A few busy days

I keep an ongoing online 'to-do' list attached to my gmail account, which includes both the important (such as bill-paying) and the trivial (such as mopping the floor); I can schedule things ahead or list tasks to do each day. I'm not actually very organised, naturally, but keeping a list that pops up every time I open my email is quite constructive. I usually have several things hanging over from previous days - if I don't re-schedule them - and find it oddly satisfying to check things off and then clear them from the lists.

On Thursday night, I actually got to the end of the things I'd planned to do for Thursday and the previous days. I was rather pleased with myself.

On Friday, Richard and I had planned to go by car to the Froutaria - it's only five minutes' walk away, but I wanted a kilo or so of lemons (for lemonade), two or three kilos of apricots (to make jam), a couple of kilos of tomatoes (to chop and freeze), some potatoes and sweet potatoes, apples, oranges... and I know from experience that there are often some irresistible bargains in the 'pink bag' aisle where produce is reduced. No way could I carry all that - and more - home on foot in one trip. Particularly as I would also need to buy two or three kilos of sugar (there are some other groceries available in the froutaria - it's not just fruit and veg). I wanted to make the year's supply of apricot jam as well as a new batch of lemonade and since I had nothing else planned on Friday, thought I would do it then. Apricots are plentiful and have come right down in price, but I don't want to wait any longer since the weather is getting hotter and stickier.

Thursday night, I didn't sleep all that well and for some reason woke about 4.30am. I couldn't get back to sleep so at 5.30 I got up. I had some coffee, and read for a while, then thought about doing my usual early morning mop of steps (inside and out) when I had a strong urge to switch on the computer.

I thought I would probably get distracted but decided I'd read email and Facebook for twenty minutes, and then get on with the mopping.

I found a long email from my friend Sheila who lives around the corner and who was expecting her sixth baby any day. About half way through the email, I did a double-take. She said that she had resumed writing in the middle of the night because her waters had broken... and then the next few sentences were punctuated with contractions at decreasing intervals. Since I was on call, day or night, to look after her three daughters during the birth (which was planned to be at home - unusual but not illegal in Cyprus) I rushed upstairs to take my shower and get dressed, mentioning to a rather sleepy Richard that I might get a phone call any minute.

Sure enough, Sheila phoned. So I walked to their house, collected the girls around the same time as another friend collected the two boys, gave Sheila a hug, and brought the girls back here. They were equipped to stay overnight if necessary, but I didn't think that was very likely since the contractions were about every two minutes by that point....

It was around 7.15am by the time we got back here. I hadn't even had breakfast. For the next three hours I sat on the floor and played lego, printed pictures for Katie (nearly 5) to colour, answered continual questions from her, produced bananas and cereal at random intervals for Helen (21 months) ... and realised that I am actually rather older than I was when I had my own two sons at that age. Sigh. I did remember to put bread ingredients in the breadmaker but nothing else remotely domestic.

At 10am Sheila phoned... and said the baby had arrived nearly two hours earlier! The midwife only got there just in time to catch the baby girl, who did not yet have a name. So we went over to see them :-)


I took some photos for them, and they asked me to stick around for a while... after about half an hour the two little girls were getting increasingly hyper and excited so I suggested I might take them for a walk for an hour or so.


Twenty minutes on the local swings was easy for me, but then we walked to the nearby nature trail which was hard going pushing a buggy... and Helen fell asleep within about five minutes so she couldn't get out and walk. And Katie talked non-stop...

We got back, hot and very thirsty (having forgotten to take water) by about 12.15 and I left half an hour later, so I could get lunch ready. Thankfully Daniel and Becky saw how tired and hot I was, and did that for me.

In the afternoon, we drove to the Froutaria to do the shopping I'd planned for the morning. We bought so much that we had to use a trolley - for the first time since we moved here! - and I was very glad we took the car. When we got home, we chatted for a while to some friends whose daughter was practising on Daniel's drums.

Then we had to go out to choose a gift for a family who are leaving soon, and I wanted to get something for the new baby too (I couldn't get it in advance as we didn't know the gender). The first was relatively easy... but finding a baby gift is not so easy in Larnaka. Richard wanted to do something at the marina so dropped me in the town centre for an hour... and I went into dozens of shops, with no luck. Eventually we met up around 5pm and drove to a bigger shop and managed to find something we liked there.

