It's still January...

What is it about the first month of each year? While time usually races by, more rapidly each year as I get older, January seems to last forever. The humorous poet Brian Bilston captured it perfectly. Well, perhaps it's not quite 6184 days, but I'm sure it's a lot more than five weeks since Christmas. I took the decorations down on Saturday 4th January so I could clean properly - they had been up for nearly a month - but I didn't do a whole lot else. 

I had such good plans for my time. Not 'resolutions' - I don't really see the point of them. Just a realistic way of trying to ensure I made the best use of my days, without over-scheduling or stress. I more-or-less followed that in the first full week of January.  On the Monday, I did some work on my recipe blog. I added a new recipe, edited some older ones, and added in some photos. I played around with the theme, too. It's not ideal, but I think probably better than the previous one. 

On the Wednesday I walked to my favourite haberdashery shop, and bought some new yarn for knitting baby hats, and then went to the thrift store, where I found a couple of DVDs that looked good. On the Thursday, I spent a couple of hours working on photos. I did some writing in the afternoons, too, though not as much as I had hoped. 

On the Friday, we didn't need to do any extra grocery shopping, but had decided that we would upgrade the rather rickety bookshelving in our guest flat living room, replacing with an Ikea Billy bookcase with glass doors. We were also thinking about a dedicated TV unit. So we drove (in the van) to Nicosia, and found not just the bookcase we needed, but a kitchen unit thing in pine which, we knew, would make a good TV unit. 

On Friday afternoon, Richard put the bookcase together...

After I had removed all the books from the old shelving: 

The TV was still on its old shelving along with a lot of other books which had become quite dusty over the years. And we agreed that we would need a second bookcase to match the first one, since we had too many books to fit in just the one. 

We didn't want to go back to Ikea, and we knew what we wanted, so we ordered online. We quickly realised that it was better to make two orders, each one less than 35kg, rather than all in one, from the postage point of view. The site said delivery would be 3 working days to Larnaka... 

.. although when the order was sent, it said that delivery would be 'within 6 working days'. Our first guest flat visitor of the year was due to arrive on Monday 20th, and we had hoped to get everything ready and tidied before then. Still, we hoped it might arrive on Friday or Saturday...

On the Monday morning, January 13th, was the first writers' group meeting of the year. And on the Wednesday I had planned to do a thorough clean of the guest flat, hoping to get it ready.  Our last guests were friends who left towards the end of October. Since then, the flat has been used by Richard to work on his PA system, and, in early January, for items from his boat, which was out of the water for a couple of weeks, for its biannual 'dry dock'. And it still had tools for building Ikea furniture, and wood varnish for the unit which Richard put together: 

I was becoming a bit concerned about getting everything ready for our visitor (who is staying for about eight weeks). So it was something of a relief to hear, on Wednesday, that there had been a delay, and he wasn't arriving until Wednesday 29th. 

Still, I did clean the main bedroom on Wednesday 13th, and made up the bed.  On Thursday morning I did more in the flat: washing cushion covers, and the sofa throw, and cleaning the bathroom. I also sorted the books better, calculating how many would fill up the two billy bookcases. I wanted to remove the books which had been taking up space in the bedroom, too, and the ones occupying space, rather precariously, on a spice rack in the kitchen. 

And... shock, horror! - I decided that we should probably get rid of about fifty or sixty books which we were never going to read, and which, we're pretty sure, none of our guests has ever looked at. We gave our local friends first refusal (and they took a fair selection) and I chose about fifteen of the remainder that were in the best condition for the church book sale. The rest, to our relief, were eventually taken by the Larnaka thrift store. 

But that's leaping forwards. On Friday 17th we went to Superhome store, then on to the nut shop (for five or six weeks' worth of nuts, seeds and dried fruit) and then Metro (for dried cat food and one or two other items). Richard had a phone call from Ikea while we were out, letting us know that the new bookcase would be delivered on Sunday. When he was hoping to be out sailing, and I had planned to go to the church service. But they didn't give any other options.

As it turned out, we were both at home. On Friday evening, Richard didn't want any food, and said he felt queasy. He slept most of the evening. In the morning I got up to walk with Sheila but after a short distance I knew I wasn't feeling well, so we turned around and I came in. 

