The approach of Summer in Cyprus

I don't know why it surprises us, every year, that April is still mostly spring-like as far as the weather goes. The sun was warm during the middle part of the day, but the evenings and nights were still fairly cool. As May began, the weather became warmer; a pleasant 23-25C [that's around 73-77F] in the shade during the daytime, but still 13-15C overnight. I didn't switch to our medium-weight duvet until the start of April, and then moved to the thin one early in May.

It's still cool enough to need a thin duvet at night, which is just as well since our kitten Joan has a tendency to attack feet - or anything she sees as an intruder under the duvet - when she wakes up in the morning, usually around 5.00am. With a thick duvet, this wasn't a problem. With a thin one, it's uncomfortable. I don't want to think about what will happen when there's only a sheet covering my feet.

Alex and Joan celebrated their first birthday on April 4th. At that stage they were still mostly indoor cats, going out on the balconies but no further. Well, not unless they escaped when we opened the front door.

A week later, Alex discovered how to get down from our utility balcony (which has a cat flap into the kitchen). The first couple of times, we brought him back in the house; then he learned how to reverse the process, which requires quite a jump up, and there was no stopping him. Once or twice I wondered if he had gone for good, particularly when I got up in the morning and he was nowhere to be seen.

But apparently he was venturing further and further afield as he explored our neighbourhood. Since then I've spotted him on roofs of houses on a street parallel to ours, and in some waste ground about a hundred metres away, on yet another street.

After a couple of hours or more he usually comes into the house, has a quick snack and a long drink of water, and then flops on the beanbag:

A couple of weeks later, as the weather warmed still further, I realised I couldn't keep the windows and doors closed all summer. I switched from trainers to sandals, stopped wearing a sweatshirt, and started washing our jackets and fleeces. We opened the windows in the daytime and started to let Joan out too. She didn't go as far as Alex at first, but now she, too, goes off exploring and often stays out for an hour or more.

Last weekend we were invited to a friend's 50th birthday party, which was a barbecue at a national park up a hill not far away. It was a warm day, but there are shady places to sit and an amazing view over Larnaka:

I started using the ceiling fans in the warmest part of the day. Shade temperatures were approaching 28 or even 29C. Then, just as I was thinking it was time to put my jeans away for the summer, and dig out my shorts, it got cooler again. So much so that, whereas Alex and Joan had been spreading themselves out on the tile floors to cool down, I found them a couple of days ago sharing a seat, almost as curled up together as they were when they were little:

May seems to be racing by; I will clean the air conditioners soon, although, as ever, hope not to turn any of them on until at least the start of June.

Early stages of Summer in Cyprus...

So.. a few weeks ago, I switched to our thin duvet at night.

Then, we started using the ceiling fans a little in the evening.

Then I started making sure I did any household chores/cleaning and shopping first thing in the morning - before about 8.00am if possible, while it was still pleasantly cool.

Then I started keeping my study door open and the ceiling fan on, most of the day.

On Friday I cleaned the air conditioners.

On Saturday, I made our first smoothies of the year:

Watermelon, peach and pineapple. A slightly odd combination, but it worked and they were very refreshing.

On Sunday, I found our frappé maker, gave it a quick wipe, and put it out in the kitchen to use over the next few months:

I had my first frappé too:

I felt hot on Sunday. I was out late morning for the first time in a while, at a group baptism including our young friend Marie... only half an hour or so in the sun, but I felt quite migrainey later.

Still, the sky was blue and I think the sea is beginning to warm up.

In the evening we went to the end of Jacob's 13th birthday party, and stayed on for a game.

Today is a public holiday, for Greek Orthodox Pentecost Monday, also known as Kataklysmos. Richard is out sailing, and I'm having a peaceful day on my own at home. 

Oh, and I finally put on some shorts today. For the first time this year.

Helen's third birthday

My small friend Helen 'adopted' me as a special friend when she was about six or seven months old, and has remained constant. A few weeks ago, we were at her home playing on the floor, when she suddenly said, 'Aimee is my friend, and I want her to come to my birthday party, but you are my BEST friend!'

Helen's birthday comes after four other birthdays amongst her siblings - three in June, and one in July. So she knew what birthdays were about, and was looking forward very much to her third birthday. Aimee was in fact the only child of Helen's age who was invited, but with Helen's family, and Aimee's, and us, and someone staying in the guest flat there were 17 of us in all. Quite a gathering.

Present-opening started about half an hour or so after we had arrived. Helen was very patient, taking one gift at a time, and carefully tearing them open:

She seemed to be happy with everything she received, which included a fishing game, some marker pens, some playdough and cutters, some books, some soft toys, a small bear backpack, a doll, and an ingenious table/'microphone' constructed by her brother Lukas.

