Matestar food processor

As documented earlier in this blog, we bought a Kenwood multi-pro food processor nearly ten years ago. The blender part was not very satisfactory; it started to leak after just a few years, and was very difficult to clean. However, the food processor part continued to work well, despite the beginnings of a crack at the bottom of the main bowl. 

But I was finding myself increasingly irritated by the limited capacity. The bowl could theoretically hold 1.2 litres, but that doesn't mean it can be filled to that capacity before using. I found that if I made pastry with more than about 300g flour total (and 150g fat) it wouldn't mix properly. If I made coleslaw, even with a small cabbage, I had to run it four times, with no more than a quarter of the cabbage, or it didn't fully cut it. 

Not, in the scheme of things, a huge problem. But an annoyance. A food processor is supposed to save time and effort, and it wasn't really doing so. Sometimes I resorted to doing things by hand as it was quicker, and saved washing up, even though the result wasn't as good. And sometimes I decided not to bother with something I had thought about making, as it would be too much hassle. 

In the middle of December last year, we were in Superhome Centre, buying a new microwave. We found one we liked it a better price than we were expecting to pay. And I started looking at food processors. I was thinking how much easier it would be to do some of the Christmas preparation with a bigger, more powerful one. We started checking the reviews online. In the past, we've tended to choose well-known, trusted brand names. But there are many good brands now, and they all have to have a guarantee of at least two years. 

We decided we would treat ourselves, and put our old (still functioning) food processor in the guest flat. We initially, opted for a Moulinex which looked like excellent value, and claimed to have a bowl size of 2.5 litres. Then, when we got it home, we discovered that the bowl size was only about 1.2 litres, no bigger than our Kenwood processor. We put it back in the box and returned to the store, where they agreed that it was a problem. I was disappointed, as it was a nice-looking appliance that felt well-made and strong. 

So we checked what else they had in stock, and eventually chose the Matestar. We had the box opened in the shop so we could check that the bowl actually goes up to 3 litres. It didn't feel quite as strong as the others, but said it had 1000 watts of power. I didn't realise until we got home that the bowl was not dishwasher-safe, but decided that was a minor issue, and we didn't want to replace it yet again.  It was more expensive than the Moulinex, but not extortionate. 

The day after we bought it, we were entertaining our friends, as we do every other Sunday afternoon. I wanted to make carrot soup; in the past I had roughly chopped carrots. But I don't do well with sharp knives, so the pieces would be quite large, and would take a long time to cook. I threw the entire kilogram of peeled carrots, just cut into halves or thirds, in the food processor: 

Thirty seconds later, I had this: 

So much easier! 

I also wanted to make a lemon drizzle cake. My old food processor wasn't big enough to take enough of the mixture for eight or nine people. The new one worked perfectly: 

(And the resulting cake was one of the best lemon drizzle cakes that I have ever made). 

The food processor comes with several attachments. There's no blender - I have not been at all impressed with blenders attached to food processors. But there's a juicing attachments, and the usual slicing and grating discs. There's an emulsifying disc, too. In three months, I haven't used any of those. 

So the only attachments I keep with the food processor are the two mixing tools: a hard plastic one, which works well for cakes and similar soft mixtures, and the metal blades, which are ideal for chopping. Each one slides over the central (removable) part, and they take apart for washing. 

I have to admit I find the metal blades a tad alarming; they're extremely sharp (don't ask me how I know...). And when they're attached to the central unit, it's not easy to remove them without getting cut (no, really, don't ask). But I've worked out how to do it, and haven't had a problem since the early stages. 

Later in December I made the mixture for my favourite vegan 'sausage' rolls using the food processor, and that turned out perfectly. As did both marzipan and royal icing for my Christmas cake. 

So far this year I have made pastry several times - no need to limit myself to small amounts - and other cakes. The bowl is easy to clean, as are the blades, so long as one is careful. 

Overall, I think - at least, so far - that this was an excellent buy, and I'm very pleased that we decided to get it before Christmas. 

