Random images around Larnaka

 I'm trying to post on this blog more often, and on one topic - or no more than two or three - at a time. But sometimes there are random things where there's not a lot to say... so here is a small selection of my most recent collection of local photos that don't fit other subjects, taken over the last month or so.

We were given a small papaya plant several years ago, and this is the first year that it has produced flowers:

We have no idea whether it will eventually produce a fruit; that depends on the flowers being fertilised, and whether it's a male or female plant.  The flowers aren't spectacular, but there are a lot of buds.

In contrast to these tiny flowers which we almost missed, we were delighted that our bird of paradise plant bloomed for the third year in a row:

Meanwhile, lemons continue to be seen on every street, and are inexpensive in the shops. So I bought a few extra, grated some zest to freeze, and also made several ice cube trays of lemon juice:

These will be very useful in the summer, when the lemons in the shops will be small, with minimal juice, and much higher priced. 

A less successful experiment in the kitchen involved an attempt to make pitta bread. Unlike the naan, which I've now done twice (and which work beautifully) the pittas were very messy to make, and I could not get them to the right shape. These are probably the best:

These are the worst:

And while they taste reasonably acceptable, they don't really open into pockets... and, to me, that's the most important part of pitta bread. 

So that's one thing I won't be making in future, despite my focus on avoiding ultra-processed ingredients. One of the things considered least bad is bread, and while I make most of my own bread, I shall, in future, continue to buy locally made pittas. 

I walked into the city centre a few days ago to collect a photobook that had arrived at the Post Office, and on the way back took a couple of photos of the ongoing construction in one of the main roads into town:

There are paths for pedestrians, but it's noisy and dusty... and seems to have been going on for a very long time. 

Here's Lady Jane looking over her dominion. She's on quite a narrow ledge three storeys up.. but, thankfully, her balance is extremely good. 

Here's one of Richard's photos which I have stolen. He calls it 'Schrödinger's pharmacy':

We didn't check whether or not it is, in fact, open or closed.

I've written elsewhere on this blog about restaurants we have been to, but we tend to stick to the ones we know we're going to like. However a friend took us out to eat at a very nice Chinese restaurant:

I was a little concerned about it, since I react badly to both MSG and soy sauce, but our friend assured us that they were able to deal with all tastes. Sure enough, they don't use MSG in the cooking, although they do generally add a little to enhance the flavours. But when we requested no MSG, it was no problem.

The manager did rather pale when I asked for no soy sauce, however. This is a staple in many Chinese dishes. But he said he would make rice and vegetables without it, and that I could have a lemon chicken which was soy sauce free. The rest of the party had a shared selection of dishes which looked very good, but I stuck to my lemon chicken with the rice and vegetables - and it was excellent. 

And finally... for now, anyway.  I wrote in January about the pot-bellied pig which has made itself at home along the Salt Lake trail. We've seen a little shelter built just outside the park, with bowls of water, and there's also what was evidently a feeding place inside the park. 

Then a couple of days ago, above the feeding place in the park, we saw this notice:

Local people continue to bring random food, which the pig eats when hungry. We thought 'Rooney' was an odd name for a pig, until I had a lightbulb moment - as you do - early one morning, when I recalled, from the depths of my subconscious (and from Duolingo), the Greek word for pig: γουρούνι. Which is said something like 'you-roony'.  

Basically it's like calling an English pig 'Piggy'. 

A visit to Ikea

 As may be clear from other entries in this blog, I am not, in general, a fan of shopping. With the notable exception of bookshops, of course, and some thrift/charity shops. Grocery shopping is a necessity, but my preference is always to walk to a small local mini-market or froutaria than to have to spend time in a supermarket. 

I have rather mixed feelings about large stores like Ikea. I very much like some of their furniture, and many of their prices are excellent. They used to issue annual catalogues which I would sometimes flick through, although they were organised by room rather than by style of furniture, so I found them a bit confusing. 

We were quite excited when the first Ikea was opened, in Nicosia. When we first visited, early in 2008, we were able to find some bookcases we liked, and various other items. Since then we've made a few visits - usually when going somewhere else in Nicosia anyway.  One of our favourite things to buy at Ikea is their classic 'billy' bookcases;  I wrote a lengthy post about buying billies at the start of 2024. 

