Lunar eclipse as seen from Cyprus

For once, I knew in advance that there was going to be a lunar eclipse last night. More importantly, it was supposed to start in the evening when I would still be awake. I might still have forgotten about it, if I hadn't seen this fairly amazing huge and beautiful full moon in the evening sky, just as I was pulling the curtains around 8.00pm:


I checked a couple of websites, which said that the eclipse would be visible in Europe and Asia, primarily - either of which could apply to Cyprus. They said it would start at 18.30 UT, which I gather is the new politically correct GMT. So I added a couple of hours, entirely forgetting that we're now in Summer Time. Which explains why, at 8.30, the moon still looked full, albeit rather higher in the sky (and less easy to photograph without camera shake):


Realising that I was an hour out in my calculations, I didn't look at it again until 9.30, by which time the eclipse had undoubtedly started:


I thought about it again at 9.50, and took this picture, holding the camera as still as I could:


I suppose I should have found a tripod, but it hardly seemed worth it just to capture a few pictures for my personal use. Still, I was quite pleased with that one.

I realised the moon was disappearing quite fast, so I only left it ten minutes before taking the next picture:


Being much more of a lark than a night owl, I don't like staying up much beyond 10.00pm if I can avoid it, but for the sake of posterity, I did take one more picture just after 10.15:


So much for astronomy. The last eclipse I wrote about was over five years ago, when Tim and I watched a partial solar eclipse.

Two evenings out

After the busy, and often frustrating early part of the week, the last two evenings we were asked to two very different meals, at two very different homes of some of our local friends.

On Thursday evening, we were asked to Tim and Erika's penthouse apartment. It was rather a last-minute arrangement, since we had been planning to eat at the marina, only to learn in the afternoon that it doesn't so evening meals. So Tim said he'd bake some potatoes in his barbecue, while Erica made a filling, and I made a salad.

They have great views over Larnaka from their balcony area, where we sat out. And while the flats in this photo aren't all that interesting, we spotted the moon, while it was still quite light, just over the top of one of them:


The sun was still out, but Daniel and Becky stood in exactly the right place to shield me from the glare...


We enjoyed the food, and the company, and then I took another photo from a different angle, as the sun started to set. This shows some of the mountains of Cyprus on the horizon:


Here's the view from yet another angle:


Once it was completely dark, Chris - who has a much more expensive, fully adjustable camera - tried to set it to take a photograph of the lights of Larnaka. He had some trouble getting the effect he wanted. I simply switched my camera to 'night view' and got pretty much what he had been aiming for without knowing anything about exposures and so on:


On Friday evening, we went to the bi-weekly inter-church cell group meeting at Jörn and Sheila's home. We haven't done any studies for a while; we eat together and chat, and enjoy each other's company.

Once again there was plenty of good food and interesting conversation. Then, when some folk had left, and we were beginning to think about going, Chris was brave enough to let Lukas try out his expensive camera:


I was somehow persuaded to let Katie use mine, and she took this one of Chris, who looked a little worried, possibly wondering what Lukas was doing with his camera:


Lending Lukas a camera, even for a few minutes, is a good way to become his firm friend:


Then Daniel offered to have a look at their wall-fan, which was rattling rather badly:


He handed the parts to Becky as he dismantled it, and she looked rather long-suffering. 'Oh, Becky's used to it,' Daniel remarked, when I said she didn't look too happy about it. No doubt she is..

Firsts and lasts in September in Cyprus

It hasn't been too bad a Cyprus summer, weather-wise. Only a couple of brief heatwaves where the temperatures went above 35C in the shade. I don't think they ever reached 38 or more, at least not in Larnaka. Mostly it was around 32-33 in the daytime (hotter in the sun, of course, but I don't go in the sun during the heat of the day).

September is still fairly warm, but the evenings are breezier, the mornings pleasantly cool: about 22C at 6.30 or so. The days are getting a little shorter, and all the businesses and shops which closed down during August are now open again.

