Sunday 14th December was the third Sunday in Advent. It was also a special anniversary for us: 48 years exactly since we went out on our first date, and 46 years since we got engaged.
But there was no chance to go out to celebrate. I didn't go to a church service, either, as I knew I had to do a lot of cooking and baking in the morning. Every other Sunday our friends come over for an afternoon of games (with a DVD for the teenagers), followed by a shared evening meal. I always provide bread and a dessert, while they usually bring cut up vegetables and protein such as cheese, eggs and tuna. Through the cooler months, I also make soup.
In addition, I was hosting our local writing group lunch on the Monday. I wanted to ensure there we had enough variety of food, so I planned to prepare some of that on Sunday morning as well. And our Sunday lunch, which wasn't complicated as I used a previously frozen chicken dish, so I only had to prepare roast potatoes and veggies to accompany it.
I started around 10.00am after a leisurely breakfast and shower... and I tried not to rush, so I wouldn't get muddled. I first started the carrot and ginger soup, one of my favourites; I add previously boiled chick-peas in too, to give it some protein. Then I started preparing some chicken breast with a slightly spicy thick sauce, to serve cold on Monday. And put the ingredients for a loaf of bread in the breadmaker.
Then I leafed through all my recipes looking for something to make for dessert in the evening; nothing really inspired me, so I tried a lemon blondie recipe I had previously downloaded and printed. I had quite a lot of lemon juice which I had frozen last year from an excess of lemons, so it was good to use some of that up.
By this stage, the kitchen looked like this:
I also wanted to make mince pies... so I had to tidy up a little, to make room for the food processor, and for rolling out the pastry.
As has become a tradition, I'm writing a post on Christmas Eve to wish a very happy Christmas to anyone who might read this. I don't suppose I'll turn my computer on at all tomorrow.
So in keeping with the annual posts on this date, I'll begin with a photo of our Christmas cake which I iced this morning and decorated in much the same way as I have every other year. I was tired - it's been a stressful year, and a surprisingly busy December - so didn't feel like anything more creative:
Richard and Tim took over the kitchen after I had done that, preparing and cooking the turkey. We always do this on Christmas Eve now; after it had stood for half an hour or so after being cooked, Richard carved it and it's now in the fridge in a roasting pan, so it can easily be reheated for an hour in the oven tomorrow. That way it can be served hot, rather than cooling down as everyone waits for it to be carved.
I'm not sure why I'm quite so tired this year; perhaps it's just my advancing years meaning I can do less. I've tried to limit extra baking and cooking to just one thing per day, and have not turned the computer on until after lunch. This means I've been slightly more productive in the kitchen than usual, but considerably less productive at the computer.
In the early part of the month, other than making some mince pies (as mentioned in my last post) I didn't do much extra cooking; instead I focused on writing and posting cards, and organising Christmas presents for the extended family in the UK. However on December 9th I made three Christmas puddings, seen here in the steamer:
A couple of days later, I tried out a recipe which claimed to be 'failsafe' (a politer way, I suppose, of saying 'foolproof'), lemon bars:
I used dairy-free spread instead of butter, of course, and half wholewheat flour in the base, and made exactly three-quarters of the given amount to fit my tin. But other than those modifications, I made it exactly as given... it was very tasty, but quite messy to get out of the tin. I wished I had greased it although the recipe specifically stated that an ungreased tin should be used.
However they seemed to be appreciated by the Larnaka Christian Writers' Group; the December meeting was held at our house, followed by our usual pre-Christmas potluck/shared lunch. Much food was enjoyed by nine of us.
When I made the lemon slices again a few days ago (they really did taste good, definitely repeatable...) I used a silicon sheet underneath and greased the sides, and they came out rather better.
I made other things to freeze for Christmas, managing to find space in the freezer although it's not easy, and did some extra cleaning, including Tim's room after Richard did significant amounts of tidying. Yes, despite Omicron and increased Covid restrictions, our younger son was able to fly here on Monday. He said the flight was crowded and rather scary as several of the passengers were not wearing masks, or not wearing them properly. But he's here, and has finished the few days of isolating with us (Cyprus distinguishes 'isolation' from 'strict isolation', the latter only coming into play if someone tests positive).
We went to the Post Office yesterday to see if there was any mail and were surprised by quite a number of Christmas cards. Usually the majority don't arrive until after Christmas, so we keep them and then put them up the following year. But we've had quite a few now, which is nice:
We send most of our Christmas greetings by email, with an update of a few significant events from the past year - most of which can be found by browsing this blog, despite the distinct lack of entries for the year.
