Summer in Cyprus. Again.

 I have probably written about summer in Cyprus more than anything else in the past twenty years since I started this blog. And while I've started another couple of posts in the past few weeks, both are awaiting further developments before I can finish them. 

So, in the absence of anything else which I can write about today, here's yet another post about how summer crept up on us this year...

During May, I switched from jeans to shorts. I stopped wearing sweatshirts. We moved from our thin duvet at night to a duvet cover only, and then, by the end of the month were using just a flat sheet as a cover. I started using 'cold' water for showering; it doesn't really get cold in the summer, and the tepid, not-quite-lukewarm temperature of the water that has been in the outside tank is perfect for me. 

We cleaned our guest flat air conditioners at the end of May. We were expecting guests early in June, and wanted to ensure the air conditioners were available for them if they felt uncomfortably hot. We are at least somewhat acclimatised, and don't turn them on unless the room temperature exceeds 28 degrees. It had not, as yet, done so. 

However, by the first Friday of June, the forecast was for weather approaching that milestone. So we decided to go ahead and clean our upstairs a/c units. There are four on the main floor, and three upstairs; it took us perhaps forty minutes to complete the job. The house was pleasantly cool for a little longer, since they have to be run as cool as possible for ten minutes or so after using the cleaning spray.

Some of them, Richard said, looked fairly dirty inside. So next year we'll probably get them professionally cleaned. Assuming, that is, we remember before doing them ourselves...

Since the humidity was still low, I decided that it was an ideal day to start the annual curtain-washing. Up to 2013, this was an essential chore, and should probably have done more often than once a year. One of our cats, Tessie, used to spray. She was female, and spayed, but apparently it's not uncommon. Some of our books on lower shelves suffered, as did the curtains. As the weather got hotter, the smell in the curtains became more potent.

Tessie vanished twelve years ago, but I've continued washing the curtains almost every year in May or June. Cyprus is quite dusty, and I always like the fresh scent that permeates the house after washing curtains and drying them outside.  I say 'almost every year' because last year we flew out of Cyprus to the UK mid-June, and the curtains didn't get washed. After two years, they definitely needed doing. 

We have quite a few curtains, and I can usually fit three at a time in the washing machine. Everything I hung out on the line was dry within about an hour, so the washing machine was on almost continually, that day, and the following day too. 

With the curtains taken down, two or three at a time, I saw how dirty the windows were. It's unlikely to rain again until September or October, so I cleaned all the windows, inside and out. 

Along with curtains, I also washed the covers of our wheat bags, and the thin blankets we use when watching DVDs in the winter. When dry, I folded them to pack away in an airtight bag. We've learned from experience not to leave things like this unsealed, as they attract not just dust, but moths, and potentially other undesirable insects.

Since the weather wasn't yet too hot, I continued my early morning walks with my friend Sheila. On some evenings I went for short walks locally with Richard. In the middle of the month we went to Salina Park to an advertised 'Makerspace fair', which had a lot of booths showing what kind of things are done at the centre for youth.  We were surprised at how many people were there, given the minimal amount of publicity we had seen.

We were also interested to see that the café building, which had been empty since the park opened at the end of last year, was serving coffee. We didn't want coffee in the evening, but it was good to know that it was being used. 

I knew I wouldn't be using my oven much longer, and that we would start wanting ice cream. So I put the inner container for my ice cream maker in the freezer, in preparation. 

Regular June activities included a birthday lunch for one of our teenage friends, and the local Christian writing group last meeting of the season, followed by a potluck lunch. Richard has been assisting one of the members of the group with self-publication of her book. 

We were delighted to host some other friends for a leisurely lunch on June 20th. One of them was my most long-standing friend Anne, whom I met when we were both seven. We managed to stay in touch all this time, and even met up in the UK a couple of times, a few years ago. This time, my friend and her husband were in Cyprus for a wedding. It was the other end of the island, but they made the two-hour journey to visit us, which was very enjoyable.

As June progressed, the weather was slowly, inexorably, warming up. My last morning walk of the season with Sheila was on June 21st. She was going away for a week, and it was already approaching 25C at 6.15am.  My last use of the oven for the season was on June 22nd when we had our twice-monthly get-together with Sheila and her family, and I made a cake for dessert. 

And on Monday 23rd June, we started on our summer salads. Which doesn't mean we limit ourselves to lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes all summer.  In 2020, when we knew we would be here all summer, I scoured my recipe books for salad ideas. I checked the Internet, too. I jotted down some of the most appealing ideas, and - of course - adjusted them to our preferences, and the available produce. I try to make three or four salads first thing in the morning with a balance of ingredients. At least one will have some protein such as canned fish, air-fried chicken or legumes.  

On 23rd June I prepared a salmon (canned), cucumber and avocado salad; a peach, tomato and onion salad (with 'fake' vegan feta); and a wholemeal pasta salad with sundried tomatoes. 

This was our main meal, in the evening, but we only managed about half of it. So we had the same thing the following day, with the addition of some coleslaw with a lemon juice dressing rather than mayonnnaise. 

Another example is this, which we started a couple of days later:

The protein dish at the top is chopped boiled eggs with lightly boiled broccoli and leeks, the one next to it is mushrooms, new potatoes and green beans. Underneath the egg dish is a salad with lettuce, red grapes, avocado and walnuts, and the other one is the what remained of the coleslaw, which lasted us three days rather than two. 

There was rather a lot that had to be cooked in that second example, which is why I prepare these salads in the mornings, around 6.30 or 7.00 usually. The kitchen isn't too hot at that time, and there's plenty of time for cooked ingredients to be chilled in the fridge. 

There's enough variety in the salad recipes I use that I don't have to duplicate anything for a couple of weeks, but I might do so depending on what ingredients I can easily find. Our fruit shop has inexpensive, great quality avocadoes at present, so I've bought quite a few. They keep well in the fridge, for weeks, and give a nice smooth texture to contrast with the crunchiness of some other salad ingredients.

