First week of August in Cyprus

Apparently my unexciting post with a few photos from July was appreciated by others, and of interest to some people who are not in Cyprus. So I thought I'd write a week-by-week summary of August. Assuming I remember to do so, that is. 

In that post, I spoke too soon about the lack of nasty insects. When I was getting ready for bed on the night of July 31st, I opened my closet and saw (shudder....) a roach sitting amid my tee shirts.  Thankfully Richard was close by, and he was able to get rid of it.

Saturday 1st August

August started, as so often happens, with increased humidity. I went out for a shortish walk first thing, around 6am. Although it was only around 26 degrees and I stayed mostly in the shade, I was dripping when I got home. I sat down and did a few puzzles, then - slowly - organised Richard's breakfast tray of fruit and nuts, squeezed oranges etc. I made some oat milk for his coffee and my frappé. Then I had my breakfast, hoping it would give me some energy.

It didn't.  

Saturday is the day I put aside for cleaning, at least most of the year. But I felt completely de-motivated, tired and heavy. The thought of the whole of August in Cyprus was quite depressing, and I really don't do depression. 

So I decided to skip doing any dusting or sweeping or extras. Instead I would stick to the absolute minimum, which consists of: clean sheets and pillowcases, cleaning the bathroom and loo, running the Roomba upstairs after cleaning it out fully, emptying the bins, folding and putting away Friday's laundry, cleaning out the dishwasher filters, cleaning the kitchen work surfaces and mopping the floors (at least the kitchen and dining room). Nothing strenuous, and I can get through all that easily in less than an hour when it's cooler. 

But it wasn't cool, and any exertion outside my air conditioned study was exhausting. I did get through all these things, in roughly ten-minute slots through the day. When I made the bed with clean linen, and folded and put away the clean laundry from Friday, I even turned the aircon on in the bedroom for ten minutes. It was after 4pm when I finally stepped into a (cool) shower. 

On the first of each month I do several financial transfers, and did that as one of the first things when I had turned on the air conditioning in my study.  Just as well I did, as the Internet suddenly went down about two minutes after I had finished. A text message arrived from our internet provider saying that due to some reason (unspecified) there was a problem. Richard phoned them and they said they thought a wire was cut, but they didn't know where.

It was down for over three hours. Irritating, but it meant I did quite a bit of reading of the book allocated to the reading group two days later.

When the Internet finally came back, I was able to update the church website, as I do each Saturday, and do some Duolingo - I usually manage about twenty minutes each day. I also upload a DVD review I had finished. 

One marginally more interesting thing from Saturday was that the glass/aluminium expert turned up with one more window to replace. He had also made a fly-screen for the guest flat front bedroom, something that more than one of our guests had said would be useful.

 

It's not really obvious from the photo, but the screen slides to and fro, so either window can now be opened without issuing an invitation to any insects (or cats) that happen to be in the vicinity.

In the evening we finished some salads we'd started on Friday, and then took part in the monthly extended-family Zoom meeting which was first established six years ago, during the pandemic. It's still one of the highlights of the month for me, catching up with whichever of my siblings are available, and often our sons too. 

By the time it had finished it was 8.15pm and starting to get dark; it was also a bit cooler than it had been, so we went for a short walk to Salina Park, around the trails and back.  We then watched one of the 'extras' from the Doctor Who special that we had seen the week before.

Sunday 

On Sunday morning I watered our plants outside, and went for a short walk. Other than that, I wasn't planning to do anything. I don't usually go to a church service here in August as it's so very hot, and there's no way I could walk there and back. But Richard was meeting someone for coffee, and also wanted to check the church PA system, so he was driving, and I decided to go to the service. I had to walk a hundred metres or so from where we parked, and that was exhausting. But it was nice to be at the service and good to catch up with a few people afterwards.

We're not particularly into traditions, but we've almost always had a hot meal for Sunday lunches rather than our usual bread-and-bits. At the start of July I had tried making roast potatoes in the air fryer (since I try not to use the oven at all during the summer) but they weren't very successful. So this time we had a reheated chicken jalfrezi curry - one of my favourite recipes - from the freezer, with previously-made naan breads and the usual extra random bits and pieces that we have with curries. And some banana-raspberry ice-non-creme (or 'frozen dessert' as some sites put it) which is basically food processed frozen banana chunks.