Visiting CyHerbia

 For the third of our full-morning outings, we had decided to visit Cyherbia. Our extra guest this time was 19-year-old K, who had never been there before. We visited for the first time two years ago, when the family was staying, and had thought it pleasant but not too memorable. However when we asked our ten-year-old grandson what he particularly wanted to do this year, his first response was 'the maze!' 

We've had quite a bit of discussion about whether the Cyherbia hedged construction is technically a maze or a labyrinth. It's called both in different places. According to Google, a labyrinth is a complex but essentially straightforward path with no digressions or ways to go wrong, whereas a maze has false paths that lead nowhere. Under that definition, Cyherbia has a maze. 

An adult is supposed to accompany each child, but it was impossible to take that too seriously. Our grandson rushed into the maze cheerfully, and we could hear him most of the time, although we couldn't always see him. The rest of us wandered in in ones and twos. 

I know the infallible (if not very efficient) way of getting through a maze, by keeping a hedge always to my right, so using this method I fairly quickly found myself at the lookout point where, at the top of some steps, I took that second photo. Our grandson was still happily getting himself lost but we could see his hat and he waved a hand when he asked. 

Eventually we persuaded the children that it was time to move on to the next attraction. When we arrived and bought the tickets, we were given two sheets of questions for the children, similar to the kinds of things children on school field trips have to fill in. Our granddaughter was quite interested at first, and wanted to do this with her mother. But our grandson decided he didn't want to do it, so our friend K took over his sheet. In the maze, they had to find different models of birds which were hidden in some of the dead ends. 

Our next stop was the fairy garden, which is beautifully made and maintained. 

There were questions about that on the sheets too, requiring some observation and counting. I never found that kind of thing very interesting when I was at school, but it does mean people slow down a bit and have a proper look at what's on display. And they weren't excessive questions at Cyherbia. 

There's so much detail in the fairy garden, it was well worth spending some time looking. 

As we moved on, I was surprised to see a realistic looking deer by the path:

By this stage we were 'walking around Cyprus', with plenty of little information notices to read, describing different locations. And filling in questions on the sheets... 

There was a lot more: a bower where we could sit for photos, a little house explaining the flora and fauna of the island, and so much more. Towards the end we went around the extensive herb gardens, enjoying the aromas (and finding more answers to questions on the sheets). 

There was a little playground, too, although it was only supposed to be for children up to the age of seven or eight. And then we sat down in the café and were brought our complementary herbal teas. We think they were mainly chamomile; I drank about half of mine, but it wasn't my favourite taste. Still, it's a nice gesture at the end of an hour or more of gentle meandering around the area.

We had promised the children another visit to the maze, so we went back there and they went through a couple of times, including having a race. There weren't many other people around, so we didn't think it would be disturbing anyone. 

As with the camel park and the paradox museum, we couldn't take any food or drink into Cyherbia. And whereas there are suitable parks nearby the other two venues, Cyherbia is rather out of the way, with nothing obvious nearby. 

So we drove back to Rizoelia park which is in Aradippou, and had our picnic there. It's on a hill with an excellent view over Larnaka. 

A working boiler and other incidents

 I mentioned in my last post that the weather, at last, was beginning to cool down in mid-January. Our central heating boiler, which had been unreliable for many years, had another service just before Christmas. That is to say, Richard did the standard cleaning and checking valves, but nothing happened. So he called out the engineer - a local and friendly person. He arrived, checked everything, and then gave part of it a big thump. That worked, and the heating came on. 

But it wasn't all that cold, so we weren't surprised when it didn't come on the following day. On Christmas Day itself, we used our air conditioners set to heat. A few days later when it was quite chilly, Richard went to the boiler room and hit the system in the place where the engineer had shown him. He had to try two or three times, but it did the trick: the heating came on. For an hour or two...

A couple of days later, the same scenario was repeated. And Richard said he was a bit worried that he might break something. In previous years we sometimes had to run down and press a button to turn the heating on, but this was more serious. Perhaps, we thought, it was time for a new boiler. 

