Another missing cat in November :-(

Over sixteen years ago we acquired Cleo, who was a small and feisty kitten. Evidently she was a little older than we thought, because six months later - at the end of February 1999 - she gave birth to three kittens.

One of them only lived about six weeks; he became ill and the vet could not help. We were so upset at losing him that we decided to keep the other two.

Sophia was the intelligent one - hence her name - who quickly learned our schedules and bossed us all around. Jemima wasn't quite so bright, and she waddled like a 'puddleduck'. Hence her name.

Our feline family was completed, for a while, nearly two years later when Tessie walked into our house and our lives.

Not that Cleo's family never entirely accepted her.

In November of 2007, Jemima vanished. She was a quiet cat who avoided other people but liked to sleep outdoors at night. One neighbour said that, sometimes, nice cats were stolen to be sold. It seemed a strange theory, but better than any alternative. I was her special human and I missed her enormously; but by that stage, Daniel had left home. He was Sophia's special human, and she gradually transferred her affections to me.

Tim was Tessie's special person; he was looking after the house for us in November last year, when Tessie vanished in a similar manner. One day she was around, as usual; the next she was not. He hunted around the neighbourhood but there was no sign. She was thirteen at the time; not old, but she'd had a few strange episodes of hiding away, with unknown sickness. We never did find her.

So we were down to two increasingly elderly cats. Which is why, when we had the opportunity to adopt two kittens in the summer, we did so.

Thankfully the older cats accepted them well.

Cleo developed arthritis over the past year, and one of her legs became swollen. Around May or June she turned sixteen, which is equivalent to 96 in human years. She could no longer jump much, but she was still eating and washing happily, and purring as she snuggled into us at night.

Here she is, getting comfortable on a cushion about a month ago:

Sophia developed a slight lump on her right eyelid, and we were concerned enough that a visiting friend who has worked as a veterinary nurse took a look; he said it was a hematoma, probably caused by high blood pressure. As it caused her no distress he recommended ignoring it, unless it grew big enough to obstruct her vision.

It actually got smaller.. here she is, earlier this week, looking regal on the beanbag:

We were - at least in theory - prepared for the fact that Cleo might one day wander out of the house, and find a peaceful secluded spot, and fade away. It's what happened to our first cat, Toby, back in 1992. 

What we did not expect was that Sophia would vanish. Out of the blue, two days ago. Just like Jemima and Tessie did, except that it was in broad daylight. Sophia, who was an extremely vocal cat, would have let the entire neighbourhood know if she had got shut in somewhere, or if anybody tried to catnap her. 

It took me a couple of hours to notice that she'd gone out and not come in again; she used to ask to go in and out of my study door rather than using the cat flap, but she would often sleep outside in the sunshine. I was surprised when I went to water plants, and she did not appear to tell me off for wasting water. But I thought that perhaps she had come back into the house via the cat flap after all, and that I would find her inside somewhere, peacefully asleep.

I could not locate her anywhere.

I walked around the neighbourhood, afraid that she might have been run over, but there was no sign. I called for her, and listened.. but there was no distinctive Sophia mew. 

I became increasingly concerned.. and she did not come back. 

A friend mentioned that he had seen her scavenging in a dustbin a few days earlier; perhaps, he theorised, she ate something that's toxic for cats. I then started to wonder if her blood pressure was getting higher and she suffered a stroke. I tried to recall whether she had been behaving differently in recent weeks, and all I could think of was that she had been more peaceable, less bossy. 

Two days later there is still no sign - or sound - of Sophia, and I've given up searching. If by chance she got taken somewhere else, perhaps in the back of a truck, then it's just possible she might find her way home. But she was an old cat - she would have turned 16 in a few months. I had hoped she might have lived a few years longer as she seemed to be in such good health - but apparently not. 

I miss her, so much. 

It never occurred to me that Cleo would be the last remaining of our original four.

Autumn slowly tiptoes its way into Cyprus...

This blog has been rather neglected, of late. It's not that we've been ultra-busy, nor have we done a lot of entertaining. It's just that, as the last weeks of summer slowly ease their way out of Cyprus, a kind of lethargy lingers in the air. Time marches on, but I'm not entirely sure where it's vanished to.

