Yet another microwave oven (Samsung brand)

 In March last year I wrote about how much we liked the Westpoint microwave we had bought a few months earlier. It replaced one which had become corroded and rusty inside; the interior surface looked more sturdy than the previous one, but we were careful to keep the door open after each use, to cover anything we cooked in it for more than a minute or two, and to dry it if there was obvious moisture inside.

And it kept working well...except for one little thing. The digital time display started to deteriorate. I suppose we'd had it for about nine months when the first bar, the bottom one at the right, started to vanish. At first it was just fainter than the rest, but over the course of a few days it disappeared entirely. 

It wasn't a huge issue, just mildly annoying that, for instance, a digital 8 looked like a digital capital A, and a digital 3 looked like a backwards capital F.  Then, a few months later, the top bar became fainter, and also vanished not long afterwards.  I don't know why I didn't take a photo of this - I take photos of pretty much everything else, after all. The only one I can find is one I took of the whole kitchen when it was quite messy, so cropping to just the microwave makes it very poor quality:

But perhaps it's still clear that it should say 12:07 and the 7 just looks like a back-slash. 

It was still under the standard two-year guarantee for appliances. Should we, we wondered, take it back to Superhome Centre where we had bought it? The trouble was, we use our microwave every day.  Yes, I could reheat Richard's coffee in a pan over the stove. Yes, I could bake potatoes for a couple of hours, rather than for just 45 minutes after microwaving them. I could melt chocolate over a pan of hot water, I could thaw things from the freezer in the same way, though I'd have to be a bit more organised. I could possibly even cook frozen peas in a pan, though they're not as nice as microwaved. 

But coming up to Christmas I knew I would want it for all kinds of things. And while I could find alternatives for many of them,  I daily heat Lady Jane's wet food for 15 seconds in the microwave, since she gets stomach-ache if given wet food directly from the fridge.  Any more and she finds it too hot. Any less, and she runs around crying for a couple of minutes after eating. 

So we coped. It was only the last digit that was difficult to interpret, after all. I did try checking online to see if there was any possible troubleshooting, and learned that this is not an uncommon problem.  I tried turning the microwave off and on again, but that made no difference. 

And then the first digit started to go, too.  By the time we returned from our UK visit in the first couple of weeks of April, we knew we had to get something done. This was clearly an ongoing problem, and we didn't want to wait until it was totally unreadable and (probably) out of guarantee.

So we chose a period when our guest flat was empty for a month, meaning we could use the guest flat microwave. We took it into Superhome, and explained the problem. They said they would have to send it back to the manufacturer's, and that it would likely take a couple of weeks. But they would send a text to Richard's phone, they told us. 

Three weeks later, we had heard nothing. I looked at the paperwork we had been given, and saw to my horror that there was one digit incorrect on the phone number. So we went straight to the store, and explained the problem. We thought we might see our microwave, repaired, waiting to be collected.

Alas, this was not the case. The staff were friendly and helpful, but told us that the manufacturer had only collected the microwave ten days after we dropped it off, and that it would probably take another week. And we made sure they corrected the phone number. 

A week later, we returned, having heard nothing. This time, the staff member on duty called the manufacturer, who told her that they were unable to repair the display, so they were giving us a replacement. We were a bit frustrated at the delay, and also at the waste - other than the display, it was working perfectly well, and was probably my favourite microwave so far. We said we needed it: that we were borrowing one, but had to return that. We had guests coming in just a week later, and they would need the guest flat microwave back. 

No problem, they said, it would be there on Monday. 

And still, we heard nothing. 

By this time, it had been nearly five weeks since we dropped the microwave off. Under EU rules, it shouldn't take more than a month. If something under guarantee isn't repaired in that time, it must either be replaced or refunded. So we went in again, and were more assertive than previously. It wasn't there, and they didn't know why. In that case, we said, we need a refund. 

The staff member on duty went to call someone higher up, who said that the store didn't offer refunds, but they would give us store credit for the amount we paid. We weren't entirely happy about that, but we do go there from time to time, and the credit didn't have an expiry date.

We checked whether they had any suitable alternatives in the shop, but they didn't. So we went round the corner to Stephanis, where they had exactly what we were looking for, at the same price. And it's a Samsung, a brand we know and tend to trust.

So the last one was with us for less than 18 months.  We really hope this new microwave will be more reliable, and won't have any problems. 

About three days after we bought the Samsung microwave, Richard had a text message from Superhome, telling him that our microwave was ready for collection.  Apparently the fact that they had given us a refund in store credit hadn't been passed through the system. We decided to ignore the text rather than respond and try to explain. Since it was a new replacement rather than a repair, they should be able to sell it to someone else. 