So we're all set for the summer, I hope. First thing in the morning I walk either to the fruit shop or round the block, to get a bit of exercise. Three days a week, I then prepare salads. I'll deal with laundry or whatever else has to be done before it gets too hot, then aestivate in my study with the air conditioning set to 28C. Not that I will actually sleep. I'll work on photos (I still haven't finished our 2024 photobook, and want to order it soon), and deal with any bills, and do some writing. I'll blog about the books I read, and perhaps work on my sites. 

Out of Cyprus

Yes, I'm still around. I haven't abandoned this blog, despite the longest gap between posts that I can remember. Part of the reason was my excessive sadness about the loss of our cat Alex. I started to write about him in March, and updated as draft off and on - I dated the post at the end of April, but only just recently remembered to publish it.

Another part of the reason was that I spent the end of March and first couple of weeks of April in Carlisle, being a full-time Grandma during the school Easter holidays. I hadn't seen my grandchildren (or their parents...) for many months. Video chatting is wonderful, but not as good as being with them. 

We played games, read books, went for walks, visited the library, had some outings... it was awesome. 

By the time I got back to Cyprus, the weather was already warming up. We've had the hottest months on record several times in the past year. And I don't do well in heat. 

Our bird of paradise plant had seven different blooms this year, after none at all for the past seven years. There are many theories about how often they produce their stunning flowers; it will be interesting to see if there are more next year, or whether we have to wait another seven years....

May, thankfully, was (unusually) a tad cooler than April. We had quite a few visitors in our guest flat, and did more entertaining than we had done for a while. We continued, of course, to play regular board games with friends, and I went on my early morning walks with my friend Sheila. Three of our young friends were baptised (on separate occasions) this year. I knitted, and wrote book reviews, and cooked and baked... we've often been told that time goes by faster as one ages, and I'm finding this more and more true. 

By early June the temperatures had started soaring and we knew it was time to clean the air conditioners. It's not a lengthy or difficult process, just a bit tedious. The priorities were our studies, where we have computers which become unreliable at more than 30 degrees Celcius. And our bedroom. We had discarded even the thin duvet in favour of a cover, but it was beginning to get humid. 

I abandoned the oven, in favour of making salads only for our evening meals (in conjunction, at times, with the air fryer or microwave). 

But only for a couple of weeks. In the middle of June, our younger son was ordained as a full Anglican priest in London, so we flew out for the ceremony.  Not a great photo: this image is from the livestream, as we weren't allowed to take any pictures during the (lengthy) service. Our son was one of about twenty who were ordained. 

We spent a couple of days with our son and his wife, then drove to Cardiff to see my sister and her husband for the first time in about eighteen months. Then up to Carlisle to stay with our other son, his wife and our two grandchildren.  

Richard had a long weekend with lots of board games, books, and hugs. Unfortunately our grandson wasn't well, so despite really quite good weather, we couldn't all go out anywhere. 

On the Monday he drove south again, leaving me behind, so I could have another six weeks or so away from Cyprus and the excessive heat. And it has been hot in Cyprus! June this year was apparently the hottest on record. I suspect the same will be true of July when they do the calculations.

In the past month, while the children are at school I've walked into town a few times to get some exercise. I've also done a lot of updates on my book review blog, after Amazon changed the way they provide affiliate links. I'm doing a bit of editing too, and making the posts look more similar so it's not a bad thing to do, just time-consuming. My book blog has more than 2500 posts, written over the past 25 years.  

Another thing I've been doing during school hours is tidying up my computer files. I had rather a muddle of folders, with some things in Google Drive, some duplicates, and a lot of confusion. That's also been time consuming, and a bit complicated at times, but I'm pleased to have it almost all sorted now. Just as well since tomorrow is the last day of school, and it's a half day. So time to myself will be more limited. 

Sadly one of my aunts died recently after a brief illness, so I'll be heading back to Cardiff by train for the funeral, then a few days later, in early August, returning to Cyprus via Glasgow Airport. Yes, it will still be hot, but the days will be getting a little shorter, and by September the humidity should start to drop. 

Preparations for the Cyprus Summer

I have written several times before about our preparation for Cyprus summers, and here I am again, on the same topic.  After more than quarter of a century living here, we're used to it; the only slight variation is whether it starts to feel too hot towards the end of May, or some time in June. And even that's somewhat predictable; there's often a burst of heat in the last week of May, making us rush to clean the air conditioners, only to find that we don't actually need them until mid or even late June.

This year is a little different from previous years in that our guest apartment - the flat comprising the ground floor of our house - is pretty much booked up for the whole summer. We don't rent it out, we offer it to family, friends, friends-of-friends and other contacts needing a bit of rest and relaxation. And if they're coming from the UK or similar climes, they're likely to need a bit of air conditioning even if we're still coping without.

So towards the end of May, when there was a short gap between guests, we cleaned all the air conditioners in the guest flat. It's something we do every year before switching them on: we've done it so often that we can clean all five in about fifteen minutes.  The filters have to be removed, washed and sprayed with anti-bacterial spray that's now widely available at many shops. The units themselves also have to be sprayed, after removing any obvious dust. And then they have to be run, as cold as possible, for about fifteen minutes so that the spray evaporates. 

We had expected to do the seven units in our part of the house a few days later, but - as happens so often - the temperatures reduced again in early June, and we were fine with just the ceiling fans. Just as well, really, since we did quite a bit of entertaining in the first week or so of the month, with three different sets of friends for meals on three occasions in the course of one week.  

We had abandoned our thin duvet in favour of just the duvet cover at the end of May, but I didn't wash the duvets - even the thick one - until mid-June, by which time I was sure we wouldn't need either of them again until the autumn. I used to have trouble squashing them into the closet where they're stored in the summer, but a year or two ago we bought some useful air-tight packaging which keeps them dust-free and easy to find when needed.

Last Saturday I switched us from a duvet cover to just a single sheet; it often gets kicked off during the night, but with a cat who likes to sleep on the bed in the daytime, I prefer to have the under-sheet covered.