I re-started going for early morning walks with my friend Sheila, at the beginning of September. I thought it would still be too hot, but it wasn't too bad, and I do like being out in the early morning, seeing the first light of day:

We don't usually get any rain until nearly the end of September, but it was a rather wetter month than normal. I think we counted four rain showers through the month, one of which was preceded by dramatic grey clouds, and lasted for at least fifteen minutes along with some lightning and thunder that were just a little too close for comfort:

After the rain, there was some water in the Salt Lake, and some significant puddles nearby, one of which had attracted some unusual birds; we have no idea what they are:

Meanwhile, the kittens continue to settle in well, and grow fast; here they are looking sweet and angelic, belying their usual mischief and energy:

Alexander's life is so exciting - from his perspective - that we decided to help him start a blog, to record his escapades in his own words. So to speak. If you're interested, it's called Alexander the Great. 

Meanwhile Sophia, now fifteen-and-a-half, remains in good health although she prefers a slightly softer place to sleep:

Cleo is sixteen - really quite old for a cat - and somewhat arthritic. One of her front legs has been swollen for a while, too, though it goes up and down. But she gets out and about, and purrs when she's on our laps (or snuggling into my neck at night...) so we're not over-worried. She also likes relaxing on cushions: 

Two thousand miles away our grandson continues to grow and flourish; he's four months old today. We are so thankful for Skype which enables us to keep in touch, letting him see our faces and hear our voices:

David now has his own passport - which, astoundingly, arrived less than a week after the application documents were posted - so we very much hope he (and, of course, his parents...) will be able to come and stay here in a couple of months. 

Now that October is here, the humidity has mostly gone, and the daytime temperatures aren't hitting 30C any more, at least in the shade. We've stopped using air conditioning and are just reliant on fans... although a tee-shirt and shorts are still our usual attire. It's likely to be another month before I venture back into jeans. 

Introducing our Cyprus kittens

I mentioned in passing, in my last post, that we have two new kittens.

This is not something we planned, precisely. Until six years ago, we had four cats, and that was plenty. Then Jemima vanished one night - we never found out what happened to her - so we were down to three. Daniel had left home so we only had three humans; Daniel was Sophia's human and I was Jemima's, so in the absence of both, Sophia adopted me. Quite an undertaking as she is a highly extraverted, vocal and bossy cat.

Then nearly a year ago, when Richard and I were in the UK, Tessie disappeared. Tim was her human (although there had been some competition from the others while we were away) - and since Richard (Cleo's human) is often out or away, Cleo adopted Tim too.

But Cleo is now sixteen. She's getting thinner, and arthritic, and one of her legs is a bit swollen. Her coat is in good condition and she seems in good health overall - but cats don't often live more than about sixteen or seventeen years. Some make it to twenty, and we hope ours do - but she's definitely getting elderly. Sophia, Cleo's daughter, will be sixteen at the end of next February. She is still quite active, her fur is thick, and she isn't getting thin.. but she does sleep more than she used to (though not at 5.00am, unfortunately).

We had said, idly, for the past couple of years that it would make sense to introduce a couple of kittens into the house while we still have our older cats, to have some overlap. But Cleo and her daughters never accepted Tessie: they wouldn't eat together, they hissed and spat at each other, and Cleo was actually quite afraid of Tessie at times. Tessie, too, saw herself as defender of the house: if any other cat dared to come on our property, or any part of the road she considered hers, she would chase it away. Sometimes quite viciously. The other cats in our neighbourhood were terrified of her - and yet she was a friendly, fluffy cat who liked people very much.

I knew there was no way we could bring kittens here with Tessie around. And I didn't really want the hassle of kittens again, in any case.

Then our friends' second cat Conny gave birth to three kittens early in April this year. I didn't take a whole lot of notice of them at first, but they did become rather cute, as kittens do. There was this grey female one, who, at about five or six weeks old, took a strong liking to Tim:

Then there was a calico female and a brown and white male, who tended to be a lot livelier, watched here by their mother: 

(For anyone who thinks, as I did until recently, that 'calico' is the American word for 'tortoiseshell' - that's not actually the case. Tortoiseshell cats are mixed brown/black and orange, generally, while calico cats have more distinct patches of orange and black, plus large amounts of white).

When we went to see our friends, the three kittens would play for a while, then curl up in a bundle to sleep: 

Our friends did not want to keep them. Richard was very keen on adopting the two girl cats, so we said 'maybe', and 'if our two older cats don't mind'. I thought they probably would mind, very much, so didn't really see it happening. The boy cat was definitely going to be adopted by another friend. 

