Half-way through Summer...?

July passed, a day at a time, rather more quickly than I had anticipated. It was apparently the hottest July in Cyprus for nearly four decades. I was very thankful for our new, more efficient air conditioning units. We also bought a new fridge-freezer towards the end of May.  These were justified to some degree by our recent electricity bill. Despite using more air conditioning than we did last year, we used just over half the number of units. 

As I said in my last post, we should have flown to Scotland towards the end of the first week of July.  We were planning to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary with our sons, daughter-in-law and grandchildren at an AirBnB in St Andrews, the town where my family went on holiday every year when I was growing up. I was then going to stay with various relatives and stay out of Cyprus as long as possible during the heat and humidity of Summer. 

But the pandemic crisis ensured that didn't happen. We determined to celebrate next year, if at all possible, but in the event we had a very pleasant day.  It started the day before with a lovely basket of flowers sent by my sister:

Then on the day itself, several people at church congratulated us. Then we were surprised and delighted with a special cake afterwards (albeit with a minor spelling error - not unusual in Cyprus!) to share in the courtyard after the service:

We went out for lunch to our old standby Alexander's, as we could park not too far away.  In the afternoon our closest friends in Cyprus were coming over anyway. So in addition to thawing some more apricots and making some more ice cream, I made some tiffin [chocolate biscuit cake], to my grandmother's recipe, since I'm avoiding using the oven during the summer. 

We were given two anniversary cards on the day itself, and two more arrived in the post a week later. 

 

For a non-celebration, it was very enjoyable. Forty years feels like both a long time, and almost no time at all. Will we still be around in another forty...?  It's not impossible. 

Other than that, life has continued in aestivation mode. I've been for a few very short local walks, not even reaching 5,000 steps most days. I've watered the plants and looked after the house, and made a lot of salads. It's been interesting experimenting with different ingredients and combinations for salads, and we haven't yet become bored with cold food. 

Not that it's been entirely cold food. We had been talking about buying an air fryer for some time, having read some enthusiastic reviews. These aren't just a healthy version of a deep fat fryer, but can roast or bake smallish quantities of food too. For just two of us, it sounded ideal. 

We hadn't actually decided on anything, though I was looking at one from Lakeland in the UK.  Then we were in SuperHome Centre looking for something else, and saw that they were selling air fryers. I wanted to know what they looked like out of the box, and a very helpful assistant (masked, of course) showed us in some detail. 

The price was good. And it was ready to take home. And it was a reputable brand, with a two-year warranty - much easier to take back, if necessary, than one ordered from the UK. 

So this was our anniversary present to each other: 

I was a little anxious about using it at first, but tried it for re-frying potatoes in slices, and it was excellent.  I've made sweet potato fries in it, and baked potatoes. It's excellent for cooking frozen oven chips.  I've roasted a chicken breast to slice in a curried chicken, mango and cucumber salad, and yesterday cooked a small salmon fillet to flake for a lentil, pepper and salmon salad.  I've roasted peppers and even onions in the air fryer.  It doesn't heat up the kitchen like the oven does, and it's a great deal more efficient to use for just one or two items for two people. 

As for the salads... I've had to cook some ingredients over the hob, but again that's not really a problem. I've made - for instance - tomato/peach/fake feta salad, broccoli/leek/egg salad and avocado/mango/cashew salad.  We bought 500g farfalle pasta, something I wouldn't normally do as we eat very little pasta. A 500g pack of spaghetti usually lasts us around five months. But it's excellent in different salads to provide some carbs; 100g farfalle (cooked) gives us enough for two days' worth of salads. I made one with mushrooms, one with pesto and cherry tomatoes, and another which I've already forgotten.  Most days I make one new salad, and team it with at least one from the previous day, plus perhaps some extra lettuce or coleslaw or chopped cucumber. 

That's it for July, really.  

At least, it was until almost the end of the month, when the Cyprus numbers for Covid-19 positive tests suddenly went up from 0-3 per day to 10, then 13, then 25... big numbers, percentage-wise, for a small island.  