Schools start again this week, and the first session of Tots after the summer break was on Tuesday. In the new Community Church building, with considerably more space:

I'm not sure what has happened to the pillars, and the carpet evidently needs replacing at some point, but the space and air conditioning are very welcome. As are the comfortable seats.

On Wednesday, our friends Marie and Jacob came over to play Risk with Tim.

I think they enjoyed it, though I heard one or two heated exchanges along the way. I guess that happens when attempting world dominion. After about two and a half hours, Tim eventually won.

On Wednesday evening, there was the last of the Cyprus home educators' weekly beach gatherings. Someone had proposed a sand-sculpting contest, but - being home educators - nothing much happened until nearly the end of the evening, when several of them decided on a co-operative effort:

There were children from the ages of eight to thirteen involved in this, from three different families. Here they are again, about ten minutes later, getting the last details right:


Here's a most unflattering picture of me, un-fetchingly draped in a blue towel (after a short swim, earlier), with my youngest friend Helen, looking at the sand sculpture. She would have liked to go and investigate more closely, but the older children would not have been too happy...

Marie also made a 'sand cake' since it was only three days away from Helen's first birthday:

On Thursday evening, Richard, Tim and I watched the last two episodes of the final Quantum Leap DVD. The penultimate one, where Sam became Elvis just before he was discovered, was a good one. The final one was... kind of bizarre. It ended too quickly, and while one part was satisfyingly right, I wish it had ended more conclusively. Ah well.

Friday morning, Richard conducted his last sailing class with Marie, Jacob, Josh and Nicole. He's been teaching them to sail, in pairs, during July and August. Friday was the last session; they were able to borrow four boats, and have a race, with their families watching and taking photos.

On Friday evening, we went to the last non-church cell group beach meeting of the summer. Some of the same people as Wednesday, some different. Helen was there again, with her family, and she got a little sandy:

We were still there as it began to get dark, around 7.30pm. So Richard experimented with the camera, trying to catch the beauty of the moon on the sea:

He understands the non-automatic features of the camera far better than I do.

Even after dark, it was still pleasantly warm. Helen was wide awake, and busy digging:


While the rest of us hung around, chatting, not really wanting the evening to end.

On Saturday, Richard went sailing as usual. That's only the last time for a few weeks - we're going to the UK for three weeks soon - so he should get a few more sails in during October, and maybe November, before it gets too cold and windy.

Saturday was also Helen's first birthday. The end of her babyhood, as she's almost walking. Well, she IS walking (up to seventeen steps unaided, so far) but not all the time. When we arrived at their house - being her best friend, I was invited to her party along with Richard and Tim - she came to greet me, and gave me a big hug:

We enjoyed a lively meal. I had taken some home-made ice cream, which always seems to be popular. Lukas got in a bit of a mess:

And even Tim, though not used to babies, had a cuddle with Helen as she played with one of her new toys:

Helen's a very cuddly child. I'm not sure what Eliana - who is seven months younger - thought of this:


Thus ended the first week of September. Today we had four friends to lunch - people Tim wanted to see. Now he's out at a youth group get-together, with more goodbyes.

We'll be in the UK until the end of September.

A trip to the North

Since we seem to be over half-way through the packing, we didn't do much more on Sunday. Instead we sorted through a lot of old paperwork, retrieving the few important receipts and other items which we needed to keep, and putting all the rest for recycling. Richard packed some more of his tools, and I packed a box of empty box files and jiffy bags.

In the afternoon the three of us had agreed with some friends from our housegroup to drive to Famagusta, in the North of Cyprus, to attend a lively mostly African Anglican church whose (English) minister we know. The service starts at 5,30 approximately (African time is even more flexible than Cyprus time!) and the journey is about 45 minutes, so we left in a convoy of three cars at 4.30pm. Despite living here over eight years, I had never before been to Famagusta. It's only in the past few years that it has become relatively easy to visit the North, but as the closest checkpoints are three-quarters of an hour away, it's quite a drive, so not something we would tend to do often.