Another new microwave (Westpoint brand)

 Microwave ovens are supposed to last about seven years. Some of ours have done so, or even a year or two longer. I wrote a post about the one we bought in October 2020, a Sharp brand, which - at first - we were very pleased with. Certainly the instructions were easier than our previous Carrefour microwave which, despite its complexity, lasted us for eight years.

I very much liked the straightforward options on the front of the Sharp microwave, and regularly used the ones such as baked potatoes or frozen peas. We also liked the fact that we could enter exact timings when necessary - for instance for warming plates with silicon mats, or making mug cakes. It came with a useful instruction guide, but mainly its use was intuitive, and we hoped it would last us at least seven or eight years. 

Unfortunately, within a couple of years the touch-screen 'buttons' had started fading quite badly. It's not all that clear from this photo, but the most-used ones were becoming impossible to read, and sometimes quite difficult to push:

Of course this didn't happen until after the statutory two-year warranty was over. And it wasn't unusable. Indeed, we continued using it for another two years or so. 

During that time, we noticed that rust was beginning to form inside. By December 2024, it was looking like this: 

It really hadn't worn well. We could not recall any of our previous microwaves having such a large amount of rust. Was it dangerous? We hoped not, although metal is not supposed to be exposed inside a microwave. 

And then one day something we had microwaved had a fleck of what looked like paint on it. And when we checked inside, we saw that the roof looked like this:

The enamel was bubbling badly.  Not what one wants in a microwave. We have no idea how long it had been like that; I had noticed a bit of bubbling a few months earlier, but it seemed minor and wasn't breaking away. 

It was only four years old, but we knew, for safety reasons, we had to get rid of it and buy a new one. We decided to go to Superhome Centre, which stocks quite a variety of microwaves, in various sizes and also costs. 

We had a few criteria that were important to us. 

1) Digital rather than analogue timing so that we could be specific for things like mug cakes

2) Big enough that we could fit dinner plates in it for warming, but not enormous. 

3) Not too expensive.

4) Not a touch-screen that was likely to be destroyed by pushing the 'buttons'.

5) If possible, black/silver colour rather than white, to match other appliances. But that was a relatively minor issue. 

In the past, we would often choose a well-known, trusted brand rather than one of the newer ones. But most appliances are reasonable quality nowadays, and quick online checks of reviews suggested that most of the microwaves available would do the job satisfactorily. 

We looked at quite a selection, rejecting the analogue ones, and the smallest. And then we found exactly what we were looking for, fulfilling all our criteria, including being a good price. We didn't know the Westpoint brand, but it looked smart, and had little buttons (which, we hope, won't break) and digital timing down to five seconds. 

It doesn't have the useful quick choices of the Sharp. Instead, to use a specific baked potato (or other) setting, one has to use the 'auto' button and select from menus, rather like the Carrefour one we had prior to the Sharp. It's too complex for me to remember, so I stick with the basics: cook and defrost. Both seem to work extremely well. 

Setting the clock is easy; I've had to do that a few times as we've had brief power cuts more than once in the past couple of months. On the other hand, we had to consult the manual to find out how to actually cook anything. We had to get used to a different way of getting the microwave to work: we first press the 'microwave' button, then the 'start' button, before turning the dial to set the time. 

If we forget the second step and turn the dial without pressing 'start' first,  it tries to set a different power instead. I don't really know why they have this option. Some recipes specify different microwave powers, but I've never really been aware of what wattage is being used anyway. We just go with the default. Apparently the maximum is 800 watts, and the capacity 25 litres. 

After setting the time - and it's easy to move the numbers up and down to get the right time - the start button has to be pressed again. It can be stopped at any time with the 'stop' button, if something has to be stirred or turned.

As for the defrost setting, we can either set a time or a weight; I've used both. Those are also set, by minutes or grammes, with the dial. It's useful and effective, and also easy.

