More random Larnaka images for the end of March

 For anyone who thinks Cyprus is all sunshine and warmth... this is a screenshot from March 21st, on a morning when my friend Sheila and I decided that we would not be going out for our usual 5km walk...

According to local news reports, it has been an exceptionally wet March.  It has certainly felt that way. It's a good thing, as the reservoirs are now in a much better state than they were at the start of the year, although we're still told to conserve water, and I believe the hosepipe ban is continuing. 

Cyprus goes into lockdown...

When I wrote the last post, things were basically okay. We could see a limited number of people, we were washing our hands regularly and mostly staying at home, but it was fine to go out for walks with family or friends.

On Sunday, we drove to the St Helena's Church building so that Richard could live-stream a short service. There were only four of us there, keeping our distance from each other, and although there was a problem with the sound, it went well and people seemed to appreciate it. We hoped to repeat the exercise next Sunday.

In the afternoon, our closest friends came over for a game, a film for the children, and a shared meal.  This has happened every other Sunday afternoon for years; I wondered if it would be the last one for a while.  At 7.00pm we lit a candle in the window, in solidarity with family and friends in the UK (and many in Cyprus) doing the same thing, to indicate that we were praying about the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a little precarious, so we couldn't leave it there once we left the room.  After our friends had gone home, we went out for a walk, along the deserted sea front where we saw a handful of people and cars. We were rather concerned at the number of teenagers and young adults who seemed to be hanging out together, laughing and chatting and not even moving aside to pass in the street.

So it was no surprise, really, when yesterday evening the President announced that Cyprus was going into lockdown mode for three weeks from today at 6.00pm.  It wasn't immediately clear what this meant, but the article kept being updated.  We can no longer go out for walks or to each other's houses; the parks and beaches and other public areas outside will be closed down.

Apparently, over the weekend, groups of young people and families had been out socialising, disregarding all advice.  Not just in twos and threes for exercise, but in large groups.  This kind of thing potentially spreads the virus easily, and makes it much harder to trace all contacts if someone does contract it.

It didn't help that there were 21 new cases of the disease in Cyprus on Monday; over double the number reported on Sunday.  It's a small island, and the government wants to stop this thing so that, at least internally, we can go back to some measure of normality.

So this morning my friend Sheila and I went out for our last walk for three weeks.  We thought about it as we went into the Salt Lake Park, which will be closed from tonight onwards:

We thought about it as we wondered whether the lake will still be full in three weeks' time - if the lockdown is lifted - and whether the flamingoes will still be here:

And I realised I hadn't even thought about the fact that March is 'yellow month' in Cyprus.  There didn't seem to be nearly as many yellow wild flowers as usual, but this one stood out:

Sheila came over with her girls, mid-morning, for our last Tuesday morning of games for a while... we hope our goodbyes are only for three weeks, but nobody knows.

This afternoon I learned that not only do we need to have a good reason for leaving the house at any time in the next three weeks, but we must either send a text or fill in a form explaining who we are and where we're going. The authorities won't refuse requests, so long as we're not asking all the time... but it feels quite disturbing.  Not complying with the regulations will lead to an on-the-spot fine of 150 euros.

Spring, Lent, and Yellow Month in Cyprus

It happens around this time every year in Cyprus. The heating doesn't come on in the evenings, as the house is already warm enough. The days get longer, the sun shines with more regularity, and yellow weeds - often quite attractive weeds - appear in abundance on waste ground, like these ones pushing their way over the path on the Salt Lake trail:

Citrus trees are fruiting too. The one thing I occasionally miss about our old house is the fruit that seemed so unusual to pick at first, then commonplace. But our local friends have a lemon tree that's prolific this year, and have been generous in passing bags of lemons to us. I asked if we could have a few earlier in the week, realising that Shrove Tuesday was coming up, and we Brits traditionally eat pancakes with lemon and sugar.  But I agreed that I could use more than a few...

Easter is an important festival in the Christian Church, and also culturally in Cyprus where the majority of the population are Greek Orthodox, albeit in name only in many cases. In most years, there are two Easters, their dates calculated by different methods. But this year, as happens from time to time, both the Western and the Eastern Easter will be on the same Sunday in the middle of April.