We breathed a sigh of relief when the numbers dropped to 5 over the weekend, but yesterday was another higher number.  Today they have just reported 15 cases.  Here's how the graph looks on the Worldometer site: 

It resembles what some countries are calling a second wave, although most of the cases are in Limassol and are being tracked with all contacts traced and tested.  Some are from airport tests of repatriations, too, not all of whom are self-isolating even when they come from 'high risk' countries.  But a few are appearing 'in the wild', which suggests that Cyprus hasn't eliminated the virus at all.

So as of last weekend, we must wear masks in all public indoor crowded spaces. They have spelled out what that means; the ones relevant to us are shops, banks, and churches. It refers to children over the age of six as well as adults. Limassol has had some extra restrictions and closures. 

I find masks unpleasant to wear, particularly in the heat and humidity. For ten minutes or so in a shop it's not a problem. For an hour in a church service last week, I found it increasingly difficult to breathe in properly and began to feel faint with the heat of my breath inside the mask. I will try sitting outside in the courtyard this coming Sunday, so long as we don't have another heatwave. And, of course, the church service will only happen if we're not back in lockdown mode.... 

Every time we see our friends, now, we wonder if it will be the last time for a while. The government had said there would be another lockdown if the cases rise too much. So far the experts seem to think it's under control, and that if everyone wears masks in public indoor spaces, it should gradually ease off again. But we're not taking that for granted.

We also know how well off we are in this country. It might be hot and humid but we have inexpensive and efficient air conditioning, with electricity that works all the time (barring very occasional power cuts).  There's plenty of food in the shops, it's safe to go out and about, albeit with masks on, and we have reliable, fast Internet. Cases of Covid-19 are rising, but they're mostly affecting younger people now so many are asymptomatic. Only four people are in hospital with it, none of them in Intensive Care. 

We have friends in Lebanon where there seems to be crisis after crisis. They aren't doing too well with Covid-19 either, and the whole country has been in financial chaos for weeks, getting increasingly worse.  Their electricity is off more than it's on.  Yesterday we heard - and felt - a loud bang which we quickly learned was from a huge explosion in Beirut, leaving devastation, serious injuries and over 100 people killed. 

God's plans are far better than ours...

When we brought out a large amount of freight from the UK last October, we wondered what we would do with it all as we already had furniture for the house we were renting in Cyprus. But although we did throw out/give away vast amounts of stuff, we still brought rather a lot, and it felt right to do so.

When we found the house we eventually bought here, with a guest flat as well as a three-bedroom house, we realised where the extra stuff would go. And sure enough, although we've had to buy a few extra things, we found that it did all work out very well, giving us - effectively - two fully-furnished houses.

We did wonder how much the guest flat would be used. Shortly after we bought the house, friends and relatives asked to come and stay, but the first ones were booked for February half-term next year. As described before, we had to put the guest flat into unexpected use at the end of July, with an Australian refugee from Lebanon; then a work colleague of Richard's stayed overnight when he couldn't find a hotel, and our Australian friend returned for a further week before flying back to Lebanon at the end of August.

Last week some friends from the UK stayed there for a week, on a last-minute break booked only ten days in advance, and tomorrow we're having yet more people staying - a family with four children, who are taking a few days' break from the country where they usually work. Hotels are almost impossible to find at the last minute - our friends couldn't book one, so I should think it's impossible for a family of six - so they're going to stay here from tomorrow evening until Sunday.

It works out very well - people can be entirely independent if they wish, or (when it's friends or relatives staying) we're just up the outside stairs, so we can spend time together and have shared meals. I feel much more relaxed about people staying there, in general, than I ever did about having folk staying in our other house, where we tended to trip over each other somewhat. And since people stayed last week, the guest flat is tidy and clean, so all I had to do to prepare for tomorrow was a quick dust and mop, and make up beds. There are basic supplies (tea, coffee, sugar etc) in the guest flat, and they'll be bringing or buying their own food.

It all works out so much more neatly than I could ever have imagined!

Downstairs in chaos again!

Nearly two months ago, I wrote this post about how we just about got the main part of our new house organised, when we learned that we were having unexpected guests from Lebanon to stay. So over a couple of days we tidied away the vast amounts of clutter that had accumulated in the guest flat part of the house. One of the guests stayed for about two weeks, and then just over a week later we had another guest.

So far so good.

But in the past month, clutter has somehow started appearing downstairs all over again. Firstly it was the painting tools, since we've finished painting upstairs.