I won't mention the details; suffice it to say that we both had a very miserable 24 hours with what we assume was an attack of norovirus. Richard felt a little better by Saturday afternoon, and got up. Sheila had brought us a loaf of bread, as I'd mentioned in passing that we'd run out and I was going to make some but wasn't sure I would cope with the smell of baking bread. We were very, very thankful for her thoughtfulness as the only thing either of us wanted to eat at first was toast with Marmite. I don't usually eat Marmite as it can be a migraine trigger; thankfully it wasn't on Monday, which is the first time I wanted to eat anything at all. 

The new bookcase arrived on Sunday and Richard was able to let the men in. He had cancelled sailing, and there was no way I could get to church; even if I'd been feeling up to it, I wouldn't have wanted to pass on such a nasty bug to anyone else. By Monday 20th, he felt a bit stronger, and put the bookcase together. And since I didn't want to remain in bed (and my worst symptoms had stopped, although I was still very tired) I did organise and sort the books. 

We were very pleased with how it all looked when we had finished. 

We were also extremely grateful that our visitor was not arriving that day!

On Wednesday some friends from Limassol were coming to dinner. We were past the infectious stage by then, though being extra careful with hand-washing still. I had started eating again, but was still incredibly tired, so it took me most of the day to organise the food for the evening. I had to keep sitting down every ten minutes or so. 

Then on Thursday I basically collapsed in a heap (after walking about half our usual route first thing with Sheila) and vegged out. On Friday we took the remaining books to the thrift store, and on Saturday I finally managed to clean the kitchen, and even sort and tidy the area over the washing machine which somehow accumulates a lot of random stuff. It still looks a bit cluttered: 

But I filled an entire bag with almost-empty long-expired bottles of suntan lotion, and hair spray, and body wash, and so on, to get rid of.  It's probably three years since we last did a proper spring clean of the flat, so it was good to do. 

And on Monday morning, this week, I took our carpet shampooer downstairs and thoroughly cleaned the rug in the living room, which had been looking very tired. 

That's the difference after I had cleaned the two stripes nearest the bookcases.  

Our visitor is now here, and the flat is going to be occupied almost continually for the next five months, with a variety of different people. We're very thankful to have it, and love being able to make it available to family, friends, church workers and friends of friends. 

It feels like we've done a lot this month, and there's still another day of January remaining. Today, Thursday, I worked on photos for an hour or so, for the second time this month, and this afternoon am updating this blog. Maybe in February, when it eventually gets here, I'll be back to the supposedly regular schedule...

October in Cyprus: kittens, eating out and cooler weather

So much for good intentions. I didn't write a single post last month. So this will be a summary (though probably not brief) of our life here in Cyprus over the past month...

Kittens

At the start of the month, I became aware that we had unexpected visitors. There were two very young kittens, wandering around and crying just outside our boiler room, at the back of our house.

We often see kittens in our neighbourhood, sometimes in one of our side yards. There are a lot of feral cats in Cyprus. They are useful for keeping down the rats and snakes, and the female cats sometimes have two litters per year.  There are sometimes national campaigns to catch, neuter and return feral cats but there are far too many cats for this to make much difference. Historically Cypriots have not liked to neuter cats, so that doesn't help. 

There's a grey cat who often appears in our street. We call 'Mama cat' as she raised three kittens in our side yard in the spring. When these tiny kittens were wandering around I saw her nearby and assumed she was their mother, and that she had gone out hunting or perhaps just to take a break from them. 

But if she was their mother, we quickly discovered, she wasn't looking after them. They looked quite hungry and were mewing loudly. I didn't want to interfere. Touching young kittens can drive a mother cat away, after all. But the little voices were plaintive. So I gave them a bit of yogurt, and they fell on it, lapping rapidly. A few hours later, with still no sign of a mother cat taking care of these kittens, I gave them some of Lady Jane's crunchies (or 'kibble', as I understand the term is now), moistened in a little water. They ate those too, gobbling them down. 

Then they mewed for most of the night. So we decided to buy them some kitten formula, and some kitten food sachets. A visiting friend bought them some other kitten food, too. The kittens seemed quite weak by this time so we realised we would have to be more proactive. Richard built a barricade to keep them in the boiler room, as we were worried about them getting into the road and not being able to get out of the way of a car fast enough. 

Thankfully they were able to lap kitten formula milk from a saucer so we didn't have to bottle-feed, as we did with the seven feral kittens we fostered for six weeks at our old house, over nineteen years ago. We guessed that these kittens were about four weeks old. They loved the wet food from the sachets too, though we were careful not to give them too much at once. And they ate the kibble without any need for adding water. 