We'd talked about watching a longer film on Sunday afternoon, but I was still tired after being out in the morning. So as Richard had things to do on his computer, I decided to read, and 'veg out'. I did Duolingo on my phone, then (on the computer) watched some of the recording of the livestream from the church where our younger son is Vicar. But I didn't do anything else that was constructive. 

In the evening, we started rewatching Doctor Who series 8, which had quite a long and interesting first episode. 

Monday

It didn't feel so humid on Monday morning, which was a great relief. I woke at 5am, too early to go to the fruit shop. I did a few NYT puzzles on my phone, then decided to finish the reading group book. I found it gripping, and was very surprised to turn the last page - it finished a tad abruptly - and discover that it was already 6.45.  Still only 26 degrees outside. As it was the first Monday of the month, I went to Achna Discount for some non-food items such as toothpaste and kitchen roll, as well as to the fruitaria (fruit/veg shop, with some other things too).

After breakfast, then hanging out with Richard for a while, and then my shower, I turned the a/c on in the kitchen to prepare the salads for the day. I try to make one containing protein (often canned oily fish, as that's supposed to be healthy, and doesn't need cooking), one with complex carbs (unless I plan to air-fry potatoes later), and a couple with other veg/and or fruit with as many different colours as possible.

This is the Monday selection, including one that's just plain 'new' potatoes (or 'baby' potatoes as they're called in Cyprus) with dried mint.  

From the point of view of plant-based products, of which one is supposed to have 30 different ones each week, it included: aubergines/egg-plant (air-fried), orange bell pepper, red onion, peaches, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber and potatoes. So that's eight. Plus lemon juice and olive oil on a couple of the salads. In our breakfasts we have at least eight or nine different plant products, too. 

It's impossible to see the perspective from the photos, but I hoped the potatoes would last us for two days of main meals, and didn't think we would finish any of the others.

I put on a load of laundry (which I hung outside just before lunch) and sorted a bag of recycling to put out. Also, just to add to the variety of the day, Lady Jane finally finished a bag of 'Brekkies' kibble which she started two-and-a-half months ago. So I opened a new 1.5kg bag, and decanted it into six ziplock bags with 250g each, as I always do with a new bag, so that it doesn't lose its freshness too quickly.

After lunch I wrote a review of the book and uploaded it, wrote most of this blog post so far, and did Duolingo. 

One of the rear tyres of the car had been slowly going down over the course of a couple of weeks. Richard had filled it twice with air at a garage, but thought it worth having it checked at a tyre replacement place, in case they close, as many businesses do, for a two-week August break later in the month

Apparently there was a nail embedded in the tyre, so they removed it, and filled the hole. They refused to charge anything, as it had only taken five minutes.

The reading group was at 4.30, and Richard drove me there - the temperature was around 34 degrees in the shade, so there's no way I could have walked. There were about eight of us there and we had an  interesting and lively discussion.

In the evening, we went for a walk along the sea-front and checked our PO box (nothing there, as usual). It was warm, but not too humid. It still felt draining, and we didn't walk as far as we do in cooler months.

Tuesday

 A 'chill' day - if one can call it that when the shade temperature outside is 34 degrees. Nothing much planned, anyway. First thing in the morning I watered the plants, then went for a shortish walk, just a kilometre and a half locally. 

I made oat milk when I got back, and one extra salad as we'd eaten over half of the ones I made on Monday. Then washed up what didn't go in the dishwasher. With our ant invasion, I'm trying to reduce anything that might tempt more ants, so I try not to leave unwashed items on the work surface.

Then, in my study with the air conditioning, I did a lot of research on the best place to buy next year's reading group selection, which was announced on Monday. My Kindle is old enough that it can no longer accept new books from Amazon; I can use the Kindle app on my phone, but some Kindle books cost more than used paperbacks, and - except when travelling - I prefer real books.

