What to see in Larnaka

 For the first ten days of the month, we had some friends visiting: a couple we used to know well when we lived in Colorado Springs, back in the early 1990s.  We had not seen one of them for over thirty years! It was wonderful to spend time together, and also to show them something of the area. Richard took a week off (well, mostly off...) and took them on a few trips further afield. But we also liked showing them some of the sights and places of interest in and around Larnaka. 

On the first morning, we took a walk to the Salt Lake trail. We only went as far as the bird-watching platform, and it was disappointing: a couple of flamingoes in the distance, and not much else. There haven't been as many flamingoes as usual this year, and signs have been posted clearly prohibiting visitors from leaving the trail and walking closer to the lake. I didn't take any photos.

In the afternoon, we walked along Larnaka sea front, looking at statues and shops, and eventually reached St Lazarus Church. This is where Lazarus - sister of Mary and Martha - came to be bishop, and where he was buried, according to tradition, when he died for the second time. 

There's often construction or repair work going on, and sometimes hordes of pigeons in the grounds. But we didn't see many birds, and the church was open for visitors. One has to dress appropriately - no shorts, or bare shoulders. But it's February; we were all dressed in long trousers and more than one warm, long-sleeved layer. 

I've been inside the church several times previously, and am not a huge fan of the ornate decorations found in many Greek Orthodox churches. But it's an interesting place to see, and visitors always seem impressed with the interior. Here's just one image (taken by one of our friends).

I didn't go down to the crypt, although our friends did. 

Not far from St Lazarus is the Larnaka mosque:

We didn't go inside - I'm not sure if it was open to the public. But it's also quite an impressive looking building. It was closed down when we first moved here, but there's a growing Muslim population, including some of the asylum seekers and refugees, and so the mosque is now refurbished and used. 

Walking back to the sea-front, the third imposing building is the old fort:

We didn't go inside that, either. It was near to the closing time, and we didn't want to have to pay for just twenty minutes or so inside.  From past experience, it's not all that extensive or exciting anyway. But we could see through the entrance:

It's nicely renovated, and although I haven't been for some years now, I understand there's an indoor mini museum as well as the uncovered area, and information about how the fort was used, many years ago.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had thought of going to Cyherbia. But when Richard checked the location on his phone, we learned that it was closed during February, other than at weekends. So instead we drove to the Oroklini bird-watching platform, hoping to get a better view of flamingoes. We had never been there before, but other friends who visit go there regularly.  I was quite surprised at the impressive view of Oroklini lake:

The platform has a display showing different kinds of local birds, and our friends were able to identify many of them. We did see flamingoes, although not many, and not very close. 

Then we went to have ice cream on the Makenzy promenade, and walked around the fishing 'village' - really a kind of mini harbour for fishing boats. 

On other days our friends went sailing, and we drove to Curium, which I'll write about in a separate post at some point. We had a couple of take-away evening meals, and were treated to a meze at our favourite restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. 

We decided, after all, not to visit CyHerbia this time. On Saturday morning - when it was raining - Richard took our friends to see Angeloktisti (the church of the angels) in Kiti. Then they went to the Sultan Tekke mosque near the Salt Lake. All worth seeing, but I had seen them before and needed to do things at home. 

There are several museums in Larnaka, but we decided against going to any of those - we didn't need to fill up every minute of time with places of interest. Just walking around the block, seeing typical Cypriot homes, is something of an adventure to people new to the country.

But we did do two more fairly local things: we drove to the top of Rizoleia hill to see the view over Larnaka (and to have some hot drinks).

And on our friends' last afternoon, after a morning trip to Nicosia with Richard, one of our friends and Richard went to Salina Park, for more hot drinks, and time to chat.

It was good to have places to visit and see that were within walking distance, or a short drive, rather than taking up a whole morning or day out.  The weather was mostly dry and sunny, but not over-warm, so we didn't have ice cream more than once. Nor did we go to the beach. Since there were no children, we also didn't go to any of the many playgrounds that can be found within Larnaka and nearby locations. 

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. 

