The Middle of December

I had planned to write something on this blog every week in December. Ah well. It's now mid-way through December and the family have been here for a week already.

Two weeks ago we made our annual trip to the Jumbo superstore, primarily to find a few bits and pieces for David for Christmas. Inevitably we found various other things... kitchen containers, one or two gifts for other people... nowhere near as much as we bought last year, however.

We only used one of the small pull-along trolleys that have to stay in the store. But on our way out we were amused to see the new assistant who's evidently looking after the bigger trolleys:

On the same Friday, we printed out our annual newsletter. I wrote the cards to post a day earlier and then sent them on the Saturday, earlier, I think, than I've ever sent cards before. We only post about thirty-five now (it used to be over 100) as many of our friends prefer to get a newsletter via email. I sent those out last weekend.

We were able to borrow a car seat for our grandson, about a week before he arrived. It's quite old for a car seat, but seems solid and comfortable, and fits just fine in the various cars we might be using. Here's Alex modelling it:

Before the family arrived, I ordered the last of the gifts, and was pleased to find, on visiting the Post Office, that our photos and some of my orders for family members here had come already. I made some gingerbread and carrot cake to freeze, and the first batch of mince pies. I also made our Christmas puddings.

Richard serviced the central heating and we made sure that was working... and we watched the news with some anxiety, as Cumbria, where our son and his family live, was having terrible flooding, making train travel impossible, and forcing many people to be evacuated from their homes.

But a colleague very kindly drove them to Liverpool airport, and on Tuesday last week, we went to the airport in Larnaka in great excitement to meet Daniel, Becky, and 18-month-old David who was extremely energetic after a day's travelling from the UK.

Here's how our usually fairly tidy living room looked after David had been here for an hour or so...

The following morning we took David for a walk to the Municipal Park where he first made for the large train to play on, but then decided to try riding on one of these rather different kinds of swing:

Although the weather seems a bit chilly from our perspective (we have now switched to our double thickness duvet at night) it's mostly sunny in the daytime, and seems quite warm to people coming from the UK.

On Monday I had a morning with the Christian writing group, followed by our annual potluck lunch. Everything looked beautiful and tasted good, and the company was most enjoyable:

Yesterday, in what has become another tradition, I had assistance from our young friends in putting up our tree and decorating it:

We did wonder if it might be a mistake with a lively toddler in the house, but he's only knocked it down once. He's much better behaved than the kittens were a year ago...

Something else we've been doing for a while now is to keep last year's Christmas cards, many of which didn't arrive until late December or even January, and display them over our windows and the sliding door:

I bought a smaller-than-usual poinsettia this year, and tried various places for it, knowing that our usual spot would be targetted by David. Unfortunately he found it anyway, resulting in a great deal of soil having to be swept up... so I decided to put it outside for once. We bought a small potted fir tree a couple of weeks ago, and last year's poinsettia has stayed alive (for the first time ever) so I put them with some red geraniums outside our front door:

I made a second batch of mince pies yesterday, and today I wrapped all the family gifts... so, all in all, I'm pretty well ahead this year.

Birthday Blogpost

It happens every year. I can't pretend that I'm not expecting it, because the date is consistent - but as the years pass, it seems to approach more rapidly than ever.

I speak of the anniversary of my birth, and my increasing incredulity that I can be, as one of my small friends put it, such an 'old lady' when I still feel about 26 on the inside. It's a shock, sometimes, to realise that my younger son is, currently that age.

Cake, at least in our culture, is usually a mark of a birthday. And since our closest friends in Cyprus were due here Sunday afternoon, I decided to bake a chocolate fudge cake a day early, so as to share the feast with them. I used a slightly runny icing and then decorated it with seasonal strawberries, and some American style chocolate chips which some visitors had given us last summer:

Nobody doubts my ability to bake and even decorate a cake, so long as nothing artistic is required. But in general I am not permitted by my family to cut a cake, particularly not with our large and rather sharp knife. However, given my advancing years, Richard and Tim felt that perhaps - with supervision - I should be allowed to try:

After all, as Tim kindly pointed out, it might not be many years before my hands become too shaky to use a sharp knife...