Although I hope that the problems with the Sharp microwave would not be present with this one (we had never previously seen such rust, or roof bubbling on any other microwave), we're being more careful to wipe it out if there's steam after cooking, and also to leave it ajar when not in use. 

Some microwaves leave the light on when the door is open, but this one has the excellent feature of automatically turning the light off after a couple of minutes, even when the door is open. But the clocks stays on all the time, unlike some of our previous microwaves. I find this a very useful (though not essential) feature.

It's not quite three months since we bought our new microwave, but I'm very glad we did so. So far, we like it very much indeed. 

A cold February in Cyprus

 While January was apparently warmer than usual - and it certainly didn't seem particularly cold - February this year has been decided chilly. Almost from the start of the month, the temperatures dropped. We were very glad that we decided to replace our central heating boiler last year. It has a control system that allows us to set the maximum temperature without heating for different times, during the day. 

So overnight it won't come on unless the temperature drops below something like 14 degrees C. In the morning upstairs it comes on if it's cooler than 18C for an hour or so, which warms the towel rail in the bathroom and raises the ambient temperature.  Similarly, through the day, there are different states and temperatures which trigger it to come on.  

And it works perfectly. If we want extra heat, we can turn the thermostat up a degree or two. If we're going out, or not using one floor of the house, we can turn it down so as not to heat an unused space. Individual radiators can be turned up or down, too.  

In December and January, it barely came on at all. We did notice that the gas level was running low early in January, so we ordered more. We have a large tank outside our boiler room, and a man comes with a gas truck to fill it up when we request it. 

The winter of 2023/2024 was so mild that we only had to have it filled once. Our kitchen stovetop is powered by gas too, so we use small amounts for that through the year. And the heating was working in January, and more so in early February when the temperatures dropped. So much so that we had to order another refill of the gas tank around February 10th. 

We didn't think that was too bad. With our previous boiler, we sometimes had to order new gas every two or three weeks in colder periods. This time it had been over five weeks.

But it got colder. Gradually, day by day, I added more warm items of clothing to wear when I went out for an early morning walk. By February 20th, it was warmer in the UK than in Larnaka. Which was fortunate for Richard, as he had flown there for ten days.  There was even snow in some parts of the island, quite extensive in the mountains. 

I felt quite sorry for families who had come to Cyprus for the UK half-term break (either last week or this week, depending on location), hoping for a bit of warmth. 

Yesterday, I took this screenshot from my phone just after 6.00am, shortly before joining my friend Sheila for a walk around the Salt Lake:  

Yes, that says one degree Celcius, 'feels like' minus 3. Maximum of 14, and a note at the bottom saying that temperatures would be a little higher than the previous day.

Wrapped in scarf, knitted hat, gloves and an extra jacket, I still felt cold, although walking helped to warm me up. For the first time this year, there was ice in the park on some (though not all) of the wildflowers:

There was ice on the park benches, too, although in this photo it looks more like a kind of mould:

I had kept checking the gas - we have someone staying in our guest flat, so the heating is on there as well as in the main part of the house - and by yesterday it was quite low, so we ordered some more. It took not much more than two weeks this time, but then the heating has been on almost continually for the past four or five days.  With fairly high ceilings, tiled floors and poor insulation, Cyprus houses are not built for the cold. So the temperature never reached the figures we had set.

Strangely, though, when the heating is on, even if the thermostat only shows 14 or 15 degrees, the house feels warmer than when the heating is off and the thermostat shows 17 or 18. 

Then today it was six degrees at 6.00am. It felt so much pleasanter when I went out to the froutaria. I didn't even wear gloves, though I still put on my knitted hat. And the forecast is much more reasonable - and seasonably normal - for the next couple of weeks:

So perhaps we won't have to have the gas tank filled again until next winter.

It's still January...

What is it about the first month of each year? While time usually races by, more rapidly each year as I get older, January seems to last forever. The humorous poet Brian Bilston captured it perfectly. Well, perhaps it's not quite 6184 days, but I'm sure it's a lot more than five weeks since Christmas. I took the decorations down on Saturday 4th January so I could clean properly - they had been up for nearly a month - but I didn't do a whole lot else. 