Family visiting Cyprus

 It feels like a LONG time since I last wrote. It's only four weeks, but our generally relaxed empty-nest routines were thrown out for a while. The house looked more lived-in than usual, with the coffee table piled high with books. The usual weekly cleaning didn't happen. The Roomba only ran sporadically, and I barely managed half an hour at my computer most days. We didn't watch a single film or even an episode of a DVD series. I usually read at least two books per week; in the past month I've only finished three full-length books, although I read a large number of shorter ones....

It was awesome. 

Our family - son, daughter-in-law and their two children - came to stay over the Easter holidays, with a few extra days each end (authorised by the children's school) so they could find affordable flights.  For just over three weeks they were with us, in Cyprus for the first time since the summer of 2017. 

Life is very different with children in the house.  At eight (nearly nine) and six (and a quarter) our grandchildren are a delight. At times they are noisy, and they rarely sit still, but they're loving, curious, and interested in everything. They love playing games, too - so we played a lot of board games. 

The Lego proved popular... though it only came out a couple of times.

They love books - they can both read fluently, but they like listening to books too, as my own sons did, well into their teens. My grandson discovered Garfield for the first time. We have quite a collection of the books, and I loved hearing his chuckles as he devoured them, one after another. 

In the first week Richard took them out sailing, and we had an afternoon on the beach. I thought we might have had more beach afternoons, but somehow they didn't happen... sometimes it was too windy, or even wet; more often there were simply too many other things to do. 

Cooking was an interesting challenge: my son is vegetarian, which is fine; I have leanings that way myself. But others like to eat meat at least a few times each week. My husband is dairy-free, but eats meat: so normally our house is dairy-free, but we bought cheese and yogurt for the family. Then the grandchildren won't eat any cooked vegetables, though they love raw ones. They also don't like strong flavours such as hot curries, and are reluctant to experiment too much with new foods although they're pretty good about trying things they're not sure about. 

Unusually for us, we ordered takeaways via Foody about once a week, since both of us had discount vouchers. Besides, I needed a break from cooking sometimes, to be able to enjoy an afternoon out.  Sometimes I cheated, too, with ready-made burgers (meat or vegetarian) or breaded fish (or chicken or vegetables). 

But I prefer to eat 'real' food (enchiladas, perhaps, or spanokopita, or chicken pie, or a jalfrezi curry and rice...)  and on the whole it wasn't too difficult to suit everyone's tastes, it just took some planning - and a lot of oven space - if I was making two or even three different main courses, some added form of carbohydrate if needed, and two or three cooked vegetables. 

Before the family came, I made a mental list of places that we could visit. There are local playgrounds and parks, of course, but our first bigger outing was to Cyherbia. We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but the children were thrilled to hear about the famous maze, apparently the only one in Cyprus.

We took a twelve-year-old friend with us, which is a good thing as the children raced around the maze, and our young friend was the only one who could keep up with them. 

Cyherbia also has a walk in the shape of the island of Cyprus, where we could see different landmarks, and there's a beautiful fairy village which we all admired: 

We spent a couple of hours walking around (or running, in the case of the children) and would have stayed out longer, but it started to rain. So we went to find our complementary hot herbal tea in the tea room, and the children spotted that there were ice creams. Ice cream was quite a feature of their visit; we lost track of how many they ate when out at various places.

Over the Western Easter weekend, our son and his wife drove part way into the mountains for a couple of days by themselves, and the children moved upstairs to what used to be our younger son's bedroom. It's become an electronics room for Richard, so although he tidied it up prior to their arrival, it's not ideal... however the children liked being with us upstairs so much that they slept there at nighttime for the rest of their holiday. 

While we had the children on our own, we had our second further-away outing, this time to the Camel Park.  It's somewhere else we'd never been, although we'd heard good things about it. We were very impressed with the wide range of activities: a playground for younger children, exercise equipment for slightly older ones, plenty to see including a terrapin pool: 

We bought fairly inexpensive bags of animal feed (carob pods) which were doled out to the many different animals in the park. Perhaps the enclosures were a bit small, but the animals seemed contented and very eager to reach out for their food. 