Dan and Becky cooked us a potato curry in the evening, and even cleared up, which was wonderful. Then we played a board game, and then Richard and I called in to see Sheila and the baby, as she'd texted to see if we could go over... and it was 11pm before I was in bed. Which is late for me.

And for some reason I didn't get to sleep for ages despite being exhausted. And woke at 5.30 on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, although I was tired and a little brain-fogged, I didn't have a headache. Dan and Becky spent the day in Troodos helping to put tents up at the camp-site, and Richard was working on King Malu. So I had the day to myself. Since it's getting warmer, things seem to take longer; I had to pop to the local supermarket for cheese and milk and a few other bits and pieces, and I also made the planned lemonade/cordial/squash since by then we had completely run out. I also made some more almond milk... Richard's trying to go dairy-free.

In the afternoon I made 12 jars of apricot jam, and also sorted out some photos to upload. Then I blanched, skinned, chopped and froze a couple of kilos of tomatoes, and also chopped and froze about 800g mushrooms which had been on special offer at the Froutaria. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it took most of the afternoon.

I was asleep by about 10pm and slept until nearly 6am, which is a huge improvement... but I woke with a nasty headache. I decided not to go to church, knowing I had to spend yet more time in the kitchen. At lunch-time we were going to the farewell meal for some friends, and I'd been asked to take a couple of desserts. I'd thought about something baked, but realised I could throw together some store-cupboard cold desserts and not use the oven. We also have our friends (the ones with the new baby...) over tonight for a shared cold meal, so I needed to make bread and desserts for that too.

So I made some jellies and banoffi pies, and the breadmaker made a couple of loaves of bread. I cleared up the kitchen and mopped everywhere since it hadn't been done for a couple of days.

We were out for about two hours at the lunch-time get-together, and enjoyed good food and catching up with various friends - although of course we're sorry to say goodbye to yet another family who are leaving Cyprus. It happens all too often.

And now I'm sitting down for half an hour; I even switched on the air conditioner in the study, as it's quite sticky today. All I need to do now is empty all the bins (since the dustmen come Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our area) and set the table for eleven.

Perhaps I'll get time to work on my websites or do some writing tomorrow...

Tired is an understatement

We live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood of Larnaka.

But that means that when it isn't quiet, for whatever reason, it's hard to sleep.

It's been a busy and enjoyable week. Last night, Richard and Tim worked on the recording Tim had made in the morning, to mix the sound and sort out problems, so that Tim could make a CD for his friends. I spent a quiet evening catching up with email and Facebook and so on, and then went to bed about 10pm. I read for half an hour, and then fell asleep.

So far so good.

I woke shortly after Richard got in bed, some hours later. It must have been about half-past two; I tend to have four-hour sleep cycles, and he said it was shortly after two when he got to bed. Not that he'd been working all that time, but he was reading a good book, and wasn't tired.

I was dozing off when the dustmen arrived. I hadn't expected them at all, since today is Good Friday in the Eastern church, and a public holiday in Cyprus. They usually come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our district, but I'd quite resigned myself to having no rubbish collection until next Wednesday, since of course Sunday is Eastern Easter, so Monday will be another public holiday. So part of me was glad to know that they had come. Another part of me wished they hadn't come quite so early, and that they didn't make so much noise. Cyprus dustmen are very, very noisy. They do a great job, but they don't do it quietly.

Eventually I heard the dustcart drive away. I was about to sleep again, when I heard fireworks. Ah yes. I had forgotten about fireworks throughout the Easter weekend. I believe it's midnight on Easter morning when they are officially set off. Perhaps also midnight on Good Friday; I don't remember. But in recent years, they seem to be set off at random times over the whole holiday weekend. I'm sure I must have slept for at least a few minutes, but I counted at least fifteen separate fireworks - or firecrackers, perhaps - during those wakeful hours.

Finally there was a long pause. Perhaps, I thought, everyone had finally gone to bed. I was just drifting off to sleep when ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ sounded around my head. A mosquito. When the weather in Cyprus starts to get warmer, the mosquitoes appear. Not malarial, and we don't even feel the biting any more. But they are extremely irritating in the middle of the night.