I succeeded in dividing the cake into twelve reasonably even pieces, without cutting myself at all. Pieces were passed around the table, served with fresh fruit salad which I had also made earlier in the day:

Katie enjoyed hers very much:

We didn't have anything much planned for the following day, which was the actual birthday. So I got up early and read for a while, as usual, and did my normal Monday blitz around to dust/vacuum/mop the house before Richard got up. Then I opened some presents: books, DVDs and some fruity teas from Richard and two of my siblings who passed their gifts to me when we saw them back in February.

Richard was working in the morning, so I pottered a while, read email, caught up on Facebook - including about thirty 'Happy birthday' messages which I responded to briefly - and a few other things on the computer.

Since there were ten people present for Sunday evening, there were two pieces of cake left for us to eat after lunch. Afterwards we went out to the PO Box where I found three packages awaiting, one of which was addressed to Tim. The other contained some books from another of my siblings.

I'd also wanted to buy a few flowering plants to put in the planters outside my study window, so we visited a plant shop too to spend a little of the birthday money I've been given. I thought I'd branch out from my usual petunias and geraniums, although I've no idea what I actually bought.

I planted them out soon after we got back.  There are two of this pretty purple thing:

and two of each of these plants:

Our Christmas poinsettia is still looking reasonably good, but with both Easters (Western and Eastern) past, and the weather warming up, I decided it was time to move it from the living room to the outside planter:

Then I couldn't resist a few more geraniums and a couple of petunias, as they do so very well in Cyprus. Most of them will go downstairs on the outside patio area:

Tim arrived about 6pm, tired after his first day back at work after the Easter break. The parcel addressed to him was in fact his present to me, which was a new and smart-looking chocolate-coloured case for my Kindle, as my old case had almost disintegrated.

And since I'm often asked exactly what my gifts were, here they are in collage form:

I had already decanted two of the boxes of fruity tea into jars and cut out the box fronts to label them before I thought of taking a photo. I've tried them both already, and they are extremely good.

Richard had asked if I'd like to go out for a meal in the evening, but we've been out to eat at restaurants four times in the past six weeks and I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted to eat at a restaurant. About four times a year is more normal for us.

So I decided to make my current favourite meal of spanopitta, and just have Tim over to dinner. He then mentioned that he still had some pecans left from his last trip to the UK, and they needed to be used.. so he would bring a pecan pie for dessert. I wasn't entirely sure whether a pie following a pie would be a good idea, but was quite prepared to try.

Spanopitta isn't difficult, now I've realised that it's not necessary to cook the chopped onions before mixing them into the feta and hard goat's cheeses, along with eggs and spinach, but I wasn't sure if we'd eat more than one - and liked the idea of having some extra to freeze for a future meal - so I made two:

.. served with two of my favourite vegetables: roasted tomatoes with basil and garlic, and baked mushrooms:

I'd thought about doing some other veg, but didn't want us to be too full before the dessert, which looked good and tasted delicious:

We had played Settlers of Catan on Sunday afternoon, and we were all tired, so I suggested we play 'Kingdom Builder', a game that Tim bought us for Christmas, but which we haven't played very often. I like it very much; it's not too demanding, and doesn't take more than about half an hour. We played a couple of rounds:

However by about 8.30pm Tim was yawning after his early start (he has to get up at 6.00am in term time) so he went home, and I went back to my computer to find yet more birthday greetings on Facebook. By 9.30 I was almost asleep myself, so I went up to read in bed.

Having stretched out the celebration over two days, I thought that would be the end of it. Then this afternoon I had a message that it was a good time to phone Daniel, Becky and David who are at present on the Logos Hope in Malaysia. After several failed attempts, we got through on a reasonable line via the UK and USA, and I was wished Happy Birthday yet again. We chatted for about forty-five minutes, and were pleased to discover, on hanging up, that it had cost us the vast total of about 40 pence (sterling).