The highlight was a camel ride, which both the children enjoyed thoroughly: 

They even went in the swimming pool, although we thought it rather chilly. I felt a bit anxious the whole time, since neither of us are good swimmers and we had no intention of going in. I would, of course, have jumped in fully clothed had either of the children got into difficulties, but thankfully they stayed in the shallow end, splashing about and enjoying themselves until they finally admitted that it really was too cold. 

We'd been at the Camel Park for two hours and it was past noon, so we thought we would go to the restaurant for an early lunch. We had checked the menu in advance: they offered sandwiches of various kinds, and a children's section as well as quite a wide variety of Cypriot foods.

Then we had a disappointment: there was a big party at the Camel Park, so the restaurant wasn't serving meals. They did say that we could have something from the buffet (although it wasn't available for another half hour) but they couldn't tell us what it would consist of - and the cost was quite high for something that we probably wouldn't want, and the children most likely wouldn't eat. We asked if they would at least make sandwiches, and they said no - they weren't providing any other food until 4pm! 

So we bought bags of crisps at the kiosk nearby, as we were all surprisingly hungry; then we left to have our cold lunch back home. We would have stayed another hour or more if we'd been able to eat there. Picnics are not allowed in the Camel Park, so we couldn't have taken our own food. 

As often happens on holiday, the second half of the visit seemed to race past. The children went to local parks several times, and visited the fort in the town. On Greek Good Friday (a week after the Western one) my daughter-in-law organised a hunt for small chocolate eggs for the children around the house and side yard; they took some finding as the hiding places were quite creative. 

I made hot cross buns (I never can get the flour paste on the top to look right, but they tasted good). In the afternoon, the children went to our friends' house to experiment with dyeing and decorating hard-boiled eggs. It's  something my grandson had read about but they had never previously tried.

For the next four days, the family was even more enlarged as our younger son and his wife made a short visit, staying in a local AirBnB, and bringing the warmest weather we'd had all year. Just as well, since my new daughter-in-law is very allergic to cats, so they couldn't come into the house. 

On the Saturday, they all visited an interactive science fair not far from Nicosia, which we'd seen advertised.  I decided to have a day to myself, so I didn't go. The children enjoyed it, but overall the adults felt that it was a bit disappointing. 

The advertising said that visitors would need at least two hours to interact with all the different displays. In the event, about 25% of them were not working - or not working properly - but there were no staff available to assist.  Not that it was crowded - despite being Greek Easter Saturday, there was almost nobody else there.  So they spent as long as they wanted to at all the working exhibits, and still finished in under an hour. 

On the Sunday, we barbecued lunch outside after going to church services to celebrate the Resurrection. Our local friends came over in the afternoon for games followed by a cold evening meal, with 14 of us in all sitting around tables in our side yard. I think it's the most people we've had sitting down to eat out there at one time, and probably the maximum we could accommodate from the point of view of comfort.

On Monday they had a morning of sailing. On Tuesday morning, our friends came over for games, then one of my sons treated us to lunch out in the town. In the afternoon we took a walk by the Salt Lake... and in the evening our younger son and his wife departed to return to the UK overnight. On Wednesday afternoon we took the children to St George's Park, followed by ice creams, and our other son treated us all to food in the Metropolis Mall. And so, time gradually speeded up in our perception as their imminent departure was measured not in days but hours... 

When they left I was sad, but not as devastated as I felt five-and-a-half years ago when they departed after staying all summer.  That's mainly because, in 2017, they were going to join a ship the other side of the world, and we had no idea when we might see them again. Now we see them more often, and video chat fairly regularly so it's not such a wrench. 

I wish we lived closer and could see them more frequently; I certainly hope they come again before another five or six years have passed. But for holidays to be special, they need to have their own everyday lives with their own routines.  And I was quite tired; much as I miss them, it's good to have my own space, with time to relax on my own to recharge my psychological batteries. 