Then some boxes of Tim's books which he's decided he doesn't need in ihs room. And so on. The music studio has been used by Tim and some of his friends a few times, but is fairly untidy, with wires and rugs and equipment fairly randomly arranged.


Other than that, we haven't really used the flat at all.

This would all be fine, since we do plan to decorate and finish organising the flat during the Autumn, once the weather cools a bit. But on Friday Tim will be 18, and he's having a party on Saturday to which he's invited the entire youth group. Potentially up to 30 people, though they probably won't all come. And he wants the party downstairs.

We might have persuaded him that upstairs would be easier, but then on Richard's recent trip he learned that one of our July visitors wants to come back for a week. Arriving this Wednesday. She doesn't at all mind that there's going to be a teenage party in the flat on Friday, but it does mean we need the place tidy and clean by the end of Tuesday. And we can't just shove all the clutter in the one current bedroom as we might have done if it had just been for the party. The other bedroom still needs the plumbing and doorframe finished, something we've been waiting for since the end of July, as explained in this post.

Just to add to the confusion, a few weeks ago we were given some fibreboard pieces to use in the studio for sound treatment.


While in Egypt last week, Richard bought some very brightly coloured cloth to cover them with, and on Thursday he bought some wood to make the panels. On Thursday evening, despite being pretty tired, he made the first two, to see how they would look:


A lot brighter than I would have chosen, but then I won't be using the studio - and they'll certainly make it more interesting.

This morning Richard went sailing with our friends who've been in the UK all summer, and this afternoon he's having to get ready for some recording he's doing at the office tomorrow... but at some point he hopes to make some more panels, and perhaps fit some of them. And tidy up. The painting stuff, I suppose, can go in the not-yet-ready bedroom. The books need to be sorted, and I was delighted to learn that there's a jumble sale coming up on Wednesday at St Helena's Church. A good opportunity to pass on some of the educational and other books that we will never use, and various other unwanted items discovered in the past few months that are too good to throw away.

Boxes, beds and beaches

Yesterday morning Richard checked all our remaining unpacked boxes, most of which he's packed away neatly in cupboards to get them out of the way. Some can stay packed, such as Christmas decorations, or archive tapes and photo negatives. We did find a few useful items and ornaments, and a couple of boxes of paperwork which are now in the study, awaiting further sorting.

Then he decided to make a start on Daniel's room. He unpacked all his clothes and put them in the built-in closets. Of course, Dan took most of his clothes with him to the Doulos, but there are still some shirts, trousers etc here.

In the afternoon, Richard decided to make a start on re-building Dan's cabin bed, which we brought out from the UK last Autumn in individual pieces. Since it was Richard's own creation, based on bunk beds and bookshelves, we couldn't really remember how it worked - and some of it needs to be changed anyway.


It's starting to go together:


In the evening we were invited out for a swim and a meal. The Australian friend who stayed here for a couple of weeks has been to house-sitting for some other friends who are currently travelling, as their flat is right by the beach. We sat and had some drinks at first, and realised how much we take it for granted that life is multi-cultural/international. Here's Richard (a Brit), drinking Sangria (Spanish) from a Starbucks mug (American), which he was offered by a friend (Australian) who's an evacuee (from Lebanon) staying at the home of some other friends (Canadian) - in Cyprus.



The water was lovely and warm shortly after 5pm, and the sun not too burning, so we went to swim for about an hour. Not that we do a huge amount of swimming: more bobbing up and down in the water, with occasional more energetic moments.

Guest flat saga

The downstairs flat, which will mostly be for guests to use, had two bedrooms, and also a separate room which was used as a hairdressing salon by the prevous owners. Businesses in homes need to have separate outside access in Cyprus, and not have doors into the main part of the house, so an internal wall had been built to block off part of the living room.

The people selling the house offered to get rid of the wall, the pipes and the mirrors, but we thought it would make a good bedroom so we asked them to leave it. Tim is using one of the rooms as a music studio (with friends there recording, as I type...) and we wanted to have two bedrooms available for guests. The salon room looks out onto the front porch, so it gets morning sun, and is a reasonable size to make a double room. When we moved, we put our old double bed in there, and it fitted well.