The heating engineer told us that a new one would be much more efficient - potentially saving us a fair amount in gas bills - and that our old one was so archaic, he didn't think it could be repaired. He came to the house and measured all our radiators (we have at least twenty, including those in our guest flat and some that we don't use), so he could calculate how much power was necessary. And then, after doing some research, he gave us a quote which seemed quite reasonable. 

And while it was a bit of a hassle for him, with just one assistant, to remove the old boiler - it was very heavy! - the installation of the new one was fairly quick, and everything was finished within one (long) day. 

There's a lot more space in the boiler room now. This new boiler looks remarkably like the one we had in our house in the UK over twenty-five years ago. And while it still hasn't been VERY cold, we've had chillier mornings and rain:

And the boiler has worked! We have a thermostatic system in the house so the heating only comes on for a couple of hours in the morning, and a couple in the evening (when it's cold enough) and it's done exactly what it should. It's much quieter than the old system, too. Rather surprisingly, when the heating is on it also heats our water, although we didn't expect it to have done that. Most of our water heating is solar, and we have an electric boost that we had been using when the sun wasn't out. There's a gas boost too, but we've hardly needed that, since the days when the sun doesn't come out are usually (though not always) the days when it's chilly enough for the heating to come on.

And if the steamer, the washing machine and the boiler weren't enough, the day after we had decided to replace the boiler, my stick blender stopped working when I was making some ketchup.  We had an excellent one which had worked well for about thirteen years. I was able to use my regular blender for the ketchup, but it was a bit of a nuisance having to decant everything into the large goblet, and then try to get it all out. Three weeks later and there's still a tomato stain on the cutting blades. 

But my main use of the stick blender is for soup, which I make every other week during the cooler months: usually from November until about March or April. Putting that in an ordinary blender means it has to be cooled quite significantly, then usually only half of it will fit even in the bigger goblet... so we decided to buy a new stick blender.  Unlike a decade or so ago, there were several options at a local DIY shop, so we chose a Bosch brand. 

Then I reorganised some cupboards to make space for the extra bits, and put the steamer away (but with easier access than before), so the new stick blender could sit on the work surface. And we bought a plug extension thing so I don't need to keep pulling plugs in and out for these appliances:

The cats, meanwhile, have very much appreciated the house being less chilly than it was before we had the new boiler. Lady Jane loves the radiators: 

And to my astonishment, our bird of paradise plant, which bloomed in October for the first time in eight years, has another bloom that opened out about a week ago:

Even more surprisingly, there is another one which is evidently going to open within the next week or two:

I hope this doesn't mean that it will be 24 years before it blooms again...

And finally, showing the mixed nature of Cyprus weather, where it's sometimes very sunny as well as quite chilly, we usually go for a short walk along the sea-front on Friday mornings, to check our PO Box. One one of those Fridays, we were feeling quite chilled with the wind (despite the sun) so stopped at Cafe Nero for some excellent hot chocolate, made with coconut milk. 

Where is Autumn....?

We have lived here long enough (26 years) that I no longer expect summer to be over by the start of September. In our first few years, I would feel a stab of disappointment on the first day of the month when it was still hot and humid. I suppose it was a bit like a child waking up on their birthday, devastated to discover that nothing had really changed overnight. 

But I was, briefly, quite hopeful at the end of August this year. We had a downpour of rain towards the end of that month. It was unexpected, and welcome... however, it didn't make the temperatures decrease. Cyprus, like most of Europe, has had the hottest summer on record. September wasn't much better. 

Still, by the middle of September, the humidity did reduce somewhat. And the night-time temperatures dropped to around 19-21 degrees overnight, even though we were still seeing more than 30 degrees in the daytime. So, towards the end of September, I started walking with my friend Sheila again, on three mornings each week. 

The Salt Lake had mostly dried out, but there was a little patch of water. I was told that flamingoes have been spotted already, although we haven't yet seen any on our walks. 

But now it's almost the end of October. We've managed not to use any air conditioning this month - though we were using it right up to the end of September - but we're still running ceiling fans, day and night. The early morning temperatures are still 19-21 degrees. The daytime temperatures have mostly remained up to 30-31 degrees. This morning, the Salt Lake didn't look much different; in previous years it's usually had quite a bit of water by the end of October. 