2014 draws to a close

Time races by faster and faster as we get older. It feels as if I've just got used to writing 2014 and in a couple of days it will be 2015. It's been an amazing year, the one in which we became grandparents for the first time, and we're thrilled to have had the family together for most of the last couple of weeks of this year and the first couple of weeks of next year.

On Christmas Eve we took a walk into the town after dark with David in his buggy, to check the PO Box one more time, and to see some of the lights:

On Christmas morning I par-boiled potatoes, cut up carrots and set the Christmas puddings steaming first thing. Most of us went to a church service at 10.00 then it was back home to open some presents: 

David quickly got used to the idea of opening parcels - most of his presents are in the UK to enjoy when he gets home again, but he seemed to appreciate the ones he had here: 

Then around noon we put the carved turkey, potatoes, sausages (etc) in the oven and prepared the tables for fifteen: 

In the event, David slept for two hours, meaning that Daniel and Becky could enjoy their lunch and chat with our friends before he needed attention.

We played some games in the afternoon, though I didn't remember to take any photos. We ate more food, and cut the Christmas cake, then when our friends left we watched a silly Christmas film.

On Boxing Day we ate leftovers, and played a game of Seafarers, during which one of David's primo 'people' took over as the robber:

Tim went to the UK on Boxing Day, as flights are good value on a day when most people don't want to fly; he was able to get to my family's annual get-together yesterday, and is attending a friend's wedding in Scotland on Saturday. Apparently there's snow in the UK now so we hope it mostly holds off for another week.  

Meanwhile, the weather remains sunny and not too chilly in Cyprus. Two more parcels were in our PO Box today and there are still some to come. It's quite fun having an extended Christmas. 

I doubt if I'll write anything tomorrow, so let me take this opportunity of wishing everyone:

Happy New Year! 

Christmas Eve

Christmas on Wednesday seems ideal. On Sunday, I went to a carol service at LCC which Tim was organising and leading. It only lasted an hour, so we were home in time for me to ice and decorate the Christmas cake before lunch. I didn't feel inspired to do anything fancy, so this is what it looks like:

I didn't do anything much in the afternoon, other than updating another local church website, which I run, and also uploading our annual newsletter to our family website.

I designated Monday for cleaning the house. The usual dusting and mopping that I try to do weekly, plus some window-cleaning which was long overdue. I cleaned upstairs and changed our sheets too, something I usually do on Wednesdays. I had vaguely thought I might get everything done in two or three hours in the morning; in the event it took most of the day, alternating with various other things I wanted to do. Tim made some peppermint creams in the afternoon, and in the evening he assisted in the production of another 40+ mince pies.

Richard and I also went to the fruitaria on Monday, to buy large quantities of potatoes and carrots and broccoli and various other things we're going to need on Christmas Day.

And then, really, there wasn't much left to do.

This morning we went to Metro to pick up the turkey we had ordered; it turned out to be rather smaller than we need to feed twelve people, but happily there were some 'spare' turkeys, so we bought one of those too. And a few other items, but I didn't buy up half the supermarket, as some people seem to wish to do when it's going to be shut for - shock horror! - two whole days.

So Tim has now taken over in the kitchen. The first turkey is cooked and carved, ready for re-heating tomorrow. The second one is currently in the oven, with the smell driving the cats wild. I took the opportunity of putting about 100 photos in albums, when I realised that although I ordered some in October, I had done nothing with them. They date back to December last year, so it was quite a task. But that's now done.

I then found all the gifts we had been given by my siblings when we visited the UK in October, plus a few that have arrived in the post, and put them under the tree:

Now it's 5.15pm and the last thing on my pre-Christmas to-do list is to write this blog post. We're having our favourite local fast-food tonight ('Souvlaki Express') since the oven is fully occupied, then going to a carol service at the Greek Evangelical Church, in which Tim will be singing.

So let me take this opportunity to wish anyone who reads this a very happy, peaceful and blessed Christmas.

Happy Christmas 2012

So, it's Christmas Eve. For anyone wanting to read about our year in a nutshell, here's a link to this year's Christmas Newsletter on our family site.