Washing each duvet takes up the whole of our washing machine, so I can only do one at a time.  Then I leave each one for at least a day on the line outside, to ensure it's completely dry. 

So it was a week later that I embarked on the annual curtain-wash. The curtains we bought when we moved here seventeen years ago are still in great condition. As promised by the people who made them for us, they wash very well and don't seem to fade.  But there are quite a few of them, as well as the ones I made for our dining room nearly two-and-a-half years ago. 

Taking them down is easier than it used to be, as we no longer use pull-cords - they started deteriorating about six years ago, and although we did manage to replace one or two, it wasn't easy to find replacements, and a real hassle to put in place. 

Since by around 20th June the weather is fairly hot but not too humid, curtains dry extremely quickly. So one one day I ran the washing machine at least three times, with three or four full-sized curtains in each.  By the time a two-hour washing cycle had finished, the previous curtains were dry and ready to re-hang. 

It's not a difficult task - the washing machine does all the work! - but I have to be in the right frame of mind. And with the windows bare of curtains, I saw how grubby some of them were, and gave them a good clean. 

Well worth doing and I was pleased with the result when everything was finished, but rather tired, too. 

June has a series of birthdays, and the final writers' group meeting of the season (followed by lunch). To our surprise, it rained on June 19th, heavily enough that there were still a few puddles in the street the following morning when I went out for a walk with my friend Sheila:

It was the last walk until at least mid-September. Sometimes we keep going until the temperature is 25C or more by 6am, but that hadn't happened; however Sheila and most of her family were going away for ten days, and we never walk in July or August. 

So I remembered to take a picture of the Salt Lake, still looking fairly full (helped by the previous day's rain) and even with some flamingoes in the distance, although they can't be seen on this photo: 

It did get a bit warmer within a couple of days, although I do try to take a short walk in the neighbourhood most mornings, staying in the shade as far as possible. 

It still wasn't extremely hot in the daytime, but last Friday we decided to clean the air conditioners in our part of the house.  The same system worked well: Richard went up the ladder and removed the filters, which I then cleaned in the bathroom, while he went to the next air conditioner: 

We had bought a bottle of spray last summer, but I was pretty sure we were going to use it all up and need more. So we bought another bottle a few weeks ago, in a brand we hadn't previously seen - but they all seem to work well. Sure enough, last year's spray ran out when we still had three units to clean. The new one seemed to spray more evenly, and had a surprising scent of coconut, which is considerably less unpleasant than some we have used. 

In the evening, our current guest flat visitors decided to treat us to a meal at a taverna in Kourium, and then this year's Shakespeare production, 'Taming of the Shrew'. 

We hadn't been to one of the Shakespeare plays for years - not for over a decade, apparently. The last reference I can find was to 'Merchant of Venice', which we saw in June 2010. 

We hadn't previously seen 'Taming of the Shew'. I knew the general outline, of course, but was glad of the complementary programme which gave an outline of the plot, including the names of the significant characters. It's quite a confusing play, with people masquerading as others (and some of the male characters were played by women) so it was useful to have a reference. 

It was very well done - a controversial play, of course, but with some humour, and irony, and - as ever - excellent costumes and setting. 

We didn't get home until about 11.30pm which is well past my preferred bedtime, so it's a good thing I wasn't planning to walk with Sheila on the Saturday, as I didn't wake up until nearly 6.45am. 

And still, it isn't nearly as hot as it can be. I have the air conditioning on in my study right now, but that's because my thermometer was showing 29 degrees - which was the outside 'shade' temperature - and computers don't do so well in temperatures above 28. I don't either. We run our a/cs at 28 degrees (82F, for anyone who still thinks in Fahrenheit) which is relatively efficient, and cools us down sufficiently to be comfortable. 

As ever, the cats treat summer quite differently. Jane likes it, and pointedly leaves any room where air conditioning is running. Alex, by contrast, likes to find the coolest places he can. And if he can't find any room with a/c, he tries places that look most uncomfortable to me:

Of course that's not all we do to prepare for summer. I've already stewed and frozen a couple of crates of soft fruit - peaches and apricots - which we're only able to get here during the warmer months. I'm still making hot meals most evenings, and using the oven, although - once again - I plan to stop using the oven during July and August, and focus mainly on different kinds of salad for our meals. 

I've also sprayed and covered nasty crawling insects (I don't even like to use their name) which come in from outside or up the drains, so that Richard can dispose of them. It was about one per day for the first couple of weeks of the month, thankfully fewer in the past few days. Spraying possible entry-points with 'biokill' does seem to make a difference.

Today we had to have a new air conditioning unit installed in one of the guest flat bedrooms. A couple of days ago our current visitors told us they'd been awoken by the old air conditioner making a loud noise, then ejecting pieces of ice! Not something we - or any of our guests - had experienced previously. It was a unit that was, probably, close to twenty years old, and clear that the compressor had given up.  A new one should not only be more effective, but more efficient too in electricity usage. And it's likely to get a lot of use this summer, with so many visitors expected.

For anyone wondering if anything has changed over the years, or who wants to read even more on the same topic, here's what I wrote about summer in 2012; here's my post about summer approaching in 2014; here's one about preparing for summer in 2016; here's another in 2020; and here's one in summer 2022 which is more about what we were doing during summer, rather than as it approached. They're not the only ones, either... but more than enough, I hope, for anyone bored enough to want to read them. 

Electricity bills and meters in Cyprus

Long ago, towards the end of last century when we first moved to Cyprus, we were told that electricity was 'very expensive'.  The people Richard worked with used gas for all their cooking, and various forms of heating in the winter that didn't include electric heaters. None of them had air conditioning. 

And, indeed, Cyprus was one of the most expensive countries in Europe for electricity, so we, too, were as careful as we could be. We turned off lights when we weren't in rooms, and when we did, eventually, instal one air conditioner in our living/dining room, so that we could use computers without destroying them, we calculated carefully what the cost of running it might be, and didn't use it more than was absolutely necessary.