The kittens were given names, by our friends' 8-year-old daughter, Katie. The boy cat was called Alexander the Great, because he was so big and strong. The calico cat was Joan of Arc, because she was so brave. We didn't think the names would stick, but somehow they did.

And then there was 'the grey one'. Katie wanted her to be called Grandma, 'because she's grey and beautiful'. Someone else in the family wanted her to be called Alfie. I suggested, rather frivolously, that if the other two were named after famous people from history, perhaps she could be Lady Jane Grey.  And for some reason, that name stuck too.  I thought that, if we DID adopt the two female kittens, Joan and Jane made a nice pairing. 

We continued to watch them grow up. Here they are exploring our friends' dolls' house 

Then they would drop to sleep, curled up again... although by early June it was getting a bit too warm so they spread out a bit more:

I did notice at this stage that Lady Jane Grey was something of a loner, often sitting and watching while her two more boisterous siblings chased each other around. I made what was, perhaps, a foolish comment: that Alexander was really not suited to being an 'only cat'. And it was about this time that Alexander's future family found and adopted a feral kitten and said they really didn't want him after all. 

Then we had the news that our grandson had arrived. All other concerns seemed minor. Richard and I flew out to the UK when David was just a couple of weeks old and for the next two months I didn't think much about Cyprus at all.

However, Richard returned a month before I did. And within a few days, he said that he thought the kittens, almost four months old now, were ready to be adopted. 

Not Jane and Joan, as I had thought, but Alexander and Joan.

I didn't mind being away from home while he introduced them to the older cats and had a few sleepless nights of mewing kitties who assumed his toes were cat toys. But Cleo and Sophia accepted them - dubiously, but with a much better grace than they ever accepted Tessie.

Tim, meanwhile, found an apartment about five minutes' walk from where we live, closer to the school where he works, and moved out. Also in my absence.

And Tim adopted Lady Jane: 

Since they were all four months old by this stage, they were all neutered; this is something that some Cypriots don't like to do, but there are so many stray cats that we felt it was important. Particularly for Alex, who was growing fast and starting to display worryingly teenage tendencies. We did not want him spraying to mark territory, or roaming the streets at night yowling for females. 

So by the time I got home, the two kittens were in residence, in an uneasy alliance with Cleo and Sophia. Alex likes to sleep in bookcases and on printers:

Joan is still quite interested in exploring: here she is discovering herself in a mirror: 

And she also sleeps on the sofa, much more elegantly than her brother: 

A couple of weeks ago, Richard and I watched an episode of Doctor Who on DVD. Cleo loves the show - she always sits on Richard's lap when we see it. Sophia keeps out of the way. We had no idea where the kittens were until it had finished, and we discovered Alex hiding behind the sofa: 

... just as I used to when I was young and Doctor Who was on. 

Alex seems to be getting a lot bigger than Joan - typically male, I suppose! - but they still do everything together; here they are having a nap while trying to stay cool about two weeks ago:

.. and here they are, exhausted after the visit from our young friends: 

Alex sometimes washes Joan; she puts up with it for a while, but then tries to push him away: 

But overall, the experiment is working just fine. Here are three of them sharing a sofa a few days ago: 

The kittens are nicely subservient, and Cleo seems to think they're her kittens - she tolerates them remarkably well, and bats them away when they encroach too much. Sophia treats them like annoying little siblings. They have just started eating together, even sharing dishes - something neither Cleo nor Sophia would ever do with Tessie. 

What I find particularly interesting is that, although they still make some mews that sound very like their mother, they have also picked up some specific 'words' from Sophia. The one they are using in this short clip, however, appears to be a universal cat word - I've heard their mother use it, I've heard Sophia use it, and I've seen other cats on YouTube using it. It apparently means 'give me yogurt':

PS Alexander has now started his own blog: Alexander the Great

Transforming an elderly jumper (or sweater) into a cat bed

Once upon a time, many years ago, a new and very warm woolly jumper (or sweater, if you're from the US) arrived in our household. I don't remember exactly when, or even how it was acquired, but I think it was a gift from one of my siblings to Daniel. He always seemed to feel cold in the winter, and was very appreciative of this gift which he wore on many occasions.

I was, at first, a bit worried about it going in the washing machine, but hand-washing proved to be such a chore that the jumper sat at the bottom of the laundry basket for far too long. Eventually I tried a delicate setting, and it was just fine.