Rain... and an unexpected flood

Several people told us that there was a lot of rain on September 6th when we returned from our UK visit. But by the time we arrived back the sky was clear and the ground mostly dry.  We didn't have to water the plants for a few days, but the temperatures remained fairly high and there was almost no more rain. just the odd shower once or twice.  

The Salt Lake - our friends told us - never quite dried out this summer. As I mentioned in the last post, in mid-September, when I started walking again with my friend Sheila, there was a fair amount of water in it. 

But with the lack of any more significant rain over the next few weeks, we began to wonder if the lake might in fact dry out by the end of October.  Each week there was noticeably less water, and although we knew flamingoes had arrived in Cyprus, we didn't see any. Friends who visited early in the month saw some in Oroklini, not far away, but evidently there wasn't enough water in the local Salt Lake. 

My brother and his family were due to arrive for a visit just over a week ago. The forecast looked very grim, with rain predicted for every day of their stay, and thunderstorms over the weekend. However, experience told us that when five days of heavy rain is expected, we might get one, maybe two. And even then, the rain is usually punctuated by sunshine.  Sure enough, although it rained on Sunday morning - the day after their arrival - it cleared up and stayed fine from mid-afternoon. That was good, as we had planned an outdoor evening get-together with a few friends. 

The following day, however, it was a different story. I managed to pop out to the local shops in between a couple of rain showers, and by lunch-time the rain was pouring down. 

We could see water running down the streets, although the drains seemed to be working so that there wasn't a river in the road; we would have expected to see one a decade or so ago. I kept checking our stairs, where there's often a leak with very heavy rain, and was pleased to note that there were just a few drips. Evidently our roof tiles, finally fixed a couple of years ago, were still keeping the water out.

So we had a cold lunch, and were chatting awhile before my brother said he thought he would pop downstairs to our guest flat. The rain had slightly abated so it seemed like a good time to go down. We were still clearing the table, when he said, 'There seems to be something leaking onto the sofa...' 

We went to investigate. Sure enough, there was a wet patch on the back of the sofa in the living room, and as we watched, another drip fell from the ceiling. 

Uh-oh. 

Richard shrugged. 'It's Cyprus,' he said. Heavy rain, he explained, can cause water to get in between the floors. There was nothing much we could do other than move the sofa out of the way and place a bucket under the drip.

'I suppose we should check whether something's leaking upstairs?' I suggested, a little tentatively. Years earlier we had a drip in about that place, and it was from a slow leak at the back of the toilet. 

So he went up the stairs, and quickly came down again. There was, he said, a pool of water pretty much covering the entire upstairs floor. 

Six years ago (I'm surprised it was that long!) we had a flood in our bedroom in the night, due to a small ball blocking the overflow of our balcony. For two or three years afterwards, we checked carefully, every time there was heavy rain, not wanting it to happen again. But we had pretty much forgotten about it, and were doing other things ...so didn't think to go upstairs or see whether the balcony was draining as it should last Monday.

A photo showing the rain on our balcony really doesn't do it justice. It must have been three centimetres deep: 

Richard splashed his way out and found that the overflow was blocked by bird mess, probably washed off the roof by the earlier rain. He used the end of a broom to clear it, and water started gushing out of the overflow, slowly draining the water from the balcony.

But the upstairs floor doesn't slope down to the door, so the next problem was trying to get rid of the water that was getting everywhere. Thankfully we don't put books or papers on the floors, and there's no carpet - everywhere in this house is tiled. The furniture is mostly solid wood, so we knew it wouldn't sustain damage if we could remove the water fairly quickly. But it wasn't a simple process. And really only one of us could work at a time. 

So I began, first with a broom, sweeping as much water as I could from the bedroom towards the door. It wasn't very effective.

I next fetched our wet/dry cleaning machine, which sucks water up effectively. I decided to start in Richard's study where - thankfully - the water hadn't quite reached the wires under his desk. And, even better, there aren't many wires on the floor nowadays, because of our Roomba vacuum cleaner which has a tendency to try to eat any wires it finds.