But costs are lower now, and appliances are more efficient. I like having an electric oven, and various other kitchen gadgets. Lightbulbs now are so long-lasting that we think nothing of leaving them on when we're out, or when we forget to turn them off. We knew, of course, that it would be pricey using our electric water heater in the winter, and the air conditioners in the summer. And, indeed, our bills for those seasons were sometimes double those in the spring and autumn months. 

However we didn't look too closely into the amounts, as they were never unreasonable; certainly not the huge amounts we heard about from some other folk here and elsewhere. 

Towards the end of July 2019, we had to replace the air conditioner in our bedroom. It was quieter than the old one, and considerably more efficient. We started wondering how long it would take to pay for itself, so to speak. And then we wondered whether, if we replaced the elderly and very inefficient air conditioner in our living room, and ran the new one more often, would it in fact cost less than turning it on only when in the room?  

Since the ambient temperature was only about 32 at the time, I wondered if running even the old unit more often at 30 degrees, rather than our usual 28, would make the whole house more comfortable. In particular it would remove the humidity which is often the worst part of the heat. 

So I started monitoring our electricity usage. The meter is outside, in a little box so it's easy enough to read. 

And since I was checking it anyway, I thought I would also keep a note of our guest flat electricity usage. 

After a few days, I realised that although the electricity usage of the main part of the house was quite reasonable, we seemed to be using an inordinate amount in our guest flat, which was empty at the time. We knew it would use perhaps one or two units each day, as all our water pumps and one or two other things are connected to the guest flat electricity.  But not ten or more, which is what we were seeing. 

We went through the entire flat, checking. The fridge and freezer were off. We turned off the wall switches for anything that had an LED light. We made sure the TV wasn't on standby.  We couldn't work out what it could possibly be. Were the pumps using a ridiculous amount of electricity? Was someone tapping into our electricity?  Or was it possible that we had a faulty meter....? 

So Richard found a different kind of meter, one he had used years ago in his office. He said he could check the daily usage of electricity from our guest flat, as well as a couple of appliances. So we plugged it into our freezer - wondering if that was using too much electricity - and our fridge-freezer, which was about fourteen years old, and the guest flat. 

I know. It's pink. I don't much like pink. But it's a useful gadget... and over the course of the next week or so, we learned two things.

1.  Our guest flat, according to this meter, was only using one or two units per day, as we expected. 

2.  Our freezer used less than one unit per day, but the older, less efficient fridge-freezer used between three and four units per day. 

The first of those was of more immediate concern. Richard went to the electricity board, and after being sent to various different departments, finally managed to explain the problem. The person he spoke to said that the electricity board could come and instal a new meter for us, and take the old one away for checking. 

If it turned out that the old one was, indeed, faulty, then this would cost nothing, and we would be refunded a percentage of the past year's bills. BUT.. if it turned out that we were wrong, and that the meter was not faulty, then we would be charged 70 euros. Not unreasonable, in the circumstances, and we were pretty sure that it WAS faulty. However we didn't know how accurate their tests would be...

The new meter was installed the following week, and started giving figures that matched with the amounts on our pink meter:

And to our great relief, we received a letter from the electricity board, informing us that our old meter was faulty, and we would receive a refund on our next bills. Which, indeed, we did.

So we were very pleased that I 'just happened' to start checking the guest flat electricity usage when I did.  

Fast forward to the middle of May this year. When we realised we would not be visiting the UK during the summer, as I wrote in another post, we replaced three air conditioning units - the very old one in our living room, and the two which are the most used, in our studies.  We also replaced our fifteen-year-old fridge freezer, deciding that if we were going to do it, then the best time was right before the heat of summer. 

And I started checking our electricity usage each day. It was quite enlightening. We realised that leaving ceiling fans running all day, as we have done some years, isn't very efficient. Unless we're actually in the rooms, there's little point as they don't change the temperature. They only use about 100 watts but that means one unit is used every ten hours.. which doesn't sound like much, but for three or four ceiling fans, it can quickly mount up. 

However, we did use our air conditioners extensively, including running the living room one almost all day on the hottest, most humid days. It was a very hot summer, with several records broken.  

Our electricity bills are two-monthly, and it happened that our meter had been read within a few days of our having bought the new fridge freezer and air conditioning units. Between the middle of March and the middle of May, usually our lowest usage, we had clocked up 785 units. That was with no air conditioning usage, and very little water heating, as the solar heating works effectively from about March through to November.  

Between mid-May and mid-July, with our newer, more efficient appliances - and a lot of air conditioning in late June and the first half of July - we used just 661 units. That compared to 1119 in the previous year during the same period.  With a temporary reduction in fuel costs in the equation, it was probably the lowest electricity bill we had ever paid. 

The second half of July was hotter still, as was August. And it remained hot in September, so we continued using air conditioning.  Inevitably our electricity usage was higher.  From mid-July to mid-September we used 1049 units; that compared to 1289 the previous year - and in 2019 we had two weeks in the UK at the start of August; I had another two-and-a-half weeks out of Cyprus.  Had I been here, as I was this year, it would have been a great deal higher.  The last time - three years ago - that we were in Cyprus all summer, we used over 1400 units.  

So we have probably already saved, in electricity bills, the cost of one of the new air conditioning units. I know we're fortunate to have been able to do this; the 'Sam Vimes Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness' holds, as ever.  But as the sterling/euro exchange rate gradually gets worse, and may plummet still further, it's good to have lower bills.  And newer appliances are better for the environment, too. 

Summer has arrived in Cyprus

I shouldn't have been surprised.  My Facebook 'memories' were full of reminders about Summer arriving in Cyprus in the middle of May.  Last year it happened on May 13th. But it had been a gradual process over the course of a few weeks.

This year we seem to have had quite a long and pleasant spring, even if most of it has been spent in lockdown mode. It has been sunny during the daytime, but cool enough to continue to wear jeans and - at least in the evenings - a sweater or light jacket. The heating hasn't triggered itself on since early March but we hadn't really noticed.