I had such good plans for my time. Not 'resolutions' - I don't really see the point of them. Just a realistic way of trying to ensure I made the best use of my days, without over-scheduling or stress. I more-or-less followed that in the first full week of January.  On the Monday, I did some work on my recipe blog. I added a new recipe, edited some older ones, and added in some photos. I played around with the theme, too. It's not ideal, but I think probably better than the previous one. 

On the Wednesday I walked to my favourite haberdashery shop, and bought some new yarn for knitting baby hats, and then went to the thrift store, where I found a couple of DVDs that looked good. On the Thursday, I spent a couple of hours working on photos. I did some writing in the afternoons, too, though not as much as I had hoped. 

On the Friday, we didn't need to do any extra grocery shopping, but had decided that we would upgrade the rather rickety bookshelving in our guest flat living room, replacing with an Ikea Billy bookcase with glass doors. We were also thinking about a dedicated TV unit. So we drove (in the van) to Nicosia, and found not just the bookcase we needed, but a kitchen unit thing in pine which, we knew, would make a good TV unit. 

On Friday afternoon, Richard put the bookcase together...

After I had removed all the books from the old shelving: 

The TV was still on its old shelving along with a lot of other books which had become quite dusty over the years. And we agreed that we would need a second bookcase to match the first one, since we had too many books to fit in just the one. 

We didn't want to go back to Ikea, and we knew what we wanted, so we ordered online. We quickly realised that it was better to make two orders, each one less than 35kg, rather than all in one, from the postage point of view. The site said delivery would be 3 working days to Larnaka... 

.. although when the order was sent, it said that delivery would be 'within 6 working days'. Our first guest flat visitor of the year was due to arrive on Monday 20th, and we had hoped to get everything ready and tidied before then. Still, we hoped it might arrive on Friday or Saturday...

On the Monday morning, January 13th, was the first writers' group meeting of the year. And on the Wednesday I had planned to do a thorough clean of the guest flat, hoping to get it ready.  Our last guests were friends who left towards the end of October. Since then, the flat has been used by Richard to work on his PA system, and, in early January, for items from his boat, which was out of the water for a couple of weeks, for its biannual 'dry dock'. And it still had tools for building Ikea furniture, and wood varnish for the unit which Richard put together: 

I was becoming a bit concerned about getting everything ready for our visitor (who is staying for about eight weeks). So it was something of a relief to hear, on Wednesday, that there had been a delay, and he wasn't arriving until Wednesday 29th. 

Still, I did clean the main bedroom on Wednesday 13th, and made up the bed.  On Thursday morning I did more in the flat: washing cushion covers, and the sofa throw, and cleaning the bathroom. I also sorted the books better, calculating how many would fill up the two billy bookcases. I wanted to remove the books which had been taking up space in the bedroom, too, and the ones occupying space, rather precariously, on a spice rack in the kitchen. 

And... shock, horror! - I decided that we should probably get rid of about fifty or sixty books which we were never going to read, and which, we're pretty sure, none of our guests has ever looked at. We gave our local friends first refusal (and they took a fair selection) and I chose about fifteen of the remainder that were in the best condition for the church book sale. The rest, to our relief, were eventually taken by the Larnaka thrift store. 

But that's leaping forwards. On Friday 17th we went to Superhome store, then on to the nut shop (for five or six weeks' worth of nuts, seeds and dried fruit) and then Metro (for dried cat food and one or two other items). Richard had a phone call from Ikea while we were out, letting us know that the new bookcase would be delivered on Sunday. When he was hoping to be out sailing, and I had planned to go to the church service. But they didn't give any other options.

As it turned out, we were both at home. On Friday evening, Richard didn't want any food, and said he felt queasy. He slept most of the evening. In the morning I got up to walk with Sheila but after a short distance I knew I wasn't feeling well, so we turned around and I came in. 

