Doing laundry in Cyprus, and the Eco-Egg

As a child, I was mostly unaware of how clothes were washed. I put things in the dirty linen basket, and at some point they appeared, clean, in my room. Or possibly in the airing cupboard. I did know that my mother put things in the washing machine, but took little notice of the process.

When we visited my grandparents in Scotland in the summer, one of our special treats was helping my grandmother with her weekly laundry: she had an elderly twin-tub machine, where we had to use something like a rounders bat to lift clothes from one section into the other, and then a hose to put rinsing water in. She could never understand why we found it so enjoyable to help; I'm sure if we'd had to do it every week, it would quickly have lost its appeal.

But I never had any conception of what detergent was used. I'm not sure I knew what detergent was, other than some magical substance that cleaned clothes. As a teenager I vaguely remember adverts, telling us this powder would wash whiter, or brighter, or remove the worst stains... but as far as I could tell, they were all much of a muchness.

Fast forward several years...  

I was newly married and had to choose a laundry detergent from among the large number available. We probably chose the one that was best value, or that was on special offer.  Richard wanted me to use fabric conditioner, something that was new to me, but when I did so, my clothes became unbearably itchy. Strange, because they felt softer, but evidently I reacted against something in the conditioner.

When our first son was born, his skin was very sensitive. So after a few false starts - and a lot of nappy rash -  I started using a detergent advertised as gentle on a baby's skin.  I learned that the 'biological' powders, excellent on difficult stains (like blood or ketchup) were not at all kind to sensitive skins. So I would carefully select the non-bio powders, or liquids, and (occasionally) soak a difficult stain first in a stronger solution.

Fast forward again... 

My sons were older, their skins less sensitive, and I was less obsessive about finding non-bio detergent. So when we moved to Cyprus, more than two decades ago, I bought detergent in a brand I recognised.  I always used less than the recommended amount, and as far as I recall we didn't have any problems.

But in the last few years, I gradually became aware of two things. Firstly, that standard detergents are not good for the environment, and not particularly good for clothes. Secondly, that I was feeling itchy in a low-key way rather more often than I liked, and - in the winter - developed a rash in places where my skin rubbed against my clothes. Not bad enough to worry me, but a minor irritation now and again.

I l switched to a different washing powder, but that didn't help.  I looked for non-bio washing powder in three different shops, but could not find any.  I started using less and less detergent.  That probably helped the environmental problem slightly, but made no difference to the itching and rashes.

Then - yes, I have finally reached the point of this post - just over a month ago, we were in the UK for a few days. The main reason was my nephew's wedding, a wonderful occasion (and thankfully the weather was considerably milder than it might have been). In our extra days, we did some shopping, including going to one of my absolute favourite shops, Lakeland.

And there, I saw - on a promotional stand - the 'eco-egg'.  I had heard of these alternatives to detergents many years ago, but reviews had been mixed and I had been cynical. But these eggs come with special little pellets or granules. Apparently they produce a couple of chemical reactions that cause dirt to be removed from clothes gently and washed away without the need for detergents. They were advertised as ecologically sound. When I asked the assistant if they worked, she said they had sold a lot and nobody, so far, had complained or returned one .

The box said that the eco-egg was good for up to 70 washes. It cost £9.99 so was not much more expensive than the equivalent bag of detergent in Cyprus. Refill packs for the eco-egg are available at half that price for up to 50 washes, so I decided I had little to lose.  At worst it would do nothing more than washing with water alone.

I have to admit to a minor annoyance when I opened the box, hoping I could squash the contents into my over-full case.  The egg was much smaller than I had expected: the packaging was excessive:

But at least it was cardboard, and thus easily recyclable. And there was no problem fitting the egg into our luggage!

I have used it, now, for four weeks.  In that time, I suppose I've done about fifteen loads of laundry.  I've followed the instructions carefully: I don't over-fill the machine, as there needs to be room for the egg to move around. I make sure it has a chance to dry out in between loads.  And the one time I had a 'difficult' stain, I first soaked the item in a little regular detergent, then rinsed it, then put it in a load with the eco-egg.