It's only three weeks since we moved from using our triple-thickness duvet to the double-thickness one. Last Saturday I did say that perhaps it was time to move from the double one to the 'light' 4.5 tog duvet, but Richard said no, he still wanted the warm one.  So I thought we'd keep that for another couple of weeks...

A week ago we were opening the windows that have fly-screens (to keep insects out and cats in) through most of the day, but closing them in the evenings. Each morning I pulled the curtains or blinds to let in as much sunshine.  I was still wearing long trousers and a long-sleeved top when I went out for a walk with my friend Sheila at 6.00am...

On Thursday, it felt a bit warmer first thing, and the day quickly warmed up, though not unpleasantly so. Now that most shops are open again, we decided to buy a few things we needed so we went out in the car for the first time in a while.

We had been convinced of the importance of Vitamin D in strengthening the immune system and giving protection against the more unpleasant effects of the coronavirus. It might seem unnecessary to take supplements in a sunny country like Cyprus, but once it gets really hot I will not be going out at all in the daytime. So our first stop was Holland and Barrett.

Then we went to Mr Bricolage, where Richard hoped to find some nuts and bolts which he needed for his boat. Alas, they didn't have the exact size he needed. But we did see that they had the water filter cylinders we use, at considerably lower cost than we have been paying. And they should have been changed at least a month ago. So we bought those. And at the check-outs we saw some cloth masks.

We had talked about making masks, and had been uncertain as to whether there is any point at all wearing non-surgical ones. The consensus seems to change regularly. But there are some shops or outside stalls where customers are asked to wear masks, and as these were both washable and fairly good value, we decided to buy some of those too.

Then on to Christou Bros where Richard found the nuts and bolts he needed (at the grand cost of a little over a euro for them all).  Then on to Shoebox, as my outdoor sandals, bought eight years ago, were wearing out. I realised that the children's section was likely to be best, and was pleased to find some sandals I liked, albeit not quite as sturdy-looking as my previous two pairs.

By this stage it was decidedly warm. We wanted to keep the 'tradition' started last year of having ice cream on the first day of summer (in our opinion). But all the ice cream places seemed to be closed. We had heard that an Italian one near where we live is open, but as we drove past we saw that it was closed. Perhaps it opens only in the evenings.

So we went home for a cool box and ice packs, then into FoodSaver, a frozen food market where, last summer, our son Tim discovered some delicious luxury dairy-free ice cream.

Thus we 'celebrated' the first day of summer in lockdown style at home:

I also got out the frappé machine for the first time this year, and made myself a frappé.

And because the temperature was predicted to rise, I did a bit of sorting in my closet. I put my jeans away, and found my shorts.  I also sorted out my reasonably respectable shirts and put away the large selection I have that have developed holes over the years, which I only wear under sweaters.

We started using our ceiling fans, too. And I remembered why we don't light candles at meals during the summer, although we have been doing so since Christmas. After the current candle had been blown out by a fan for the fourth time before we had even started eating, I decided that another feature of summer is to put away the candles.

Nothing prepared me for Friday. I don't walk with Sheila on Friday, but I've been going out for short walks on my own some mornings. I got up around 6.30am, and went outside to put my shoes on.  I felt such a rush of warmth that I wondered if I were developing a sudden fever. Then I looked at my phone. My weather app told me that it was 24 degrees already, due to be hotter still later on.

So I just watered the plants rather more thoroughly than I had been doing, and didn't stay out for long. By mid-morning it was well over 30 degrees. I didn't walk to the fruitaria for the week's fruit and vegetables; Richard drove me there.  In the evening we decided to go for a walk locally - just a couple of kilometres. We didn't go out until around 8pm and I nearly melted. It was still 31 degrees.

Later, I removed the medium duvet from the cover.  We might still need the thin one if it cools down a bit next week, but the cover on its own was just fine last night. We did think about cleaning the air conditioner in our bedroom but it was only 27.5 degrees and we run the a/c at 28, so there didn't seem to be much point.

This morning I wore my walking shorts for the first time to walk with Sheila, and still felt too hot.  We decided to clean the bedroom air conditioner in the morning so we could run it for a few minutes to get rid of the smell of the cleaning fluid before using it in the evening.

Then Richard cleaned the one in his study.

It doesn't take too long, but is important to do each year as there can be fungal growth over the winter.

We had been talking about replacing some of our air conditioning units this year, as new ones are so quiet and efficient, using very little electricity.  They're much better for the environment than older ones, too.  It seems, currently, that we'll probably be stuck here in Cyprus all summer and our computers can't work over about 30 degrees.  I feel ill if I get too hot.

In addition, the a/c unit in Richard's study is very noisy, and the one in my study doesn't always work, as well as being slightly broken.  We definitely don't want either of them to break down during the main part of summer, when there will likely be a dearth of units available, and we might have to wait a long time to have new ones fitted. Besides, there might be another lockdown, if the number of coronavirus cases starts to increase again once tourists are allowed into Cyprus.

So this morning we decided that if we were going to replace our air conditioners, it should be now. We went out mid-morning to George Theodorou, our favourite local white goods place, and ordered them.  Also, thanks to a recent generous gift, we decided to replace the old (at least 20 years old) and inefficient large one in our living room.

We went to a couple of other shops too, and by the time we got home I was almost dizzy with the heat and had to lie down for a while.

Summer is here.

Richard is happy about it.

I am not.



  

Installing air conditioning in Cyprus

Two months ago, I wrote a post about having our air conditioners cleaned. I mentioned that the one in the guest flat front bedroom no longer worked, so we had to have it replaced.  This wasn't difficult; after a little online research, we went to our favourite white goods shop George Theodorou.

We bought the least expensive one whose brand we recognised, and which was recommended by the shop owner. A few days later it arrived and was installed, with minimal difficulty.  It's on the ground floor, and there was already a hole in the wall, wiring in place, and a suitable place for the outside part. Since the old one was at least fifteen years old, the new one should be far more efficient, and also quieter.

