On decluttering

 I see a lot of references to decluttering on social media. Perhaps it's the circles I'm in; plus, of course, as soon as I clicked one link on the topic, I was inevitably going to see a whole lot more similar posts. Clutter is something of a divisive subject. There are people who like collecting a lot of things, and are comfortable around boxes, bags and other unsorted items. There are people who would like to be organised, but have difficulty finding spaces for things, or who don't have sufficent time and motivation to do anything about it.

There is also a third category of people who somehow manage to get things away, and tidy, without any apparent effort.  I aspired to be one of those as a young adult, but was firmly in the second category. The spirit was willing - well, mostly - but I was working full-time, and then had small children.  It was far more important to spend time with them - and they seemed to acquire a lot of stuff, too, mainly gifts from generous friends and family - than to keep the house tidy. 

Moving to Cyprus in 1997 forced us to be quite radical about our stuff. We donated some things to charity shops, although we had a large room and a couple of closets full of things we had stored, in addition to what we brought out. We also stored a lot of things in a friend's garage. In subsequent years, we moved more and more things here (mainly books), and when we sold the UK house, we gave away a lot of things that we had not used for nine years, and evidently didn't need.

Steaming in the Kitchen...

 Many, many moons ago, when we lived at our old, rental house, my parents had been staying, and wanted to buy us a new appliance for the kitchen. I had been reading about healthier cooking, and had seen several recommendations for electric steamers. 

I thought it would be particularly useful for Christmas puddings, but also for the kind of vegetables which (at that period) we would typically boil: broccoli, green beans, cauliflower etc. We hadn't, at that stage, discovered that roasting works so well for anything other than potatoes, carrots and parsnips. 

There were several possible steamers available in the shop we went to, rather to my surprise, and after some discussion we opted for the Morphy Richards 'health steam', which came with English instructions, a recipe book (also in English) and a two-year guarantee. Plus it was a name we trusted. And the steamer had a fair bit of use over the first couple of years, particularly when we ran out of gas for our oven, as happened sporadically. 

The recipe book wasn't in fact all that helpful; it was produced in conjunction with a slimming agency, and had rather complex low fat ideas, none of which were really appropriate for our family of four. But we cooked vegetables, and - once I had realised that steaming takes a bit longer than boiling - they came out well, and hopefully more nutritious than if we had boiled them and then poured away the water. 

It was also invaluable for cooking my Christmas puddings each year. Previously I had steamed them in large saucepans, with water half-way up the sides, feeling stressed in case the water dried up.  With the steamer, the timer has a maximum of one hour at a time. So I fill it up with water and put it on for an hour. I usually remember to top up the water and turn it on for another hour before it's finished, but if I get distracted and forget, the steamer goes off before the water can run out. 

I had a slight glitch when I realised that the bowls I had previously used wouldn't fit in the steamer. So we acquired slightly smaller ones, and as my recipe makes three, this three-tier steamer was perfect, year after year. This photo has appeared in a previous blog (as has the one above) but it illustrates nicely how very useful the steamer has been:

When we moved to this house, back in the summer of 2006, I kept the lesser-used appliances, including the steamer, in a cupboard. Which is all very well, and makes the kitchen work surfaces look tidy. But when something is packed away, in my experience, it's likely to stay away. 

I would occasionally get the steamer out to cook rice, but then realised it's simpler in either the oven or a regular saucepan - and it's not as if we eat rice more than once or twice a month at most. Occasionally I thought of the steamer for vegetables, but we discovered the delights of roasted veg - yes, even frozen green beans can be roasted. For those that don't work well roasted (eg peas and sweetcorn), the microwave is ideal. 

But the steamer would come out early every December to steam my newly-made Christmas puddings. It would come out again on Christmas Day, to re-steam the pudding we were going to eat, and also the brussels sprouts. I expect sprouts might also be nicer roasted, but the oven is so full on Christmas Day that there's no room for anything else. 