I think I caught it eventually. I also must have fallen asleep despite at least two hours of wakefulness, because suddenly it was early morning daylight, and Sophia was walking over me miaowing at the top of her voice, informing me that it was time to get up. It was quarter past six. Considerably better than quarter past five, which is when she was waking me before we put the clocks forward a couple of weeks ago, but I really wished I could have slept longer than six fifteen.

However, once it's light I can't sleep. So I got up. I had a coffee after lunch in the hope that it will keep me awake until around 9.30pm tonight. I really don't like being this tired. I find myself forgetting words, and losing track of what I'm saying or why I've gone into a room.

I hope there aren't too many firecrackers or mosquitoes tonight. At least the dustmen shouldn't come...

Christmas envelopes for dustmen in Cyprus

When we first moved here, ten years ago, one of Richard's colleagues told us something very important. Every year, in December, the dustmen (garbage collectors) in Cyprus call at everyone's door, proffer a sort of business card with Christmas greetings, and expect to be given a Christmas bonus, or tip. Tipping isn't normal in Cyprus (one never tips taxis, and rarely in restaurants or hairdressers) but this is expected. She said we should put a pound or two in a small envelope, and hand it to them.

Some years, we were out when the card was pushed through the door. Once or twice one of the boys was in, and didn't know what to do since most of the dustmen speak no English. Other years, I scrabbled around for an envelope and the relevant cash, always feeling a bit awkward.

This year, attempting to be more organised, I sorted it out at the end of November. I put two pound notes in a small envelope, sealed it, and labelled it clearly 'For the Dustmen'. Then I put it on the table by the door where we keep general bits and pieces - Tim dumps books there, Richard puts things he wants to take to the office, and we keep a pot of small change for anyone to grab for small purchases.

Several times in the last few weeks I've glanced at the table, impressed by my own efficiency as I saw the little envelope. Whoever was in when the dustmen called, they could simply hand it over.

This morning, there was a buzz at the door. Outside was a man I had never seen before who started talking in Greek. I looked at him blankly. He stopped talking, and (I think) asked me if I was English. 'Anglika?' he asked. 'Anglika', I agreed, nodding. He looked around, helplessly. Perhaps one of his colleagues could speak English.

I saw the pile of cards he was carrying. I guessed it was the dustman. I asked, 'Dustman?' thinking he might know that word. Apparently he did. He smiled and nodded.

So I looked down at the table.

And there was no little envelope visible!

I lifted the pot of change, I shuffled through Richard's papers, I moved several of the books in Tim's pile, I peered under the table in case it had fallen off ... and still, no envelope.

So I rushed into my study, scrabbled around for an envelope, grabbed a couple of pound notes from my purse, sealed them in the envelope, and handed it to the man. He looked a bit suspicious, held it up to the light, saw that there was cash inside, smiled, and handed me one of the cards:


Which, roughly translated, which is all I can manage, means something like:

The Dustmen
of Larnaka town
wish you:
Happy Christmas and
Happy
New Year

When he had gone, I had another look. I found the envelope - of course - right at the bottom of Tim's pile of books.

Ah well.

I put it in the drawer with my cards and envelopes. Now I am organised a WHOLE YEAR IN ADVANCE for the dustmen, for Christmas 2008.

Dustmen in Cyprus

I do appreciate our dustmen ('trash collectors' for anyone in the USA wondering what on earth dustmen are). They collect rubbish three mornings per week. They will take any amount of rubbish, too - it doesn't even have to be in black bags. We pay £65 CY per year for the privilege, and have to give them a pound or two at Christmas, but it's well worth it. In a hot country, it wouldn't be a good idea to have rubbish lying around for more than a few days, after all.

Where we used to live, our collection days were Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Where we live now, only about 2 km away, our collection days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Since they come fairly early, I put the rubbish out the night before, and it's usually gone by the time I get up.

So far, so good.

I don't know how many dustmen's lorries there are around the town, but it probably isn't a huge number. So they have to start fairly early in order to get around all the necessary streets to collect all the rubbish.

I think they vary their routes. And since we've been back from Malaysia (12 days now) our street is targetted around 5am. The dustmen, wonderful though they are, are not particularly quiet. Nor is the dustcart. So on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I wake up and then can't get back to sleep again.

Hence I'm rather tired today. Again.