The cake is, at last, iced:

..although I had begun to wonder if my home-made marzipan would ever dry out. And there was a near disaster when a packet of cornflour, which looked almost EXACTLY like a packet of icing sugar, was accidentally used in the first batch of - well, royal cornflour, I suppose. Happily we had another packet. 

Gifts are wrapped:

...although, as ever, the Cyprus post has been rather slow and not everything has arrived. But that's okay. We don't mind if the Christmas season lasts a bit longer! 

Another batch of mince pies is made: 

... by Tim. Usually I make all our mince pies, but yesterday afternoon I developed a short-lived tummy bug, and although I'm over that now, I feel decidedly fragile and rather weak.  Richard had the tummy bug overnight, and has not got up today.

The stuffed turkey is in the oven, to be carved tonight, re-heated tomorrow.

... however, we had to ask a friend to drive Tim and me to Metro to pick up our turkey, as Richard was unable to get out of bed.  Then we found that they had run out of sausagemeat, although they had assured us that they did not need to be ordered. At least they said they had run out... until I was quite assertive in a way that does not come naturally to me, and somehow they managed to find some... which had been ordered by someone else! I could hardly refuse to accept it at that point.

So, all in all, it's been quite an 'interesting' day. We hope that tomorrow will be rather less so...

Happy Christmas!

Another birthday rolls by

Although we've been 'empty nesters' for nearly four years now, I've managed to spend the last three birthdays with at least one of our sons. I wasn't entirely sure what one does for a birthday with just the two of us - but in the event, it was a pleasant and relaxing day.

I had a pile of presents that had already arrived or been passed to us from various relatives, first thing in the morning: 

They were DVDs and books - mostly from my wishlist - and a new webcam as my previous one was rather unreliable with the sound. 

Then we drove to Immigration - not something I'd have chosen to do on my birthday, but Richard was happy to spend the morning doing random things around Larnaka, so that was our first stop. I wrote yesterday about our experiences, past and present, with Immigration, so won't repeat that here. 

Next stop was the Land Registry Office, since we had managed to lose one part of our house deeds. We were told that it was an easy and inexpensive process to get replacements, so we went to the place where we first acquired them... only to find it totally closed down. 

We had parked in nearby Lidl - not the branch we had been to before - so thought we might as well take a look and see if it had anything more interesting this week: 

It didn't. I was seriously tempted by some delicious looking white chocolate with strawberry pieces, only to see, from the ingredients on the back, that it contained maltodextrin - one of those annoying migraine-inducers. But we wandered around the rest of the store in vain. Nothing that appealed was good value. 

So Richard checked the map on his phone, which gave directions to the new Land Registry Office, which we found easily. It was a lot grander than the previous one:

We spoke to a helpful receptionist who filled in the forms for us, and explained where to go. It was, indeed, quick and easy. We had to pay a grand total of 1.71 euro for new copies of both our deeds. It took about fifteen minutes in all, and involved five different workers... one to fill in the form, one to take our money, one to write the date and direct us to the lift, one to produce the actual deeds, and one to give the inevitable official stamps. 

It was only about 9.30 by the time we had finished all this. As we came out, we saw this:

Unlike me, Richard likes looking around shops, particularly new ones, so he suggested we take a look. It wasn't very interesting. Lots of junk - toys, ornaments, garden tools. There were some clothes, and we took a look at the 'crocs', since Richard needs a new pair, but they weren't very good quality. 

So, as the Land Registry Office is right behind Carrefour, we thought we'd take a look in there to see if they had any crocs. And we thought we might have coffee too...

Unfortunately, the café didn't open until noon. And they didn't have any crocs, nor indeed anything else that interested us. 

We thought we might drive by the Post Office to see if any mail had come: I walked there on Wednesday and picked up a fair amount, so was quite surprised to find all these packages and letters awaiting us: 

They included some bills, and books for review, but also some cards and yet more presents from relatives.  I was pleased to find that I had seven cards, which seems rather a lot for a non-special birthday:

Later on a friend called by with yet another. I had two e-cards as well, and about sixty birthday greetings on Facebook! Social networking is a wonderful thing. 