When we heard that we were having guests from Lebanon unexpectedly, we realised there was no chance of getting it ready in time so they had the other bedroom, where there are two single beds. But we thought it would be a good idea to get the salon room finished, in case of further short-notice visitors.

We managed to buy a sink to be plumbed in the corner where the hair-washing place was. But as the pipes need to be moved (meaning the floor has to be dug up in places) Richard didn't want to do that himself.


We have a friend in the building trade, and he said he could arrange for a plumber to come, but he didn't know if it would be before the August holiday (which is basically two or three weeks at the start of the month).

The next thing to do was to cut a hole in the wall for an internal door, so Richard did that. He didn't make it very big - he found some metal construction holding up the plasterboard - but sufficient to get through.

Then we learned that it's not possible to buy doors directly here. Apparently they're all made to order by carpenters. We asked our friend to recommend one. Richard told the carpenter we wanted teak to match the other doors, then asked what sizes he could make. The carpenter said he could make any size door - what did we want? Richard said it was an internal door... and the carpenter said in that case there was just one standard size. So much for all doors having to be custom made! We asked him to make it, and amazingly it was produced just over a week ago. It looked enormous, but never mind.


Unfortunately, carpenters don't fit doors. We needed a builder who would cut the hole to the right size and actually fit the door. We were told it would probably happen in September...

On Monday, the builder arrived. He looked at the hole. Uh-oh... he didn't have the tools to cut metal, but could get hold of them. And he needed to borrow Richard's step-ladder. Actually it was a building supervisor, and two assitant builders (who did the actual work). But when they had gathered together the necessary tools, they cut the hole, and fitted the door.

However they said they couldn't fit the frame trim because the carpenter has to do that. They don't have the right tools. Nor did they fit any handle on the door (we apparently have to choose and fit those) although they did put in a lock. And told us not to touch the door for 24 hours, while the sealant in the wall hardened.

In the afternoon, the plumber (and his assistant) arrived. They discussed where exactly to put the sink. They told us that the pipes needed to be moved.

'Yes,' said Richard, 'we know.'

'Ah, said the plumber. 'I don't have the tools to dig holes. You need a builder for that.'

Apparently the builder who needed to dig the hole (or supervise it) was the same builder who had been there in the morning supervising the door fitting. The plumber phoned him. The builder said he hadn't thought about it, so he would come back later with equipment to dig up the floor. The plumber drew lines on the wall and floor to show what needed to be done, and said he would come back after the builder had been.

On Tuesday, nobody came.

On Wednesday, nobody came.

By Thursday, we realised that this job wasn't going to be done until after the August holiday, which probably means September some time.

Ah well. At least we tried.

Saturday

Today felt like the first 'normal' Saturday in a month. Since we've moved to our own home, that is. We decided it was about time to buy some plants for the front porch area downstairs, and although we had a few in pots brought from our old house, they looked rather lonely. Our Australian friend from Lebanon knows something about plants (such as which ones do well in full sun during part of the day) and came with us to advise.

I didn't want to try anything too ambitious or expensive, since it's probably not the best time of year to transport anything. We also agreed that we didn't want anything that was likely to grow huge and cut out light from the house. And on principle I vetoed plants that look angular and spiky. We already have a sort of palm thing that someone gave us ages ago:


... and an odd plant with individual tall pointy leaves which seems to do well in a pot:


... so I was more interested in potential fragrances, flowers and fruit.

It was after 10am by the time we got to our favourite plant shop, by the time I'd swept, mopped, showered, put on laundry, put bread ingredients in the breadmaker, and so on. Richard never likes to get up much before 9am anyway, though Sophia got me up around 6am as usual. Even by 10am, it was feeling hot and a bit sticky. It was probably only about 30C in the shade [that's around 85F], but a lot of the plants were outside, in the sun. After much discussion, we chose:

Two citrus plants. Here's one of them:


One is a lemon, the other an orange (we think). The second one was labelled 'Naval' in Greek letters, which looked a bit odd, so we assume it's an orange! Eventually we plan to dig a border at the side of one of the paved areas, and will transplant the citrus trees in there. But they'll be fine in pots for a while. We hope.