(PS If anyone is interested in bathrooms on the Doulos, Daniel has just posted a new article including a delightful photo of a salt-encrusted flush valve....)

Assumption Day in Cyprus

Many businesses keep going, as I mentioned, during the fortnight's holiday period in August these days. But today, August 15th, is a very important religious public holiday in Cyprus. So most of the shops are closed, our neighbours' building work has stopped, and the dustmen didn't come this morning to collect the rubbish. We even heard that some Cypriots won't play tennis today as it's such a holy day.

As an Anglican for most of my life, I thought the Feast of the Assumption was a Roman Catholic thing, but apparently the Greek Orthodox church celebrates it too, and takes it very seriously. It's related to the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Legend has it that when she died, her body as well as her soul went straight to heaven. Someone told a friend that it's the second most holy day of the year for them, although I don't know how accurate that is.

Richard is working as usual, and we're going to the beach tonight with some friends from one of the churches; no doubt we'll find plenty of tourist shops and restaurants open on the sea-front, even if it is a specially holy day.

(PS If you've found this post by searching, and want to know about other religious holidays, one of the pages on one of my websites is about public holidays in Cyprus)

Packing, day three

So, last night Richard packed three boxes with books from one bookcase in the dining room, and I packed a box of ornaments. We didn't have much newspaper for wrapping, so I used jiffy bags. Every time I order DVDs from Play.com, they arrive individually in jiffy bags and I never throw them away so I have dozens - more than sufficient for the relatively small number of ornaments we put on display.

Richard then attacked the TV/hi-fi shelving. We packed a box of DVDs and a box of CDs. Since the TV died a few weeks ago, and the video player about a year ago, he put them out by the dustbins. We also decided to get rid of the two non-working scanners, so they too were put out for the dustmen. Along with an old satellite receiver thing that never really worked. Alas, there is no useful recycling centre here where we could deposit the items knowing they would be taken to pieces, and any valuable parts re-used.

I wasn't actually sure if the dustmen would take any of them, but we thought it possible some passer-by would acquire some or all of our cast-offs. Nobody seems to break into houses here - burglary is very rare - but anything left out on the driveway, other than cars, is considered fair game for picking up. People sometimes lose bikes that way, and years ago when we discarded a broken microwave, it vanished before the dustmen came. A few nights ago we left out an old and broken fan, and that too had gone by the following day.

This morning all the equipment was still sitting there (rubbish is collected on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays so we knew the dustmen wouldn't have taken anything yet) but when we got back from our weekly supermarket shop, the TV, video player and satellite receiver had all vanished. The two scanners are still sitting there. Possibly we should put the power supplies out too, rather than putting them in a bin-liner, to encourage someone else to acquire them. Of all the equipment, the small scanner is the most likely to be able to work although it was increasingly unreliable.

I suppose this is the nearest we get to recycling in Cyprus.

So.....

... the road surfacing was finished. The trucks vanished. Peace descended.

Except... there was still some noise, a kind of banging. Not outside our house directly, though. People often seem to make that kind of noise in the afternoon so I thought little of it.

Then I noticed that our mains water was off. Odd. It happens occasionally, but usually in a mid-week morning, not a Friday afternoon.

Then I took a rubbish sack out, since Saturday's one of the days when the dustmen come. Just at the end of our street, I saw another digger... and, apparently, part of the road being dug up all over again!

When Tim got back from a youth band practice, he said it looked as if a water pipe had been broken in the resurfacing process. There were men frantically trying to bail water out of a hole...


(slight camera shake but I didn't want to make it too obvious I was taking the picture so I only took one)

Only in Cyprus...

Vanishing dustbins

For eight years, we've had two black plastic dustbins. They're old - one of them had quite a crack in the bottom - and fairly grubby, but they did their job. Every couple of days I emptied our inside bins into a black sack and put it outside in a dustbin. The dustmen come early in the mornings on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (excellent service!) and empty them.

They were definitely here a week ago when I took a load of quick photos around the house and outside to put on a CD for Daniel.


See... right by the front of the car, in this little piece of one of the pictures of our front garden. (Uh, full of weeds... but the geranium is doing well). In fact, they were there Wednesday night when I put a sack of rubbish out.

But this morning, when we were getting in the car to do our weekly supermarket visit, Richard noticed that they had vanished.