We've had a bit of rain, two or three times, but no more than about five minutes at a time despite forecasts of thunderstorms and heavy rain. I've had to keep watering the plants, something I don't usually have to do at this time of year.  I haven't yet put even our lightweight duvet on the bed, and I haven't got out my jeans. I did find a thin, light-weight jacket that I wore a few times when walking in the morning, but I didn't remember it today, and didn't need it. I haven't wanted long trousers to walk in, either. 

We had a surprise yesterday, on visiting one of the DIY shops locally, to find that they already had extensive Christmas displays. Here's just one of the sections:

It seems a bit premature, when people are still going around in tee shirts and shorts, but perhaps they know something we don't. November is when we usually start thinking about central heating, so maybe this year we'll move straight from summer into winter...

That's not what the forecast suggests:

But they haven't been all that accurate, recently. And tonight we put the clocks back an hour, so it will be light earlier in the morning (which is good for early morning walkers) but it will be dark earlier in the evenings. 

I haven't updated this blog in a long time.  So here are a few other random items that may or may not be of interest: 

• At the start of September, we had our sofit and fascia boards re-painted, repaired and/or replaced by a young friend, using a boom lift to reach the roof. I didn't even know what sofit or fascia boards were until Richard pointed out that they desperately needed maintenance. 

• Some long-standing friends came to stay for a week, early in September. Mostly they sailed with Richard, but one afternoon we drove to a village festival where there was grape-treading, long speeches and traditional dancing. There were more people than I've seen in one place for a long time:

• Our bird of paradise plant bloomed a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in eight years: 

• Richard celebrated his birthday over two days: we had a barbecue for a few friends in our side yard, and the following day the two of us went to eat at the Art Cafe, somewhere we hadn't been for many years.The staff were younger than they used to be, but the place and the menu did not seem to have changed at all. 

• I had stopped spraying everywhere against large and unpleasant insects, as there were very few in August, none at all in September. Then a couple of days ago, I saw tiny ants swarming on the food processor. I cleaned them off, only to find more on another nearby appliance a few hours later. So I pulled everything out, cleaned away the inevitable crud that accumulates behind kitchen appliances, and sprayed the area with biokill.  Then I found more of these tiny creatures running around on the top of the microwave. Apparently they were nesting inside the vents. Google tells me this is not unusual, and the microwave still works.  Spraying the top and sides of the microwave seems to have helped. 

• Lady Jane must have learned that classic early-reading phrase, 'The cat sat on the mat'. Every time I set the table for our evening meal, she sits down on the mats in the middle:

This may all sound rather frivolous, given the horrific war which, geographically, isn't all that far from Cyprus. A lot of exiles have passed through, en route elsewhere, and a few remain. This little island is braced for many more. We've had two people (both friends of friends) staying in our guest flat: one for a couple of nights, one for rather longer. 

The news sites are increasingly negative, with just a few brief lighter articles. The world seems to be a dangerous place, but, where possible, life goes on. While we pray for peace, with little hope of a solution, we can be thankful for all we have, and make the most of it while we still can. 

Summer easing in gradually; restrictions ease

It's a bit of a shock to realise that my last post was early in March. Time seems to expand and contract more randomly than usual in these Covid-dominated years.  The weeks go by, and the main topics of conversation with everyone cover the epidemiological situation in various countries, the different vaccines, and the pros and cons of cloth or disposable masks.  We check numbers of new cases daily, we chat online with our family, and we wonder if we're ever going to be able to travel again...

Back to March, and one of my first signs of spring advancing well is a freesia blooming: 

Not many of my freesias flowered this year, and those that did have all reverted to this bright pink which has very little scent. Perhaps I should buy some more in the autumn. 

In March, we were allowed to have up to four visitors in our homes, theoretically for up to three hours at a time. We were able to send up to two text messages per day asking for permission to exercise, or go shopping, or to visit friends. The limit of four visitors didn't entirely make sense, since it meant that we were able to visit out closest friends (who are, currently, a household of six) but they could not all come here at the same time. 