That means that Lent - the forty-day run-up to Easter - should have started at the same time too, one would think. But that's not the case. In our Western tradition, the last day before Lent is Shrove Tuesday, although it's more often known as Pancake Day by the secular majority.  Traditionally one was supposed to use up products such as eggs and sugar prior to a simpler, vegetarian or sugar-free lifestyle during the days of Lent, in preparation for Easter.  Shrove Tuesday was four days ago, and yes, I made some pancake mixture, which Richard cooked after we had our evening meal:

My recipe makes eight pancakes, which was fine when there were four of us living here, or indeed when there were three of us, as we could make them bigger or one of our number would eat more than two.  But this time we decided to put half the mixture in the fridge for the following day.

Back to the difference in Lent traditions, the Eastern church, at least in this country, begins five days before Shrove Tuesday, with 'Fat Thursday', or Tsiknopempti, as it's called here. It's the day when the faithful are supposed to use up all the meat in their household, with barbecues or feasts for the family; Lent as a fasting season was taken quite seriously until relatively recently.

When we first moved here, there wasn't much meat available during Lent, and we were told that we should be certain not to have barbecues or eat any kind of meat outside during the Eastern Lent period. Nowadays there's just as much meat available now as at any other time of year, and Cypriots openly cook and eat meat right through the Lenten period. There are some 'fasting' foods available: more vegan cheese than can normally be found, and a wide range of halva.  Tsiknopempti is celebrated by going out and buying more meat to feast on.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday last weekend were then the Carnival weekend in the Eastern tradition. There are floats and parades along the sea front, with children (and adults!) dressing up in costumes. The word 'Carnival' originally referred to the removal of meat, but that seems to have been forgotten. Carnival in Cyprus is safe and lively, not the dangerous brawls one sometimes hears about in other European countries, but it's too loud and crowded for me, and I keep away.

Monday was then 'Green Monday' (also known as Clean Monday, and the first day of Eastern Lent) which is a public holiday in Cyprus. It's roughly equivalent to the Western Ash Wednesday (the day after Shrove Tuesday) and in theory should be when people cast off sinful attitudes, forgive anyone they're harbouring grudges against, and ensure there are no tempting delicacies in the house.

In practice, at least in Cyprus,  many people spend the morning spring-cleaning their houses, then go out with their families and friends on a picnic, after which they fly kites.  Again, when we first moved here, we were told that on Green Monday we must make certain not to take any meat on a picnic as it would offend the Greek Orthodox.  Nowadays many Cypriots fire up their barbecues again with meat for their Green Monday picnics.

Back to our leftover pancake mixture.

On Wednesday, neither of us felt hungry after our evening meal, so the mixture remained in the fridge.

On Thursday, we decided to have our last pancakes after lunch. So Richard started cooking them...

.. and suddenly the handle sheared off the pan!  It's a heavy-based pan which I've used for omelettes regularly, and there was no hint that it was breaking. Happily the pancake was fine, but clearly, it wasn't possible to repair the pan safely:

So he finished cooking the pancakes in a smaller frying pan, and they were very good.

I knew we had to go to a supermarket that afternoon, and was undecided between Metro and Lidl.... we hadn't been to either since before Christmas, as I do most shopping locally, but we needed various things that couldn't easily be found locally.

I looked through the Lidl advertising brochure that arrives weekly, and discovered that they had a special offer on heavy-based frying pans, in the size we needed.  So that determined which supermarket we would visit!  We weren't too keen on Lidl when it first appeared in Cyprus some years ago, as there is a very limited range of regular items, but we now know what's good value, and sometimes the special offers are extremely good.

So we went to Lidl, and now have a new 24cm frying pan:

We used exactly one of our donated lemons with our pancakes. So this morning I processed the rest, freezing another litre with some peel for lemonade in the late summer or autumn when lemons are no longer available, and making more lemon cubes that can be used easily in drinks or food where a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice are called for. 

March draws to a close...

On March 20th, there was a solar eclipse which was seen in totality in the UK. We only had a little bit of an eclipse here in Cyprus; not enough to have been aware of it at all, had I not seen it on the news. The last eclipse that was of significance here was in 2006.