By the time Helen had opened all her gifts, and played somewhat with most of them, it was time to eat. A leisurely and enjoyable meal, followed by the traditional family singing accompanied by Marie on violin:

Here's a view of the cake the right way up, which was - at Helen's request - a 'hippo-hopamus' on a roof, eating special cake, made by her clever mother. (Inspired by the classic children's book, now sadly out of print, 'There's a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake'by Hazel Edwards.)

Then Helen was presented with another cake, bought from the local Zorpas bakery, by their guest flat visitor:

She immediately ate one of the roses, and gave a second to her sister Katie. Then she requested a piece of the hippo-hopamus cake, AND some chocolate cake, AND two kinds of ice cream, and then added the final two sugar roses to her plate as well:

I was not surprised that she managed to eat all her dessert, despite having eaten a fairly hearty main course. Helen has a very good appetite. I was, however, surprised at how little chocolate ended up spread around Helen herself. Her mouth and fingers were a little messy, but she didn't seem to spill anything at all on her clothes:

Helen had taken a nap earlier in the day, so she was still wide awake after all her siblings had gone to bed. A nice way to end her special day, cuddling up to her parents:

Then she borrowed my camera, and took this photo herself, of her new blue cat. It was crocheted by Marie - made without using a pattern:

Another birthday party

About ten days ago, on a Sunday afternoon, we were invited to a birthday party. The birthday girl was our small friend Katie, who turned six.

As she told her grandma on the phone, she only invited two families. But since we had a guest with us, and the other family has several children, there were quite a few people at her party. Eight adults, and fourteen children between the ages of four months and fourteen years.

It was a hot afternoon, so nobody wanted to be outside. And while there wasn't an official theme, Katie is rather keen on anything to do with princesses. So the children - those under the age of about eleven, anyway - started by colouring in tiaras to wear:


Helen, who will soon be three, proudly showed me hers when she had finished:


Katie - like most children - enjoys opening presents:


Since her favourite colour is pink, she was particularly happy with this 'dressing up' outfit:


She changed into it before playing a traditional German game called 'hit the pot'. It can be terribly noisy, so rather than a saucepan they used a plastic pot, and only one person was allowed to guide her.


Then they played some surprisingly quiet games, sitting in a circle. After which, we had some finger foods to eat, and then it was time for the cake, brilliantly decorated (as ever) by Sheila:


There were six candles which Katie blew out although she had to move from her seat to do so, otherwise the air conditioner would have extinguished them instead:

The candles were removed before she had a chance to see the cake properly:


It soon disappeared.. and then the other family had to leave. As peace gradually descended, Sheila and Katie sat down to read some of the classic AA Milne book, 'Now we are Six':

Twelfth Night already...

I don't know quite how it's happened, but tomorrow is Epiphany, the twelfth day after Christmas. And that means that, slightly confusingly, tonight is Twelfth Night. As explained here, Twelfth Night precedes the twelfth day.

According to one ancient tradition, Christmas decorations could be left up until Candlemas, early in February. But according to other traditions, they must be taken down before Twelfth Night... or stay up all year. I'm not one to feel bound by traditions; taking decorations down on January 5th always seemed like a good idea, since otherwise there's a risk that we stop even noticing them, and then they might still be there by Easter...

So, I was going to take everything down today. 'Everything' being our smallish plastic tree, a few pieces of tinsel, a small stylised Nativity scene, and several mini-wreath candle holders. And our Christmas cards. And there's the rub. This morning I walked down to our PO Box, and awaiting me were six more Christmas cards. From people who had taken the time to write them, and spent the money on stamps... and it seemed wrong not to have them on display for at least one day. I thought I might re-define Twelfth Night as tomorrow night just for once.

But, I have to admit, it makes me feel uneasy to do so. Evidently I am steeped in tradition far more than I wish to be. Something feels wrong about having a Christmas tree still up when Epiphany arrives even though in some cultures - though not, surprisingly, Cyprus - Christmas is celebrated on 6th January.

So I think I will take everything down and pack it away. Perhaps I'll keep the cards in a stack and look at them from time to time before I finally recycle them. It's the thought that counts, after all; friends and relatives thought of us when they wrote the cards ,and I thought of them when we opened and read the cards. The newsletters, from those that write them, will remain in a folder to browse at leisure.

As for where the past week has gone.. I really don't know. Somehow it feels like considerably more than a week ago that Tim, Stephen and Dulcie departed for the UK. While they were here, I took over a hundred photographs. Since they left, I've taken about five, of which three are below - just for the record.

On New Year's Eve, around 5.30pm, we had arranged a Skype call with several of my relatives - including Daniel and Tim - who were having a late Christmas get-together:


Then, when we said goodbye, we drove to our friends' home for a New Year's Eve get-together. Lots of good food:


...and some board games, which I quite forgot to photograph. I was extremely
tired by 11.00 but managed to keep going until midnight, when we said 'Happy new year' to each other, and came home.