Two lavender bushes and two hibiscus plants:


I know hibiscus do well here; we had some at our old house, and they never seemed to grow very big. What's more, they apparently thrive on neglect. Just my kind of plant. I was a little surprised to see so much lavender, but we did see it growing at one of the other houses we looked at months ago, and I love the smell. We'll probably plant the lavender in this planter, where they're currently sitting. But although we bought some potting compost, we need to fetch some stones from our old garden.

Two pots with flowering succulents of some kind, which we thought would look good on these pillars at the front of the porch area.

By the time I took the photo, the flowers had disappeared for the night, but they do look good there.

One 'bird of paradise' plant, something I had not heard of, but our friend assured us the flowers are gorgeous even though they only come for brief periods.


Richard would have liked to buy loads more, but I thought it better to wait until slightly cooler weather, perhaps in about October.

By the time we'd finished I felt a bit overheated so when we'd put the plants on the front porch area, we collapsed for a while, and I read my current book. Then Richard went out to buy some small but necessary part for his dinghy, and went to mend it, while I switched on my computer and read email.

After lunch we tend to siesta, or at least slow down... I read some blogs, replied to some email, read the news site. Richard watched Euronews headlines, then read for a while. Tim played some computer games. Around 4pm Richard had to pop to his office to set off some process needed in the completion of the video he made for our friends' wedding a couple of weeks ago. When he got home, we all went swimming at one of the local beaches. Not our favourite (McKenzy) since the car parking fee there has gone up to £1, for any period up to 24 hours. Fine if you're there all day, but rather a lot to pay for less than an hour! Instead we did like many Cypriots: parked our car near the road, just at the rocky edge of some beach, and swam from there. The water was lovely, the sun not too hot, and it's good to get some exercise and fresh air at the sea. We try to go two or three times a week during July and August, although this is only the second time so far this year.

Then we returned home and had quick showers; we had already decided not to cook, so Richard and Tim went to our favourite local takeaway place, Souvlaki Express. For takeaway food, it's very healthy: Greek pitta bread enfolding grilled meat or halloumi, with masses of salad, held together with either tzatsiki or tahini. But then they also bought some chips (ie 'french fries') which rather reduced the health value of the meal!

Now I'm blogging, Richard popped back to the office, Tim's at his computer again. If Richard gets back in time we'll probably watch a film on DVD, since we have several that we haven't yet seen.

Summer

Richard spent this morning getting the final things from our old house - a few things to give to a friend, and some items to bring here, such as long ladders, outside plastic chairs, wheelbarrow...

He also managed to buy the fixings for his satellite dish, and this afternoon fixed it to the roof. Then he had someone come and get it tuned, so he can now watch Euronews and other channels in English. Without the satellite, we only have Greek television. Not that we watch much TV anyway, but with the Israel/Lebanon war, he wants to keep up with world news.

The people staying in our guest apartment took us out to lunch today. We went to Alexander's a pleasant and friendly restaurant on Larnaka sea-front. It was a good meal, but so hot and sticky that I felt tired when we got there, despite managing to park the car only about 100 metres away. All I could face eating was a tuna salad, although I followed that with a Negrita ice cream sundae - chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips and cream. Yum. We were then offered coffee 'on the house' (as often happens at Alexander's when they're not too busy) and I had a frappé - Cyprus iced coffee.

Sitting at the outside tables, we saw a huge number of ships, in varying sizes. Some of them may be bringing more refugees from Lebanon, but we suspect others may be taking aid, or food, to those still there. Or, possibly, providing an escort for larger aid ships. I would have taken photos, but unfortunately both sets of rechargeable batteries for the digital camera were flat. Not sure how that happened! Perhaps I should carry a set of regular batteries too.

This afternoon I was very tired. It was hot, sticky and humid. I sorted some of the paperwork in the study, then had a late siesta.

Right now, Richard's drilling a hole in the study door, hoping to instal network cable so that the people downstairs can use their notebook computer online, rather than having to use mine to get their webmail.

A little busier than expected

The title of this post is an example of the classic British understatement.

Three days ago we learned that two Australian writers Richard knew somewhat, in Lebanon, were hoping to escape on a British warship coming to Cyprus, and wondered if they could stay in our guest apartment. They thought they might be here some time Thursday, but communications were limited. We gathered that the husband needed to go to a conference in Tunis on Saturday, so Richard reserved him a seat with one of the Cyprus estate agents. Just as well, since it's now impossible to get any flight out of Cyprus - they're all fully booked, with extra flights chartered for refugees from Lebanon.