I don't always separate light from dark clothes; I prefer to separate different kinds of washing, doing one load a week of towels and tea-towels (60 degrees), one of socks, underwear and some other darker clothes (40 degrees), and one of sweaters, lightly-used shirts etc (30 degrees).

Conclusions

Is the eco-egg better for the environment than normal detergent? I don't think there's any doubt about that one. It has to be better.

Is it better for my skin?  Yes!  Within days I became aware that I was no longer feeling itchy.  And at moments when I suddenly felt an itch again, I realised a moment later that I was wearing something that had not yet been washed by the eco-egg.  The rash has almost entirely vanished.

Does it actually DO anything?  I have to admit, this is much more difficult to evaluate.  Would I have exactly the same results if I simply washed the clothes with water and nothing else?  There is no real way to test this. I would need two identical machines, and two identical loads of dirty clothes to be able to perform a fair trial. But as far as I can tell, yes, it does do something.  The clothes emerge from the machine smelling fresh and clean.  That's not necessarily the case when washing with water alone.

The smell isn't the artificially fresh one that comes with detergents. It's far more subtle. By the time the clothes have dried on the line, the scent of the clothes is more of outdoors than anything else. But I'm pretty sure my load of socks and manky jeans would still smell a bit stale if I had only washed them in water.  Perhaps clothes washed with the egg would be stale, too, if I left them, damp, in the machine. But I usually hang everything out within minutes of the load ending; no more than half an hour later.

The clothes are undoubtedly softer than they used to be, which is probably because there's no build-up of detergent in them.  The only slight disadvantage - if it is one - is that the whites are not quite as brilliantly white as they used to be. Sunshine helps, although we haven't had a whole lot of that in the past month.  But I don't think it actually matters too much.  Besides, if detergent was whitening our whites, what was it doing to clothes that were not white...?

And if you were wondering how it works...  

The product description at the Lakeland site states,

The two types of unique powerful cleaning pellet activate in water, working together to produce a powerful foam that gets right into the fibres of your clothing to lift off dirt and grime with ease. Here’s the science bit – the ceramic pellets weaken the adhesion between the dirt and fibres, while the mineral pellets naturally ionise the oxygen molecules in the water, which then penetrate deep into fabrics to lift dirt away without fading colours or damaging your clothes.

(https://www.lakeland.co.uk/53232/ecoegg-Laundry-Egg-Refill-50-Washes---Fresh-Linen)

I don't know if that is scientifically sound, but then I never really understood how traditional detergents work. I can't say I've noticed much 'foam' in my eco-egg washes, though sometimes I see a small amount.

Maybe I'm gullible and the eco-egg doesn't actually do anything other than bounce around inside my washing machine.  But, so far, I'm pleased with it.  I haven't seen anything like this in Cyprus, but with increasing environmental awareness, perhaps they will start to appear.

In the meantime, I'll buy refills from Lakeland. 

Lacy Beret

After spending most of the year knitting soft toys for friends and grandchildren, I thought I would try something entirely different. I browsed through my Patons accessories booklet, something I acquired many years ago but, as far as I recall, have never previously used.

I decided to attempt the hat labelled 'lacy beret'.  I'm not one to follow fashion, but this kind of hat seems to be 'in' at the moment, and - more importantly - I rather liked it. The pattern looked complicated, but is only one piece. I felt more confident than I did a year ago, after trying so many different items, so I found some grey yarn - to match, roughly, a grey scarf I have already - and got started.

Here's the top view of the finished hat:

The first part is deceptively easy. 3mm needles and fifteen rows of simple rib. Then a switch to 4mm needles, and the lacy pattern part.  I had to learn a new acronym: 'tbl' means 'through back of loops'.  I didn't just have to knit through the back of loops, but knit two together 'tbl', after moving the yarn forward to create an extra stitch. This, combined with knitting two together (in regular fashion) was what created the lacy effect 'holes'.

There were 141 stitches when I started the lacy pattern section, which is the bulk of the hat, and I quickly realised that the 'pattern' instructions were for 20 stitches, meaning that they were repeated seven times, plus an extra stitch at the end.  Alternative rows are straight purl.  And while I usually enjoy 'knit' rows more than 'purl', I found myself looking forward to the purl rows as I didn't have to concentrate or count what I was doing.

I did just four rows per day over the course of a week; each knit row, with its complex instructions, took me about ten minutes.  Knitting through the back of the loops was often rather painful on my finger; I had to remember to purl as loosely as I could, but it was still, sometimes, very difficult to make it work.

I also decided I would count each row of purl, to ensure I hadn't gained or lost a stitch. It would be very easy, for instance, to miss one of the 'yarn forward' instructions, or indeed to do an extra one, as the first and third rows were not the same.  And, sure enough, at least twice I found that I had only 140 stitches.

I then had to try and work out where I'd gone wrong, and put in an extra one on my next row... and that wasn't easy. In fact, the first time I got in such a muddle that I gained an extra stitch and then had to work it into the pattern on my next row.  It's a good thing that I'm not a total perfectionist. I decided that if the pattern went a little awry, it probably wouldn't matter. There was only one time that I actually back-tracked and undid about half a row. I knew instinctively that it would be very difficult, and that I would probably end up losing stitches entirely if I did that.

I'm relieved that it did turn out reasonably well - looking at the top of the hat, as in the photo above, it's not immediately obvious where the pattern is askew. By the time it's on my head I'm pretty sure it won't be noticed at all.

The last twenty or so rows were a little more complicated still, changing each time as the number of stitches decreased to make the top of the hat. I completed all that in just one morning, and then it took less than five minutes to sew it all together.

This is what it looks like when laid flat:

And my problem now is that I don't know how to wear it. The first photo shows it as a beret, but the ribbed section is quite deep.  If I pull it on my head, it looks like a beanie-style hat. If I fold the rib under and push it up, it looks a little like a beret, but rather floppy.

I remember, now, that when I was a teenager, in the junior red cross, I had trouble wearing a beret. It never looked quite right.  So after all that effort, I may find myself just pulling it down over my ears to keep warm in the colder months.

I'm glad I tried out this lacy style - and it's relatively simple, compared to some other patterns I've seen - but think I'll stick to soft toys and more straightforward patterns in future!

Standing Postman Pat Jumper

Back in February, I remembered how my mother used to knit character sweaters for my sons when they were toddlers. Browsing through old photos, I found pictures of several featuring Thomas the Tank Engine, Postman Pat and Fireman Sam. I felt inspired to try one for my grandson, who - at the time - was just over two-and-a-half, and a fan of the same characters.  

I could not find any suitable current knitting patterns, but discovered 'The Postman Pat knitting book' by Joy Gammon second-hand online. I was particularly keen on the 'Standing Postman Pat' version of the jumper (there are four different designs in the book) as that's one that my mother knitted. It also looked simpler than the others! I asked my son for my grandson's measurements, and decided, as my mother did, to knit the main part of the sweater in grey rather than red.

By the time I began it was the end of March, and at first I made slow progress. I had never followed a chart before.  I began by colouring in the image given in the book, knowing I would otherwise get very confused with B, Br, and Bl (Blue, Brown and Black). I remembered that my mother was keen to have as few strands of yarn at the back as possible, so used different balls of the grey for the left and right sides of the front, while knitting the main part of the pattern.

Eventually the knitted part was finished, and sewing it together wasn't difficult, although I realised that the head opening was far too small for my grandson; so I left one of the shoulder seams unstitched.

Here's how it looked after knitting, before I started on the embroidery:

I was quite encouraged by how recognisable it is, even at this stage. I really don't like sewing, so I put off the features; instead I started by taking all the loose ends from the back and weaving them into the jumper so there weren't threads hanging. I did a few at a time when I had a spare moment.

At last, I began on the sewing of features on the face, lines on the suit, and so on. I didn't do everything suggested by the pattern, and in the meantime started and finished several other knitting projects... but finally it's complete, just in time for my grandson's third birthday.

Here's what I did at the open shoulder seam:

And here's Postman Pat in close-up, with more detail:

Of course it's now too warm for him to be wearing sweaters and I'm a bit worried he may grow out of it before there's a suitable time to wear it.  But I'm pleased that I've completed my first knitting based on a chart, even if it was a fairly simple one.

Being surprisingly organised and domesticated in Cyprus

I'm not naturally an organised person at all. As with most traits, to misquote Shakespeare rather drastically: some people are born organised, some achieve organisation, and some have organisation thrust upon them. I think I fall somewhere between the second and third categories. Nobody has ever forced me to be organised - just as well, or I might have refused completely. However, over the years, prompted by various circumstances, I've worked out ways to keep the house reasonably clean and tidy, to store financial records in case the tax office ever needs them, to ensure we all have clean and folded clothes, and so on.

On the topic of clothes, I used to do a bit of ironing... shirts, pillowcases, the occasional skirt - but gave up completely about five or six years ago. I don't think anybody has noticed (not that it would matter much if they did), and I find that if I fold or hang garments straight from the washing line, they don't develop creases anyway. Living in Cyprus, we don't have a tumble dryer; I have washing lines in a utility area at the back of the kitchen, where everything dries naturally within a few hours. Unless of course it's pouring with rain, in which case it gets an extra drenching, and dries the following day.

A few years ago, someone showed me a method of folding tee-shirts which made it quicker and neater for me. I don't usually link to other people's videos, but since this is impossible to describe in words, this youtube video demonstrates and explains as well as any that I've found. Apparently it's a Japanese method. It took me a few days to get used to it, but now I do this without thinking.

However, I continued stacking tee-shirts on top of each other in our drawers or closets, which is fine for a while, until someone happens to be in a hurry, but doesn't want the one on top. Or, worse, when someone burrows through them looking for a specific shirt. Then the piles get more and more crumpled and untidy, and when I try to put more clean shirts in the drawer, there's no room... and eventually I have to pull them all out and re-fold them.  Which is annoying.

At least, it WAS annoying until a few months ago when a Facebook friend linked to a site which showed neatly folded tee-shirts stacked in a row, rather than in a pile. I'm not going to give a link to that site since the language was not family-friendly.  Instead, here's a photo of Richard's tee-shirt drawer a couple of weeks after I first started doing this:

I do the Japanese-style fold, then fold them in half vertically, and put them in at the right of the drawer. Richard can then choose whatever shirt he needs at a glance, without having to move any of the others. So they stay tidy, and don't get crumpled - indeed, folding and putting them in the drawer like this means that they look almost as if they have been ironed.

I then started doing this on my own tee-shirt shelf, and am sure it has saved a lot of time, as well as being better for the shirts. 

Books - far more interesting than clothes - also have to be organised if we're to have any hope of finding them. We have around 3,000 in all, and as we acquire more (and more bookcases) I have to find ways to sort and arrange them. This is easy enough for the fiction; my main fiction (five bookcases in our dining room) is arranged alphabetically by the author's surname. Books we don't particularly like, or have duplicates of, or don't think we'll ever read again are downstairs in our guest flat.

Children's fiction is a little more complicated; the bulk of it is in our guest flat second bedroom, also arranged alphabetically. But my favourite children's/teenage fiction - the ones I re-read, or which friends borrow regularly - are in the main part of the house, and those I have kept for younger children are in my study, where I regularly entertain small people who love books too.

Then there's the non-fiction. We don't have so many of these, and about half of them are Christian books which I also have alphabetically by author, with a mini-shelf of Bibles in the middle, and a shelf at the bottom for study guides and larger reference books:

(If you are one of those people who likes to read the titles of other people's books when you see them in blogs, you will probably need to click on the photo to see a larger version. Then use the X or back button to return to this post, if you haven't completely lost interest by then). 

Then there are the other books. Biographies, science books, popular psychology, books about history, and about games, and so on... the ones that we acquire when we're interested in a specific topic, or when the blurb looks fascinating in a second-hand shop, or which we've rescued when someone else is having a book cull (shudder!) 

Richard has all his sailing books in the bedroom - at least two shelves of them - and I have a shelf in my study with books about writing. But I've never managed to work out what to do with the rest of the general non-fiction. I tried roughly organising by subject, but get stuck - is a book about someone climbing mountains classed as sports, geography or biography?  And then I want to put books by the same author together, which is fine if the author's just written on one broad topic, but sometimes one writer can encompass a wide range of subjects. 

So for the past few years our non-fiction has been quite muddled, which doesn't matter, in the scheme of things (I know, this is very much a 'first world problem' post) but sometimes makes it hard to find them. I said something about it a few weeks ago, and Richard said - jokingly - that I should arrange them by Dewey Decimal number.  I rolled my eyes... but somehow the idea was planted in my mind. 

So I browsed a little, and discovered a site where I could enter an ISBN and have the Dewey Decimal number appear. It felt like quite a daunting task, but I'd been thinking for some time that I should enter all our non-fiction books into our 'shelves' on Goodreads and Shelfari, where I rate and briefly review everything I read, and also enter new books we are given or otherwise acquire. And as with any daunting task, it can be broken down into small steps. So I use my little travelling Netbook computer, and spend about fifteen minutes each day generating the classification number for ten books, and entering them (if I haven't previously done so) on Shelfari and Goodreads. 

When the books are nice editions with dustcovers, I just put the number in pencil on an inside page. If they're older books with white spines, I write them on neatly in black ink. And for the rest, I use little sticky labels covered with sellotape.  Yes, it makes them look like library books, but at last I have a method for sorting and (I hope) finding them.  Here are the first three shelves - I'm about half way through, I think:

I know, we have shamefully few general non-fiction books. Excluding the Christian ones, and the sailing and writing ones, there are probably only about three hundred. I suppose this is partly because one can find so much online these days. And partly because we all tend to read fiction, primarily.

All of which sounds as if I'm actually a very well-organised person, but - alas - this is far from the case. If I were,  I would have worked out ways to be more organised a few decades ago. 

Last few days in the UK...

Our last couple of weeks in the UK went by very quickly.  We didn't manage to get to see many friends in Birmingham, although we very much enjoyed meals with a few families who we've been close to for many years now.  All too quickly it was our final Sunday... and Tim was playing in the music group at Christ Church: 

As well as interviewing Richard about his work, they prayed with Tim and said an official goodbye to him, since he's moving back to Cyprus for a year or two.  

We had a new experience in our final week; the washing machine in my mother's house stopped working. It was quite old, and good timing in one sense... but we had only taken a week's worth of clothes with us. I tried doing some washing by hand but it wasn't very effective, and was decidedly messy. Then as there's no washing line, it was remarkably difficult to get things dry and I was worried about overloading the tumble drier. 

So we found a launderette  They're not all that common, apparently, but right by 'studentville' (the popular area for Birmingham University students) we discovered a small and friendly one, with a very helpful man who explained how the machines worked and estimated how many we would need.   We had taken several carrier bags of dirty clothes, bedding, and so on...  and ended up using three machines: 

It wasn't particularly expensive, but suddenly we could quite see why students are renowned for taking piles of laundry home to their parents.  I would have done too, if the only alternative was to use a launderette. Not that it was a problem once - it was quite an interesting experience.  But it would work out quite pricy and time-consuming to go there every week. 

It was while our clothes were churning away that we thought of a new problem: how we were going to transport the clean laundry back to the car?  There was nowhere to park nearby, so we were probably a couple of hundred metres away.  We could hardly walk through the streets carrying huge piles of wet washing... and we certainly didn't want to pile it back in the carriers we had used for the dirty stuff. 

So while Richard waited, I wandered around the local shops in the hope of picking up some useful 'bags for life'.

I had no luck at all. There were only small 'express' style supermarkets nearby, and none of them seemed to sell strong bags. 

Then finally I went into an art/craft shop.  And I found them. Possibly the ugliest carrier bags I have ever seen, not something I would wish to be seen carrying... but sometimes, as it's said, 'needs must'.  The bags were plastic, and looked pretty sturdy.  I bought four of them....

 They did make it easier to carry the wet laundry back. Since it had spun, we decided to use the tumble drier at my mother's house, rather than paying - and waiting longer - at the launderette.  And we also decided that this was an experience we did not particularly wish to repeat.

We spent a lot of time in our last couple of weeks clearing more of my mother's house, sorting paperwork for her, and had a major blitz day on our final Saturday, when all my siblings and their spouses came for the day. It was good to be all together again, albeit briefly.

Happily the bags had another use on our final Saturday, enabling my siblings to transport various small items home with them. 

A little cooler in Cyprus

When I woke this morning, before it was light, there was a decided chill in the air. Well, compared to recent days, anyway. And when it became lighter, the sky was - unusually - not blue at all, but various shades of grey:

I didn't take my shower until nearly 9.00am, but due to lack of sunshine, the water was only tepid.  Not unbearably chilly, but not such as encouraged me to take a long and leisurely shower. 

I then decided that it was cool enough for jeans, rather than shorts, for the first time in several months:

Richard has been wearing long trousers for a couple of weeks now, but he considers anything under about 25C to be 'cold'.   It was actually about 27C today, but without any sunshine it didn't feel hot at all. 

It would be nice to have some more rain, but none is forecast. 

Too many jackets?

Neither of us is particularly observant, so we tend to get used to the status quo, whatever that might be, forgetting to do anything about it. Over the winter, several jackets hang on the coat rack in our living room. We were still using light jackets in early April, but have not needed any since we returned to Cyprus early in May after our UK visit. However, somehow it didn't occur to either of us to move them somewhere else for the summer.

Until this morning. Actually it started yesterday when I put a load of laundry on, and realised that now we're wearing shorts and tee-shirts, I wasn't going to fill the machine. So I looked around for something else to add to the load, and decided to wash one of the jackets. Then I thought that perhaps today (Saturday) I'd do an extra load of laundry, and wash all the rest, then put them away in one of our closets for a few months.

So I removed them all, and the umbrellas, leaving a rather empty coat rack with nothing but sun hats:


I put two kagoules (waterproof light jackets) away at once as they're not washable. And I put away my warm winter jacket, one I've had for at least twenty years, but which I hardly ever wear as it doesn't often get cold enough. Everything else went in the wash.

Except that it was two entire loads. Just for jackets. Just for two people. This seems to me a little over the top. And while I forgot to take a picture of the overloaded coat rack before I removed them, I did take a photo of the jackets hanging out to dry:


That's two very light-weight zip-up hooded jackets of mine, one denim jacket that used to be Richard's but which I appropriated, and two fleeces of mine, plus three of Richard's fleeces, and his black body-warmer. All of which we did wear in the winter and early spring at different times. But somehow nine jackets - indeed, twelve including the three I put away without washing - seems somewhat excessive. Particularly as we have a few others that never left the closet, oh, and the one I washed yesterday.

And no, we don't buy clothes if we can help it. None of these jackets or fleeces is new. Somehow clothes, like other clutter, seem to accumulate in our house.

Rather like the large number of sun-hats now hanging on the coat-rack, which don't even include the ones Richard keeps in the boat for sailing.

Out of Cyprus: proof-reading, outfit-hunting and Settlers...

The main reason why I came to the UK nine days ago rather than travelling with Richard in a few days' time is so that I could help Tim with proof-reading his third year dissertation, and four other essays or commentaries. They're all rather important and he was feeling somewhat overwhelmed. And while I can - and have - proof-read by email, he prefers notes hand-written on a print-out. One essay is due on Tuesday, the rest on May 3rd. However we shall be in Carlisle until May 2nd (which is a public holiday) so he really wanted to get everything finished and handed in before Easter.

25,000 words is quite a bit to proof-read in a week, and not everything was written. But we seem to be doing all right. The essay due on Tuesday was proofed, tweaked, printed and handed in on Friday. The dissertation has had its final comments from Tim's mentor, and will have its final proof-reading on Monday. The other three assignments are in various stages, but the end seems to be in sight.

In between proof-reading, I've enjoyed spending time with a very good friend (on Tuesday), one of my brothers and his wife (on Wednesday), meeting a long-time email acquaintance (on Thursday) and spending an evening with some other friends (on Friday).

As well as that, Tim and I have played Settlers of Catan regularly, to help him relax. I've slightly lost track, but I think we've now played three two-person games, two (or is it three?) three-person games with my mother, and one particularly good five-person game on Wednesday:


It's a mark of Tim's stressed state that while he usually wins rather more than half of the games he plays, he hasn't yet won a single game since my arrival.

There's one other thing I planned to do this week - I wanted to find a suitable outfit to wear for Daniel and Becky's wedding, which is in two weeks' time. I knew I wouldn't find anything suitable in Cyprus; I searched several online stores before I left, and didn't see anything very inspiring. But I knew there are plenty of clothes shops in Birmingham, and thought I'd be spoilt for choice. I expected to narrow the search down to two or three shops, perhaps half a dozen possibilities, and would then get Richard to make the final choice when he's here. He does actually like clothes shopping, while I decidedly don't.

Knowing I'd be seeing various friends, and wanting flexibility, I bought a weekly bus pass on Monday. Off-peak only, but that's not a problem. I have no need to travel before 9.30am or between 4.30pm and 6.00pm. I might be frightened of the London Underground, but I am quite competent with Birmingham buses.

Kings Heath - walking distance from here - is my usual first port of call. I like browsing the charity shops, and there are several clothes chains where I've bought clothes before - Peacocks, Bon Marche, Store 21 (which used to be BeWise). They usually have plenty of stock, the prices are reasonable, and I like the styles.

Huh. This year, despite it being on mid-April, the shops are full of floaty sun-dresses. Either skimpily short, or full-length. I don't want either. Part of the problem is that I really don't know whether I want a dress with a sort of 'shrug' (if that's the word), or a skirt and top with some kind of jacket, or a trouser suit. I'd be most comfortable in the latter... but am not entirely sure how well that would go down as 'mother of the groom'.

Kings Heath proving uninspiring, my friend on Tuesday took me to a couple of shops in Bearwood that had some possible outfits, but none that leapt out at me. On Thursday I searched around the City Centre - BHS, Debenhams, other branches of the shops I'd already seen, Primark... I even swallowed my pride and went into Marks and Spencers. In all the shops, as in Kings Heath, I saw one or two tops that I quite liked, and some colours that were 'my' colours... but, again, nothing I really liked, nothing that stood out as being appropriate.

Yesterday I went to Northfield which used to have some reasonable clothes shops. I did manage to find a good backpack at an excellent price... but the shops in general looked very run-down and had less of a selection than Kings Heath. Still, I had a very scenic ride back, on a bus I had never used before that drove through the attractively leafy suburbs of Bournville, where we used to live.

Today I went to Kings Heath again. I even looked through the charity shops - I like them anyway, and just occasionally there's a lovely outfit in my size. Not this time. I didn't spend much time - I was buying one or two other things anyway - but have to admit that I did begin to feel just a little frisson of concern, since I have to find something within the next two weeks... and four of the days in the next fortnight are public holidays.

I'm well aware that it's a good problem to have. I'm extremely thankful that I don't have the major concerns so many of my friends and relatives have - health worries, family troubles, money problems, and worse. I'm extremely blessed by so many people and circumstances, and am very much looking forward to the wedding.

But it would be nice if I knew what I was going to wear...

Wearing a sweatshirt...

While the UK is in the clutches of one of the coldest, snowiest Novembers on record, we've been basking in unseasonable warmth here in Cyprus.

In previous years, the weather has started to feel chilly around the end of the first week of November. By mid-November, we usually want to switch our heating on. I get out our warmer duvet, and dig out the sweatshirts and fleeces.

Not so in 2010. We've seen highs (in the shade) of 25-28C every day. We haven't had any rain at all, which is worrying since Cyprus needs regular rainfall in the winter months.

The evenings have been a little cooler. I have a couple of very light-weight jackets which I've been putting on in the morning, and once it gets dark in the evenings.

But today, when I stepped out of my shower, I felt as if the weather was, possibly, beginning to turn cooler. About time too, on the last day of November. And so... I found one of my favourite sweatshirts, and put it on. For the first time since at least May. Possibly since April.

The forecast for today is a high of 27C, but it's 9.30am already and only about 20C so far. The sky is bright, but overcast. My hands feel cool, and I'm glad of the sweatshirt.

Perhaps we might need our central heating before too long.

Out of Cyprus, Day Three. Birmingham ArtsFest

The reason we flew to Birmingham last week was that Tim was singing, with the Bournville Young Singers (formerly Bournville Children's Choir) in a couple of concerts in Birmingham ArtsFest. Otherwise, he might have stayed a bit longer in Cyprus.

So on Saturday, we dropped him - in our borrowed car - at the Friends' Meeting House, for a rehearsal, then drove into Town. Parking was easy enough near the Post Box (we even remembered to go a little way down the hill, near the Registry Office, where we could park for four hours at 2.50 rather than two hours at 5 pounds!).

Birmingham City Centre is looking much smarter than it used to, since the renovations in recent years. It was fairly crowded, too, but not overly so at 10am. We looked in a few shop windows, including one specialist board games shop, where we saw our favourite games in the window.

The most important thing to do was to buy our train ticket, to get down to Sussex on the 24th. Previous attempts at doing buy train tickets on-line have not worked, but leaving it to the last minute is also not a good idea, since prices soar within a week of travelling.

The girl in the information centre was very helpful, and the price was extremely good, although Richard is puzzled as to how the route works. I'm sure we'll figure that out nearer the time.

Next stop - after browsing several other places nearby - was Primark, a large and inexpensive clothes shop that we usually visit when in Birmingham. We needed a few more shirts and one or two other things, and ended up with a little more than we intended, since I really like the turquoise that seems to be one of this year's Autumn colours.

By this time it was nearly 11.30, so we wandered back to the location of the first concert (due to start at noon), looking for somewhere to have coffee. We were pleased to see a Costa coffee place inside Waterstones, just around the corner from the Pallisades ramp, right next to the concert location. So we popped in there for some cappuccinos, and a chance to sit down.


We went outside again just before twelve, and saw the choir assembling. Richard got out the video camera, and then we were delighted to see some old friends who stopped by to say hello.

The choir did well, amidst traffic noises, with a fair audience gathered around by the end.


They then hurried off to their second location, while we decided to have a sandwich, and sit down again for twenty minutes. We found a Pret a Manger restaurant which had organic, additive-free sandwiches at surprisingly reasonable prices, and bought a slightly odd rhubarb drink. The food was extremely good.

Then we went down the pedestrianised New Street (very different from how it used to be):


The sky was still blue. This is one of the old council buildings - the museum, perhaps? I never know which is which - contrasting with the ArtsFest booths (in white) and a modern looking stage (in black).


Then I had to take a picture of the Central Library. When we first moved to Cyprus, I missed the libraries so much. Tim has made good use of them since living in Birmingham, and visits the huge Central Library about once a month as well as using the local library, and, of course, his university one.


We had thought the second Bournville Young Singers concert would be outside, but eventually found them inside the library plaza (which I believe is called Paradise Place now):


Again, they did very well, despite one of the girls being overcome by the heat part-way through. Richard left me to go and pay for some more parking time for the car, since our four hours were nearly through, which meant I had the video camera. About two-thirds of the way through the concert, the battery - which we hadn't fully charged - gave up. And Richard had the spare one with him.

So I whipped out the still camera, and took two minutes of the barbershop group on the video setting, until the disc space ran out. We later realised we had left the main video camera lead in Cyprus, so the only one we've been able to upload so far is this brief section of the barbershop song.

I've never before embedded a video in a blog post, but will see if I can do so:



It wasn't until a few hours later that I realised that the song they are singing - some tavern song, apparently - is the same tune as 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'!

After the concert we went out into the sunshine again:


But had no problems resisting the lure of the Monarch-sponsored 'beach' set up right outside the library:



Tim wanted to buy his student bus pass for the next year, so we went to the appropriate place. Unfortunately he discovered that he didn't have all the necessary paperwork, so that was no good. We then went into the Apple Mac shop, in a different mall, so Richard and Tim could look at the various computers and other technology for a while.

We had a brief look into several of the ArtsFest booths as we wandered around, and stopped for a while to watch some break-dancing, and an act with someone made up to look like a statue. There was a lot going on, but we didn't go deliberately to any other events. We had a programme, but it wasn't exactly easy to follow!

We finally got back, pretty tired, about 5pm. I took out all our Primark purchases:


Not bad for about 33 pounds. This lot would have been a LOT more expensive in Cyprus.