Daniel was still wearing this jumper regularly back in January 2006, just before he left Cyprus to join the MV Doulos:

He didn't take it with him, however, as he knew that he would be mostly in warm temperatures. We kept it in his closet for a while, but somehow it was appropriated by Richard, who also feels decidedly cold at times.

Then one year, he took it to the UK.  And - as so often - our luggage was overweight, so we left some things behind, including this jumper which he decided would be more useful there than in Cyprus, as our new house is rather warmer than our old one.  And there it stayed. It no longer fitted Daniel: over the years it had been washed at less delicate settings, so that it had shrunk a little. Daniel doesn't tend to wear that kind of sweater any more, anyway. On subsequent trips to the UK, Richard was pleased to find it, and wore it.

It was still going strong in 2011 when he wore it on a walk the park in Birmingham:

It was decidedly past its best. There were a few holes that had developed in the sleeves, and it was beginning to feel 'felted'. We didn't want to throw it out - it really was a very nice jumper - but it was beginning to feel a bit tight even on Richard. He suggested I could have it, but I found the material just a little too scratchy, and also rather too warm.

Then, idly browing online (as you do) I came across this wonderful page about making a cat bed from an old sweater.  It looked simple enough, even for me. And I knew exactly which sweater would be perfect for the job...

We brought it back from our recent trip, and when I found it, I ignored all the piles of things to be put away, and everything else that needed to be done, and set to work to make it.  Sophia was very interested and kept trying to climb onto it while I was sewing... which turned out to be a good thing. When it was finally finished and I put it on the floor, she jumped in and sat there defiantly, quite certain I didn't want her there:

Then, not long afterwards, Cleo found it and also decided that she liked it:

I did wonder if I would need to make a second cat bed, but so far there have not been any squabbles - each of them sleeps in it occasionally.  I suspect they may do so more often when it gets colder. 

Regular readers of this blog might be wondering why there are only two cats mentioned in conjunction with the cat bed.  That's because, sadly, our third cat Tessie vanished while we were in the UK. She went out one afternoon, and did not return. Tim searched the house from top to bottom including all cupboards, closets and balconies, and went around the neighbourhood too, wondering if she had accidentally got shut away somewhere. She often stayed out overnight... but was always waiting to come in when we appeared in the morning. She wasn't very good with the cat flap.

Here's quite a flattering picture of her a couple of years ago, sitting on our guest flat doormat: 

Tessie was a very friendly cat; perhaps she would have gone off with someone trying to steal cats, but she wasn't young. We kept hoping she would return but it's been nearly four weeks now. We're all sad, but it seems unlikely that she will come back after all this time.

It reminds me rather too strongly of when Jemima vanished almost exactly six years ago :-( 

Ikea again. Bookcases and chairs...

I know many people look down their noses a bit at Ikea furniture. Certainly some of it is rather flimsy, and much of it is clearly flatpack and inexpensive. Not that this is necessarily a problem, and with rather a lack of reasonably priced furniture shops in Cyprus, we were delighted when an Ikea superstore was opened in Nicosia six years ago.

We don't go there often; it's about a 35 minute drive from our home, so although that's not a huge distance, it's not somewhere we pop to regularly.  But perhaps a couple of times each year: sometimes more often still.

Our most recent trip was on Thursday last week. The reason - as so often - was that we were in need of more bookcases.

Or rather, Tim was in need of bookcases.  When he moved back to Cyprus a few months ago, he brought out most of his library, a somewhat eclectic mixture comprising - among other things - a large number of theology books:

We spent some time brainstorming possible ways of rearranging Tim's room to fit in another bookcase, but it's not a large room - and one of the bookcases he has already is in a rather awkward place, meaning he can't access one of his closets.

So Richard proposed having a bookcase or two in the little bit of corridor outside Tim's room. There's not much space there - certainly not enough for the Billy bookcases that we usually buy - but we had discovered another range, called Besta, which have much shallower shelves. We weren't sure if they would fit, but Richard measured the gap carefully...

... And sure enough, when we found the Besta bookcases at Ikea last week, they were exactly the right width for the gap.  Not really tall enough, but we realised that one of the smaller ones would fit exactly on top of one of the larger ones, and the two together only cost about the same as one tall Billy. Moreover, they came with fittings so that they could be joined together.