Wednesday was our 26th anniversary. We thought we might go out and buy some plants in the morning. But, knowing guests were coming, we went first to buy a curtain pole for the main bedroom (which has large french windows onto the front porch), then to look for other bits and pieces such as saucepans for the guest apartment. By the time we got to the plant shop it was noon, very hot and sunny. I had had enough of shopping... so after a cursory glance around we decided it would be better to get plants in the Autumn. My head ached, and I felt weak with the heat as well as overwhelmed by all those shops.

During the afternoon I had a phone call from the person who's sorting out a door and sink for the main bedroom in the guest apartment. He said it would be at least five days. Since Cyprus more-or-less shuts down for two weeks in August, lots of people are having jobs done now and the workmen are busy constantly. Since the only way into the room is a hole in the wall at present, and the old hairdresser sink (removed) is dripping, we knew there was no way the main guest room could be used.

In the evening, after an afternoon in air conditioning, I felt better so we went out to eat, taking Tim. We went to Viale's, an open air cafe/restaurant where some friends took us for ice creams a few weeks ago. Very pleasant food, beautifully presented; good service (albeit rather slower than we would have liked), and prices not too unreasonable.

When we got back, we spent a couple of hours moving boxes from the second guest room, where Richard had set up two single beds. He moved some boxes, which we knew we weren't going to need for a while, to high cupboards, and others upstairs. But when we gave up for the night, the kitchen was covered in tools, and other random bits and pieces, and there were still about four boxes on the floor.

On Thursday morning Richard moved a few more boxes, then I spent four hours sorting, tidying and cleaning. What had seemed impossible proved to be doable. I even got to the stage of finding some pictures to hang up, and they made the walls look less boring. It would have been nice to paint before having guests, but obviously there was no chance of that! I washed loads of curtains from the old house, and hung a pair in the guest room, cutting them to size.

Thursday afternoon, Richard had a phone call saying that this couple were hoping to come on a ship leaving Thursday evening, so should be there in the middle of the night. So I made up beds, and we found various useful bits and pieces - a lamp, a fan, bug spray, towels, and so on. During the afternoon we had an hour and a half's power cut, to our surprise, so I decided to spend the time usefully and hemmed the curtains in the guest bedroom by hand. Something which, otherwise, would probably have been left for months.

There was no phone call during the night, but about 9.30 this morning Richard received a quick call saying that they had just arrived in Limassol port. There were long queues, and they expected that it would take at least an hour to get out. Then they would get a shared taxi ('service') to Larnaka. So we did our usual weekly trip to Metro supermarket, and picked up various extra bits and pieces for the guest apartment, knowing that our visitors were arriving with hand luggage only.

They finally got here about 12.30, very tired but relieved to have got out. They said it was unbelievable how quickly Lebanon has gone from a peaceful, busy city to a war zone. They've watched bombs falling, they've seen people who have lost everything. They are thankful that they're safe, that their adult children are safe - one in Australia, the other, newly married, leaving Lebanon tonight with his bride. This son had to cancel his planned large wedding in August, and get married a couple of days go in a small ceremony with only about 25 guests, most of them in jeans as it was last-minute.

They said that the British warship was brilliant, with all the soldiers helpful and friendly. But they're worried about so many people left behind, and about the fact that the embassies are telling foreigners to leave the country. They're trying to be as fair as they can about the whole conflict, and are horrified at how biassed some of the media is, particularly the American channel CNN which is apparently as pro-Israel as ever, and giving a highly sanitised version of the horrors going on in Lebanon. The BBC is apparently somewhat better; but perhaps it's impossible for a reporter to describe accurately what's going on, though, without having lived in the country.

I had wondered, sometimes, why we bought such a huge house now the boys are adults. Now I'm beginning to find out!