We were also still allowed to exercise outside with one other person, so I continued walking by the Salt Lake with my friend Sheila first thing, three times per week. We realised that we take the flamingoes rather for granted once they have arrived and established themselves for the winter. But I did take one photo:

It rained, off and on; not excessively, and thankfully there were no leaks from our roof. And, as always happens in March, the yellow shrubs and wild flowers bloomed - and I managed one relevant photo of 'yellow month' too: 

It was quite chilly, sometimes, first thing. But we reminded ourselves to be thankful...

Now that we're part of the local Anglican church, we celebrate according to the Western calendar, which is out of step with the rest of the island. So there was a service on the UK Mothering Sunday where we were given little posies:

And Western Easter, on April 4th: 

But I'm leaping ahead of myself. On the last Wednesday of March, the monthly outside book sale at the church was allowed to happen for the first time since the end of November: 

A week or so after Western Easter, Richard was on his way out when a neighbour across the street called him over, and said he should have some lemons. A tree was absolutely loaded with fruit, and if they're not picked then next year's blossom won't be so strong - and there's also the risk of hundreds of rotting lemons all over the ground. The neighbour was giving bags of lemons to everyone who would take them: 

This happened twice. I froze lots of lemon juice in ice cube trays, for those occasions later in the year when I need a tablespoon of lemon juice and don't have any fresh ones. I froze larger amounts, too, in the hope that maybe one of our sons will be able to come out at some point, and I will make lemonade to celebrate. I no longer make lemonade it as it tends to give us mouth ulcers. 

I made lemon cake, and experimented with three different kinds of dairy-free lemon curd, including two vegan ones which were quite successful, if a tad runny. I made candied lemon peel... and I dehydrated as many lemons as I could:

I froze them in small tubs, and made the happy discovery that just one slice of dehydrated lemon in a jug of water gives a very pleasant lemony flavour. 

My birthday approached; last year we couldn't see anybody at all, so I wanted to celebrate with our friends - we are always invited to birthday meals for them, including the children. But we couldn't have more than four people in our house. They came up with the brilliant idea of us going to theirs instead - so we bought takeaway chicken, potatoes and salad, and I cooked a supermarket spanokopitta, and made extra salad and a pineapple cake with dairy-free cream cheese topping. And a dairy-free lemon cheesecake. Yes, we still had lemons...

We had leftovers, too, for a couple of days afterwards.

It was around this time that I realised our patio plants were starting to look very dry, so I began watering again first thing, three times a week, on days I don't walk with Sheila.

But the Covid case numbers in Cyprus were looking very bad. Vaccination was taking a while to be rolled out, and we were seeing over 700 new cases per day reported; this is an enormous number for such a small country. The UK was doing better and better, with their extensive vaccine programme, but the hospitals in Cyprus were getting overloaded.

So as the last week of April and the first week of May were Easter holidays for the schools (Greek Easter being May 2nd) the government decreed a two-week lockdown: just one outing per day allowed, no visitors in houses, no church services, all shops shut other than those selling food, and pharmacies. The April book sale was cancelled, and while the Orthodox Churches were allowed their Holy Week liturgies and a mass for Holy Saturday, with an extended curfew until 1am that morning only, there was no congregation allowed in Sunday services for two weeks. 

Bizarrely, though - or perhaps they knew that this would happen anyway - we were allowed one exception to the 'no visitors' rule, on Greek Easter Sunday. Better still, rather than being limited to four visitors, groups of up to ten in total were allowed to gather. So our friends came over for the first time this year, for a Sunday afternoon of games, a DVD for the younger ones, and a shared cold meal which ended with rather a lot of chocolate:

I was able to book a vaccination for a week ago, and today, at last, Richard has managed to book one too  (for tomorrow).  Vaccinations are happening rapidly in Cyprus now, and over 40% of the population has had the first one.  Case numbers are going down again - between 100 and 300 the last few days, with the hospitals doing much better - so the two-week lockdown came to an end on May 10th, and the SMS permission requirement has been shelved. 