On Saturday I was still rather tired, and did almost nothing. Sunday evening our friends came over for bread and cheese and leftovers (most of which they brought with them). After they had gone, we played a game of Settlers by Skype with both Daniel and Tim, who were spending a few days together:


So that was the weekend.

On Monday, it rained hard almost all day, flooding several homes in Larnaka, stranding some cars, and leaking through the roof over our stairs. Not as badly as it did before Richard and his friend made some repairs, but there's still one place which nobody has yet been able to fix. We filled two buckets of water from the drips...

And suddenly it's the end of Wednesday.

A birthday party in Cyprus

Probably not a typical Cypriot birthday party. But yesterday, our friend Jacob was 11. He had an outdoor afternoon party for some of his friends around his own age on Wednesday afternoon. Since it mainly involved water balloons, and a great deal of noise and running around, we gracefully (I hope) declined the invitation to attend.

However, we were delighted to be asked to dinner and a game on the evening of his actual birthday. Had the weather been less windy, Richard might have taken Jacob out sailing for an hour, as he did last year, but unfortunately it wasn't possible.

However, when we arrived it was cooler outside than in, so we sat outside for a while and chatted. Daniel and Becky have only met the family two or three times since arriving, but the younger children are not shy... (that's an example of the Great British Understatement):


We had an excellent meal provided by Jacob's father, followed by birthday cake:


(There was another, larger cake too, which I shall write about at some point in the future)

Being a typical home educators' gathering, the dictionary came out during the meal, as various people discussed the difference between a tidal wave and a tsunami. I have no idea what the context was since there were several conversations running concurrently.

We were expecting to play a game of Settlers after the meal. But then Jacob's mother mentioned a maths problem that her oldest daughter had been having trouble with. It involved a cyclist travelling for 7 3/4 hours, at two different speeds, and needing to determine the distance. I was aware that I should easily be able to solve it, but I'm not an evening person and can't easily concentrate on maths when there are several other people around. So I didn't even attempt to solve it; I resolved to think about it the following day.

However, for some reason the problem caught the minds of all present. Becky borrowed a notebook from Daniel, and started seeing if she could figure it out:


Then Jacob, who's pretty good at maths, wondered if he could solve the problem:


Richard, who doesn't even like maths, also got intrigued... so he pulled out his phone, which does just about everything other than make coffee, jotted down notes, came up with formulae, and started to work on it too... watched by Katie and Lukas:


Sheila looked at Jacob's notes, and explained that he wasn't on quite the right track:


Daniel and Jacob got into a discussion about averages, which weren't really relevant to the problem:


Even Katie started doing some writing....


However, nobody got to the solution. And time was getting on. Jacob really wanted to play a game of Settlers - he and Marie were staying up late specially. So, reluctantly, everyone put away their notebooks and calculators, and we set up the game.

Then, when others were discussing who would play on which team, Helen - who will probably be the youngest Catan player ever - thought she might help me placing my initial settlements:

(And if anyone is remotely interested in the details of the game, you can find it here on my Settlers of Catan blog. Suffice it to say that Jacob won, which was a very good end to his birthday).

Ups and downs of life, feeling a long way away in Cyprus

I'm glad Christmas Day went so well. Boxing Day was good, too. We had some other friends over for lunch, who left mid-afternoon, and in the evening we watched a DVD together.

I knew I'd feel anxious on Sunday, because that's the day when Daniel and Becky were leaving Singapore - flying at 9.40am, so leaving the Doulos around 6am. Would they get up in time? Would they get everything packed? Would they be over their (generous) luggage allowance? Would Dan's guitar be all right if it was checked? What would happen if the first flight was delayed?

There are so many things a mother can worry about, even when her children are grown up and long-gone from the nest.

Tim was playing at St Helena's Church, so I went with him. It was a pleasant service, and good to get out of the house. Shortly after lunch Daniel sent a text saying they were in Dubai, soon to board for their second flight. No mention of any problems with luggage, so I assumed everything had gone well so far.

In the evening we were asked out to drinks and nibbles at Richard's colleague's house, to celebrate a special birthday. I knew Daniel's plane was due to land about 7pm (UK time) so by 9.30 was starting to wonder what was happening... and then a text message arrived, saying they'd landed safely and were awaiting their luggage. Later on he sent one saying he'd met up with Grandpa - who was meeting him, and taking him to his home for a few days - so I relaxed, and slept well that night.

Unfortunately neither Daniel nor his Grandpa slept well that night. My father had chest pains and was admitted to hospital. Not good timing since the rest of the family were due to spend Monday with him. He had some kind of heart attack and is still there, waiting for further tests, although apparently he seems to be fairly well in himself. It was a great shock as he has seemed so fit and healthy.