I won't mention the details; suffice it to say that we both had a very miserable 24 hours with what we assume was an attack of norovirus. Richard felt a little better by Saturday afternoon, and got up. Sheila had brought us a loaf of bread, as I'd mentioned in passing that we'd run out and I was going to make some but wasn't sure I would cope with the smell of baking bread. We were very, very thankful for her thoughtfulness as the only thing either of us wanted to eat at first was toast with Marmite. I don't usually eat Marmite as it can be a migraine trigger; thankfully it wasn't on Monday, which is the first time I wanted to eat anything at all. 

The new bookcase arrived on Sunday and Richard was able to let the men in. He had cancelled sailing, and there was no way I could get to church; even if I'd been feeling up to it, I wouldn't have wanted to pass on such a nasty bug to anyone else. By Monday 20th, he felt a bit stronger, and put the bookcase together. And since I didn't want to remain in bed (and my worst symptoms had stopped, although I was still very tired) I did organise and sort the books. 

We were very pleased with how it all looked when we had finished. 

We were also extremely grateful that our visitor was not arriving that day!

On Wednesday some friends from Limassol were coming to dinner. We were past the infectious stage by then, though being extra careful with hand-washing still. I had started eating again, but was still incredibly tired, so it took me most of the day to organise the food for the evening. I had to keep sitting down every ten minutes or so. 

Then on Thursday I basically collapsed in a heap (after walking about half our usual route first thing with Sheila) and vegged out. On Friday we took the remaining books to the thrift store, and on Saturday I finally managed to clean the kitchen, and even sort and tidy the area over the washing machine which somehow accumulates a lot of random stuff. It still looks a bit cluttered: 

But I filled an entire bag with almost-empty long-expired bottles of suntan lotion, and hair spray, and body wash, and so on, to get rid of.  It's probably three years since we last did a proper spring clean of the flat, so it was good to do. 

And on Monday morning, this week, I took our carpet shampooer downstairs and thoroughly cleaned the rug in the living room, which had been looking very tired. 

That's the difference after I had cleaned the two stripes nearest the bookcases.  

Our visitor is now here, and the flat is going to be occupied almost continually for the next five months, with a variety of different people. We're very thankful to have it, and love being able to make it available to family, friends, church workers and friends of friends. 

It feels like we've done a lot this month, and there's still another day of January remaining. Today, Thursday, I worked on photos for an hour or so, for the second time this month, and this afternoon am updating this blog. Maybe in February, when it eventually gets here, I'll be back to the supposedly regular schedule...

How I spend my days... in theory

People occasionally ask me how I spend my days. So I thought I would try to keep track for a while, and also include some deliberate structure to the week. At least, as default, for days when nothing else crops up. It's too easy to get caught up in following links online, or doing puzzles, or answering questions on forums when there's no specific plan. That's fine in holiday periods, and is mostly what happened in the 'week between the years', when Christmas Day was over, and the New Year had not yet begun.

The earlier parts of my mornings are usually fairly similar. First thing in the morning (which can start any time from 5.00am to 6.30 or so) I do a few online games (Wordle, Connections and Strands) on my phone to help me wake up, and check the headlines on a couple of news sites. Sometimes I do some knitting (I make baby hats for refugees and asylum seekers). Sometimes I work on Duolingo, the language-learning app which I have on my phone. I might do just five minutes, I might do half an hour. Sometimes I read. 

Three days a week I walk five kilometres or so with my friend Sheila, leaving the house around 6.15am, then we sit outside and chat for a while. Three days a week I leave the house a bit later and go for a short walk around the neighbourhood, ending up at the fruit shop (and sometimes the mini-market opposite) where I do most of the grocery shopping. On Sundays I just go for a walk, for a couple of kilometres.

However the day starts, I'm usually in the kitchen (with groceries unpacked and away if relevant) by around 8.00am. I squeeze oranges and put nuts in a little ramekin dish, and heat up coffee, and take Richard a tray of breakfast to eat on our balcony. Then I have my own breakfast in the dining room (neither of us is sociable at breakfast time). Afterwards I sit in my study and drink coffee while reading, or doing Duolingo if I didn't get time earlier. 