However the Bissell cleaning machine tank doesn't have a very big capacity. Maybe a litre. And with water over most of the floor, it filled up in a couple of minutes, so I had to empty it. It's quite back-aching work using it on the floor. So by the time I had emptied it half a dozen times, with no appreciable reduction of the water level in the room, I decided to leave that idea for a while.

More sweeping in the bedroom removed a bit more water, and I then went to fetch the old-fashioned mop and bucket, which turned out to be the most effective method. The bucket holds about ten litres so it took longer to fill up, and after a couple of buckets full, the study floor was looking almost dry. The  cleaning machine then worked pretty well to get rid of the last few puddles. 

One room done, and it had taken nearly forty-five minutes.

I did some mopping in our bedroom next, but was soon too tired and achey to continue, so, fifteen minutes or so later, Richard took over.  And, with a combination of sweeping, mopping and the wet/dry Bissell machine, taking it in turns, we did eventually get rid of most of the water. A few shoes had to be dried out, but the sun came out in the late afternoon, so that didn't take long. 

A beanbag, in the room we still refer to as our younger son's, absorbed a huge amount of water and had to be dried out over the next couple of days. One bookcase looks as though part of the base has been somewhat destroyed. But everything else is now fully dried out, and - as far as we can tell - undamaged.

So we're very thankful that my brother spotted the drip when he did, and that we decided to check upstairs before it got any worse.

The following morning, not only did the Salt Lake look almost full, but the flamingoes were there. The tiny pink dots on the right-hand side of the photo (which you might see if you click to enlarge it) are flamingoes.  We have no idea how they know when there's enough water for their needs. 

Sorting our Guest Flat

The ground floor of our house is a separate flat - it was the house that was originally built on our plot, before the owners extended upwards. Since we moved here in 2006 we have considered it our 'guest flat' - and over the years it's been quite widely used. We've had relatives staying, and friends, and friends of friends... we've also had people connected with Richard's work, and other random people, needing a place to stay. The only criteria is that if we don't know them, we know someone who can vouch for them.

We don't run it commercially - it's not an AirBnB or anything like that - it's part of our home. When it's not occupied by guests it sometimes gets used for construction work, or things related to Richard's boat. Some years it's quite busy, other years less so.  And, of course, last year there were virtually no visitors at all. We did have someone who stayed a few nights over the 2020 New Year, but then she was able to go somewhere else that was more convenient. Visitors due to come in the spring - and the autumn - had to cancel as the world went into lockdown. 

In September last year, we did host the son of friends who flew back from another country and had to self-isolate for a week or so, and a few weeks later hosted a young woman who was here for a few days working with the refugees. But I don't think either of them did any cooking - one had food provided by his family, the other was out and about.  We did a quick vacuum and mop before both these people arrived, of course, and ensured the bedding and towels were clean. But it was a long time since we did any serious cleaning - there didn't seem to be much point, as nobody has stayed there since October 2020. 

At the start of June this year, we hosted our first barbecue of the season for our closest friends. I realised as I took lids off salads that I hadn't brought down sufficient serving spoons, so I popped into the guest flat and grabbed a couple out of the drawer. And was shocked at the mustiness. I washed them, of course, and afterwards they went through our dishwasher. But I made a mental note that before we had any guests in the flat, we would need to go through all the drawers and cupboards, and wash all the cutlery and crockery. 

For about six months the second bedroom in the guest flat was full of boxes belonging to some other friends who have moved to a different country.  And although we've had a lot of people provisionally booking to come and stay in the Autumn, there wasn't anyone due to come before then. But I felt the urge to get started with the cleaning and sorting while the weather wasn't quite as hot as it was likely to be in July and August. So when I stopped walking with Sheila towards the end of June - as it was starting to get hot - I decided to spend an hour or so each day, first thing, doing some sorting in the guest flat. Richard was able to move the boxes, and also took away the last of his tools and sailing bits and pieces... and I began. 