Tomorrow we'll be going to St Helena's for the morning service, where Tim will be playing, then back here to finish lunch preparations. Our friends will be joining us, with four of their children - not really children any more as the youngest is eleven . We'll eat too much then play board games, and then eat some more. And we'll try to remember the real reason for Christmas amidst the light-hearted indulgences of the day.
Wishing every blessing to all who read this, with a safe and happy celebration in whatever form it takes. And praying for a more hopeful New Year.
An anonymous comment on this blog reminded me that I had not written here for some time. I was a little shocked to realise that it has been almost three months. Not that a great deal has happened: for October and November in Cyprus in general, just browse the archives for those months, with a little masking and distancing thrown into the mix.
We were delighted to be able to host two sets of visitors, although, sadly, others had to cancel. But in general, life has continued its normal daily round, as far as I'm concerned. And now we're in Advent: a week into December and already past the second Sunday of Advent, since the first one was on November 28th.
Christmas preparations always begin with the Christmas cake; this year I made it on October 31st, and then put it in an airtight container to mature. I have remembered to 'feed' it with a little brandy once, and will probably do so again, but I tend to forget about it until the week before Christmas, when I ice it.
Other preparations began slightly before I was expecting them to, when we were on a hunt for Christmas cards on the last Friday of November. They weren't yet available in the UK on our visit there in August, and I've never had much success in finding them here. We didn't find cards but we did see some rather nice looking poinsettias at the size we wanted, for a good price:
I mentioned on Facebook that I couldn't find cards, and a local friend let me know about two shops that sell them locally. It turned out to be much easier than I thought to find them.
Two days later, November 28th, was Advent Sunday. Something else we had found in one of the shops that sadly lacked Christmas cards was a wreath that was decidedly less tacky than most of what that shop had to offer. It was probably intended as a door wreath, but I realised it would be just right for a candle. So I put it up and we lit our first candle:
I also made some mincemeat, which I usually do every other year. It doesn't take long and is very simple - if anyone's interested, here's our family recipe for mincemeat, passed down at least two generations so far. The original one was for twice as much, and in pounds rather than grams... and the annotation at the end said it makes 'an enormous lot'. Mine makes a much more conservative 2kg, which is usually plenty for us for two years. I keep the extra kilogram in the fridge.
The following day, November 29th, I went to the shops mentioned above and found a good selection of Christmas cards. Last year we only sent about eight, to close family members, as the postal system was so bad. This year it's better - we hope - and so we're back to sending about thirty. Far fewer than we sent ten years ago, but many people have stopped sending them altogether, and we've lost touch with some folk.
We had agreed to host some Advent discussion groups starting on December 1st, so decided to do our annual tree-decorating (with help from young friends) on the last day of November. Outrageously early, as one friend commented on a Facebook post I made, and yes, that's true. But if not at the start of Advent, when...? Christmas Eve is too late, in my view, and any date between Dec 1st and Dec 23rd entirely arbitrary. Besides, I like seeing our tree and Nativity figures.
The cats are now middle-aged, but it didn't stop them attacking the tree about ten minutes after it was up:
'Who, me?'
His sister had raced through to the dining room and was looking entirely innocent although it was almost certainly her fault.
The Advent discussion group for our church on Wednesday evening, a mixture of in-house and Zoom, was small but enjoyable - hopefully more will join for other discussions.
On Saturday I joined the Christingle-making group at the church, for the first time. There were eight of us, and it took about an hour to produce over sixty Christingles. We all cleaned the oranges first (harvested from another church member's garden), and cut up foil. Then it turned into a production line. My role was to attach the red tape around the oranges. I don't know what tape it was, but it stuck beautifully.
On Sunday, in addition to preparing soup, bread and a dessert for our friends who come over every other week, and lunch for the two of us, I made my first batch of mince pies:
We went, with our friends, to the Christingle service in the evening.
We're fairly used to having chairs in groups of two, wearing masks, having our safe-passes checked etc, but I don't suppose I'll ever like it. It was a pleasant service, starting with a local choir singing (outside). Richard ensured it all worked, so that the choir could hear the music played back, and the congregation could hear the choir. He also set up the livestream which, if you're interested, is here:
(The actual service starts about 24 minutes into the stream).