Then... about a month ago, when the 2023 puddings were steaming, I noticed that the one on the top looked rather lopsided. I didn't investigate until the steamer had run for about six hours and then cooled down. I thought perhaps one of the bases had slipped. What I discovered was that it had rather badly cracked and broken:

Richard pondered whether he could create a new base. But it would be a very complex thing to make, with the bits that stick out to hold it in place. And after more than nineteen years, the steamer didn't owe us anything. We researched a bit online then went to two or three possible shops to see if we could find a suitable replacement. But the new ones (including a modern Morphy Richards equivalent) didn't look as sturdy, and cost €65 - €70. That was more than I was willing to pay for something that really only gets used a couple of times a year.

Since the other two bases were fine, I cooked the sprouts and reheated a pudding in the steamer without any problem on Christmas Day. A day or two later, after cleaning and drying it, I packed the steamer away. And would have thought no more about it until next December, most likely...

Then, a couple of days ago, I went out to buy some yarn. And something - or Someone, perhaps? - prompted me go into the Thrift Store, which is not far from my favourite haberdashery. I checked the DVDs, as I do, but nothing looked interesting. I found a couple of mugs I liked for 50 cents each, and as I turned around I saw, on a shelf, another Morphy Richards 'healthsteam' steamer. At €8.50. 

I was on foot, and am never good at spontaneous purchases when I'm on my own anyway. But when I told Richard about it, he suggested we go back first thing Thursday, with the car. The steamer was still there, and looked in excellent condition. It was so clean and free of scale that I suspect it has only been used a handful of times. It might be almost as old as our original one, as they're no longer made in this style. But there's not much to go wrong: the base heats up and boils the water, a bit like a kettle. 

So we bought it: another, identical steamer. 

I washed it all thoroughly, and last night steamed some cabbage and peas, just to try it out. It worked as expected. I've decided not to put it away in a cupboard, but to find space on the crowded work surface; that way, I just might use it more often...

Another Breadmaker

When we first moved to Cyprus, we regularly bought bread at an excellent bakery nearby. I knew that it would be less expensive and more healthy to make my own bread, but I didn't get around to it very often. Kneading by hand was hard work - exhausting in the summer! - and although I had a food processor with a kneading blade, I didn't like to use it too often as it felt as if the motor was struggling, sometimes.

Then just before Christmas 2005 we bought a breadmaker. After a couple of false starts, it began to make excellent bread, and we used it several times per week until the summer of 2012 when something went wrong with the motor. It had more than paid for itself in the savings on bread over six-and-a-half years, so we decided to buy a new breadmaker. It was a fairly inexpensive one, a shop's own brand:

Then it started going wrong. I don't remember what happened, or why we were unable to take it back, as I'm pretty sure it was still under warranty.  Or maybe it still worked, somewhat, but the bread was heavy. Perhaps we had it fixed under warranty, and it still didn't work properly.

I didn't blog about it.. and so have no reference point, other than in our accounts application, where I can see that we bought our next breadmaker in April 2014.  It was from Lidl, on special offer. I remember having a discussion about whether or not it was a good idea to buy another inexpensive shop-brand one, and deciding that we'd try just one more time.

It was a good breadmaker. It had various functions, although as with most appliances I used just a couple of them probably 99% of the time.  I wasn't making bread nearly as often as I did when we had our sons living here, but every couple of weeks our friends with several children come over for a kind of high tea on Sunday afternoons, and I usually make two loaves then, slicing and freezing any leftovers. I sometimes make a loaf at other times, too.

All was well until just over a week ago when we were hosting a birthday party for a visiting friend. I decided to make a loaf of bread for the evening buffet, so put the breadmaker on, only to realise that only one paddle was working.  I tried turning the tin around, so the dough would mix at both ends, and it made some unpleasant graunching noises.  Eventually I took it out, mixed and kneaded it by hand, then put the dough back in the breadmaker, without the paddles, on 'dough' setting so that it would rise.  I made some bread rolls which I cooked in the oven, and they were fine. But I didn't want to do that every time.

Nor did I want to go back to buying all our bread from a bakery. We like home-made bread, and I love the convenience of a breadmaker. Perhaps this one could have been mended, but it was over four years old, and didn't owe us anything; we worked out that using a breadmaker for about six months means it pays for itself in the savings on buying bread.  We hate the fact that so many modern appliances are 'disposable' - getting it mended would probably cost almost as much as a new one, and with no guarantee of continuing to work.