One of my favourite sites is World of Books, which offers both new and used books in various conditions, at pretty good prices for an online store. Years ago they delivered to Cyprus at minimal cost, but then they stopped doing so; possibly because packages either took a very long time, or got totally lost. Last year I ordered from that site, sent to our son in Carlisle, and they came back in an extra suitcase that we had to book anyway. But it was quite tight. 

Since the site does now deliver to Cyprus - and claims it will only take 5-12 days - I decided to order from there. I was a bit shocked at the postage, which is almost as much as some of the books, but there was a 15% off coupon, and a 'buy two and get 25% off the third' which reduced the overall cost. And in the end, despite gulping a bit at the eventual postage, I made my order. 10 out of the 12 books; I have one already, and one isn't available on the site. Plus a couple of extra items. Supposedly all extra costs - VAT, customs, and the three euro extra tariff - should be covered.  

In the evening, since we had some people coming for lunch the following day, I made some dairy-free ice cream mixture to chill in the fridge, and soaked some chickpeas for humus. 

Then our 16-year-old friend E, whose siblings have all left home, and whose mother is travelling, called and asked if we'd like to play a game in the evening. So we played base game Catan (formerly known as Settlers). 

It was nice to chat and catch up with news, as well as play what is (to us) a relaxing game.

Wednesday

I went for a very short walk, then turned on the aircon in the kitchen, which I don't usually do, as I knew I was doing quite a lot of food preparation.  I churned the ice cream and boiled the chickpeas first, then used the air fryer for some chopped sweet potato, sliced aubergine and mushrooms (for three different salads). 

New salads for this evening: 

There were still some of the new potatoes left as well.

I made a couple of extra salads for lunch, too, as we were having guests:

They look rather similar, but the top one is a vegan version of coleslaw, with red cabbage rather than green, and a dressing that's mainly lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and pomegranate syrup.  The bottom one is a beetroot salad that was quite a surprise to me when I tried it elsewhere, as I didn't think I liked beetroot. It turns out that my problem with it is that it's so often in vinegar. But we can buy ready-cooked beetroot here, vacuum packed with no vinegar (or anything else). The recipe told me to grate it, but that sounded very messy, so I just chopped it in the food processor, along with the walnuts and raisins, then used vegan yogurt rather than sour cream. 

Then I made some humus, using the cooked chickpeas, and I froze the rest of the chickpeas. I put on a loaf of bread in the breadmaker, chopped simple salad vegetables (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, peppers) and made a fruit salad for dessert. 

I didn't do all that first thing. I started at 7.30, and it was punctuated by squeezing juice and preparing/eating breakfast, sitting down with a frappe and some NYT puzzles, and hanging out with Richard. 

By the time I'd finished - in a fairly relaxed way - and washed everything that wouldn't go in the dishwasher, and cleaned the countertops, it was 11.30. So I had a shower and put on today's laundry, and had half an hour to sit and read before our friends came for lunch. 

They didn't arrive until 1pm as there is so much construction going on in the roads leading to Larnaka, and some of them in the city. It changes regularly, so nobody quite knows what routes are going to be open. We had an enjoyable lunch, then Richard worked with our friends, as he is helping one of them  to be publish her second book of short stories.

I was pretty tired by then, so I sat and read for a couple of hours, did Duolingo and NYT puzzles and answered some questions on a forum on the computer. In the evening Richard was still working on the book, though we did manage to get out briefly for a short walk to Salina Park.

Thursday

This was truly a relaxing day for me, with nothing planned, other than watering our plants before going for a short walk.  At noon, Richard went to Nicosia to meet some friends for lunch, and I had the house to myself.  I mostly read, then wrote and uploaded a review when I had finished the book. And did  Duolingo, of course. 

In the evening, our young friend E came over to play another game. This time, Kingdom Builder. 

Naturally, Lady Jane joined us.  Although she decided that the box lid was boring, so sat in the game box itself, on top of the pieces were weren't using.

We played three rounds, and each of us won one of them. 

Friday

I went to the fruitaria first thing, then made two more salads; we hadn't quite finished the ones I had made on Tuesday, but didn't think that what remained would be enough for our main meal. 