We lit our second Advent candle on Sunday after we returned from the service with our friends and ate our meal a bit later than usual.
On Monday morning this week I went to the local Post Office to buy stamps, having written the cards in odd moments over the weekend, and plan to post them all tomorrow.
In the afternoon the local reading group met to discuss a couple of books, and to eat some shared Christmas goodies including more mince pies.
Today I started ordering presents for the family in the UK...
And we're only at the end of the first week of December.
We don't do a great deal in the way of decorating the house for Christmas. I'm not artistic, so we tend towards minimalism - anything more would look cluttered rather than attractive.
But we always put up our artificial tree, bought nearly thirty years ago in the UK when we left it a bit late, and there were no real Christmas trees to be had (or not for a price we were prepared to pay). It has become an annual tradition, over the past nine years, for me to have help from my friend Sheila and her daughters. As they gave grown older, they have started decorating without much assistance, and this year they put the tree together by themselves.
They all remembered that the branches are of differing sizes, marked with letters of the alphabet to match the slots in which they go.
We were amused that K (13) was finding one branch at a time, locating its hole, and slotting it in. H (10) was checking each branch in turn as she searched for those marked 'A', which she wanted to put in first. And E (8) was trying to sort them all into alphabetical piles before starting.
Despite these differences in approach, the tree was put together with surprisingly little argument. K then lost interest, and the younger girls did most of the decorating. I wasn't watching what they were doing... they decided to be creative, and made it look (as they explained) like a face:
They didn't expect me to keep it like that, so after I'd taken the photo H decorated more traditionally, and I didn't have to change anything later:
Well... other than picking it up and replacing a few items more firmly, after the cats knocked it down. But that has only happened twice so far, within a couple of hours of it going up. Since then, they have ignored it.
Meanwhile, E decided to get out the nativity characters which I knitted back in 2016. Again, I wasn't taking too much notice, until she told me it was set up:
The donkey and sheep, she told me, were having a snack at the manger. Joseph had just acted as midwife for Mary, so he was exhausted and taking a nap (when I said I thought Mary would have been even more tired she rolled her eyes). One of the shepherds was so worn out from his walk to the stable that he had fallen over. And E was still not quite sure what to do with the Magi, since (as she pointed out correctly) they arrived some time afterwards (probably days later, maybe a couple of years later) when the shepherds would have gone home.
I adjusted them later to a more traditional scene:
The post to Cyprus at this time of year is remarkably slow. Most years we receive at least half of our Christmas cards after the New Year. I've got into the habit of keeping the current year's cards in an envelope, to hang up the following December - not that there are as many as even five years ago, as fewer and fewer people send cards. Only five have arrived so far this year, and they're up on a bookcase. But I had thirty-three from a year ago.
Yesterday I decided it was time to hang up last year's cards. I managed to get the shorter string up, and hung eleven of the cards only to have Lady Jane take a decided interest:
While she was occupied, I started putting up the other string, which is a bit more complicated. I didn't expect her to come leaping towards me along the pelmets. She didn't expect that brushing against the clock would knock it down and shatter the glass front...
I swept up the smithereens, and thought the clock was history. Then I noticed that it was still ticking. So I thought that perhaps we could at least rescue the mechanism. Further investigation revealed that the oval frame at the front of the clock was undamaged, as was the face, although the two had come apart and there were several broken-off pieces from around the edge. Richard said he thought that perhaps he could repair it...
... and succeeded in doing so. So the clock, without a cover, is now back on the wall, as are the rest of last year's cards.
Oddly enough, Lady Jane has not been back to check on the Christmas cards or the string... and since 'her' human will be arriving this evening, for nine days in Cyprus, I hope she'll be too occupied over the next week or so to think about them again.
I have evidently been neglecting this blog recently. I've been busy with various things, and somehow blogging has slipped off my radar. My last post was early November, when I was writing about October. Since then, winter (such as it is in Cyprus) has appeared, and Christmas will be here very soon. So here's a brief summary of the past six weeks or so:
The temperature always takes a downward turn around the second week of November. So around that time I got out our two cat beds. I made one of them, a few years ago, and we bought the other one. To my surprise, the cats decided to sleep in them. However, Alex, who is really quite a large cat, squashes into the smaller bed:
While Lady Jane, his petite sister, spreads out comfortably in the larger bed:
On November 20th, we went into the large and somewhat random shop Kleima. I forget what we were looking for, but we spotted some large poinsettia plants at just €4.99. We usually pay more than that for much smaller ones. It felt much too early for a plant we consider to be a Christmas decoration. And I was dubious about buying it from Kleima; the shop isn't known for great quality. But somehow we decided to buy one anyway. The pot was a little small, so I re-potted the plant:
In the process, a couple of the stems fell out. They didn't break off, or anything; they were stems that had apparently been pushed into the soil to bulk the plant out a bit. I trimmed them and put them in water. Over the next few days, I noticed other stems starting to droop... and on gentle pulling, found that they, too, were just loose stems.