About a month later, I was sitting outside in our side garden after walking with my friend Sheila. We had guests in the flat, and they were using the air conditioning.  There was just a gentle purr, rather than the rather obvious noise that the older one had used. I commented that it would have been nice to have a new, quiet and more efficient one in our bedroom.  But we certainly didn't want to have to pay two installation fees, to have a new one upstairs, and then to relocate our current one in the guest flat.

Besides, we didn't know how long our upstairs one would last. It was also at least fifteen years old, probably more. But it was working fine...

.. or so we thought.  Until one morning when I woke up and it was on, although I was certain I had set it to go off after an hour. The following night, I was awake when it went off... and then it came on again.  And refused to take any notice of the remote control. And it seemed to be getting colder... so eventually we turned it off at the wall.  

We changed the batteries in the remote; when that didn't help, we tried using a different remote (as there were three other identical air conditioners in the house).  The same pattern repeated. And unless we switched it off at the wall, it would turn itself on at random times.  

Evidently we needed a new one - and it wasn't a difficult decision to return to George Theodorou, where the same product we had bought in May was ten euros cheaper.  

Unfortunately, there was no way to get the external unit out of the window and secured into the brackets - or, indeed, to remove the old one.  So the installers had to rent a fork-lift truck for an hour, which cost us an extra forty euros. But there was no alternative:  

Sheila took this photo; if she hadn't, we would have no record. I was trying to look after our nervous cat Lady Jane who dislikes workmen of any kind.

Eventually it was installed.  It's smaller than the older unit, so at some point we'll have to touch up the paintwork on the surrounding wall.  But that can wait until the Autumn. 

The remote control has many more options than the old one.  The temperature setting is obvious. We use it at 28 or 29 degrees Celcius, to remove the humidity and cool slightly; too much cooling isn't healthy and can also be very expensive.  When coming into the room from 30 degrees and humidity in the bathroom, 29 degrees and dryer feels wonderful, particularly when the ceiling fan is circulating the air too. 

We knew about 'swing' too.  That moves the air more effectively than having it just pointing in one direction.  And we were relieved to see a 'lamp' option which allowed us to turn off the large LED light at the front of the air conditioner, when it's on. 

But the other controls were a little confusing.  

The instructions were only in Greek, and we could not find this particular brand online in any other language. We haven't yet used Air Flow, Turbo, Short Cut, Clean, or Follow Me.  We decided to use the ioniser, which apparently should help to clean the air and reduce the dust, though we haven't noticed any particular effect.  We tried 'Sleep', one night, assuming it would turn itself off. It didn't. It seemed to get warmer - not turning itself off when it reached the set temperature, but (apparently) blowing warm air out. We definitely didn't want that!

On our older air conditioner, there was a 'timer' button which let us tell it what time we wanted it to turn off (or on, although we never used that option).  We assumed this one would be similar.  It is... but rather more complicated. And with an odd quirk that if I set it to go off (for instance) at 11.45 pm tonight, then tomorrow I will have to adjust it by at least one minute, making it turn off at 11.44 (or 11.46).  If I try to keep it at the same time, it refuses to take it.  

I don't know if our electricity bill will be a lot lower due to this more efficient air conditioner; but it should be considerably better for the environment.  We're wondering, now, about replacing some of the other older ones before next summer, and possibly using them more often than we do to keep the house less humid during the worst of the Cyprus summer. 

Cyprus: Summer, air conditioner servicing, and a nervous cat...

Summer arrived in Cyprus about ten days ago.

I wrote back in March about the long, wet winter which we've experienced over the past six months or so. During April, rain continued off and on, and it stayed relatively cool. We used our double-thickness duvet at night for longer than I can ever remember using it in previous years.

In the last ten days of April, it warmed up a little, and the sun came out most of the time, which was good as we had friends staying.  Around that time I switched to our medium thickness duvet, and put the thinner part away, temporarily.  I started wearing lighter jackets, or only one sweater rather than two.

On May 4th, I switched to the thin (4.5 tog) duvet. I kept the warmer one out for a week in case we needed it, but we didn't.  We started using our ceiling fans. We stopped wearing sweatshirts or sweaters of any kind during the daytime.  I started thinking about finding my shorts...

We went out for evening walks, three times one week. It was that short period of the year when it's cool enough for me, and yet not too chilly for Richard.

On May 13th, Summer arrived.  The daytime temperature reached 30 degrees Celsius.  Richard told me we needed to go out for ice creams in the afternoon, once it had cooled slightly. It seemed like a good idea to me, and he announced that it was a tradition. A new one, which we were starting this year.

He had the strawberry sorbet, and it was very good. I decided to splash out and asked for the raspberry yogurt ice cream. I was a little shocked to find it almost three times the price of the single scoop of strawberry sorbet, but it was over twice the size. And it was excellent.

Last Saturday I decided we didn't need a duvet at all. We had only used the thin one for two weeks, and it was already feeling too warm.  I remembered that in previous years it has sometimes become very hot mid-May, then cooled a little before the full onslaught of summer, so I folded up the thin duvet, still in its cover, in case we needed it.

On Monday we had our air conditioners serviced. The last time we had them properly serviced was three years ago; in the intervening years we have cleaned them ourselves, but they are supposed to be professionally serviced and cleaned every two to three years.

We have eleven air conditioners in all.  Three upstairs in the bedrooms (one of which is Richard's study); a large one in our living room, one in my study, one in our kitchen, one in the dining room area, and four in our guest flat on the ground floor.

We also have a very nervous cat. Lady Jane Grey was not living here three years ago, and our other cats were all accustomed to going in and out of the house.  Jane is an indoor cat only.  She also finds workmen of any kind to be terrifying.

The workmen arrived when they said they would, which is unusual in this country. They said they would start on the top floor, so I shut Lady Jane in my study with me. Alex, our more sociable and relaxed cat, went to see what was going on and followed the workmen around.  Jane looked a bit askance at the noise, but everything was fine until one of the workmen opened the study door and looked in.  He apologised and closed it again quickly, but I realised they needed to clean the air conditioners on the main floor.