Still, we got out the binoculars, and just about managed to focus two small dots on the floor, with a tiny chunk taken out of the two tiny images of the sun at the height of the recent one, just for the record:

On Monday, we achieved a hat-trick of eating out: three restaurants, three Mondays in a row. I wrote about the first two restaurants already; this time, the visiting friends gave us a choice so we opted for Alexander's, the place we have been to most often, which has a wide variety of food, with large portions at reasonable prices.

I didn't feel like anything more adventurous because I had developed an ear infection, the first one I can ever remember suffering from. I treated it with garlic-infused olive oil, which seems to be the currently recommended method. Although it was extremely painful on Monday, it was rather better by Tuesday, and almost entirely cleared up by the end of the week.

On Thursday I decided to take my camera on my early-morning walk with my friend Sheila. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, and I realised I hadn't thought much about the wild flowers and blossom that are so in evidence at this time of year, particularly after such a wet winter.

March, as I have often mentioned before, is known - for good reason - as 'yellow month' in Cyprus:

However there are plenty of other colours if one looks around - I don't much like pink, but this dusky pink blossom was quite attractive against the sky:

I always find the 'bottle brush' trees amusing; the name is so apt:

The trail had been getting very overgrown in recent weeks, with grass and bushes growing tall and leaning over onto the trail; as well as attracting insects, this can make for quite a wet walk if it's been raining.

But on Thursday, there was a grass-mowing vehicle driving up and down, and some nice clear verges:

I like the way that the council looks after the trail, at least most of the time. Here's another view, looking back where we had walked:

On Friday I walked down to the Post Office to check for mail; we get it delivered to a PO Box about a mile away. It's rather a boring walk down a busy main road. When I reached the main square by St Lazarus Church, I saw this decidedly non-religious Easter decoration, incongruous in its garishness:

I walked along one of the shopping streets, so I could buy some stationery at Estia, and then back along a less busy main road. Outside the municipal library (of mainly Greek books) I saw this monument:

I'm not sure who the lady in the statue is, but the offerings at her feet were no doubt presented as part of the parade on Wednesday, which was Greek National Day.

On Saturday morning, I went out to the froutaria, and there I spotted strawberries on offer: 79c for 500g. Strawberries have been in season for several weeks now, and these ones looked past their best. I wondered if the season was coming to an end, and decided it had to be jam-making day. So I bought a couple of kilograms of strawberries, and some extra sugar (69c per kg at the fruitaria) and spent the morning making six-and-a-half pots of strawberry jam.

I don't particularly like jam-making, but it's part of my heritage: my mother used to enjoy preserving more than any other kind of cooking. Both my grandmothers also made jam, and I honestly did not know that jam could be bought ready-made (other than at church stalls, when it was made by friends) until I was about eighteen. It would still feel like sacrilege to buy jam.

Last night we put the clocks forward by an hour; in the UK we called it 'British Summer Time' but in the rest of Europe I suppose it's just 'daylight savings' (as in the US) or maybe, simply, 'Summer Time'. 

Spring along the trail...

The word 'Spring' in the title is not a command, I hasten to add. While Sheila and I walk at a fairly brisk pace, covering 4km in around half an hour, or a little more, I certainly don't feel like springing along in the early hours of the morning.

Yesterday, however, was officially the first day of Spring. That means, in Cyprus, that we start to think about shedding our sweatshirts or sweaters during most of the day, but still put on something warm for the evening or early morning, and still definitely need a duvet at night. It's been a pretty mild winter, and dry too, so that I've had to water our plants a few times already, and the Salt Lake has never really filled up at all.

Spring in Cyprus, too, means that there is a lot of yellow. I write about this almost every year, but even now it startles and delights me with the suddenness of change.

Here's what part of the trail looked like just a month ago, when we were halted by a fallen tree:

Here it is now - as it's been for perhaps a week:

I was particularly taken with this bush, a kind of plant which I probably photograph every year: 

I am being woken by a persistent Sophia - mewing in my ear, batting my face, knocking things down - between 5.30 and 6.00am at present, when the sun comes up.  Sheila and I met at about 6.15 today, and then she walked back here with me afterwards, and we stood outside our house chatting for a while. By 7.30am it was feeling really quite warm - a reminder of the Summer which, in Cyprus is (unfortunately) guaranteed. 

I look forward to next weekend when, along with the rest of Europe, we will put our clocks forward an hour.