However, the actual plant, while considerably less voluptuous than it originally appeared, has survived well and is looking good.
Our closest friends here had been away for over two months, so although winter was approaching I hadn't done any early morning walks in October or November. But they returned at last, and I woke early enough to see a sunrise on November 25th:
A few days later, it was my turn to travel, though I was only away for a week. My flight was quite early, though after sunrise; as I looked out of the plane window I spotted part of a rainbow:
My trip was to the UK, in order to help my father celebrate a special birthday. While there, visiting a garden centre, we saw this display of mechanical toys:
They were delightful to watch, but then we saw the boxes. Each one cost at least £30, some of them more, and one alone would be rather dull. They're not toys, and they're the kind of thing one would only get out at Christmas. They were a great display for the garden centre, but I did wonder who might buy one!
At the weekend there was a family party, with twenty of us in all, and a magnificent cake made by my father's wife:
Since I was seeing my siblings and their spouses, with whom we still exchange gifts at birthdays and Christmas, I did all my Christmas shopping online before I flew out. I then wrapped everything, and distributed appropriately. I also wrote all the Christmas cards for UK friends and relatives, and got our newsletters printed and posted too. I even made this year's Christmas puddings and mincemeat before my brief trip. I don't think I have ever been so organised, and it was a good feeling.
A week after my return to Cyprus, the Christmas season was well underway. The Larnaka Christian Writers' group had our annual Christmas potluck lunch with lots of good food and enjoyable company:
Among other things, I took along some of my first batch of mince pies.
Then, the following day, Sheila's daughters helped me to decorate our Christmas tree, something which has become an annual tradition:
A couple of days after that, Richard and I celebrated the 40th anniversary of our first date. We had a take-away lunch, had some professional photos taken, and saw some of the lights of Larnaka:
In the evening we went out to eat, and then - along with many other people - took photos of this rather strange giant bauble at the end of the small pier:
At the weekend, I hung up last year's Christmas cards, something else I do each year since so many don't arrive until January. And I sewed up another shepherd I had knitted for our Nativity scene:
I made the first of this season's lemonade on Saturday, after buying a crate of thirty lemons for a couple of euros. On Sunday I made the second batch of mince pies, and some veggie 'sausage' rolls for freezing. On Monday I made some gingerbread and chocolate chip cake. I also opened up and made up the sofa bed in Tim's room, which made Jane very happy:
Tim arrived last night and she was even happier. He has always been her human of preference.
Today I made marzipan and put that on the Christmas cake. I need to make some more mince pies, within the next few days, and ice the Christmas cake... but that's about all until we cook the turkey on Christmas Eve.
The house is not as warm as we'd like because one of our central heating pumps needs to be replaced. We've bought the new pump, but the central heating engineer recommended by the shop hasn't come to fit it, though he said he would do so yesterday evening or this morning. However it's not particularly cold out, so an extra jacket is sufficient, at least at present.
I hope to write another blog post on Christmas Eve, as I tend to each year, and will then make a 'resolution' to write at least one post per week in 2018.
Continuing the theme of a fairly low-key Christmas, I didn't make mincemeat or Christmas puddings this year, because we still had some left from last year. I did make mince pies earlier this week, and our usual traditional Christmas lunch is currently in the oven, to be cut and refrigerated tonight, re-heated tomorrow along with cooking roast potatoes and carrots and brussels sprouts, and so on.
I iced our cake yesterday, but since it looks much the same as it always does, though rather less tidy (since I put marzipan only on the top) I haven't taken a photo yet.
Thank you so much to all who were concerned and prayed for our granddaughter Esther after my last post; within a few days she was home and free from infection, so we are very thankful and relieved. They are remaining in the UK for Christmas, with other relatives visiting.
Meanwhile our tree has continued to suffer from the cats' enthusiasm. Alex looks rather pleased with himself here:
It's currently standing, however, and has done for a couple of days, so perhaps they have finally lost interest.