I started with the main/front bedroom, as that seemed like the easiest. I washed the curtains and cleaned the windows, and the radiator (which was full of dust). We cleaned the air conditioner, and I washed the mattress cover and pillowcases that were out, and dusted and mopped.  That took a couple of days, but it was quite satisfying when it was done: 

Each day I did another load in the guest flat washing machine - other curtains, bedding, musty towels and tea-towels - but there's not a lot of hanging space outside, so I limited it to one load per day.  I did a load of washing up too - all the mugs, and then the cutlery, and then started on the pots and pans and other containers, leaving each load to dry before I embarked on the next.

And then I tackled the games cupboard - possibly not a priority for most of our likely guests, but it was beginning to smell more than musty. I'm not sure if the dampness on the bottom was due to a leak somewhere, or just the excessive humidity. But however it happened, some of the jigsaws at the bottom - old ones, mostly - and one or two of the games were beyond any hope of repair.  We have all our favourite games upstairs, so it wasn't a huge loss.  

Having got rid of the worst,  I washed everything that was plastic, sat musty boxes out in the sunshine, and realised that we really didn't need half a dozen different sets of chess pieces, or games with half the tokens missing. I found somewhere else to put the jigsaws and decided to limit the games to the top shelf of the cupboard only, at least until we discover the source of the dampness. The damp patch is rather obvious in this photo - I took this after thorough cleaning of the cupboard as well as sorting, cleaning and rationalising the games:

Friends had asked if we could host some of their friends for ten days or so in the middle of July, so suddenly there was a motivation to get the flat finished - and I was beginning to feel more and more overwhelmed. By the end of June, I was realising that just an hour a day was not going to get everything done, so we both spent more time sorting. I was glad it wasn't just me, as it turned out that some of the pots and pans were also past redemption - and there were so many of them, some broken, some mouldy.  We took everything out and began the task of sorting out and cleaning what looked as if it might be useful:

Given that most of our visitors stay only a week or two, and are out and about - or, if they're family or close friends, eating with us - it's really not necessary to have a vast amount of kitchen equipment in the flat. Particularly things that are broken, or can't be properly cleaned. We've tended to put things there when we run out of space upstairs, or invest in something new. And some visitors have left things behind for the flat - so we were fairly ruthless about getting rid of any rubbish, or anything that clearly hasn't been used in a decade or more.  

So the air conditioners were cleaned, and everywhere was dusted, and everything washable had been washed... but it still smelled a bit musty, though considerably better than it had done. And some of the drawers and cupboards (such as the bottom of the games cupboard) looked rather unsavoury, despite having been thoroughly cleaned. 

So we bought some inexpensive drawer-lining stuff, in white, and on the first Saturday of July determined to finish - if at all possible. We bought a small dehumidifying device for the games cupboard, too. 

The drawer lining made a huge difference to - for instance - the under-sink cupboard, which had been plagued with leaks for years until Richard replaced all the plumbing earlier in the year:

However, although we spent about three hours in the flat that morning, and achieved a considerable amount, it still wasn't completely tidy. And we were exhausted. By that stage the people due to come in the middle of July had cancelled, and although we'd had a query about early August, we knew those guests weren't likely to make it. And there didn't seem much point doing final mopping and vacuuming - or sorting the last few bits and pieces - if we weren't having any guests until the middle of September. 

Then we had a query about the whole of August, from a family who have been before. As the flat was available we were able to say 'yes'.  And then, last Thursday, a young friend called to ask if by any chance a friend of his could stay, as her brother had tested positive for Covid, and she was told that if she wanted to continue working, she had to be away from him.  

So on Thursday afternoon, we did the final cleaning and tidying. I put the washed sofa throw and cushion covers back in the living room:

I put sheets and a duvet cover on the bed, and got out a fan:

Richard got rid of the last of the rubbish, and vacuumed, and swept, and I mopped:

And suddenly it looked like a habitable guest flat again, ready for visitors. 

Re-reading and Re-homing of Books

As I wrote in a post nearly two weeks ago, I have a somewhat overcrowded shelf of books which I haven't yet read. I just stopped typing to count, and there are thirty-eight of them. That includes five for the reading group I mentioned in that post, and three or four from my birthday earlier this year, or possibly even last Christmas. 