A simple canned salmon salad with peas, chopped pepper and carrots, a dash of mayonnaise and some dill, plus a pasta salad (yes, I had to cook it first) using wholegrain farfelle pasta, with lentil-based pesto. sundried tomatoes and a vegan 'parmesan' (which we buy ready-grated, and keep in the freezer... yes, it's processed, but hopefully not with too many 'bad' ingredients). 

And it was time to make some more oat milk. A little over a litre usually lasts us about three days, used in coffee and frappés, and on my morning muesli. I also put on some laundry...

Mid-morning we drove to Lidl, where we shop every six to eight weeks. The main thing I buy there is cat food - Lady Jane's cans of 'wet' food are good value there, and she likes the variety. We bought other things too, since we were there. I usually buy a couple of cans of their coconut milk, which is thick and tasty, and useful for dairy-free desserts. They had an offer on dishwasher pods, which we took advantage of, and I thought we might as well buy another bag of cat litter; we didn't have any unopened ones. 

Although Lidl is quite good value for some things, I was surprised that their frozen forest fruits, even on special offer, were significantly more expensive than the regular price for the same thing at the local fruitaria. 

I use them in smoothies, primarily, but sometimes also in ice cream or another dessert. It's almost impossible to buy raspberries, blackcurrants, blackberries or blue berries fresh here; sometimes there are tiny punnets of imported fruit at great price, and looking rather sad. So I was delighted when I realised that I could buy them mixed (sometimes with strawberries too) at a reasonable price, frozen. 

By the time we were home, and everything unpacked and put away, it was time for lunch. And I was exhausted. I don't like shopping at the best of times, and find it quite draining; going out in the heat afterwards makes it a whole order worse. 

So after lunch, other than hanging out the laundry, I didn't do much that was useful. We did go for a short walk in the evening, and then watched a couple of episodes of 'Yes Minister' on DVD; this is another 1980s sitcom that we liked when it was first broadcast. 

Saturday

Yes, Saturday was the eighth day of August, but the month has 31 days, which is longer than four weeks, and I prefer to think of weeks starting on Sundays.  I woke early, read for a while, then went for a walk. It wasn't too hot - maybe 26 degrees - but oh my, it was humid. I was dripping when I got back. 

However, I felt considerably more awake and motivated than I did the previous Saturday, so in addition to all the basic Saturday chores, I dusted in our bedroom (including the ceiling fan), and used the mini vacuum cleaner on the stairs, and in corners where the Roomba doesn't reach. I still took plenty of breaks in my study with the a/c, but didn't feel nearly as drained as I did the previous week.  It doesn't really make sense, as the humidity was extremely high. 

In what was left of the afternoon once I'd finished everything and showered, I remembered to pay the electricity bills which were due on Monday, and to do Duolingo. As well as other random things online, and some reading. 

For our evening meal, I thawed and reheated a frozen rogan josh curry that I'd made in June, and some wholewheat pitta bread, plus the other usual bits that go with it. We had finished the previously-made naan that I'd frozen, and it's far too hot to think of making more at present.  

In the evening, we watched the second episode of Doctor Who series 8.

Thus endeth the first eight days of August. 

 

 

Half way through summer....?

 The end of July always feels like something of a milestone to me, particularly when we're in Cyprus all summer. The hot weather usually starts to feel uncomfortable by mid-to-late June, and it feels like the end is in sight by mid-to-late September. And yes I know that means that the half-way spot should be about a week into August... but I would prefer it to be today. 

I didn't take many photos in the past month. Much of what interested us was at a distance: my younger son and his wife moved to a new location, where he's now the vicar of a lively church. I watched the installation by livestream, and some of the Sunday services too. My other son and his family made a trip to the Logos Hope, where they spent two years when the children were much younger. Not a long trip, as it docked in Edinburgh for a few days.

But we've stayed in Larnaca, which turns out to have been a good thing, for a variety of reasons. It was important to be here in July because our local friends (and cat-feeders) have mostly been out of the country. And since they have three cats, I was the one who fed them when everyone was away, on about ten or twelve days of the month.

These are outdoor-indoor cats who only need to be fed once a day; they only have dry food and water. Two of them needed quite a lot of stroking and attention too; the other one looked at me rather superciliously after eating, and stalked away. I watered their garden, too. 