Meanwhile our time with Tim here has been racing past - several games of Settlers in several variations, a couple of DVDs, good food, and time to relax. He returns to the UK in the early hours of Thursday morning, and is looking forward to seeing Daniel later in the day, and meeting Becky. However we will miss him, as always. Living in Cyprus has many advantages, and I'm mostly very contented, but I don't like being so far away from the family.

This week in between Christmas and New Year always feels like a strange time of year, winding down from the celebrations, eating up leftovers, not quite getting back into routine. Richard has been in the office a few times, but has also spent time at King Malu, which is now booked to be moved into the water in a couple of weeks.

Tim's 21st birthday

The main reason we are in the UK at present, rather than any other time, is so that we could be with Tim for his 21st birthday. Nearly two years ago, we had to fly all the way to Malaysia to be with Daniel for his 21st (which coincided with Richard's 50th).

Tim's first comment was one of surprise at how many gifts and cards were awaiting him. Having lived in Cyprus, he's used to the vagaries of the postal service, and the tendency of some people to send parcels containing presents for us all - sometimes including Christmas ones, which would arrive any time from September until early December. But this year, having seen so many relatives recently, there was a large pile on the table:

He opened cards first. Here are the ones that had arrived (though more came later):

The first gift he opened was from our friends John and Heather, who are Tim's godparents. He was surprised and delighted to be given a traditional style pocket watch! He said it was something he'd always wanted, but never thought he would own. He then wondered how to wind it, and how to set it... and we realised that he has never before owned a wind-up watch!


He played around with the settings on my camera to get a nice picture of the watch:

We then had to remind him to open his other parcels! These were all things bought from his 'wishlist' - but since he set it up a long time ago, and adds things to it as they occur to him, he'd quite forgotten that most of them were there.

Here are three CDs he was given, reflecting his somewhat eclectic tastes in music:

Here are the books he was given by various relatives: four fantasy fiction, and three useful books for his studies. Three generous cheques are sitting there too:

Three DVDs from his wishlist. Mr Holland's Opus is one of my favourites too. We have it in Cyprus. We haven't yet seen Mama Mia, though Tim tells us we should. But he doesn't think we'd like 8 simple rules, which is apparently an American TV series:

Our one disappointment was that the present we had ordered for him had not yet arrived. He hadn't actually decided what he'd like until last Thursday, which didn't help; up until then he had been asking for a bike. Then he decided it wasn't such a good idea after all. I suggested several possibilities - since it was his 21st birthday, we wanted to mark it with something special. Eventually he agreed that he did really want a digital SLR camera, and we were able to find an older model which was much less expensive than a brand-new one, but exactly what he wanted.

We were very pleased when a courier arrived with it mid-morning, although it meant there was no chance to wrap it up. That didn't worry Tim unduly:

He soon sorted out the various parts that came with it, and fitted the (new) lens he had bought inexpensively from Ebay to go with it:

For many years Tim has been chief cake-maker in our family. I think he's made all our cakes, including his own, since he was about 13. But he's made a lot of cakes recently for family visits, and didn't feel like making one this year. So it was up to me. Thankfully it turned out all right:

I had bought a pack of 24 candles, but six of them were pink and Tim really does not appreciate pink. So I just put on seven: one for each three years of his life.

In the evening he'd asked if we could take out a few of his closest friends to an Indian restaurant. Two of them were unable to make it, so there were just eight of us:

We had a very good evening, with excellent - and very filling - food.

As a final picture, this is Tim with his best friend, who has recently become his girlfriend, Jo:

So, I am now officially the mother of two adults.

A birthday party

Last Friday, I was invited to a birthday party. Of course, it isn't the first birthday party I've been to in Cyprus. But I think it's the first time I've been invited to a party for someone turning four:


Katie is the young lady concerned, sister of my youngest 'best friend' Helen:


It was basically a pretty quiet party. Katie and Helen's two older brothers were there, doing a little organising, and there were four other little girls (although two arrived quite late). There were also various adults, including the mother of one of the guests, and the grandmother of another.

It was too hot to be outside, or to do anything very energetic, but some of the children played a clothespin game:


(you might think those are clothes pegs, but the family are American/German, so in their household they use clothespins. Or possibly clothes pins. I'm not sure if it's one word or two)

After a couple of hours, we had a cooked meal, and this amazing cake which Sheila decorated, with - at Katie's request - a pink monkey in a banana tree.


Despite being relatively quiet and peaceful, I had quite a headache by the time I left. Perhaps it was the heat. A peaceful afternoon at home, in the air conditioned study, left me feeling fine again which was just as well as we - with the guests mentioned in the previous post - went to the beach to meet Katie and her family again for an extension of the birthday party. Actually it should have been a cell group gathering, but none of the others could make it.

The beach is very pleasant in the evenings, even after a hot day, and while the sea temperature is like a lukewarm bath, it's surprisingly refreshing going for a swim and then eating a picnic on the sand.