This is what some of their cleaning equipment looks like:

And this is the trough thing they put below each air conditioner while they pump fluid in, to catch the dirt.  It's a surprisingly non-messy process, although some of the liquid that came out was very dirty.

I picked Jane up, planning to go with her to what was Tim's room upstairs, until my study was safe again. She was not happy, and my arm got quite badly scratched, but we reached the sanctuary and I put her down.

Unfortunately some of the workmen's' equipment was still in the room. And the door was opened, and Jane flew out. I use the word advisedly... she runs so fast it seems as if she is flying sometimes. She raced downstairs, behind the sofa, under chairs, behind the TV... there was no way to catch her.  I got distracted by something else then when I tried to find her, she had vanished.

To my horror, I saw that one of the workmen had opened the outside door in my study, to make a phone call.

Would Jane have rushed outside...?  We didn't think it likely, but when we searched the house she was nowhere to be found. We looked in every hiding place she has previously used, and called her...to no avail. We looked outside too, in our side yard, and under the van (where she has gone on previous occasions when she has escaped) - no sign.  I sat outside for a while while the work went on in my study, but she didn't reappear.

When the main floor was finished, and the men went down to clean the last few air conditioners in our guest flat, I went around closing all the windows that had been opened, and calling for Jane.  We thought she must have hidden somewhere but could not think where. Eventually  I went out on our upstairs balcony, wondering if she had hidden on the neighbour's roof, and called....

... and Jane came strolling out, greeting me in her chirpy way, stretching as if she had been having a relaxing sleep.

I was SO relieved.  But very puzzled as to where she might have slept.

This might have remained an unsolved mystery, but a couple of hours later, when the workmen had left, I heard Jane calling.  She sounded as if she wanted something.  It happened again, so I went to look for her. Once again, I could not find her, but could hear her voice.

I noticed that Alex had knocked the thin duvet in its cover down from the place where it had been, and that he was batting at it.  I looked a bit more closely.... and realised that the duvet was batting back.  Something was inside the cover....

Hoping it was not something unpleasant, I gently probed around, and sure enough, there was Jane.  She had somehow got lost in the folds, or perhaps confused when it fell down.  So we're pretty certain that's where she hid earlier in the day - probably just a little way in, where she could sleep in comfort.

As for the air conditioners: the men told us that yes, they were quite dirty, but not bad for three years, only what was expected. None of them was mouldy or disgusting, and one of them in the guest flat was so clean that it didn't need any servicing.

However, the one in the guest flat front bedroom, which was the worst of all last time, gave up completely.  It tripped the electricity several times when they tried to service it, and they eventually realised that the compressor was dead.  It was one of the older units in the house, thus much better to buy a new, more efficient one than pay as much (if not more) to replace the compressor.

We were only charged for the servicing of nine air conditioners rather than eleven, even though they had spent a considerable amount of time on the one we had to replace.

We went out later, checked a couple of shops, and ordered a new air conditioner from our favourite white goods shop.  It should be installed tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the temperature still hovers at around 26-30C in the daytime, so we haven't yet had to use any of the air conditioners.  We usually try to hold out until at least June. 

Family visiting Cyprus

It's almost four weeks since the family arrived in Cyprus after a few stressful weeks packing up the house and travelling, via relatives in the UK, to stay here. They were all exhausted when they got here, and it took a few days for the children to get into somewhat regular sleep patterns.

David, at three, no longer takes naps in the daytime, and Esther, at six months, just takes catnaps, and still usually wakes at least once in the night. She's teething, has just started solids, and has reached the stage of frustrating backwards crawling. She was very clingy with Becky when she arrived, too, and David quite stressed and anxious about all the changes.

I had already planned, before they arrived, to find as much time as possible to be with the children. I'm hardly doing any writing, or participating in forums, or doing anything with my websites while they're here. Emails are written in odd moments, and I've been uploading photos to Facebook every few days, but it's taken me over a week to find the time and energy to write this blog post.

With the increasing heat, we're all quite tired - other than David, who seems to have vast reserves of energy - and inevitably have to spend at least the hottest part of the days indoors. I'm delighted to discover that David has an almost endless capacity for books, so we're all reading aloud to him, everything from simple picture books through to early chapter books with line drawings, such as Mrs Pepperpot and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Still, we seem to have done a fair amount of other things - a few highlights below.

On one of the first days, Richard and I took David out to the local park where he enjoyed climbing and digging in the dirt as well as the standard slides and roundabouts.

He's been to some Little Muse presentations and drama sessions (the last one before the summer break is today, giving me an hour to myself) and enjoyed doing some painting there:

Great excitement ensued when he went sailing with his Daddy and Grandpa:

Richard has been very busy with work in the past few weeks, so there haven't been any more opportunities for sailing, but they hope to do that again soon.

We've been to the beach a couple of times, although it's so hot that we can't really go before about 4.30pm at the earliest:

David's third birthday was a very important occasion, and Becky created a wonderful 'digger' cake:

One of his birthday gifts was a paddling pool, which has provided a great deal of entertainment:

We found a second-hand bike at the thrift store, and a helmet, and he's ridden that in an area Richard cleared in our side yard, although, again, it's really too hot to ride much:

Another gift (bought with birthday money) was a sandpit, which he likes very much indeed:

The shop where the sandpit was bought didn't have any play sand in stock, so after some research we discovered the Larnaka Early Learning Centre shop, which not only had sand, but let us know that on Tuesday afternoons they have play sessions for toddlers and young children, with plenty of toys and other activities available. So David's been to a couple of those:

We haven't managed many board games; they're not possible in the daytime, for obvious reasons, and by the evenings we're often too tired to do anything. But we've had a few, sitting outside the guest flat, as it hasn't - yet - been too humid:

Daniel and Becky's closest friends came out to stay for a week, too, which was very enjoyable for them all, and they managed to play games most evenings.