Settling down in the new house

So we're more than half way through July. That struck me this morning, when Richard pointed out that tomorrow is our 26th anniversary. Wow. In the busy-ness of recent weeks, I'd lost track of the date. We'll probably go out to eat in the evening - taking Tim along, if he's doing nothing else. We need to make the most of the time when he's still living at home, as it won't be many more years until he flies the nest. In the morning we thought we might buy a few plants since we have no garden as such - just paved carports and a large front porch. At some point we're considering digging up the paving at one side, but not at this time of year. Of course it's not really a good time to buy new plants but it would be nice to have some to start us off. We'll get more in the Autumn, no doubt.

Yesterday and today I unpacked more boxes in the study. There are built-in cupboards along one of the walls, which are now full of paperwork/magazines/pictures not yet hung. But it does look tidier. Tonight Richard's colleague from Egypt is coming to supper and then helping to paint the study. He's very keen to work on the house, so we're making the most of it.

The downstairs guest flat is still fairly full of boxes, but Richard's put together the two single beds in one of the guest rooms, and the living room of the flat has two sofa-beds, so if necessary we could have four guests (more if they were small children). We need to have a door knocked into what's going to be the master bedroom downstairs, since it was a hairdresser salon, separate from the main house. As it was originally part of the living room, the dividing wall is easy to cut through. But unlike in the UK, we can't buy doors and wood for frames from a DIY store and then put it in place ourselves. We have to employ a carpenter, who will make the door exactly as we want it. This probably won't be too expensive, and we've asked someone to look into this, so we can get the guest flat at least basically organised.

Some friends had considered coming to stay at the start of August, which would have motivated us to get the guest rooms painted and in good condition rapidly - however they're not now coming until next year.

But... a couple of days ago Richard had a phone call about someone who was visiting Lebanon, is currently elsewhere in the region, and now - obviously - strongly advised not to return to Lebanon. So she may be coming to stay. We don't know if there will be other refugees: yesterday a boatload of Italians and French people arrived here, and apparently there will soon be some Brits. There are a significant number of ex-pats in the Christian/mission world in Lebanon, so there may well be a call for temporary accommodation. If so, we'd like to be ready. It's only about six weeks since we were briefly in Beirut; hard to imagine that this busy, European style city is now under siege.

What we still need to do in the main part of the house:

- paint study (this evening, we hope) then hang curtains and one or two pictures
- paint Dan's room and put his cabin bed together
- paint hall/stairs/landing and then put up family photo gallery
- fix ceiling fans and/or light shades for bedrooms
- sort out Dan's and Tim's curtains
- buy mirror and light fitting for loo
- find some kind of mirror for our room
- find some way of fitting a cat door

Which isn't really all that much, certainly compared to all the houses we've lived in before. We might well get all that done by the end of July.

At some point we need to ensure we get a final certificate of approval for the main part of the house. Just in case anyone actually wants to follow the plot - so to speak - and hasn't a clue what I'm talking about, I described the potential problems here, what we learned here, and what transpired here.

In a nutshell: the main part of the house, ie the top two storeys, had planning permission, but the building did not entirely follow the plans. Nor were the plans totally accurate. An architect can sort it all out for us (at a cost) so long as we do it soon. It's not dangerous, or even illegal - but until we have the certificate, we could have problems if we wanted to sell it. Not that we do, of course. But one day we might.

As for the downstairs part of the house, that still needs a LOT of work. Painting everywhere. Light fittings almost everywhere. Curtains - which I shall probably adapt from the curtains we had at our previous house - almost everywhere. The door cut through to the front bedroom. Beds in place. Kitchen equipped with more than the 'spare' stuff we don't use much. And all the remaining boxes need to be unpacked, with homes found for the contents.

It would be much easier if we could leave this until the weather gets cooler, but it's probably best to keep going. A little at a time.

Weekend away

At the beginning of July last year, Richard and I went on a 'mini-cruise' from Limassol to some Greek islands, to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. During the trip, the ship bumped the side of a dock and we lost a day's visits and excursions while waiting for a safety check. In compensation, we were given a voucher for 50% off any two- or three-day mini-cruise this year, other than in July and August. Not much use to the majority of people, who had to fly to Cyprus in order to join the cruise, but ideal for us! However we probably wouldn't have got around to claiming it if we hadn't learned that two sets of our friends had booked one going to Lebanon and Syria for the end of May. So we decided to go too. Knowing that our house sale in Birmingham was complete made an extra reason to celebrate! Tim decided he would rather stay home and house/cat-sit.