The rest are almost all from the St Helena's monthly book sales, some of them bought as long ago as November 2018. At fifty cents a book, it's very tempting to pick up all kinds of books I might not otherwise think about. If I decide I don't like them, I can donate them back the following month... or year, or whenever I get around to reading them.

What I didn't mention is that we also have about 3,500 books, most of which I have read at least once, in various locations around the house. And since I have some favourite authors whose works I like to re-read regularly, I try to intersperse around three or four new-to-me books with six or seven old favourites. 

I'm told I started reading books when I was about three or four. My first favourite books were by Enid Blyton (as was the case with most of my generation in the UK). For all her many faults in style and attitudes, she engendered a love of reading in many thousands of young children. By the time I was about ten or eleven, I had a couple of hundred books of my own, and during my teenage years I used to spend most of my birthday or Christmas money on inexpensive Armada paperbacks, which were popular in the 1970s, often on special offer during the January sales.

There wasn't much 'teenage fiction' in those days; I still re-read my older children's fiction (Malcolm Saville, Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Noel Streatfeild, Louisa M Alcott etc) and I also began reading 'grown-up' fiction when I was around twelve or thirteen. At school I discovered Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. My father introduced me to PG Wodehouse, my mother introduced me to Gerald Durrell, and my aunt, who worked in a bookshop, introduced me to Georgette Heyer. These are still amongst my favourite writers. 

It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I came across authors like Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy, and the whole world of so-called 'contemporary women's fiction'. I gradually collected some, many bought second-hand or given to me for a birthday or Christmas if I requested them. When I like an author, I try to collect all their works. 

By the time we had moved all our books to Cyprus, I had around two hundred volumes of 'my' fiction, mostly character-based saga novels, light Regency romances, contemporary fiction, some Christian fiction, and some oddities like Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series.  We also had perhaps a hundred biographies, two hundred or so Christian non-fiction books, a hundred or so of Richard's fiction (thrillers, spy fiction, and so on) and around five hundred children's books, mostly from my childhood and teens, and the ones given to our sons. And some general non-fiction, of course: dictionaries, reference books and so on. 

However, I'm not entirely sure how the 1200 or so books we had on our shelves around twenty years ago have managed to multiply to nearly three times as many. But we are finally running out of bookcase space, and - more worrying - of places to put new bookcases. I hate getting rid of books, though I don't mind passing them on to other people who I know will love them. So, until recently, when I need to make space in 'my' bookcases, which are in our dining room, I have moved a few more down to our guest flat. 

I've been keeping track of all my reading on GoodReads, LibraryThing and my book reviews blog for a little over twenty years, and in that time I've apparently read 2171 books.  That's not very many.  Since the boys left home the amount has increased, and I'm aiming to read 120 books this year, though I'm a bit behind schedule at present.  

But I worked out that if I read 120 books per year, and simply re-read all our book collection, without anything new, it would take me 30 years to finish. Now I'm not going to read Richard's books (around 1000, including both sailing and thriller-type fiction and some of his theological and missiological books) and I'm not going to sit down and read reference books, of which we have many. 

Even if I just include 'my' fiction books there are probably well over 1000 of them, and there are some I want to re-read at least once a decade.  I read some non-fiction too, and there are some of my children's/teenage books that I like to re-read regularly. In my planned ten books per month, I usually aim for one Christian non-fiction, two or three new-to-me-books, one or two re-read children's books, and five favourite authors from 'my' fiction whom I'm re-reading. Sixty per year. 600 in a decade...

Thus I don't need to keep more than about 600 of 'my' fiction. And that's about the number I have on our dining room shelves.

So for every new book I read, and want to keep (and probably re-read eventually) I can move a book to the guest flat. Of course it doesn't quite work that way; usually I fit more and more in the gaps until I have no room at all, then select a dozen or so to take downstairs. That's what happened on Saturday, although I was more ruthless, and removed thirty books from the shelves. 

They were so squashed together that I spread them out a little.. I blew off some dust, too, and cleaned the shelves properly.  They do look cleaner, but while there are now one or two slight gaps, it doesn't look as though thirty books have been removed.