So over the next couple of days, Richard spent some time - assisted by Tim - putting these shelves together. They do indeed fit perfectly in the available space:

So far there is only one book that has made its way onto the shelves, but we hope they will be filled soon, thus easing the overflow of books in Tim's room.

However...

It's almost impossible to go to Ikea and just emerge with nothing extra. Prepared for this eventuality we had picked up a store bag on our way in, and had found some sticky replacement roller things for getting cat hairs out of furniture, and a few other random small items. 

But then we came to the office chairs. Tim had been hoping Ikea might still stock the chair he had bought in the UK, which he liked very much indeed, but they didn't.  He really wanted a comfortable desk chair since he sits at his desk so much, and tried out several before discovering one that he said was wonderfully comfortable. It wasn't even horrendously expensive.  

I commented that I had never found real office chairs comfortable. I have tried many, but for many years have found nothing suited me as much as a rather garish orange kitchen chair - here it is, in front of my desk, way back in our old house in 2005 (note the old computer and screen!) 

We paid a couple of pounds for that chair nearly sixteen years ago, so it's done me very well, but it was starting to look extremely tatty.

I sat in an identical chair to the one Tim liked, and was astounded at how comfortable it was. Richard took this not-very-flattering photo:

We sat there quite a while while Tim debated whether or not he wanted it, and eventually decided he would. And I was somehow persuaded to have one too. If I didn't like it, I reasoned, Richard could have it.. he has an adequate desk chair, but it's not particularly strong and won't last forever.

We got everything home and unpacked. And then discovered a significant problem, in that my desk (also very old - the same one from the photo above, which has also lasted me 16 years and probably cost us not much more than the orange chair...) has an opening that's too narrow for this new office chair.

I tried all kinds of ways of sitting on it before opting for a semi-diagonal method, which seems to work. The chair really is very comfortable when I'm sitting back in it; it has a slight rock, and a fabric covering, and Sophia has given it her decided nod of approval:

So I'll probably keep it. I do like it, very much. But Richard and Tim think I should probably now have a new desk...

A post about our cats

Other than a brief mention of our youngest cat Tessie, just over a week ago, I've said very little about our cats for some time. This isn't because because they are any less important to us, but they're all getting older now and tend to spend a lot of time sleeping.

November has really been very mild so far this year, despite a bit of rain now and again. Today, after a somewhat grey day yesterday, the sun has been out - at least until it started to get dark. We haven't had to think about any heating yet, but the cats have switched from sleeping on the floor (which keeps them cool in the summer) to sleeping in random comfortable places around the house.

Or, maybe, not so random. When I want to look for Cleo, the usual place to find her is somewhere upstairs, very often right in the middle of our bed:

I like it very much when she's there just before I get into it at night during the winter, as she leaves a nice warm patch.

Cleo was 14 at some point during the summer, so according to the cat year calculator on Wikipedia, she's around the equivalent of 73 in human years. The Catcalculator site puts her at 80 - there's no true correlation with human years so it's impossible to say with any exactness. Whether in her 70s or past 80, Cleo remains lively at times, despite sleeping a great deal. Athough a few years ago she started losing fur, in a somewhat worrying manner, it's now thick and glossy as ever.

Sophia is Cleo's daughter, and will be 14 at the end of February next year. She has become my cat I have become her human since Daniel left home, and she usually follows me around the house, talking to me at length, hassling me if she thinks I should be elsewhere, or even rounding up visitors when she thinks it's time for them to leave. Sophia is a very organised and highly intelligent cat, but she is slowing down too as befits her advancing years.

One of the places she likes to sleep is on the sofa in my study, if she can catch a bit of sunshine through the french windows:

She's also very keen on my beanbag:

If I sit on the beanbag to read, as I do first thing in the morning, she sits on me to purr. But for some reason she's not very keen on my lap when I'm at the computer.

And yes, observant readers might notice a tiny lump at the corner of Sophia's right eye. I hope it's just a tiny cyst; it doesn't seem to bother her, and isn't growing as far as we can tell.

As for Tessie, when she's not in my shoebox her new bed she likes sleeping on the printer. Not very good for it when it's uncovered, so I usually remember to put a plastic cover on it, to keep out dust and of course cat hair:

Tessie must now be around 12. We don't know when her birthday is, but she was perhaps a couple of months old when she arrived on our doorstep, Christmas 2000.  That makes her the equivalent of 64-70, depending on which calculator we trust. She is still the most kittenish of our cats, and the most violent too, where other cats are concerned. The other neighbourhood cats don't dare to come on our property now; they're all terrified of her. Despite her cute and fluffy appearance. 