This is the pile of gifts by the time I had opened them all.... 

We spent an hour or so at home, then went out again to get a new printer cartridge at the place that does recycled ones. For some reason it was cheaper than the one we last bought, about three years ago. 

Without Tim at home, I wasn't going to get a cake, so next we took a look in Zorpas, a bakery which sells delicious looking cakes and desserts. We thought we might buy a couple of small ones, or two slices... but they were full of cream (Richard tries to avoid dairy products) and very expensive for what they are. I didn't want a cake THAT much.

By that time it was one o'clock and I was getting hungry. I'd forgotten to take bread out of the freezer, so Richard suggested we go to the café at the marina for toasted tuna sandwiches and salad, which was very pleasant. However I forgot about taking any photos!

In the afternoon we had a very good Google video (like Skype) chat with Tim, using my new webcam, for over an hour. I do like modern technology for keeping in touch with our sons. And we pottered at home, caught up with email and Facebook and so on.

Usually on Fridays we go to a cell group with a meal at our good friends locally, but they're away at present so the group was cancelled. Richard and I had decided to go out to eat - and since I don't like making decisions, we opted for our favourite inexpensive sea-front restaurant, Alexander's.  They had some new menu options but we went for tried-and-tested dishes...

Richard had fish and chips:

I had veggie moussaka:

One of the things I like best about Alexander's is that they almost always offer something 'on the house' after a meal. So Richard had a de-caf coffee, and although I was feeling extremely full (it's rare for us to eat out at all, let alone twice in one day!) I chose the ice cream. Last time I did that, one of the scoops was strawberry. This time it was yellow:

It was really very yellow, more so than the photo shows. It was artificial banana... not unpleasant, exactly, but rather odd. Anyway, I ate it all and enjoyed the chocolate part... and then was surprised how very cold I felt! 

Out of Cyprus: the building of a bookcase

The reason we flew out of Cyprus when we did and drove to Carlisle was so that Richard and Daniel could spend their joint birthday together. However, we had not actually bought Daniel's present before leaving, hoping we could find something on the Saturday.

Daniel had asked us to bring some of his juggling equipment with us, and also one of his books. But when Richard packed the cases, we were quite a long way under our weight limit. Not wanting to waste weight, so to speak, he decided to bring one or two more of Daniel's books. I chose about four... and then Richard picked out yet more until our suitcases weighed just under the 20kg limit.

I was a little surprised at just how many books we had brought out, when they had all emerged from our cases:


So it seemed like a good plan to buy him a new bookcase for his birthday. The one they have already is a tall Ikea one in a beech style finish. Unfortunately the nearest Ikea is in Liverpool, and we really didn't want to drive that far on a Saturday. Ordering it online would have meant it arriving several days late.

So we looked in Argos, and found a slightly smaller bookcase in a very similar finish, and Daniel said that yes, he would like that.

Then came the problem of where to put it. Several suggestions were proposed, but we eventually thought it would work best next to the living room door. To check the width, and to ensure that the light switch was still reachable, I stood in position with a shelf, on which Daniel put a few books to add to the realism, so that they could check whether it looked right. Richard took this photo on his phone:


Daniel then set to work to assemble the flat-pack bookcase, with me holding the relevant parts in position as needed:


A friend pointed out that this photo looks as if I'm going head-first down a slide. Something I cannot imagine ever wanting to do...

The next part, nailing the back in place, took some time - not helped by the fact that Daniel could not find a hammer, so used a variety of implements before selecting a thick glass jar as the most effective - and it was time to eat before it was finished. So the bookcase leaned against the wall, looking rather sad:


.. and there it stayed, all night.

Sunday morning was the joint birthday, and most of Daniel's other presents were, to his joy, books:

So we turned the bookcase around and finished it, and admired it, and then Daniel put a large number of books in place:



However, we decided that a six-shelf bookcase was perhaps slight overkill for just the Kindle, so Daniel and Becky re-organised their other bookcase a little, in order to decide what might go on the new one:


.. and, as happens when bookcases are assimilated into a household, it wasn't long before the new one was looking completely at home: