Christmas Eve

Although there are four Sundays in Advent, the fourth one is followed by less than a week - just three days, this year, in the final runup to Christmas. So rather than continuing my Advent posts, this is my annual Christmas Eve one, but continuing the daily updates.

December 21st was the fourth Sunday of Advent, and the church we're connected with had a communion service with carols rather than a more traditional 'nine lessons and carols'. I went to that, and enjoyed it, then chatted to some friends afterwards.

It's been our custom for many years to go out to eat at Alexander's on the last Sunday before Christmas. We got the idea from some friends many years ago. I can't technically say it's a 'tradition' because it wasn't handed down to us by parents or predecessors, but it feels like one. So at 12.30 we drove to the marina and then walked the few hundred metres to Alexander's.

Richard had the stifado, which he said was excellent. I had a mushroom omelette, which looked quite interesting, but wasn't as great as some meals I've had there. Still, it was filling and it's good to try something different. 

November remains warm in Cyprus...

 I wrote, in my previous post, about the weather cooling slightly at the end of October.  I assumed that the temperature would continue dropping, with - as so often happens - quite a sharp drop by the middle of November. 

I was mistaken. I should not make assumptions. 

I took a screenshot of the weather forecast on November 5th, when the daytime temperature was still 29 degrees - more like early October than early November.  I was quite excited to see a prediction of rain for a week ahead, and that the night-time temperatures would be dropping as low as 15. But no sign of the usual chilly weather by the middle of the month. 

Happy Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Eve 2023

 I quite like Christmas being on a Monday. It means we collected our turkey and did the last bits of shopping yesterday, so today was - theoretically - a bit more relaxing. I thought of it almost like an extra Saturday. Not that I've sat down much; I've been pottering in the kitchen, making extra food, cutting up vegetables, washing up at least three times for items that won't go in the dishwasher. 

I made our Christmas cake at the start of November, put almond paste on it a few days ago, and iced it yesterday. I rarely do anything new or creative despite having many books with amazing looking ideas. Here's this year's effort, anyway:

I see, glancing through this blog, that it's very similar to the one I made in 2014. 

I didn't have any handy aquafaba and it seemed silly to open a can of chickpeas just for a few tablespoons of the cooking water. But I really don't like using raw egg white in royal icing. So I tried 'No Egg', something which is an inexpensive commercial egg replacer which we bought from Holland and Barrett a few weeks ago. I don't know how it works, but it was quite effective, though I had to add a tablespoon of extra water and another teaspoon of lemon juice to get the icing to bind together. 

We cooked the turkey yesterday, too. Well, Richard did most of the work. I just made the stuffing. It's now neatly sliced in a pan in the fridge, to be reheated tomorrow. 

I don't know why Christmas entertaining feels a whole order more complicated than normal evening or Sunday lunch entertaining. And I know the food and friends are not what Christmas is really about. But still, no matter how simple I try to keep it, I usually do some food preparation most days of December, with a lot on the last couple of days, and a full schedule Christmas morning. 

Advent was very short this year, only three weeks; today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. We put our tree up on December 1st, and hung up last year's cards. Fewer and fewer cards arrive each year, which is fine; electronic communication is more efficient, and considerably less expensive. Postage from the UK is shockingly high, and we know from experience that other cards will arrive next week, or later in January. So this year's cards will be hung up next year. 

This is a poignant time of year for many, a stressful time for even more. The world news is increasingly depressing. But I'll still take this brief moment to wish anyone who sees this a peaceful, blessed and encouraging day tomorrow, however you might celebrate - or even if you don't. 

Christmas Eve 2021

 As has become a tradition, I'm writing a post on Christmas Eve to wish a very happy Christmas to anyone who might read this.  I don't suppose I'll turn my computer on at all tomorrow. 

So in keeping with the annual posts on this date, I'll begin with a photo of our Christmas cake which I iced this morning and decorated in much the same way as I have every other year. I was tired - it's been a stressful year, and a surprisingly busy December - so didn't feel like anything more creative: 

Richard and Tim took over the kitchen after I had done that, preparing and cooking the turkey. We always do this on Christmas Eve now; after it had stood for half an hour or so after being cooked, Richard carved it and it's now in the fridge in a roasting pan, so it can easily be reheated for an hour in the oven tomorrow. That way it can be served hot, rather than cooling down as everyone waits for it to be carved.

I'm not sure why I'm quite so tired this year; perhaps it's just my advancing years meaning I can do less. I've tried to limit extra baking and cooking to just one thing per day, and have not turned the computer on until after lunch. This means I've been slightly more productive in the kitchen than usual, but considerably less productive at the computer.  

In the early part of the month, other than making some mince pies (as mentioned in my last post) I didn't do much extra cooking; instead I focused on writing and posting cards, and organising Christmas presents for the extended family in the UK. However on December 9th I made three Christmas puddings, seen here in the steamer:

A couple of days later, I tried out a recipe which claimed to be 'failsafe' (a politer way, I suppose, of saying 'foolproof'), lemon bars:

I used dairy-free spread instead of butter, of course, and half wholewheat flour in the base, and made exactly three-quarters of the given amount to fit my tin. But other than those modifications, I made it exactly as given... it was very tasty, but quite messy to get out of the tin. I wished I had greased it although the recipe specifically stated that an ungreased tin should be used. 

However they seemed to be appreciated by the Larnaka Christian Writers' Group; the December meeting was held at our house, followed by our usual pre-Christmas potluck/shared lunch. Much food was enjoyed by nine of us. 

When I made the lemon slices again a few days ago (they really did taste good, definitely repeatable...) I used a silicon sheet underneath and greased the sides, and they came out rather better. 

I made other things to freeze for Christmas, managing to find space in the freezer although it's not easy, and did some extra cleaning, including Tim's room after Richard did significant amounts of tidying.  Yes, despite Omicron and increased Covid restrictions, our younger son was able to fly here on Monday. He said the flight was crowded and rather scary as several of the passengers were not wearing masks, or not wearing them properly. But he's here, and has finished the few days of isolating with us (Cyprus distinguishes 'isolation' from 'strict isolation', the latter only coming into play if someone tests positive).

We went to the Post Office yesterday to see if there was any mail and were surprised by quite a number of Christmas cards. Usually the majority don't arrive until after Christmas, so we keep them and then put them up the following year.  But we've had quite a few now, which is nice:

We send most of our Christmas greetings by email, with an update of a few significant events from the past year - most of which can be found by browsing this blog, despite the distinct lack of entries for the year. 

Tomorrow we'll be going to St Helena's for the morning service, where Tim will be playing, then back here to finish lunch preparations. Our friends will be joining us, with four of their children - not really children any more as the youngest is eleven . We'll eat too much then play board games, and then eat some more. And we'll try to remember the real reason for Christmas amidst the light-hearted indulgences of the day. 

Wishing every blessing to all who read this, with a safe and happy celebration in whatever form it takes. And praying for a more hopeful New Year. 

Christmas Eve greetings from Cyprus

I have written a post each year for the past decade on - or close to - Christmas Eve. So as Richard is currently carving the turkey, with the doors closed to keep the cats out, I thought I might as well continue the tradition. 

The previous posts have started with an illustration of our Christmas cake, each one pretty similar to all the previous ones. I iced this year's cake yesterday, using home-made icing (with aquafaba rather than raw egg white) and since we had almost an entire tub of glacé cherries, I put some of those on, just to make it slightly different from previous years.

This is not, of course a typical Christmas. We miss our sons desperately, particularly Tim who has spent every Christmas with us, other than one, until this year. But travel from the UK is difficult at present, with Covid-test requirements, and now seven days of hotel quarantine. There's no guarantee of being able to get back again, either. So, sadly, it didn't make sense for anyone in the family to come out to Cyprus this year. 

The case numbers in Cyprus have been getting worse, but - so far - we're still allowed to gather with up to eight other people in our home. Church services were cancelled, so everything moved online, including last Sunday evening's carol service. But the government has made a concession to the Orthodox Archbishop and has allowed congregations to meet (so long as they are masked, distanced and no more than one person per three square metres) on Christmas Day only. So we will be able to attend a live service tomorrow, rather than just streamed. 

Our local friends who usually join us for Christmas will, unless some disaster strikes, be coming for lunch tomorrow. Which means that, despite wanting to keep it simpler than usual, I found myself baking and cooking far more than will be eaten in two meals. I like to over-cater - much better than running out, although there has never been a danger of that. Besides, if there's too much food, then I don't have to cook anything much else for several days, and that's always a good thing.

It's been a long and depressing year, and I realise that it has been considerably worse for many others than for us. Our hearts go out to those who have been bereaved, or who have suffered badly with the virus and its after-effects. We hope and pray that the vaccines will be effective, and that, gradually, more normal life can resume in the spring. 

As I said in the last post I wrote, we only sent six Christmas cards this year, and didn't expect to receive many. Until yesterday we had received eight, two of them giving to us by local friends. Then we went to the Post Office to check our box, just in case there was anything... and there were thirteen cards, all from the UK, posted between November 30th and - astonishingly - December 17th.  And one card arrived in our letter box outside our house. 

So in addition to last year's cards, which we always put up as part of our regular decorations (since the majority arrive in January), we have MORE new ones than usual before Christmas this year, displayed on a couple of bookcases:

Rather than rambling on for longer, I will end this post with a photo of our living room a week or two back when Richard put a fire - complete with crackling noises - on our television. 

It almost made the room feel warmer:

Wishing peace and blessings to all for this most unusual Christmas season. 

Making our Christmas cake

We're sadly resigned to the fact that we won't be able to see our sons, or grandchildren, or any other relatives at Christmas this year. But the cooler weather reminded me that it's time to bake this year's Christmas cake. We hope we'll still be able to have local friends over during the Christmas period and early January - if not, we'll be eating it all ourselves. I usually only have a couple of slices... 

I thought about making it on Tuesday, but I didn't have enough dried fruit. I bought some more on Wednesday morning, thinking I would make it on Wednesday... then remembered that the fruit has to be soaked overnight in a few tablespoons of brandy.

So I weighed the fruit and left it soaking overnight, and for most of Thursday:

The recipe I use every year is, approximately, 'Delia's Celebration cake'.  I say 'approximately' because:

1. I use dairy-free spread rather than butter
2. I use half wholewheat flour rather than all plain
3. I use ground almonds rather than chopped
4. I can't easily buy dried currants here, other than at vast price, imported, and there's no differentiation between raisins and sultanas. So I use all raisins
5. I use grated zest of two lemons rather than one orange and one lemon
6. I don't bother to sift the dry ingredients
7. I don't use the brown paper and extra baking parchment on top

But, other than all those, I follow the recipe fairly closely. 

I did remember to use a large mixing bowl, something I have forgotten at times n the past. Here's the first stage, after beating the spread with the brown sugar:

At that point, I realised I had to find a suitable cake tin, and line it. I checked last year's photobook and saw that I made a square cake last year. So, for variety, this year's is round.  I only have one deep 20cm round tin, and it doesn't have a loose base, so it was important to line it.

One of the few things I recall clearly from 'domestic science' at my secondary school is the way to line a cake tin, by folding greaseproof paper in half, then clipping a little trim all the way around to make it fit neatly underneath the round piece cut for the base.

The rest of the cake is fairly standard - beat in the other 'wet' ingredients, gently fold in the dry ones with the fruit, and spoon it all into the prepared tin. I use a silicon spatula to make sure every last scrap of cake mixture is used:

Since, by this stage, our evening meal was in the oven, cooking at a rather higher temperature than is appropriate for a cake, I left it sitting on the work surface for half an hour or so, then put it in the oven at around 6.45pm when we started to eat, after turning the heat down appropriately and waiting a few minutes for the oven temperature to reduce.

The recipe says it should take four hours - in mine it says not to look until at least three hours, although the one I linked to says not even to check it until it's been in for four hours. But I've had Christmas cakes rather over-cooked and dry, in the past, even starting to burn on top. We prefer ours rather moister.  So I checked it after just two hours, and it seemed to be almost done.  It was firm on the top, slightly springy, and coming away from the sides. I turned the heat down a bit more and left it in for another half hour or so,  and then took it out to cool. 

I certainly hope it's sufficiently cooked, but it's never been a problem in the past.  I left it overnight in the oven (turned off) to cool down fully, then this morning wrapped it in foil and put it in an airtight container to mature. I'll pour a little brandy into the bottom a couple of times - if I remember - and then put almond paste and royal icing (home made, of course) on in the week before Christmas.

That's about all I need to do at this stage. I still have a Christmas pudding left from last year, and over half the mincemeat I made last year, so I won't do any more. All family presents get ordered online, and I usually make calendars for a few folk, so those need to be organised and ordered.  But there's no urgency there. I hope.

We went to SuperHome Centre this morning to buy a couple of things, and were startled to see Christmas displays everywhere - but shouldn't have been surprised, really.  There were lots and lots of little scenic models with moving parts, some of them at extortionate price, others more reasonable. However none of them appealed. All the cute (and the not-so-cute) Christmas scenes, with skaters, or playgrounds or other snowy (and entirely un-Cypriot) scenes seemed to feature large, jolly caricatured Santas along with the other little figures.

Our cats would probably be fascinated by something like that... which is another excellent reasons for not having one. 

Christmas Greetings from Cyprus

Once again I take keyboard in hand to write a Christmas Eve blog post.  As usual, I'm illustrating with this year's Christmas cake.  I made it at the start of November, and decided - for a change, I thought - to make it square rather than round.

I thought I might do something a bit different with the icing, but although the home-made marzipan came out beautifully, the royal icing wasn't very co-operative, and I ended up just sloshing it over the cake and then putting ribbon around, and a few of the less tacky cake ornaments on top.

(Yes. These are the less tacky ones.  The ones I didn't use are much worse).

Looking at last year's photo, I realised it's really not much different from last year's cake, which I mentioned in last year's Christmas Eve post.  It was also square. It used four of the same ornaments, although I was a tad more creative with little marzipan snowballs last year.

I wrote about most of our Christmas preparation in my last blog post.  Since then, I've done one or two extra bits and pieces in preparation; but nothing of great import, other than the arrival of our son Tim on Thursday evening last week.  On Sunday we went to the local church Nine Lessons and Carols service, where Tim was the guest pianist (ten years ago he was their organist and choir director).  I very much liked the new Nativity scene, with the communion table as backdrop:

 

Today Tim cooked the turkey, with two kinds of stuffing inside. Richard carved it, and it's sitting in the fridge now, ready for re-heating tomorrow.  Our menu is much the same as always: in addition we'll have chipolata sausages, veggie sausages (already prepared), roast potatoes, carrots cooked in a little non-dairy spread, steamed brussel sprouts, peas (if we remember to put them on) and sweetcorn.  Plus cranberry sauce, of course, which is very easy to make.

One year we did broccoli instead of brussels sprouts, thinking more people would like it. But there was an uproar from two of the visiting children.  Brussels sprouts, they insist, are their favourite part of the meal.  I don't mind them too much, once a year, and will probably have two or three myself.

I made mince pies and Christmas puddings weeks ago, so they just need re-heating.  Lemon drizzle cake will be the alternative dessert, and some dried fruit (dates/figs/apricots).   Nothing complicated.  There will be ten of us, which is a good number. We'll all fit around the extended table easily.  Of course we'd much rather have our other son and his family here too, even if it meant a much more crowded dining room, but it's not to be. Not this year, anyway.

I've printed the newsletters which have arrived from friends.  I've sent out brief greetings to our email contacts, since we didn't write a newsletter this year.

And our knitted nativity members have been taking a nap, in preparation for the big day, courtesy of our friends' youngest daughter:

Wishing you a peaceful, relaxing day tomorrow.

Happy Christmas!

Christmas Eve

It has become a regular occurrence for me to write a blog post on Christmas Eve, with a photo of this year's Christmas cake. I'm not sure at what point a regular occurrence turns into a tradition. Either way, it has happened sufficiently often that it is now on my general list of things-to-do-in-the-runup-to-Christmas.

Not that there are all that many things on the list. We have simplified as much as we can, while keeping to the things we like. This year we still had two Christmas puddings and a large tub of mincemeat left from last year, so I didn't even have to make those.  I ordered UK gifts online, early in December. I wrote our newsletter around the same time, and posted about thirty along with Christmas cards, to relatives and a few close friends. Most of our friends send email newsletters rather than cards now, though;  each year the number we email has increased, and the number of cards written and sent has decreased.

Should anyone reading this, who is not on our mailing list, wish to see our newsletter it's now up at the family site:  Family Christmas newsletter 2018.

We decorated - in a low-key way - a couple of weeks ago.  I printed out the newsletters we received by email, and added them to the handful received by mail in a folder, so we can read them at our leisure. We ordered our turkey mid-December and collected it, along with other food items we need over the next few days, yesterday. I prefer not to shop on Sundays if I can avoid it, but we definitely didn't want to fight the crowds in the supermarket on Christmas Eve.

I have a few things to do today - to bake an alternative cake, and make some vegetarian sausages, and, this evening, help Tim with some of the vegetable preparation for tomorrow. He's made stuffings and the turkey is gently roasting now. Doing it on Christmas Eve, carving in the evening and then re-heating for an hour before Christmas Day lunch, works beautifully for us.

As for the cake, I baked it late in October, fed it a couple of times, made marzipan (without almond essence) about ten days ago to cover it, then iced it (again, making icing in the food processor - so much easier than beating by hand) a couple of days ago.  There was leftover marzipan so I made a few rough balls as it looked rather sparse after I added the least tasteless of my plastic cake decorations.

Wishing everyone a peaceful, relaxing Christmas, and a hopeful New Year.

PS if anyone would like to hear/read a rather different perspective on Advent, this is one of our son Daniel's rare blog posts with something he wrote recently:  Audio Advent Calendar

A fortnight in January in Cyprus

I decided I would write a blog post each Saturday this year. I managed it once.  I'm not sure what happened last Saturday, but evidently I didn't write anything. I haven't taken many photos this month, either. Rather a contrast to last Summer, when the family were staying and I took several photos on almost every day.  One of the things I've been doing is creating our 2017 photobook on the Photobox site, a few pages at a time. I've reached the end of June, which has almost as many pages as the first five months put together.

Nearly two weeks ago, we had our friend Jacob and his employee Mike back for a few days to do some more repair work on the house. They painted balcony railings, and the spiral staircase we have outside our house, and they 'spritzed' some of the back wall. They made a cover for one of our water tanks, which was - for some strange reason - missing its cover, and they worked with Richard to encase all our external wires in trunking. One of the cables had almost perished in the sun; it should have been encased a long time ago.

We've continued playing board games regularly with our friends, and on Tuesday this week revived an old habit - we played Settlers-by-Facetime with our son Tim, who now lives in the UK.  It took a while to get everything set up and working as we hadn't done this for some years; I think the setup took as long as the game. But it worked well, and was great to have a three-player game, and chat, even if he's two thousand miles away.

On Thursday, we woke to grey skies. Sheila and I went for our walk, although the trail was somewhat muddy and there were a few spots of rain. Within about half an hour of getting home, it started to pour.  Thankfully I had brought in the laundry I did the previous day. In Cyprus, when it does rain, it can be torrential.  There were high winds and hours of rain; the sun came out briefly a couple of times, but mostly the sky was grey. We had a few drips of water through the roof, but mostly it was fine. We had to use our electric water heater to get hot water for showers, as there was no solar heating at all. And it was cold. It had been a mild winter so far, but the house felt very chilly.

Yesterday Richard did the annual UK tax returns. It's not a task he relishes, though I do the bookkeeping through the year so it isn't too hard to get the figures we need to enter. He was quite frustrated by the whole process, as the UK government website seemed to be extremely slow. However, he finished eventually, and in celebration I made his fifteenth cake (out of sixty) for his 60th birthday year. It was a simple microwave chocolate mug cake with Bournville chocolate squares pushed into it; a little dry, but the melted chocolate helped:

It filled the large mug we bought for this purpose, and made two good sized portions:

In the afternoon, the entire Internet seemed to slow down. I don't usually notice when it's a bit slower than usual, but I was trying to print the statements from our two bank accounts and credit card, and I couldn't get some of them to load at all. No problem with the Cyprus bank, but the UK one, which is usually very quick, was unbelievably slow.  

Richard, meanwhile, was trying to download some videos for work, which he had to edit. He was already somewhat frustrated as the work computer had broken down twice in the past couple of weeks. The first time he took it to Nicosia and they cleaned something; the second time, they took it to the Apple dealer, who said it had a hardware fault and they would replace it free of charge... which is fine, but meant Richard was without his main editing computer for several days. So he hooked up his laptop to the system, which wasn't entirely satisfactory... and then the Internet appeared to grind to a halt.

He phoned our Internet provider, and they said that two major cables that connect Cyprus with the rest of the world had been cut.  This news article confirms it. The authorities don't seem to know why... but by this morning, thankfully, it seemed to be much better.  

Almost Christmas Eve

I like it when Christmas Day is a Monday. Although many shops will open tomorrow, we try to avoid shopping on Sundays. So rather than rushing to the supermarket for last-minute bits and pieces on Christmas Eve, we shopped this morning and if anything is missing, we'll do without.

I updated our family website yesterday, including this year's newsletter.  If anyone reading this is interested (and has not already seen it via email), you can find it here: Family newsletter 2017. Observant visitors to the site may notice links to a couple of books in the right-hand sidebar. One is to the book Richard wrote a few years ago. The other is to my father's memoirs, which I edited a little and proof-read over the past few months. They were published via CreateSpace a few days ago.

I usually ice our Christmas cake on Christmas Eve, but decided to do it today, instead. I usually get terrible arm-ache making royal icing, gradually beating icing sugar into egg white or substitute (aquafaba is what I used today, and is my preference). This year I decided to use my food processor, ignoring the advice of purists who insist that royal icing must be beaten with a wooden spoon. It was quick, easy, and successful. I wish I'd thought of doing it this way years ago.

I also put a ribbon around the cake, which is much easier than trying to ice the sides. And since there was a little icing left over, I attempted to pipe a few roses on top. Not very successfully, and the puddle in front of the 'Merry Christmas' thing looks very odd in this photo, but I hope it'll taste all right.

The last few days have gone quickly; it's been great having Tim here. Tomorrow afternoon he will stuff and cook our turkey, so it can be carved and put in a roasting pan in the fridge, ready for re-heating on Christmas Day. We'll probably peel and chop potatoes tomorrow too, but almost everything else is ready.  There will be eleven of us sitting down to eat lunch on Christmas Day.

As always I'm aware that this season is a difficult, poignant and sometimes painful season for people who have lost or are separated from loved ones. We will very much miss Daniel and Becky and the grandchildren, who are thousands of miles away. But we're very thankful to have Tim here, and good friends to share the day with.

Having written this a day early, I may well decide not to switch my computer on at all for the next couple of days. I'm one of the few remaining people who doesn't have (or want) a smart-phone, so once my computer is off, I'm unconnected with the online world.

So, although it's a couple of days early, I'd like to wish everyone a warm, love-filled and blessed Christmas (or whatever you celebrate over the holiday period).

A quiet 'day in the life'....

Since the family departed, I have taken very few photos. I've been scanning a lot of negatives from the 1960s and 1970s, both my own and some of my father's, and knitting, and proof-reading a book which my brother is writing. These don't take up my whole time, yet the days seem to move on increasingly fast. I suppose it's a sign of late middle age.

However, one photo I did take was of a Middle Eastern wedding, which took place on the beach where we were sitting with our friends, a couple of weeks ago. As we watched, hotel staff came and set up chairs and a table, guests started to arrive - the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses and high heels, which looked a bit awkward on the sand. After a while the bride and groom arrived, and the ceremony itself cannot have been more than ten minutes. People out on the beach watched with interest. Three of the children from our group went up quite close...

Today, I haven't spoken to another person (cats excluded). For an Introvert like me, that's actually a relaxing and energising way to spend a day. Richard went up to Nicosia yesterday, in preparation for providing PA for a day conference organised by some friends. So he's been out all day. Last night I decided I'd read in bed for a couple of hours, so went upstairs around eight o'clock, the cats having put themselves to bed already (we shut them into our dining room/kitchen area overnight so they don't wake us in the early hours!).

As ever, after about an hour my eyes started to droop, and I eventually turned out my light about 9.30pm and must have fallen asleep immediately. I woke shortly after 5.30am.  Normally, at this time of year, I would then go for a walk with my friend Sheila. But they're away at present, and I can rarely motivate myself to walk by myself, unless I'm doing some errands.

After feeding the cats, dealing with cat litter and reading for a while, I realised that I had forgotten to soak the dried fruit for a 'celebration cake' I was planning on baking this morning. I'm not being ultra organised for Christmas; this is an extra one which I promised some years ago to Richard, for his forthcoming special birthday. So I weighed the fruit, and put it in brandy, and put it aside.

I was also planning on making another batch of tomato ketchup today, and some more apple-and-tomato chutney. I had bought a 4kg bag of tomatoes at the local fruit stall a couple of days ago, for the grand price of a euro. They were still in good condition, but I needed to start using them.  So I chopped apples, and onions, and garlic, and tomatoes and started them both off in separate large pans.

I should perhaps also mention that in the middle I had mend my kitchen scales; they're very light, and have a tendency to stick to the bowl. I keep on forgetting, and I don't know how many times they have landed on the floor. I managed to break at least one set in the past by doing this, and our last set became unreliable, weighing incorrectly, after such a crash.  My current scales seem to be quite sturdy, and are still accurate... but today's crash made part of the insides come off and rattle around. I had to find a cross-point screwdriver and undo them to fix it - and was quite pleased with myself for succeeding.

I glanced at the time... and it was already eight o'clock. Time for breakfast, and a glance at my email and Facebook...

Then I washed up the utensils I'd been using; when I poured out the washing up water, a cockroach (shudder) ran out of the sink and behind the microwave. These are an ongoing problem in Cyprus in the summer; I've reached the stage where I no longer drop everything, scream, and leave the room. At least, not every time I see one. Instead I armed myself with Biokill and sprayed behind the microwave.  I turned around to stir the chutney, and turned back in time to see the roach running down the counter top and into a corner.

I didn't want to chase it around the kitchen spraying more potentially toxic insecticide, even if Biokill is milder than most. So I grabbed our large broom from the utility balcony, and swept the roach outside. I'm getting a lot braver.

Once the computer's on, it's easy to get distracted. There was an interesting discussion on one of the Facebook groups I'm on. I decided to start scanning some negatives... and kept going, finishing two or three films rather than just one. I answered a few questions on an online forum I participate in... and kept finding more that I could respond to.  I played moves in my Lexulous games. I checked my email. I briefly browsed the BBC news site.

In between doing those things, I kept popping to the kitchen to stir the chutney. I decided to move all the appliances on the worktops and clean behind them, but only did a couple at a time. I made our bed with clean sheets, as I do on Saturdays now, and I put on some laundry.

I usually clean the house on Saturdays too, and try to get that done before lunch-time, but my back was aching after all the chopping of vegetables, and I kept getting distracted by the computer. I followed links to interesting articles on Facebook. I went to Picasa, my photo-editing software, to check the results of the negatives I'd been scanning, and to add names to the faces.

Then I spent half an hour at Memrise - where I'm teaching myself some world geography, and Greek vocabulary - and DuoLingo, where I'm attempting to get better at modern Greek.  Not that I seem to make much progress in understanding other people speaking Greek - and almost everyone we know speaks excellent English anyway.

After lunch I dusted the whole house with my long-handled faux feather duster, including the ceiling fans, then turned them on as it was getting a bit humid. Summer is coming to an end, with the temperatures 'only' about 30C in the shade, at the most, so I was a bit surprised at the sticky feeling this afternoon.  I'm still using air conditioning in my study, as computers can't deal with anything over about 28C.

After another break at the computer (more photos, more forums, a Sudoku game) I swept the whole house, vacuumed the living room rug and dining room chairs, then mopped everywhere.  In between times, I sterilised six jars and transferred the newly-finished chutney to it.

Later, I labelled the chutney and put it away, next to the mango chutney I made at the end of August. I don't particularly enjoy making chutney, but I like eating it very much, so am always pleased to have a supply that should last us at least another six months or so.

When I'd finished the cleaning, I sat down at the computer again and caught up with some email.  And Facebook, and forums, and did a bit more photo organising...

By the time I'd had something to eat in the evening, I realised it was too late to make the cake, which might have to cook for three or four hours, so I'll do that tomorrow. I cleared up the kitchen, yet again, and put the dishwasher on. I am still, after eleven years in this house, very thankful indeed for my dishwasher.

I've been thinking for a few days that I needed to write a blog post, so although I was going to close my computer down an hour ago, I thought I'd 'just start' one. As ever, once I'd started, it was hard to stop...

The cats had a bit of a fracas this evening; Alex went out for a while, and then Jane started attacking him when he came in again. It's happened a couple of times before, usually when he's got into fights. I don't know what caused it this time, but I separated them for a while.  Happily, she soon got over it. And while I was in the middle of writing this blog post, Alex came and started nibbling my legs, a sign that he wants me to go to the kitchen with him. I did so, and as Jane came too - and was quite affectionate with him - I shut them in for the night.

Oh, and if anyone's read this far, and is wondering where our grandchildren and their parents are... they are at last on the Logos Hope.  It's less than a month since they departed from Cyprus, though it feels like considerably longer. They spent a week in Canada with other relatives, then flew to the Dominican Republic. Yes, that country on a small island in the Caribbean, shared with Haiti, where two hurricanes have hit in the past couple of weeks. We were very anxious as Hurricane Irma approached, but they were in a large building with other new recruits on the south of the island, and - when they briefly managed to get online - we learned that the only effect for them was heavy rain. The ship and the crew had to go out to sea for a couple of days.

Our family and the other new recruits (around 100 people in all) have joined the ship now, according to its site updates, and again had to go a way out to sea when the port closed as Hurricane Maria drew new. They should be back by now, so we hope to hear from them soon.

Christmas Eve 2015

It seems to have become another tradition that I write a blog post on Christmas Eve, including - as the first image - a picture of this year's cake. Not that it differs much from last year's or the year before's... I make it from the classic Delia recipe, cover (usually) with shop-bought marzipan a day or two before I want to ice it, then make royal icing for the top layer.

This year I decided to use aquafaba rather than egg white for my icing, and it ended up slightly runnier than usual, but perhaps I didn't beat it enough; or perhaps I didn't add sufficient icing sugar. In any case, with my standard decorations and some glacé cherries, it seems to have turned out all right:

Tim has made some peppermint creams using aquafaba too. It has the advantage that one can use just one tablespoonful to make a smaller quantity than an egg white would. Besides, even with the availability of free-range eggs, we were never entirely happy about raw egg white, and we never knew what to do with the leftover yolks at this time of year.

But I should back-track a little.

For the first few days of Daniel, Becky and David's stay, we (or they) went out for walks each morning, so David could get a chance to run around. Then we had three days of almost continual rain. And when it rains here, it really rains. We were going a little stir-crazy, so last Thursday I texted the organiser of the Community Church Tots group and asked if we could join their last event of the year. We were warmly welcomed, and David enjoyed running around... and also eating a large amount of the snacks, long past the time when the other children had returned to playing:

On Thursday evening, during the course of playing a game with friends, Richard and I both started feeling as if we had very bad colds: sore throats, blocked noses, headaches and exhaustion. There's a nasty flu-like cold going around, which comes on very quickly and lasts several days. A week later and we're still not fully over it, although we've kept going, and are certainly better than we were a few days ago. Mine had quite a setback when I got caught in pouring rain early Saturday afternoon, after popping to the local fruit shop in what I thought was a break in the rain...

It felt as if Christmas started properly later on Saturday, when we went to see a performance of 'The Snowman' by the Little Muse Theatre company. Everyone was supposed to dress in white: David was wearing an entire snowman suit for the occasion:

He's a lively little boy, into everything, and doesn't sit still very often. So we expected to have to run around after him during a 45-minute production:

But he sat on Daniel and, for the majority, was absolutely mesmerised:

On Sunday, the rain gave way to sunshine, so after the morning church service, we wandered down to the sea-front, where David paddled in the sea for a while:

Becky went barefoot in the water with him; she said it was a bit cold at first but soon felt quite pleasant. David didn't seem to notice the chilliness at all.

After that the six of us had lunch at Alexander's:

We never set out to create traditions, but eating at Alexander's on the Sunday before Christmas has become a regular event for us, and I very much like not having to think about food for one day in this busy time of year.

Monday was a good day, too. In the evening, I took photos of the younger cats, thinking this one of Alex would make a nice Christmas photo for next year:

Joan looked cute under a pile of cushions too:

It's only as I look at this photo with hindsight that I realise she doesn't look all that well.

On Tuesday, she didn't appear all day. Our thoughts were mainly with a relative in the UK who was having quite serious surgery that day, but when Joan still hadn't appeared by lunch-time I began to be concerned. I've been worried about her several times and gone looking for her, and she always appeared in the end, so I tried not to worry... however, by the evening, we began to fear that she was gone for good.

We've lost three cats unexpectedly over the past ten years or so. We have no idea what happened to any of them. We made several guesses: that our cat-disliking neighbour had captured her, that someone had 'stolen' her to sell, that she'd been run over. I felt quite tearful; I had determined not to get too attached to Alex and Joan, but she had certainly got under my skin.

We also became quite worried about Alex by Tuesday evening, when he was very lethargic and off his food. Checking online, we thought that perhaps he was stressed or even grieving for Joan, if he had seen whatever happened to her. We brought him to sleep on our bed (something we don't usually allow) and he seemed happy, then slept all night.

On Wednesday, he ate more but seemed to be uncomfortable, walking awkwardly, sleeping most of the time, not wanting us near. We took him to our room again last night, and today he's seemed rather better, much more alert and purring when we stroke him. We would have consulted a vet if we could have done but they were closed already for the Christmas break.

So we now think that perhaps they both caught some kind of feline bug - apparently there is one going around - and that Joan, who has never been as strong as Alex, succumbed. I miss her, and he's going to miss her too, but we're relieved that he's more like himself today:

If you've come on this post by chance and are interested in knowing more about our family, here's the link to this year's Christmas newsletter - written a couple of weeks ago, before Joan disappeared.

And as if all that weren't enough, yesterday Becky managed to break a shoe and fall down our outside stairs when carrying David down, although automatic parent instinct took over and he was fine; Becky has a nasty graze.

On a more cheerful note, David seems to enjoy most new experiences, including riding in a special toddler shopping trolley when we did our big grocery shop at Metro yesterday:

He's been teething, and keeping his parents awake at night, so with everything that's been going on we're all quite tired. But we hope everything is mostly organised for tomorrow... and I may even go to this year's carol service this evening.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this.

Birthday Blogpost

It happens every year. I can't pretend that I'm not expecting it, because the date is consistent - but as the years pass, it seems to approach more rapidly than ever.

I speak of the anniversary of my birth, and my increasing incredulity that I can be, as one of my small friends put it, such an 'old lady' when I still feel about 26 on the inside. It's a shock, sometimes, to realise that my younger son is, currently that age.

Cake, at least in our culture, is usually a mark of a birthday. And since our closest friends in Cyprus were due here Sunday afternoon, I decided to bake a chocolate fudge cake a day early, so as to share the feast with them. I used a slightly runny icing and then decorated it with seasonal strawberries, and some American style chocolate chips which some visitors had given us last summer:

Nobody doubts my ability to bake and even decorate a cake, so long as nothing artistic is required. But in general I am not permitted by my family to cut a cake, particularly not with our large and rather sharp knife. However, given my advancing years, Richard and Tim felt that perhaps - with supervision - I should be allowed to try:

After all, as Tim kindly pointed out, it might not be many years before my hands become too shaky to use a sharp knife...

I succeeded in dividing the cake into twelve reasonably even pieces, without cutting myself at all. Pieces were passed around the table, served with fresh fruit salad which I had also made earlier in the day:

Katie enjoyed hers very much:

We didn't have anything much planned for the following day, which was the actual birthday. So I got up early and read for a while, as usual, and did my normal Monday blitz around to dust/vacuum/mop the house before Richard got up. Then I opened some presents: books, DVDs and some fruity teas from Richard and two of my siblings who passed their gifts to me when we saw them back in February.

Richard was working in the morning, so I pottered a while, read email, caught up on Facebook - including about thirty 'Happy birthday' messages which I responded to briefly - and a few other things on the computer.

Since there were ten people present for Sunday evening, there were two pieces of cake left for us to eat after lunch. Afterwards we went out to the PO Box where I found three packages awaiting, one of which was addressed to Tim. The other contained some books from another of my siblings.

I'd also wanted to buy a few flowering plants to put in the planters outside my study window, so we visited a plant shop too to spend a little of the birthday money I've been given. I thought I'd branch out from my usual petunias and geraniums, although I've no idea what I actually bought.

I planted them out soon after we got back.  There are two of this pretty purple thing:

and two of each of these plants:

Our Christmas poinsettia is still looking reasonably good, but with both Easters (Western and Eastern) past, and the weather warming up, I decided it was time to move it from the living room to the outside planter:

Then I couldn't resist a few more geraniums and a couple of petunias, as they do so very well in Cyprus. Most of them will go downstairs on the outside patio area:

Tim arrived about 6pm, tired after his first day back at work after the Easter break. The parcel addressed to him was in fact his present to me, which was a new and smart-looking chocolate-coloured case for my Kindle, as my old case had almost disintegrated.

And since I'm often asked exactly what my gifts were, here they are in collage form:

I had already decanted two of the boxes of fruity tea into jars and cut out the box fronts to label them before I thought of taking a photo. I've tried them both already, and they are extremely good.

Richard had asked if I'd like to go out for a meal in the evening, but we've been out to eat at restaurants four times in the past six weeks and I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted to eat at a restaurant. About four times a year is more normal for us.

So I decided to make my current favourite meal of spanopitta, and just have Tim over to dinner. He then mentioned that he still had some pecans left from his last trip to the UK, and they needed to be used.. so he would bring a pecan pie for dessert. I wasn't entirely sure whether a pie following a pie would be a good idea, but was quite prepared to try.

Spanopitta isn't difficult, now I've realised that it's not necessary to cook the chopped onions before mixing them into the feta and hard goat's cheeses, along with eggs and spinach, but I wasn't sure if we'd eat more than one - and liked the idea of having some extra to freeze for a future meal - so I made two:

.. served with two of my favourite vegetables: roasted tomatoes with basil and garlic, and baked mushrooms:

I'd thought about doing some other veg, but didn't want us to be too full before the dessert, which looked good and tasted delicious:

We had played Settlers of Catan on Sunday afternoon, and we were all tired, so I suggested we play 'Kingdom Builder', a game that Tim bought us for Christmas, but which we haven't played very often. I like it very much; it's not too demanding, and doesn't take more than about half an hour. We played a couple of rounds:

However by about 8.30pm Tim was yawning after his early start (he has to get up at 6.00am in term time) so he went home, and I went back to my computer to find yet more birthday greetings on Facebook. By 9.30 I was almost asleep myself, so I went up to read in bed.

Having stretched out the celebration over two days, I thought that would be the end of it. Then this afternoon I had a message that it was a good time to phone Daniel, Becky and David who are at present on the Logos Hope in Malaysia. After several failed attempts, we got through on a reasonable line via the UK and USA, and I was wished Happy Birthday yet again. We chatted for about forty-five minutes, and were pleased to discover, on hanging up, that it had cost us the vast total of about 40 pence (sterling).