We occasionally talk about acquiring a couple of kittens, since we're becoming all too aware that we won't have these three cats forever.  Cats can live till around 20 or even older, but 16-18 is more usual. However, with Tessie's territorial instincts, we're not sure that new kittens would survive, and I can't say that I'm anxious to go through the small kitten stage again... 

So we'll see. 

Family, friends, fun and farewell...

Daniel and Becky were here for a little over a fortnight; they arrived on a Friday night, and departed last night. We heard a couple of hours ago that they are, at last, safely back in Carlisle. Having visitors staying is always good, but of course we particularly love having either of our sons home; for Daniel, this was his first visit since he and Becky got married last year.

I already wrote about their first few days in Cyprus, and about our visit to Nicosia. But, as so often happens, time started to go faster and faster and suddenly the two weeks had vanished. I didn't even remember to take many photos - much of the time we were hanging out, chatting, or playing games. We watched a few episodes of Doctor Who (series 2) which we enjoyed, and we also watched DVDs of both Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia 2 and 3 respectively) which we had not seen before. 

Daniel wrote a post about their time here on his blog too. 

We played a couple of games of Seafarers of Catan (Fog Island), something Richard and I only rarely play on our own as it requires quite a bit of setup. Becky said she had never won a Seafarers game; it turned out that she'd only played it once or twice, but she managed to win the first game we played together during the past couple of weeks:  

Naturally we played a couple of Settlers games with our friends Jörn and Sheila too, at their house, one of them on a particularly cold evening where we wrapped up warmly... and Becky won: 

We even managed a five-player Settlers game with Tim on Facetime (similar to Skype): 

We had a microphone set up over the middle of the board, with the stand carefully balanced by a low-tech coolbag: 

We played a Cities and Knights game, too, which had such an interesting initial setup that I took photos and wrote about it on my Settlers blog, but didn't take any pictures of the people concerned. 

We wondered how the cats would cope with Daniel and Becky staying downstairs in our guest flat; somehow, it didn't seem to worry them. We're not sure they even really noticed, as they continued sleeping on us at nights. But they were all happy to see Dan and Becky whenever they appeared in the morning. Here's Tessie looking at some of their wedding photos with them: 

Daniel, who is something of a coffee geek, decided that, while he was in Cyprus, he would buy a little pan for making Cyprus coffee. Not something I like at all, but Daniel is quite keen on what's known as a 'medrio' - one spoonful of finely ground coffee, and one of sugar, brought to the boil slowly: 

The first time he did it, I was fascinated by seeing the bubbles around the edge (an important part of making Cyprus coffee) which formed an almost perfect square around the middle. But when I took these photos, they made something closer to a pentagon: 

The first few times Daniel made a medrio, he used some small cups we happened to have. But I went to the Thrift Shop on Saturday, when he and Becky were out sailing with Richard, and saw some quite tasteful little Cyprus coffee cups and saucers which were very inexpensive. I also saw several less-than-tasteful ones... but decided that Daniel would not appreciate those.

This really doesn't show the scale, but is what the little cup looks like: 

Here it is with the medrio inside, and the saucer below: 

And here is Daniel, waiting for the coffee to cool a little. Note the glass of water, an important adjunct to Cyprus coffee: 

These photos show better just how tiny the cup is.  Sophia joined him while he drank it: 

Becky wasn't feeling great on Sunday, and Daniel wasn't too well on Monday, which was their last day in Cyprus. However, they wanted another game, so we set up Seafarers (Fog Island again) once more:

Here's how it started: 

Daniel won that game - just ahead of me. Either Daniel or Becky has won most of the games we've played while they've been here! 

But, as the cliche goes, all good things must eventually come to an end. After the game, we ate an early evening meal, then took them to the airport. Being actors, they decided to pose for the camera: 

Happily, they let me take a nicer photo as well: 

We drove home feeling a little empty. We don't know when we'll next see Dan and Becky; of course it's great to keep in touch with email and Skype (or equivalent) but there's nothing quite like having people actually here. Living in Cyprus, there are a lot of goodbyes, and they only get a little easier with time.