. There was an odd selection, including some jeans with the choice of either waist 30 inches or waist 40 inches! They all had length 33 inches so Tim tried some on and they were exactly right. Well... large on the waist, but he's used to that. It doesn't appear to be possible to get jeans with smaller waist size then 30 inches other than for children, and they're not expected to have long legs.

So Tim now has two pairs of jeans that fit. Unfortunately we didn't manage to find him any trainers (which he will need soon) or any for me either. Our favourite shoe shop, the Shoe Emporium, has moved to rather grand premises and their stock has gone up-market too with a lot of uncomfortable-looking fashionable shoes, and very few trainers.