Instead, people need 'safe passes' to go to certain places - big retail shops, church services and other potentially crowded venues. We could have rapid tests, but don't fancy waiting outside in the heat, in long queues, but as we can go to most shops anyway, we're not too worried. In a fortnight's time I will be 'safe' anyway, due to having had my first vaccination three weeks earlier. 

At the end of April, we had something of a heatwave - it was up to thirty degrees, a couple of times, during the middle of the day. It stayed reasonably cool overnight, and it wasn't humid, but we did start using the ceiling fans - for a few days, until it cooled down again. We had been using our winter-thickness duvet (9 tog and 4.5 tog held together with paperclips) for months, but on May 1st I removed the thin one, giving us just the medium one. A week later I switched them, and washed the medium one so it could be packed away until the Autumn. Just a week after that, I put the thin one away too, so we just have a double duvet cover. Even though it's cooled down since the end of April, thankfully, we don't seem to need more. 

We also put away some of our winter clothes, and dug out our shorts and tee shirts. I'm gradually washing jackets and packing those away for the autumn. And whereas the temperatures have often soared into the mid-thirties again by mid-May, it's not happening this year. So far, anyway.  Last year, my Facebook memories inform me, it was 39C in the shade on May 19th. This year, it's a mere 26 degrees today, with 28-29 predicted for the next few days. Jeans would be fine, but having moved to the shorts part of the year, I'm somehow reluctant to switch back again. 

It's good that the temperatures aren't too extreme, because Richard's boat is currently out of the water having its 'dry dock' maintenance, something he plans to do every other year. He had hoped it would be lifted out a couple of months ago, but arranging it all took much longer than usual. His Kingfisher Yacht Cyprus blog gives photos and descriptions of what he's been doing, if anyone is interested.

We need to clean our air conditioners within the next couple of weeks, and I should give the curtains their annual wash before it gets too hot to think. If only it would remain like this, sunny and warm but neither too hot nor humid... 

More images of autumn in Cyprus

Two weeks ago exactly I wrote a post with a few images I associate with Autumn in Cyprus.  Some fruit, a cat bed, a cloudy sunset, and a few fallen leaves in our side yard.

Since then the temperature has dropped somewhat; this morning I switched the thin duvet, which we started using just two weeks ago, for the warmer one. We're both wearing long-sleeved warm sweaters or jackets all the time during the day, not just in evenings. I have put both my pairs of summer sandals through the washing machine, and put them away for the winter. 

And this morning I went out for a short walk on my own (since my friend Sheila is self-isolating with her family, hopefully just for a few days, after a Covid positive contact). I don't walk along the Salt Lake trail when I'm by myself, but today I did go through what we think of as the main part of the park area.  And since there was nobody to chat with, I observed the trees and foliage rather more than I normally do. 

The first thing that struck me was how green everywhere was looking:

It might look a bit brown to those from rainier climes, but a month ago the soil was bare, other than a few hardy weeds.  Now there is grass springing up everywhere.

Most of the trees are evergreen; many are pines, of course, but there are others which aren't pine, but still don't seem to lose their leaves. 

As I walked around the local streets, on a meandering route home from the park, I did see some evidence of plants that were changing colour, although they look brown and dead rather than red or orange:

And there are citrus trees all over the place too. When we first saw these, twenty-three years ago, it was rather exciting. We had an excellent orange tree and several lemon trees in the back garden of our rental house, and it felt very odd  - and thrilling! - to pick fresh oranges and lemons. 

Now, though we no longer have any of our own, we take them for granted.  The new season oranges and lemons are coming into the shops now, along with the satsumas I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Trees like this are so commonplace that I tend to forget what a novelty they are to visitors from places that don't produce citrus fruit. 

And then, as I was almost home, I finally spotted a climbing plant that actually looked Autumnal.  Possibly it's meant to look this way, and those are bracts rather than leaves changing colour - I know very little about plants - but I liked the way it looked anyway: 

It's been good having some Autumn weather - too often Larnaka moves from Summer into Winter with very little in between. Tomorrow is Advent Sunday, and December starts on Tuesday. Today is supposed to be windy and rainy, although the sun shone for most of the morning and even now it's dry, albeit rather greyer. So we still don't know if our roof repairs have stopped our ongoing leaking!