So I went to the website of George Theodorou, where we usually buy large appliances/white goods. Relationships are important in Cyprus, as is customer loyalty.  And they've always given us good service. However they only had one breadmaker listed; it was over 100 euros, and when we checked against Amazon, it was evidently somewhat over-priced and not very highly reviewed.

Last Friday we decided to see what else we could find in Larnaka. Lidl didn't have any on offer, although they probably will at some point. But I didn't want to wait, possibly months. I looked at the website of another shop that sells appliances, but they didn't have any breadmakers at all.  We went to a couple of big DIY shops that sell electrical appliances: Leroy Merlin didn't have any breadmakers. Super Home Centre had one, but it was even more expensive than the one I had seen online, and looked a bit flimsy. We went over the road to Debenhams, but although they have some kitchen things, they don't appear to have any electrical appliances.

We were almost ready to give up, but I suggested we go to the 1st April Street thrift shop, where we've occasionally bought appliances in the past.  And there, in the corner, was a breadmaker. Phillips brand, twenty-five euros.

It looked almost new, so we thought we would try it. It's not a design I would have chosen:

Nor did it have an instruction guide or recipe book included. I was able to find them online, though - the advantage of an unusual looking breadmaker with a purple stripe is that it was easy to find the model via an image search - but decided that I would try, first of all, my normal recipe which has worked in all my other breadmakers.

It worked.

We've got used to longer loaves with our previous two-paddle breadmakers, but this one has the advantage that the bread comes out very easily, rather than getting stuck (which was the worst problem with the Lidl one).

So we're very pleased with this new (to us) breadmaker, and hope it will last us at least as long as the previous ones. 

Family, friends, fun and farewell...

Daniel and Becky were here for a little over a fortnight; they arrived on a Friday night, and departed last night. We heard a couple of hours ago that they are, at last, safely back in Carlisle. Having visitors staying is always good, but of course we particularly love having either of our sons home; for Daniel, this was his first visit since he and Becky got married last year.

I already wrote about their first few days in Cyprus, and about our visit to Nicosia. But, as so often happens, time started to go faster and faster and suddenly the two weeks had vanished. I didn't even remember to take many photos - much of the time we were hanging out, chatting, or playing games. We watched a few episodes of Doctor Who (series 2) which we enjoyed, and we also watched DVDs of both Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia 2 and 3 respectively) which we had not seen before. 

Daniel wrote a post about their time here on his blog too. 

We played a couple of games of Seafarers of Catan (Fog Island), something Richard and I only rarely play on our own as it requires quite a bit of setup. Becky said she had never won a Seafarers game; it turned out that she'd only played it once or twice, but she managed to win the first game we played together during the past couple of weeks:  

Naturally we played a couple of Settlers games with our friends Jörn and Sheila too, at their house, one of them on a particularly cold evening where we wrapped up warmly... and Becky won: 

We even managed a five-player Settlers game with Tim on Facetime (similar to Skype): 

We had a microphone set up over the middle of the board, with the stand carefully balanced by a low-tech coolbag: 

We played a Cities and Knights game, too, which had such an interesting initial setup that I took photos and wrote about it on my Settlers blog, but didn't take any pictures of the people concerned. 

We wondered how the cats would cope with Daniel and Becky staying downstairs in our guest flat; somehow, it didn't seem to worry them. We're not sure they even really noticed, as they continued sleeping on us at nights. But they were all happy to see Dan and Becky whenever they appeared in the morning. Here's Tessie looking at some of their wedding photos with them: 

Daniel, who is something of a coffee geek, decided that, while he was in Cyprus, he would buy a little pan for making Cyprus coffee. Not something I like at all, but Daniel is quite keen on what's known as a 'medrio' - one spoonful of finely ground coffee, and one of sugar, brought to the boil slowly: 

The first time he did it, I was fascinated by seeing the bubbles around the edge (an important part of making Cyprus coffee) which formed an almost perfect square around the middle. But when I took these photos, they made something closer to a pentagon: 

The first few times Daniel made a medrio, he used some small cups we happened to have. But I went to the Thrift Shop on Saturday, when he and Becky were out sailing with Richard, and saw some quite tasteful little Cyprus coffee cups and saucers which were very inexpensive. I also saw several less-than-tasteful ones... but decided that Daniel would not appreciate those.