Around 9.00am Monday to Friday the Roomba starts up, and I go upstairs. We spend anything from ten minutes to an hour chatting, talking about the day, discussing issues, or just hanging out. It's too easy to let time go by without connecting intellectually, so we try to ensure that we have at least this time together, without any distractions. On a typical day I then get in the shower about 9.45, when the solar panels have heated the water sufficiently, and Richard starts whatever work he's doing. Sometimes it's a bit later.

After showering, I potter somewhat - maybe putting on laundry (usually three times a week) and putting away the previous load if it's still hanging up on the utility balcony. If we ran the dishwasher the night before, I'll empty it. If the kitchen floor needs mopping, I'll do that. If I haven't done at least fifteen minutes of knitting, I'll make sure I do that. And I read the 'verse of the day' on my Bible app, and a few chapters of whatever 'plan' I'm currently following.

By then it's usually around 10.30-11.00. I have to have some idea of what I'm going to do, or the time will fritter away.

So, I decided to allocate a couple of hours on Monday mornings to working on my sites or other blogs, except on Mondays when there's a writing group meeting. On Thursday mornings I plan to deal with photos. I have got very behind on making photobooks and organising my digital photos, and thought it would be a good idea to allocate at least one morning per week to working on them. On Tuesday mornings my friend Sheila with one, two or three of her daughters comes over to play board games and hang out. On Fridays Richard and I do any shopping that's needed by car, and I allocate other Fridays to keeping track of our spending and printing statements, etc, as well as paying (online) any bills. 

As for Wednesdays, I thought I'd try to do something slightly different each week, not computer related. Once a month the local Anglican church has a book sale, for instance, on a Wednesday. I like to walk to the thrift store about once a month, too, to browse their interesting selection. I might walk into the town, if it's not too warm, or I might do a bit of baking.

On Saturdays I sometimes prepare a curry to go in the slow cooker in the morning, and I do the weekly cleaning. I change the sheet and pillowcases on the bed, dust surfaces that need it, clean the kitchen countertops, and run the roomba upstairs. I clean the bathrooms thoroughly, too, and sweep the stairs. If I'm feeling energetic and it's not too hot, I can get everything done in around an hour, but usually I take it more slowly, and that takes up most of the rest of the morning.

On Sundays I aim to go to the Anglican church service twice a month, although I don't go in the hottest months, and sometimes events conspire to stop me going anyway. On the other two Sunday mornings each month I am in the kitchen, preparing soup and a dessert for the evening which we spend with friends. 

All of which takes us to lunch-time. Six days per week we eat cold food: bread, salads, leftovers, cheese (dairy-free, mostly), humus, peanut butter etc or, on chilly days, soup. On Sundays, left over from the traditions of our childhoods, we have a cooked lunch which usually includes roast potatoes. 

By two o'clock I've had my coffee and cleared away, and hung out laundry if relevant. I'm ready to sit down for a break with more online puzzles, helping on a forum, checking email and Facebook etc. In theory I stop this about 2.30, but I know it's easy to get distracted; more realistically, it goes on to nearer 3pm. After that, for a couple of hours in the afternoons my plan is to write: reviews of books I've finished reading, or DVDs we've seen, or perhaps do some short-story writing or blogging. By 5pm I'm usually read to start food preparation.

We eat around 6.00pm, maybe a bit later, and afterwards I clean up, and do my evening Duolingo session (around ten to fifteen minutes, usually). 

At 7.30 or so we stop using the computers; three evenings we go out for a short walk, followed by either a couple of episodes in a DVD series, or a two-player board game. 

One evening a week we watch a film on DVD. On Thursday evenings, Sheila comes to play a game.  Every other Sunday she and her family are here for games/DVDs in the afternoon and a shared evening meal, and they stay until 8pm or later, after which I do Duolingo and read. On Saturday evenings either she comes for a board game, or we watch some Doctor Who. 