David's enthusiasm and exuberance are quite tiring for those of us who are more introverted, but they also mean that almost anything can be fun for him. Even a trip to the supermarket became a great adventure when he was able to drive the trolley for us:

Esther, meanwhile, is quieter, and more placid. She's very taken with a set of plastic balls which we bought a few years ago, before David visited for the first time. She can sit by herself but topples over if she turns suddenly, so we made a mini ball pool for her, in a plastic box, and she was contented for quite some time:

David is interested in building, mechanics and pipework, so Daniel bought some plumbing bits, and we've made various constructions for David to experiment with. One of his favourite activities is pouring water down a funnel, and seeing where it comes out:

He can concentrate for a long time, adjusting the pieces and trying again when connections break, or when water comes out in unexpected places. I tried to explain that it would pour out of the lowest available gap in whatever system we built, and he seemed to understand. He exemplifies the concept of learning through play!

A local friend told us about a park that's much nicer than the two local ones; it took us a while to locate it, behind St George's Church, but finally we found an afternoon to take David there. Unfortunately it's not open all the time, and has almost no shade until the late afternoon... but still, it's a wonderful park and we hope to go there again:

The family are here for another two months, and the weather is going to be hotter and much more humid, so we're going to look at the two recommended indoor play places that aren't too far away, and make the effort to go to the beach a bit more often.

We didn't move to Cyprus until our sons were nine and eleven, so we never had to find places to entertain very young children in the summer. By the time we moved, they were old enough to play outside safely by themselves (we had a huge garden in our rental house) and were also happy to sit inside during the hottest part of the day, reading books, or at the computer, or otherwise occupied with Lego or music or some other activity.

I am loving being an active grandma of a three-year-old, although I'm getting a lot more tired than I did when I was 27 years younger and had a three-year-old of my own.  

Preparing for the Onslaught of Summer in Cyprus: cleaning curtains and air conditioners

Here's what I had been saying to various people:

- Every year since we moved to this house (almost exactly ten years ago) we have cleaned our air conditioners before using them for the summer.
- We had not, however, had them properly serviced, even though one is supposed to do so every three or four years, so they were well overdue.

Apparently, however, memory - as so often - is faulty. Searching in this blog for previous posts about air conditioners, I discovered:

- We didn't even find air conditioner fluid in the shops until the Autumn of 2008, and then only sporadically used it for the next couple of years
- We DID have our air conditioners - most of them, anyway - properly serviced in the summer of 2009

I wrote a lengthy post about the service, including the way we use air conditioning, and mentioning that a couple of them were very dirty and full of gunk, so we were glad that we did have them serviced. The one in what is now Richard's study was not working well, and was topped up with gas. The one in Tim's room had not been very effective, and had to be cleaned very thoroughly.

But although I remembered the study one being topped up (subsequently we replaced it with one from Richard's office when that closed) I didn't remember that we'd had any of the others serviced.

Still, that was seven years ago, so it was more than time for a repeat. And this time Richard knew of a firm that does this kind of thing regularly. He phoned on Friday, and they arranged to come yesterday morning at 8.00am.  We said that we would do the initial cleaning, so on Monday we went around the house, including our guest flat, taking out the filters, washing and spraying them, and running them to check if they were working. If anyone reading this would like to know HOW to clean air conditioners at home, then I wrote a post about that four years ago.

We have eleven air conditioning units in all, which might seem rather excessive for two people, but we both have studies, and our guest flat has two bedrooms, and is used extensively, plus an edit suite for Richard's work, so it's not unreasonable. Some are used far more than others, of course: the ones with computers in use are often on for several hours per day in July and August, and we run our bedroom one for an hour or so each evening during those months too.

Since this post is getting rather wordy, I thought I'd pause for a moment to show a picture of the air conditioner in my study:

...and the one in the living room:

...and the one in the dining room:

Yes, that's three entirely different designs. The one in the kitchen and in the two upstairs bedrooms are the same as the dining room one; the one in Richard's study, and two in the guest flat are yet another kind.  We have no idea if some are better than others, but several of them are considerably more than ten years old, so we wondered if we might need to replace some of them.

The men arrived promptly and set to work with a kind of power washer, catching the liquid (and dirt) in a trough which they strapped to each unit in turn. It looked a bit worrying (and we did ask them to cover the TV when they were near that) but was surprisingly non-messy.

We have no idea what chemicals were used, but the smell was quite overpowering at first. We opened all the doors and windows, and have done so today too, but it still lingers. It's not unpleasant, but gave me quite a headache yesterday afternoon.

We were surprised to learn that the air conditioner in Tim's room was very dirty and full of fungus, since it's not been used for the past couple of years, and not extensively before that. It was so bad that the service guy asked if we smoked in there! (No, we don't, and nobody in the house smokes). The one in the guest flat front bedroom was also very bad, but that's the room where we've had mould on the walls. We hope to have solved that problem by installing the damp proofing that I wrote about a few months ago.

Happily, none of the air conditioners needed to be replaced, and the only one that had to have some extra gas added was the one in our bedroom, so evidently the others are well-sealed and seem to be working well.

With that job out of the way, I decided to start my annual curtain-cleaning.  Probably more necessary than usual this year, due to our recent bathroom renovation. I don't know why I usually do this in June; perhaps it's an in-built need to spring-clean when it's clear that Summer will soon be upon us.

So today I laundered, hung out on the line, and then - about an hour later - re-hung back in place, all our main floor curtains:

Tomorrow I hope to do the upstairs ones. It's not a major job, though it felt that way when I first started doing it. It takes a couple of minutes to take each curtain down, slightly longer to re-hang them at the end, and the washing machine does most of the work. They don't need ironing at all, which is good because I don't iron in general.

On Monday I sprayed the soft furnishings with 'biokill', against summer insects, something I do once a month from the end of May until the end of September.

About two weeks ago I switched from jeans to shorts for the summer, and started drinking lunch-time frappés rather than hot coffees.  And yet my coconut oil still hasn't fully melted; the temperature in the house is around 24-26C during the day, and there's almost no humidity.  We haven't even put our duvet away for the summer yet, and I'm still - so far - going out for early walks.