We left Friday mid-afternoon, and boarded the Louis Lines ship 'Serenade' around 5pm. We and our friends had asked to eat our evening meal at the early (7pm) sitting; none of us like eating late anyway, and there were three children under 10 with us. The food was excellent, as last time, as was the dining room and the service. Plenty of choice in the menu, including vegetarian options, and we could all have four-course meals (appetiser, soup, main course, dessert). The children, who weren't keen on food from the menu, were able to have chicken nuggets and chips instead. The ship sailed overnight.

On the Saturday, our friends had all agreed to visit a mutual friend who lives in Lebanon, but Richard and I decided to have a day to ourselves as we were both pretty tired and gradually unwinding from the stress of our UK house sale. So we spent a fair amount of day on the deck, relaxing and reading, and looking at the city. If you click the picture below to see the bigger version, you'll see a modern mosque with four minarets nestling amongst the high-rise blocks.


In the morning we used a port taxi to go into Beirut, where Richard showed me some of the places he had stayed on his previous visits for work, and we browsed some of the shops. It's a busy, crowded city, which reminded me somewhat of Athens (in Greece).


There are three languages spoken in Lebanon: Arabic, French and English, and we saw signs in all three. I was surprised to see quite a few bookshops, considering how few there are in Cyprus. It seems that the Lebanese read considerably more than Cypriots. Of course most books were in Arabic. I was excited for a moment when I saw this sign:


But, sadly, despite the English notice all the books on sale were in Arabic.

The shops were a complete mixture of Eastern and Western, old and new. We saw up-to-date shops with computers and other technology, mobile phones, DVD players and so on. We also saw quite a few shops with Arabic crafts, and amazingly ornate chandeliers such as this one:


After we had exhausted several streets of shops we decided to walk to the sea, but it turned out to be much further than Richard had thought, so we went back, as we had arranged to meet our taxi driver at 12.30. Only official port taxis would be able to return us to the ship, so we couldn't just hail one of the many that roamed the streets looking for custom. On the way back we saw this incredible ancient tree with ariel roots:


As for where we had agreed to meet the taxi driver... it was that ultimate modern American institution, which I have never before been inside, despite one in Larnaka:


Since we had quarter of an hour spare, we went into Starbucks and ordered some caramel frappucinos. Cold and delicious, and exactly what we needed. We were rather shocked at the price, which was almost $10 for two (American dollars are taken as easily as Lebanese pounds). As much as the taxi which drove us for 20 minutes. Still, we were on holiday!

On Sunday morning we arrived in Syria. We booked the official excursion since all our friends were going too, although we might not have done so if we had realised we would have to spend five hours in a coach! Not a very comfortable one, either. There was a tour guide who spoke to us for about an hour in each direction, telling us every possible fact and figure about Syria, or so it seemed. I fell asleep both times and got neck-ache as a result.

First we visited an Orthodox monastery dedicated to St George, of all people. We thought he was a legendary British saint, but our guide told us that St George vanquished a dragon in order to save a lady, and that the lady represented the Church. It was a pleasant place, although not particularly different from Cypriot monasteries.


After that we drove to a huge castle, where the guide showed us everything in great detail. We were there for an hour-and-a-half, and although it was quite a nice castle, as castles go, it wasn't terribly thrilling.


Unfortunately I developed quite a bad headache, probably due to being in the sun too much, and also the altitude (we think the guide said it was 1700 metres above sea-level, and I've had that kind of headache before at high altitude). It didn't help that we didn't get to stop for lunch until 2pm! However our packed lunch-boxes were extremely good, kept cold in the back of the coach in cool-boxes, and as we ate them in a restaurant we were able to order coffee.

On the way back we stopped for an hour at what was advertised as a 'bazaar' but was really a street of rather tired-looking shops, mostly selling rubbish for tourists. Richard had hoped it would be a real Arabic souk such as he has visited in Damascus. After the 'bazaar' we were taken to visit the duty free shop in the port, and were back to the ship for our 7pm dinner.

We got back to Larnaka this morning about 10pm, and were relieved to find that the temperatures had dropped a little, 'only' 28C, which is a great improvement on 35.

Tonight, Richard is off to Egypt for a week.