Then I looked at the guest flat shelves.  The bookcases are becoming over-full. And since guests usually only stay a week or two, they don't need many hundreds of books, so it finally occurred to me that I could actually pass a few of the guest flat books to the church book sale. A radical thought. There are books down there which I know I will never read again. There are some which I have never read at all. There are some I don't recall ever having seen before... 

I found about thirty books which I plan to give to the book sale. Here's a selection, two of which are duplicates of books we have elsewhere, some of which I read and didn't like, some of which I read and thought were okay, but I won't read them again, and at least one of which I am quite certain I have never seen before. Indeed, when I went to remove these books (and the others I found) from my GoodReads and LibraryThing catalogues, three of the ones I didn't recognise weren't there at all. Maybe books breed when I'm not looking. 

Or maybe a guest bought a book at the airport, read it, decided they wouldn't read it again, and left it behind. If that's the case, I just hope they won't look for the book when - in some futuristic post-pandemic world - they visit us again.

Different spelling, different forecast...

From time to time I check the weather forecast on the site calling itself 'The Weather Site'. It's UK based but gives reasonable forecasts that are usually fairly accurate for any city around the world. We're having visitors for the next ten days, and it's stayed warmer than usual for the time of year, so I wondered if it was expected to continue. I took a look at the weather site today, and without thinking, typed in 'Larnaka', which is the way we usually spell our town.

A forecast appeared, and when I asked for the month view, it showed me one.. but, mysteriously, did not show me the actual recorded temperatures for the earlier part of November. I realised that I have previously asked for Larnaca (with a 'c') so I typed that in. Sure enough, the month view showed me the temperatures for the earlier part of the month.

Then I noticed that this wasn't the only difference (you may have to click the image to be able to read the text):

The changes aren't vast - just a degree or so most days - but I was particularly struck by the fact that rain is forecast next Thursday in Larnaka, but not, apparently, in Larnaca...

A brief visit to Agia Napa

Last week, our friend Alison was here to help with the year-end accounts for Richard's work. All was completed in record time, so Friday was a free day. The weather was a little warmer than it had been, and the sun was shining... so we offered to take her out for the morning. Alison had never been to Agia Napa, which is about forty-five minutes away from here, and a popular tourist resort. We would never go there in the summer when the town is packed with people on 16-30s type holidays, along with vast quantities of intoxicating substances, both legal and illegal. 

But in February, rather like the last time I was in Agia Napa - just over a year ago - it's quiet, almost empty. 

Our first stop, as usual, was the monastery. This time, it was open so we wandered in. We were intrigued by this animal's head and had some debate about it; a brochure explained that it is supposedly a boar's head:

Here's a view of the cloisters:

Inside, there was still considerable renovation going on, so there wasn't a whole lot to see, but still, it was a peaceful place and good to spend a few minutes wandering around. 

Just outside the monastery entrance is my favourite gnarly tree: 

And, as usual, there were some rather lovable kittens who would love to have come with us. Mostly they moved too rapidly to be photographed, but I was rather taken with this one: 

We decided to walk down to the marina. Richard always likes to look at boats, I like the sea (and sea-breezes) and Alison was happy to see anything new. At least, until she spotted the rather gaudy boat approximately in the top middle of this picture: 

We wandered around, then stopped to watch some men who wanted to get a fishing boat onto a boat trailer, without getting their feet wet. They did manage eventually! 

We then looked for an ice-cream place, but almost everywhere was closed. Eventually we found one cafe that was open, which sold dessert-like ice creams. Alison had one, but Richard and I opted for coffee instead. 

Then we drove home, and I took a picture out of the car window. I didn't really capture the beauty of the day, or the sun glistening on the sea, but there's perhaps a hint of it: 

And here, less beautiful, is one of the small electricity plants for the island: 

Going to Agia Napa for a few hours off-season makes a pleasant outing from Larnaka; it's about 45 minutes' drive, so not something we'd want to do often, but around once a year is fine for me. The only time we do anything 'touristy' is when we have visitors!