This really doesn't show the scale, but is what the little cup looks like: 

Here it is with the medrio inside, and the saucer below: 

And here is Daniel, waiting for the coffee to cool a little. Note the glass of water, an important adjunct to Cyprus coffee: 

These photos show better just how tiny the cup is.  Sophia joined him while he drank it: 

Becky wasn't feeling great on Sunday, and Daniel wasn't too well on Monday, which was their last day in Cyprus. However, they wanted another game, so we set up Seafarers (Fog Island again) once more:

Here's how it started: 

Daniel won that game - just ahead of me. Either Daniel or Becky has won most of the games we've played while they've been here! 

But, as the cliche goes, all good things must eventually come to an end. After the game, we ate an early evening meal, then took them to the airport. Being actors, they decided to pose for the camera: 

Happily, they let me take a nicer photo as well: 

We drove home feeling a little empty. We don't know when we'll next see Dan and Becky; of course it's great to keep in touch with email and Skype (or equivalent) but there's nothing quite like having people actually here. Living in Cyprus, there are a lot of goodbyes, and they only get a little easier with time.

Blooming Cyprus...

No, not a complaint about Cyprus at all. Rather the reverse.

When one lives in the same place, particularly when one is not an adventurous soul, nor even particularly active, one tends to tread the same paths, and become almost unaware of one's surroundings. I have my regular walks to the Froutaria, and the local small supermarket; I have less frequent walks in the direction of St Helena's Church, or into town for the Post Office, or Larnaka Community Church. We walk to local friends' houses, too. But those routes are not particularly picturesque, and any changes are only gradual... so, after nearly five years in this house, I tend not to notice my surroundings any more.

Around noon today I realised I should probably pop out and buy some milk. The bakeries are open on Sundays, but their prices are rather higher than that of the supermarkets - and since I didn't go out at all yesterday, I thought I might just stretch my legs... then, as I left the house, I had a hankering for a slightly longer walk. I remembered that I hadn't been to the Thrift Store for a few months. I don't enjoy shopping, but I do like popping into second-hand places now and again...

So, instead of turning left, I turned right and headed towards the Thrift Store. And was struck, immediately, by the amount of green everywhere - it's rained quite a bit recently - and, even more, the vibrant colours. March, I remembered, is 'yellow month' - or so they used to say. I've written about that before. I had my camera with me, and whipped it out to take a shot of my favourite kind of weeds, which are blooming just about everywhere at present:


With so much rain, everything looks cleaner than usual, too.

I take the citrus trees for granted after over thirteen years in Cyprus, but I love the scent of blossom.. which, oddly enough, is present at the same time as fruit:


It wasn't just yellows that struck me. The route I was walking had several front gardens (yards), some of which hosted a gorgeous display of flowers. Hard to do them justice, of course:


Then I was struck (not, thankfully, literally) by this huge cactus which appears to have some kind of blossoming too:


I saw some mespila (loquat) trees, still green but with the promise of fruit in another month or so:


They made me feel almost nostalgic for our old garden, which sported two of them.. until I remembered what a pain it was removing the large stones, leaving a relatively small amount of flesh, in order to make jam that I didn't even like that much.

I saw this bush - yellow with tinges of pink. I don't even like pink much, but it's a very spring-like colour, and I thought the effect rather pretty:


Most surprising of all was this tree, covered with bright pink blossom:


It looked almost like an English tree. We were used to the white almond blossom at our old house - our neighbours had some almond trees, but they bloomed rather earlier than this. I'm not sure I remember seeing such amazing blossom in Cyprus before.

I put my camera away when I reached the Thrift Store, and browsed around for ten minutes or so. I found a couple of books I liked - one simply can't have too many, and they're only 50c each - but nothing else. Then I continued up the road, seeing and marvelling at more gorgeous trees and flowers, enjoying them for the moment rather than capturing on my camera. I knew that my photos - even enhanced on the computer - could not begin to do justice to the glorious, abundant works of art all around me.

I wondered, too, how anyone can see such amazing evidence of the Master Artist at work, yet still believe that such beauty came into being entirely by chance...

(Oh, and I did eventually get full circle to Orhpanides Express, and bought my milk).

Shopping in Larnaka

Some people like shopping. Others even talk about 'retail therapy' .. although it took me many years to realise they actually meant it, rather than (as seemed more likely to me) needing some kind of therapy after the pain of shopping.