One entirely new thing that happened this year was that Richard was co-opted as 'Santa' for a couple of performances of 'The Snowman' by Little Muse Theatre. I didn't see the show this year, not having a small child to take, but I gather it went well. He wondered if our grandson would have recognised him; when I saw the photos, I'm pretty sure I would not have recognised him before he spoke!
It's been a strange week. The sky has mostly been grey, and there has been a lot of rain - more than we can remember in some years, although statistics online show that December is usually rather a wet month in Cyprus. Sheila and I didn't walk on Thursday as it had rained all night, and hadn't stopped by the time we usually go out.
But this morning it was clearer, so despite the trail being a bit soggy in places we did our usual 4km walk, and saw that the Salt Lake was looking quite full once more.
Wishing all who see this a joyful and peaceful Christmas, as we celebrate again the birth of the world's most important Baby, and every blessing for 2017.
I made this year's Christmas cake at the start of November. But the sun was still shining, and there was no urgency to do anything else related to Christmas. I still have quite a large tub of mincemeat which I made last year, and one remaining Christmas pudding, both in the fridge. Since most of the family won't be coming here for Christmas this year, we won't need more than that.
I decided that Thursday would be the day for putting up our tree. My small friends were here for the morning, so they enthusiastically sorted and placed the branches. I roughly strung the lights, and then the children hung up as many decorations as they could.
I'm not at all obsessive or perfectionist about the tree, and thought the final result looked pretty good:
Alex, however, had other ideas:
I had to pick up a prone tree twice during that afternoon, resulting in it now looking like this:
So long as the decorations are on the floor, the cats leave the tree alone. I may try to put them back again when they're not looking.
The girls were also quite excited about setting out my knitted nativity figures. They thought the coffee table would work well:
The wise men (or magi or kings) shouldn't really appear in the same tableau, but I didn't really want to put them somewhere else in the room, so we put them on the far edge of the table:
Oddly enough, other than a brief investigation, the cats haven't taken any notice of this. Here's the whole thing, in a little patch of starlight. Well, it's really sunlight, but the sun is, after all, a star.
Christmas is, of course, about the birth of the most important Baby who ever lived. But in our family, we have also been looking forward to the birth of our first granddaughter, who was due on Christmas Eve. She's the reason that her parents and brother are not coming to Cyprus for Christmas this year.
However she decided to put in an appearance a couple of weeks early, so that when we woke up on Friday morning, we had the exciting news of Esther's arrival. Here's a photo taken today of the four of them:
Although she doesn't have jaundice, she has tested positive for a Strep-B infection, which can be quite dangerous in newborns, so she and Becky have to stay in hospital for another few days. Prayers are welcome.
It was a very dry January in Cyprus. At least, it was until about a week ago. I continued my three-times-per-week walks with my friend Sheila, along part of the Salt Lake trail, and from time to time we commented on how empty the Salt Lake still seemed, with very few of the usual flamingoes. Here's a sunrise from a week ago, with quite a few clouds in the sky, although I had almost forgotten that clouds often precede rain...
Then on Sunday, it rained. Not heavily, but quite a bit.
On Monday it rained too, in short but heavy bursts typical of this region. We could do with some of the steady drizzle I was more accustomed to when growing up, but that's all too rare here.
On Tuesday, we decided to brave the trail in the hope that it would not be too muddy. We had to avoid a few puddles:
But were walking along at our usual pace when we rounded a corner and saw this:
Had it been a dry week, we might have tried to get around the fallen tree, but everywhere was still very wet, so we turned around and went the other way. I'm quite glad we did, because we got to see some flamingoes:
If you click the image, it should take you to a larger version of the photo that shows them more clearly. I did try zooming in on another photo, but inevitably it's not as sharp - however I quite liked this group of seven flamingoes in a row, with their reflections in the water:
It rained again somewhat on Wednesday, hard enough that our roof leaked quite badly over the stairs, but briefly enough that the sun came out again and dried up most of the rain. On Thursday's walk, the flamingoes were even more in evidence:
We think there were around two hundred to be seen. That might sound like quite a few, but a year ago they arrived much earlier, and we estimated that there were over two thousand VERY noisy flamingoes!
The Salt Lake still seems quite empty compared to last year. There isn't a whole lot of snow in the mountains, either. We hope this is not going to be another year with enforced water restrictions.