And some time between 9pm and 10pm I start getting ready for bed... 

Happy Christmas

I started writing two posts in the past six weeks, but didn't finish either of them. I may still do so, and then publish them back-dated to when I started to write. Today, however, is Christmas Eve so I will continue my annual tradition and post a picture of this year's Christmas cake:

Not significantly different from previous years' cakes. But I don't think I've put an approximate star shape in the middle before (which was my intention, though it doesn't look very star-shaped). I made it at the end of October, fed it a couple of times with Cyprus brandy and put home-made almond paste on it at the end of last week. This afternoon, I made royal icing in the food processor, so it's done, albeit finished rather at the last minute this year. 

I've tried to pace myself with food preparation over the past week. Our freezer is extremely full. But today was fairly busy and tomorrow will be hectic trying to time everything correctly, and keep things hot. Neither of our sons are able to be with us, but our local friends, with four of their offspring will be joining us. And I can't, somehow, let go of the family tradition of making too much food with a lot of options, both for lunch and for tea/supper. 

But, hopefully, I then won't have to cook at all for the rest of the week.

We'll go to the church service tomorrow morning, as we usually do, which should help to focus on the real reason for Christmas for an hour. 

Seasons greetings to all who read this, and wishing you every blessing for 2025.  How strange to recall that, quarter of a century ago, we were all feeling concerned about the 'millennium bug'...

On decorating for Christmas

When I was growing up, decorating for Christmas used to happen at the start of the school holidays. Or that's what I recall, anyway. My parents had a real Christmas tree for many years, so wanted it to last until it was taken down on January 6th. And since they used to host Christmas Day for the whole family even after I was married, Richard and I didn't have a tree for some years.

However when our sons were small we bought an artificial tree; I think it was in 1989 when Daniel was three, and very insistent that we should have our own tree. So he and Richard went out on Christmas Eve... but the only real trees they could find were either very scraggy, or enormous and very expensive. So they compromised with a fake tree, pointing out that if we used it for more than one year it would be good value. Thirty-five years later, we still have that tree. We didn't take it to Colorado when we lived there for two years, and we didn't have it here in Cyprus for our first few years. But it's probably had thirty Christmases. 

Since we were home educating in Cyprus, there was no obvious time to put up the tree and other decorations each year. So it was somewhat random. If we were hosting a Christmas party early in December, we would decorate before that event. If not, it was sometimes left until a day or two before Christmas. When the boys had grown up and left home, we didn't feel much like decorating at all, but usually managed to host local friends (and for many years Tim came home). 

In the past thirteen years, our friends' three daughters have helped put up our tree at some point in December. Thirteen years ago, when the oldest of them was six, and the youngest just two, the adults did most of the work, and the hanging of decorations was a bit ragged, so I adjusted everything after they had left.

But it made a tradition. In 2018, for instance, they managed most of it themselves. 

The date of putting up the tree has gradually become earlier in recent years. Since we take everything down around January 5th, I quite like having decorations up for at least four weeks. So in the past couple of years, we've decorated around Advent Sunday. And despite our young friends now being teenagers of 19, 16 and 14, this is still an important tradition for them. 

They put the tree together rapidly and efficiently, then open the decoration boxes to decide which baubles and other decorations they will use. 

The Roomba is now situated in the place where we used to have our tree, so we haven't quite determined the best place for it. But this year we decided to have it next to the DVD bookcases. 

We had already bought a poinsettia and placed it in the usual spot where they seem to thrive, despite our record of killing indoor plants:

And, as I have done for several years now, I hung last year's Christmas cards up across the doors between our living room and dining room: 

Many people no longer send cards (postage prices from the UK are horrendous) but those that do arrive usually get here in the last few days before Christmas, or the first couple of weeks of the new year. So I always keep them to display the following year.