I do like shopping online. I like bookshops too, particularly second-hand ones. And I don't mind walking to the local fruit shop or bakery, or even the small supermarket nearby, with a list, and an eye for possible extra bargains, and spending no more than five minutes in the shop.

Indeed, now we're only going to the supermarket about once a month, I don't even mind that.

But occasionally, when Richard isn't spending the day at King Malu, we think about things we need for the house, and then set out in the car for an hour or two of shopping. Inevitably I start with some enthusiasm, start to get pretty fed up after about an hour, and come home tired and headachey when we've finished.

Today was no exception.

What we went to do:

1) Look for some kind of sealant for around the bath
2) Look for something to discourage pigeons from roosting around the pipes near the roof
3) See if we could find out how much a new shower door might cost

I had a few other things in my mind, vaguely, if we had time or went near anywhere suitable:

4) Have a look for a few extra bedding plants, now the weather's less hot
5) Look for new trainers for both of us
6) Go to the Thrift Store to see if they have any centrifugal juice extractors

So.

We first went to NEK, an old-fashioned kind of DIY/hardware shop which Richard had been to regularly, but which I had never before visited. A nice place, no nasty fluorescent lights, various interesting bits and pieces.

We found the stuff to go around the bath, so that was good. I also spotted some of the multi-pin hanger things that seem to be necessary for our walls, since we have a couple of photos in frames which have been waiting for about six months to be hung up.


We found some chicken wire, after much searching, and Richard bought a metre of it.


We saw, very inexpensively, some of the little white sock things that we always need to go around the bases of our dining room chairs, to stop them screeching on the floor... but couldn't decide whether we needed 25mm or 22mm. So didn't buy any. (For the record, Richard was correct, and we should have bought the 22mm size).

Then we wondered where to look for shower doors. Ours were a bit old and manky when we moved here, with a crack that's become worse over the years, and now the other end has broken. It would be nice to replace them. We drove past a few shops that didn't look hopeful. I remembered a shop that sells baths near where we used to live, so we drove there... only to find it closed. Not closed down, just shut because it's the weekend.

So then we tried Andreou Bros, which is a rather bigger DIY shop with nasty lighting, so we didn't stay long. They did have a couple of shower curtains, but no doors of the kind we want.

As we were wondering where to go next - and my tolerance of shopping and driving was starting to get lower - Richard had a phone call from his optician. The varifocal sunglasses he'd ordered were ready. So we drove towards town, parked on a side street about half a kilometre away, and walked. It was rather too sunny for me, but we managed to stay in the shade for much of the walk.

So Richard collected the sunglasses. And then, because we were near a small shoe shop which I've found very helpful (and good value) in the past, we went there. Richard found some suitable trainers pretty quickly - the only ones left, according to the man in charge, and he could have them for 17 euros, although the new price is 35. We have to trust that this is so, but 17 euros isn't a bad price and they fit well and looked OK. No box, but that's not a problem:


However, there was nothing I liked in my size, although the guy tried to selll me various other shoes which I didn't like at all..

By then, I was feeling very tired indeed and had had more than enough of shopping. But we thought we'd just pop into the Thrift Store, in case they happened to have any centrifugal juice extractors.

As it happened, they did - but it was a huge, three litre one which would look ridiculous in our kitchen. So, although it looked almost new and was a very good price, we decided against it.

However, Richard spotted a Breville sandwich toaster, for nine euros. It looked in very good condition too, still with its box, and instructions. He very much likes toasted sandwiches, so we decided to buy it. If there's any problem we can return it on Monday.


We didn't use it at lunch-time, because my home-made bread is far too big for it:


- though of course we could cut them to size. This afternoon I popped around the corner to Orphanides Express and bought a loaf of ready-sliced bread that looked about the right size. We'll keep that in the freezer for Richard to have midnight toasties... or perhaps our evening meal on Sunday.

By the time we got home I was feeling exhausted, rather dehydrated and a bit headachey. We did, at least, succeed in the first two items on the list, and half of the fifth, and I suppose we succeeded in the sixth too since we did look for juice extractors, even though we didn't find a suitable one.

Bedding plants will just have to wait for another occasion.