It was quite a windy night, so we thought perhaps they had blown out into the street. But no, we couldn't see them anywhere. So maybe the dustmen had put them in our neighbour's front yard? Nope - no sign. Could they have been stolen?? Um... Theft is pretty rare in Cyprus anyway, but who on EARTH would steal two rather ancient, extremely tatty, partly broken dustbins?

So maybe they were so bad that the dustmen decided to throw them away along with the rubbish. I don't suppose we'll ever know.

Since we hope to be moving soon, we'll just put out the black sacks for now, rather than going to the trouble of buying a new dustbin. I don't even know where they can be bought from.

But it's very odd.

Recipes and lack of recycling

Today I finished a two-day project to update my recipe folder. LONG overdue, but I finally got around to it. I've been keeping recipes in Word documents for two or three years now, printing them to store in a folder with clear plastic sleeves for easy access in the kitchen. I was going to update it regularly, but of course that hasn't happened... instead the folder got filled with random bits of paper: hastily written recipes by other people, printouts from the Internet, cut out recipes from magazines or papers... and of course I made notes and minor changes to the recipes within the folder. What a mess. I did update and re-print a few pages, but not the whole thing.

But finally, I did a complete revision. I even figured out how to create an index (easy since I typed the recipes using 'styles' for different parts). This afternoon I finished and printed the entire 65 pages, so now my folder looks nice and tidy. At least for a week or two until I decide to put in something else...

The only problem is what to do with the previously printed pages. If we were in the UK, I could leave it out for the recyclers, or - at worst - take it to a paper recycling bin in a supermarket car park. But there's nothing like that here. The papers report of recycling initiatives, and the need to get rid of the horrible dumps to be in line with Europe, but I haven't seen it happening. There's a bottle bank of sorts by our supermarket, and a few places collect aluminium cans, but that's all. AT least, as far as I know.

It horrified me when we first came here, but gradually I became blasé and started throwing away paper, like everyone else seems to around here. Now after a month in the UK it seems almost immoral to do so. Everyone recycles there. Some town councils collect containers weekly or fortnightly. Some people don't even have to sort their recycling, they just have to leave it out. Real rubbish - the stuff that goes to landfills - is minimal. Here by contrast it's a HUGE amount. The dustmen come three times per week and will take whatever is put out for them. It's a good service... they do a great job. But it still goes against the grain to throw away so much.

So for now the previous pages of the recipe folder are stacked next to me for use as scrap paper. At least they'll get re-used once. I suppose I could shred them and add them to the compost eventually, but there's so MUCH paper here with all the advertising junk mail we get that it would be too much for my little heap.

A Long and Detailed Post about a 'Typical' Day.... part 3

(Here's a picture showing some of my walk up and down the back garden, with the first load of laundry hung outside....)

9.30 - put my shoes on and went to empty last night's veggie bits and this morning's orange peel onto the compost heap. Watered all the flowers in the front and back garden, adding Phostrogen to the water. The back took three cans, the front about the same. At least I do a fair amount of walking even if I don't go out anywhere, since our back garden is at least 40 metres long and the flowers are at the far end, while the water supply is attached to the house!

Tim left to help at the office while I was watering the front, and when I'd finished I realised it was 10.00... just doing the watering, and a little dead-heading of petunias where necessary, must have taken over 20 minutes!!

10.00 Hung this morning's used towels out on the line to dry. Washed up from breakfast. Did a quick clean around the bathroom, then as the washing machine had done its final spin I went to hang all the laundry outside. I try to match socks on the line but inevitably there were three without partners....

Having emptied the washing machine I put in the dirty towels and tea-towels from the last few days, so I can do a 60 degree wash. I took the pillowcases off all our beds, and the bottom sheet from Tim's to add to the load and put it on.

Then I emptied all the bins into large black bin-liners and put them out. The dustmen come on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (quite early) so I try to ensure there's always something out for them. Rubbish can get smelly quite quickly if it's not taken out almost daily, and if the bins weren't emptied so often they would attract vermin. As it is they attract the feral cats who always root around in rubbish bags, but I don't begrudge it to them if they find something tasty.

The kitchen floor was looking a bit grubby, as was the corridor outside (which leads to the bathroom and back door) so I shook out the doormat, swept the area, and then mopped kitchen, bathroom and corridor. Found it was 10.45...