On the table, our knitted nativity set was displayed, this time with the baby conveniently hidden inside Mary's skirts during advent:

I no longer have to do any rearranging of the tree. Our young friends are artistic and competent, and the result was just as I hoped: 

November in Cyprus: kitten update, first rains

Kittens

In my last post, I wrote about two kittens that we were fostering. We had almost given up hope of finding a permanent home for them. We knew we had to keep them for another few weeks before they could go to the cat sanctuary, and I was beginning to wonder if we would succeed in doing so. The boiler room was fine when they were just three weeks old. But they were getting bigger and stronger, needing to climb and run around. It wouldn't be long before they were able to escape.

Half an hour supervised in our side yard each afternoon gave them some exercise, but I knew it wasn't really enough. Richard was working at a conference so I was on my own with them, and I was concerned that they would suddenly make a dash for the road. Even at two months old, they were still very small and would not know to get out of the way of a car.

I took this video eleven days ago:

I'm so glad I did. An hour or so later I had a message from Richard, sent in one of his breaks. He had mentioned the kittens a few weeks earlier on one of the Facebook groups for kittens in Cyprus, and had just received the first enquiry. He said that a man and his wife wanted to come and see them that evening. He didn't think they would take them that evening, and he wasn't sure if they wanted more than one. But we didn't think they should be separated. The boy kitten became quite distraught if he didn't know where his sister was, even for a minute or two.

In the evening, the enquirer arrived with his wife and their two children. They weren't young children, and they were very good with the kittens. They were all smitten almost immediately, and agreed that they would have both of them. Then they asked if they could take them immediately. They thought it would help the kittens to settle in if they could have them on a Friday evening, so they had the whole weekend together. 

I know one is supposed to take foster kittens to a potential new home, to check that everything is okay. But I had a good feeling about the family. They already had an older cat and a dog, and clearly knew how to handle kittens. I couldn't get hold of Richard to see what he thought. So I agreed. I lent them the cat carrier that we share with friends, and gave them the remaining kitten food. 

I felt quite poignant as I said goodbye, but the family suggested we go and visit them when Richard was available, to see how they were doing, and to collect the carrier. And over the next couple of days they sent us photos like this one, and let us know how the kittens were doing, so we were quite reassured: 

There was a lot of rain that weekend, as well as lightning and thunder. I think it would have been quite scary for two small kittens alone in the boiler room. And it would have been difficult to give them any outside playtime. So the timing was perfect. 

A week later we went to see the kittens in their new home, and saw that they were very contented and well-settled. They were happy to play with us, but clearly at home in their new environment. The dog likes them, and they seem to like the dog. The older cat is keeping out of the way. 

I have no regrets.  Lady Jane, our one remaining cat, who is now ten-and-a-half, is no longer sniffing at me suspiciously and turning her back. She knew we were not being faithful to her, even though she's a fully indoor cat so she never saw the kittens. 

Rain and the Salt Lake

The Salt Lake had dried out over the summer and had very little water in it after the first brief rain showers earlier in the month.  But the rain ten days ago made much more of an impression: 

News reports (and some friends) mentioned that the flamingoes had returned, but I didn't see any myself until this morning's walk, after more heavy rain over the past weekend:

The weather is cooler, too. Down to 13-14 degrees early morning, no more than about 20 in the daytime. I very much like wearing socks and a warm layer even in the daytime, sometimes needing an extra layer in the evening (or when walking first thing). And since we no longer have kittens living in our boiler room, we can have our heating serviced... not that we're in any need of central heating yet. Unlike in the UK where my Facebook feed today was full of pictures of snow that had fallen last night.  

Life in general 

I've made this year's mincemeat, in preparation for mince pies once December has started. I still have a Christmas pudding left from the three I made last year, and it doesn't seem to have dried up, so I won't make a new one. I'm still uploading more images and links on my book blog, and I'm trying to get back into Photobox although I really don't like the new design interface. It seems a whole lot more complicated than it used to be, and I'm a long way behind on our 2024 photobook.