I went over first thing in the morning, when it was light but not sunny, and 'only' about 25-26 degrees Celcius. It made a pleasant 15-minute walk, leaving around 5.45-6.00am. Sometimes it was a bit over-warm when I walked home again, but it was still mostly possible to stay in the shade. It's not so easy to motivate myself to keep walking every day when it's hot out, and sometimes, if I'm not feeding cats, I only manage about half a kilometre.

At the start of the month, we had an aluminium-building expert replace some of our windows which looked like this: 

with this: 

It's purely cosmetic; the white bar things don't provide any extra strength to the windows. Apparently they were a trend at one point, made to look like the old smaller-paned windows. They're not unattractive when all the bars are in place. Unfortunately the sun eventually breaks down some of the glue that holds them in place, and they slide down, as in the first picture. We had some replaced a few years ago, too. We still have windows with bars that look fine, but no doubt they, too, will eventually need to be changed.

In the middle of July, St Helena's church had a major overhaul, with new air conditioners installed and the entire inside repainted and repaired. The communion rail was moved, and some of the wires had to be replaced. New trunking was put in to neaten several trailing cables.

There were professional decorators in, but several of the congregation worked hard, moving furniture to the centre, and ensuring equipment and wall decorations were taken down carefully.

Richard got involved because he previously did the installation of speakers and other PA equipment. He spent many hours dealing with the wiring and soldering, to get everything back in place for the following Sunday. 

We celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary with a meal out. Some years we've ordered in a takeaway for our evening meal. But this year it was on a Sunday, and we're still traditional enough that (usually, anyway) we have our main meal at lunchtime on Sundays. We talked about going to the sea front, but it was too hot for me to walk even the short distance from the marina car park to any of the restaurants. So we went to the mall, which is air conditioned, and where there are a few quite nice restaurants.

We went to Verde Caferesto: 

The menu was fairly extensive, and not too highly priced. Richard had a large chop with salad and fries; I decided on some halloumi tacos (an interesting combination of cultural specialities!) with sweet potato fries, and it was delicious. 

It was more than I needed, but I didn't think it would reheat well, so I ate it all. It was worth the feeling of being very over-full later...

The following day we drove to Limassol to have lunch with friends there, taking with us some friends of our friends, who were staying in our guest flat. After an excellent lunch, we were surprised with a special cake to celebrate our anniversary:

And so, with these and other low-key activities - or lack of activity - the month has passed. I have managed to avoid using the oven, although the air fryer has been on a few times. I'm not quite bored with salads yet, so hope to keep making a variety of them through August. I've worked on photo books, I've read fourteen books and reviewed them, I've done puzzles online, and written emails on discussion groups and forums. I try to stay in my air conditioned study from about 10am until 6pm or so, with a brief foray out for lunch, and (when relevant) hanging out laundry. It's not very sociable, but I don't feel at all sociable in the heat.

There haven't - yet - been many roaches, thankfully; at the end of June Lady Jane was going outside on the upstairs balcony, finding them - on our neighbours' roof, perhaps - and bringing them in, usually to the bathroom. We've started closing the door that gives her access to the balcony as soon as it starts to get dark, and since then haven't had any nasty surprises when going to bed. It probably helps that I found a lavender-scented toilet cleaner, and apparently they don't like that scent at all, so it stops them coming up the pipes.

On the other hand, we've had a lot of tiny ants in the kitchen, as happened last year. I don't know where they come from, or where they have their nest. They just appeared one day.  If there's anything out on the counter-top, they'll find it. They even found a loaf of bread which I had enclosed in TWO double-sealed plastic bags. If Lady Jane leaves even a tiny piece of her wet food after her lunch, the saucer will be covered in ants within an hour. 

So I'm using bio-kill (now called 'clean kill') on any clumps or trails of ants that I find. I don't really like doing it, but we can't have ants all over the kitchen. I'm using a lemon-scented spray, too, on the counter tops and when washing the floors, in the hope of disrupting their trails. Theoretically ants don't like the smell of lemon, but it hasn't kept them away. Perhaps Cyprus ants do like lemon, as there are so many lemon trees here.