Moving on from winter

 It's usually some time in April when we start to feel a bit warmer, and as if winter has finally come to an end. Not that we experience 'real' winter here; there's no snow, rarely any ice, and the sun usually shines at some point. But the houses feel cold, with the high ceilings and tiled floors. 

At the end of March I was still wearing two warm layers in the house, sometimes three. I wore a knitted hat and sometimes gloves when going out for a walk, morning or evening. We were using our microwave wheat bags every night, the heating was coming on when the temperature dropped too low, and we were snuggling under our double thickness duvets at night. 

Then we spent just over two weeks in the UK, where it was chillier but mostly sunny. The houses, with carpets and better insulated walls, are rather warmer than those in Cyprus. We had heard that Cyprus had had a major dust storm and a lot of rain while we were away. But when we came back, it felt significantly warmer than it had at the end of March.

The first night back, we threw off the thinner part of the duvet, just using the medium one. We didn't even think of using wheat bags. In the morning, I only wanted one warm layer, and when we went out for walks I had no need of hat or gloves. We had turned the heating off before we travelled: we've seen no reason to turn it on again since returning. 

Two weeks out of Cyprus

 Earlier in the year, we had talked about the possibility of flying to the UK early in April, so that we could see Richard's mother on her birthday. She's living in a very nice care home now, in Sussex and they make quite a thing of birthdays. 

We then pondered going first to Carlisle, to spend Easter with our older son and his family. We checked with them that they weren't going anywhere else, and we started idly looking for flights.

Then I spotted flights from Larnaka to Glasgow on March 31st at just 27 pounds per person. It was with EasyJet: a budget airline that we have used many times, and which we generally like.  That price doesn't include any luggage, of course, other than an under-seat bag. We tend to upgrade to what they call 'easy boarding' which gives us an overhead carry-on as well, but even so - the price was excellent. 

We know from experience that prices vary all the time, and can be extremely high over the Easter period, so we booked at once. Then we filled in the details - a rental car, accommodation when not staying with the family etc - and finally booked a flight back on April 15th. 

We were all packed and ready at least half an hour before our friend Sheila came to pick us up to take us to the airport on March 31st. 

The flight wasn't until after 9.30pm, which is when I usually like to be getting ready for bed.  So I was delighted to realise that it was an almost-empty flight. This meant that once we had taken off, we could have three seats each, and lie down to rest. I didn't get a lot of sleep, but I think at least a couple of hours.  So when we arrived at Glasgow in the early hours, I wasn't as tired as I might have been.

A new printer

Short version of this post: I bought a new printer:

Long version with historical context:

I thought I had probably had my last printer, an HP laserjet, for about twelve or thirteen years. I recalled my younger son buying it - or contributing to it, anyway - when he needed to do significant printing. It was in 2013 when he came back to Cyprus after five years in the UK, so I thought perhaps it was bought around then, although I couldn't work out what it was he needed to print. 

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. 

On decluttering

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

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

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

Random images around Larnaka

 I'm trying to post on this blog more often, and on one topic - or no more than two or three - at a time. But sometimes there are random things where there's not a lot to say... so here is a small selection of my most recent collection of local photos that don't fit other subjects, taken over the last month or so.

We were given a small papaya plant several years ago, and this is the first year that it has produced flowers:

We have no idea whether it will eventually produce a fruit; that depends on the flowers being fertilised, and whether it's a male or female plant.  The flowers aren't spectacular, but there are a lot of buds.

Paperwork and admin in Cyprus

I was beginning to feel that life in Cyprus involved rather too much paperwork.  I've written elsewhere about the need to renew passports every ten years or so. We had a flurry of bureaucracy during Covid, of course, with the need for checking airline regulations, and taking tests with accompanying paperwork to demonstrate that we were Covid-free.  

Just last year I wrote about the complicated process of trying to find suitable ID documents to prove that we are who we say we are. Also the need to prove that we are eligible for the national health system here. 

Every time we get through another round of documentation, we breathe sighs of relief.  Until the next time. Recently we seem to have had a lot of other paperwork to deal with. None of it particularly strenuous or complicated, admittedly, but somehow it feels rather overwhelming when several things come at the same time. 

But sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming. A couple of weeks ago I wrote down the things we had to do fairly urgently:

- apply for me to have a UK pension 
- validate Richard's existence, for his UK pension
- renew our European health cards
- chase up my ID card, which I applied for in October