Unfortunately there was a lengthy stretch of road on which we were all stuck behind a rather slow driver, so by the time we reached the border it was 5.20pm. There was no queue, but since we don't go regularly to the North we had to buy car insurance for the day - a hefty £15! A whole year's insurance for travelling in North Cyprus is only £45; the two other cars with us go more often, and had taken out annual policies. Had we thought about it, we could have squashed into one of the other cars for the extra five minutes' drive on the North side. Oh well. It only took a couple of minutes.

I was interested to see two flags waving at various places around the checkpoint. One was white star and moon with a red background, the other red with white background, exactly the same but in reverse. Apparently one of them is the Turkish flag, the other the flag for North Cyprus.


At least the visas were free - just a routine stamp on a piece of paper for Brits. Although as we bought the insurance, a coach pulled up with 35 passengers, and the driver got in front of us to get all the necessary stamps. Moreoever there were four students who had come in the other cars with us, one from Cameroon and three from Nepal, and their visas took slightly longer. So by the time we finally left the checkpoint, it was about 5.35.

Still, we only had a few minutes' more driving to get to the church, and then a couple of minutes' walk. We got there just before quarter to six. The church was originally Greek Orthodox, and was comandeered when the invasion happened in the North in 1974. It's now owned by the Anglican church, and is a peaceful place. Not that it seemed peaceful when we went in, since there was a fairly loud African singing group accompanied by keyboard and drums, heavily amplified, singing some worship songs for which I simply couldn't work out either the rhythm or the words. Tim wished we had arrived earlier since he loves that kind of music, but as the volume was almost at my pain threshold, I was rather glad we didn't! There was about ten minutes remaining of this music - and then an informal fairly typical Anglican service, with the singing group leading quieter songs from 'Mission Praise'.


We spoke briefly to a couple of people we knew there on the way out, then went with the friends we had come with, to a restaurant, about five minutes' walk away. I was interested to see that Famagusta looks like any tourist resort, with a mixture of old buildings and modern shops and banks. The Northern part of Nicosia (where I have been previously) looks very run-down.






I had expected the restaurant to be inexpensive - where we had been previously in the North, food was extremely good value. We hoped we could buy a sandwich or something, as Tim had cooked us a full roast meal at lunch-time. But, alas, this restaurant had discovered tourism and the ability to charge high tourist prices. It looked lovely - very modern and with good service, and I was impressed that glasses of fresh water were given to everyone at no cost. But we decided to eat when we got home rather than pay over the odds for a large meal we didn't want. Some of our friends had ice cream or other drinks but we didn't stay long.

Returning was quicker - just a couple of minutes at the checkpoint to show our visas and passports, and no slow drivers to delay us. An interesting experience, but I don't think we'll be going often. Some of our friends in Larnaka go to this service a couple of times a month, but driving for nearly an hour to get to church seems rather extreme to us.

Solar eclipse

Cyprus wasn't in the path of totality, but the eclipse was total in Turkey, which isn't far away. Sure enough, around 1.45pm we realised that the light was distinctly different outside. Tim rigged up binoculars to project onto paper, to display the chunk temporarily taken out of the sun by the moon passing in front of it:


Then we tried to see if the camera would show the sun itself. A big advantage of digital cameras, of course, is that they can be pointed at the sun, with eyes shaded, and the little viewing screen on the back is safe to look at.


However we didn't get anything dramatic. The sky looks a bit darker than usual, but the sun still appears to be its usual shape, despite the evidence of only a crescent showing. Actually it didn't look nearly this dark in reality. Even a small percentage of the sun is sufficient to look almost like full daylight. Probably we needed some sort of filter, or maybe some advanced settings to see the sun with a chunk removed.


So that's today's excitement...