It's been hot... but not as hot as some of the heatwaves we've heard about in mainland Europe and the UK. It's been a bit humid in the evenings, but nowhere near as bad as it sometimes is. Perhaps August will be worse... but I hope not.

I finished the end-of-June post with an image of the predicted weather for the following week. So here's one for July. It doesn't look all that different, but in practice it's hotter in the daytime, and already 28 degrees or so by 6am most mornings.

Random Larnaka images for the end of June

 May appeared to last rather a long time. But I'm not sure quite what happened to June.  As it's the last day already, here are some random local photos from the past month that I didn't use in the only other post I wrote in June. I wrote a similar post at the end of May; it may become a trend on this blog. 

We think this is some kind of fashion show that took place in Salina Park early in the month. Everything was set up the evening before, and taken down by the following evening. 

Onion quiche. With home-made shortcrust pastry, home-made vegan cheese, and home-made oat milk.  But not actually vegan, as I used regular eggs. It was very tasty!

Continued construction work at the end of the Salt Lake trail: 

The snapdragon that seeded itself in the pavement outside our house, still going strong on June 12th, without any watering - and no rain either, since the end of May:

And the sad stump of the snapdragon, after the municipal weed-trimmers went around, as often happens before summer really gets going:

First frappé of the year, June 24th, as the temperature approached 30 degrees during the daytime:

First evening with all salads, on the same day. Hopefully I won't use the oven again until September:

Lady Jane, unimpressed by the boxes of the 'Patchwork' game...

The Larnaka Salt Lake, still with some water, but also a lot of pink - apparently due to extra breeding of the algae and tiny shrimp. It happens every year, as reported by the Cyprus Mail. 

Friends and family in the UK have reported extremely high temperatures over the past week or so, higher than those in Cyprus.  It's more difficult there - and in much of Western Europe - where houses are not designed for the heat and air conditioning is only really common in shops and public buildings. On the other hand, heatwaves there usually only last a few days, perhaps a week at most.  Here it's at least a couple of months. 

Still the rise in temperature has been gradual this year, really only feeling over-warm to me in the past week. Some years it has been far worse.  I continued early morning walks with my friend Sheila until the end of last week, but on Saturday morning we were both hot and sticky by the time we got back here. It's very draining. So we agreed to leave it, now, until at least September. 

Moving on from spring

 Towards the end of April I wrote about moving on from winter - packing away our warm clothes, duvet etc. In May, we enjoyed slightly cooler weather than usual, and a surprising amount of rain. According to the Cyprus mail, rainfall was more than twice as much as normal for the month. But still there's a potential water problem, and hose pipes are still banned, other than for watering plants.

By the end of May, the temperatures were increasing, though the humidity was still low. It was time to start getting ready for the summer. By July I won't want to do anything much during the daytime. On the last Saturday of May, I did some extra laundry, so I could put away even our thinner jackets, as well as stray gloves and hats that were still out. 

We hang things on lines here, and they were all dry within a couple of hours. 

Random Larnaka images for the end of May

 Once again, after a couple of posts on specific themes, I still have other images that give something of the flavour of Cyprus.  So here is a selection from May with brief explanations:

Lady Jane investigating some plants on the upstairs balcony outside our bedroom (the only outside place she can get to). Neighbours were doing a lot of improvements and changes to their house and outside areas, and were going to get rid of these plants if we didn't want them. 

The brown metal structures in the Salt Lake Park are now surrounded by a flimsy fence. We still have no idea what they are for. 

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. 

Update about shopping and ultra-processed products

 During January, I tracked all our grocery shopping, and even took photos. I was following an unofficial 'challenge' to see how long we could go without buying anything other than fresh or minimally processed foods.

I updated this at the end of February, listing the processed (possibly ultra-processed) products that we had bought during the month. They were still minimal. And by that stage I was taking more notice of the ingredients of even standard products which we had previously bought: packaged tortillas, for instance, or pitta bread. 

I did try making pitta bread early in March, but it wasn't very successful:

Quite apart from the strange shapes, there were almost no pockets on the inside. And it was a lot more complex than naan bread, which I do make about once a month; my recipe makes eight, so we use two and freeze the rest in twos. 

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.