So much for good intentions. I didn't write a single post last month. So this will be a summary (though probably not brief) of our life here in Cyprus over the past month...
Kittens
At the start of the month, I became aware that we had unexpected visitors. There were two very young kittens, wandering around and crying just outside our boiler room, at the back of our house.
We often see kittens in our neighbourhood, sometimes in one of our side yards. There are a lot of feral cats in Cyprus. They are useful for keeping down the rats and snakes, and the female cats sometimes have two litters per year. There are sometimes national campaigns to catch, neuter and return feral cats but there are far too many cats for this to make much difference. Historically Cypriots have not liked to neuter cats, so that doesn't help.
There's a grey cat who often appears in our street. We call 'Mama cat' as she raised three kittens in our side yard in the spring. When these tiny kittens were wandering around I saw her nearby and assumed she was their mother, and that she had gone out hunting or perhaps just to take a break from them.
But if she was their mother, we quickly discovered, she wasn't looking after them. They looked quite hungry and were mewing loudly. I didn't want to interfere. Touching young kittens can drive a mother cat away, after all. But the little voices were plaintive. So I gave them a bit of yogurt, and they fell on it, lapping rapidly. A few hours later, with still no sign of a mother cat taking care of these kittens, I gave them some of Lady Jane's crunchies (or 'kibble', as I understand the term is now), moistened in a little water. They ate those too, gobbling them down.
Then they mewed for most of the night. So we decided to buy them some kitten formula, and some kitten food sachets. A visiting friend bought them some other kitten food, too. The kittens seemed quite weak by this time so we realised we would have to be more proactive. Richard built a barricade to keep them in the boiler room, as we were worried about them getting into the road and not being able to get out of the way of a car fast enough.
Thankfully they were able to lap kitten formula milk from a saucer so we didn't have to bottle-feed, as we did with the seven feral kittens we fostered for six weeks at our old house, over nineteen years ago. We guessed that these kittens were about four weeks old. They loved the wet food from the sachets too, though we were careful not to give them too much at once. And they ate the kibble without any need for adding water.
However, although we now only have one house cat, we can't keep these kittens. Our existing Lady Jane would not allow it for one thing. For another, we have a very allergic daughter-in-law, so we had agreed already that we won't take on any more cats. And, much as we love having a cat, it is something of a bind at times. We can't go away spontaneously, and when we plan to go away we have to organise a cat-sitter. Usually our close friends do this, but it's not always possible.
We put photos on Facebook a couple of times, but it seems that none of our local friends want kittens.
So Richard got in touch with a nearby cat sanctuary, who said they don't take kittens until they're at least twelve weeks old, and have had their first vaccinations. Then they try to find homes for them, and they have a much wider audience on Facebook (and elsewhere) than we do.
Thus, a month later we are still fostering them, feeding four times a day and taking them out for half an hour to our other side yard where there are plants and fake grass, to give them a chance to jump and run and play. They had their first vaccinations last week, and the vet said they seem to be very healthy.
We haven't given them names; we refer to them as the little girl kitty and the little boy kitty. I hope that someone, eventually, will adopt them.
Guests and eating out
We've had several human visitors in the past month, too. We do like having our ground floor used as a guest flat. A long-standing friend and colleague stayed for a few days, with a friend, at the end of September. They left on the last day of the month, and in the evening some even more long-standing friends arrived for a few days' break. It was wonderful to see them. They spent a lot of time on the beach, soaking up some sunshine (which, they said, had been rather lacking in the UK this year).
They took us out to eat twice; once at our favourite Lebanese restaurant, Al Sultan, and once at our favourite everyday restaurant, Alexander's. At the Lebanese restaurant we ordered a meze for two, which was more than sufficient for four of us. At Alexander's we had individual meals; I had the vegetarian moussaka, one of my favourites, with grilled vegetables. I learned about this option only in the past year and like it so much better than having a huge pile of chips alongside a moussaka.
Later in the month we had some other guests who were here for just over a week, and who took us out to our favourite Cypriot meze restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. Meze for two there is also more than sufficient for four of us.
Indeed, it was quite a month for eating out, something we do quite rarely on our own. But in the middle of the month we went out for a 'platter for one' at Al Sultan, to celebrate Richard's birthday:
We managed to do justice to most of it (though we left most of the extra Arabic bread).
And towards the end of the month we were treated to yet another meze at Kyra Giorgena, by Richard's cousin-once-removed and her travelling companions. They were visiting Cyprus and spent just one day in Larnaka.
Bathroom repairs - again
We seem to have had a lot of trouble with our bathroom, one way and another, since it was installed in 2016. There was a team of people who did it originally. While much of the work done was excellent, unfortunately the plumber cut several corners. This means we've had to have several extra repairs in the past few years.
Most recently we found the points of two screws poking up into the bath, and the base started feeling spongy, as if there was water below. Richard checked underneath and found several problems, including some totally disintegrated wood supports. That meant that all the builders' foam had to be pulled out, and concrete put in to replace it.
Thankfully our young and very competent friend L was here for a few days in the middle of the month, and able to do this for us.
It meant that we had to shower in my study for about a week, after removing all the things stored in it, but, happily, we're now able to use the bathroom shower again.
Weather
At the start of October the temperatures were still in the 30s during the daytime, although thankfully less humid than it had been a month earlier. We were still in tee-shirts and shorts, with just a thin sheet at night. We had stopped using the air conditioning in the middle of September, but were still using the ceiling fans until a few weeks ago.
By the end of October, we had put our light (4.5 tog) duvet on the bed, and have started wearing long trousers. First thing in the morning and in the evening I even put on a light jacket.
Sometimes by the end of the first week of November we have a sudden drop in temperatures, but there's no sign of that predicted this year. Just as well, since we'll have to have our central heating serviced before we use it. We had a new boiler installed in February, and as it's still under warranty, we have to have an official service. But we can't do that until the kittens have moved out of the boiler room.
And also...
During October, Richard made a brief visit to Egypt, I finished knitting some more baby hats, and continued updating images and links on my book blog. We played lots of board games, watched a few DVDs, and I did some daily Duolingo. We hosted a barbecue for a few friends a few days after Richard's birthday, and at the end of the month I made this year's Christmas cake.