However, although we now only have one house cat, we can't keep these kittens. Our existing Lady Jane would not allow it for one thing. For another, we have a very allergic daughter-in-law, so we had agreed already that we won't take on any more cats. And, much as we love having a cat, it is something of a bind at times. We can't go away spontaneously, and when we plan to go away we have to organise a cat-sitter. Usually our close friends do this, but it's not always possible. 

We put photos on Facebook a couple of times, but it seems that none of our local friends want kittens. 

So Richard got in touch with a nearby cat sanctuary, who said they don't take kittens until they're at least twelve weeks old, and have had their first vaccinations. Then they try to find homes for them, and they have a much wider audience on Facebook (and elsewhere) than we do. 

Thus, a month later we are still fostering them, feeding four times a day and taking them out for half an hour to our other side yard where there are plants and fake grass, to give them a chance to jump and run and play. They had their first vaccinations last week, and the vet said they seem to be very healthy. 

We haven't given them names; we refer to them as the little girl kitty and the little boy kitty. I hope that someone, eventually, will adopt them. 

Guests and eating out

We've had several human visitors in the past month, too. We do like having our ground floor used as a guest flat. A long-standing friend and colleague stayed for a few days, with a friend, at the end of September.  They left on the last day of the month, and in the evening some even more long-standing friends arrived for a few days' break. It was wonderful to see them. They spent a lot of time on the beach, soaking up some sunshine (which, they said, had been rather lacking in the UK this year).

They took us out to eat twice; once at our favourite Lebanese restaurant, Al Sultan, and once at our favourite everyday restaurant, Alexander's.  At the Lebanese restaurant we ordered a meze for two, which was more than sufficient for four of us. At Alexander's we had individual meals; I had the vegetarian moussaka, one of my favourites, with grilled vegetables. I learned about this option only in the past year and like it so much better than having a huge pile of chips alongside a moussaka. 

Later in the month we had some other guests who were here for just over a week, and who took us out to our favourite Cypriot meze restaurant, Kyra Giorgena. Meze for two there is also more than sufficient for four of us. 

Indeed, it was quite a month for eating out, something we do quite rarely on our own. But in the middle of the month we went out for a 'platter for one' at Al Sultan, to celebrate Richard's birthday:

We managed to do justice to most of it (though we left most of the extra Arabic bread). 

And towards the end of the month we were treated to yet another meze at Kyra Giorgena, by Richard's cousin-once-removed and her travelling companions. They were visiting Cyprus and spent just one day in Larnaka. 

Bathroom repairs - again

We seem to have had a lot of trouble with our bathroom, one way and another, since it was installed in 2016. There was a team of people who did it originally. While much of the work done was excellent, unfortunately the plumber cut several corners. This means we've had to have several extra repairs in the past few years. 

Most recently we found the points of two screws poking up into the bath, and the base started feeling  spongy, as if there was water below. Richard checked underneath and found several problems, including some totally disintegrated wood supports.  That meant that all the builders' foam had to be pulled out, and concrete put in to replace it. 

Thankfully our young and very competent friend L was here for a few days in the middle of the month, and able to do this for us. 

It meant that we had to shower in my study for about a week, after removing all the things stored in it, but, happily, we're now able to use the bathroom shower again. 

Weather

At the start of October the temperatures were still in the 30s during the daytime, although thankfully less humid than it had been a month earlier. We were still in tee-shirts and shorts, with just a thin sheet at night. We had stopped using the air conditioning in the middle of September, but were still using the ceiling fans until a few weeks ago.

By the end of October, we had put our light (4.5 tog) duvet on the bed, and have started wearing long trousers. First thing in the morning and in the evening I even put on a light jacket. 

Sometimes by the end of the first week of November we have a sudden drop in temperatures, but there's no sign of that predicted this year. Just as well, since we'll have to have our central heating serviced before we use it. We had a new boiler installed in February, and as it's still under warranty, we have to have an official service. But we can't do that until the kittens have moved out of the boiler room. 

And also...

During October, Richard made a brief visit to Egypt, I finished knitting some more baby hats, and continued updating images and links on my book blog. We played lots of board games, watched a few DVDs, and I did some daily Duolingo. We hosted a barbecue for a few friends a few days after Richard's birthday, and at the end of the month I made this year's Christmas cake. 

August in Cyprus and a plumbing manifold replacement

When I got back to Cyprus on August 6th, Richard was supposed to be away, working with his PA kit at a conference elsewhere on the island. So it was something of a surprise to get a text message, after the plane landed, saying that he would be meeting me. It was nice to have a few unexpected hours together. But it was very stressful for him as he came up against bureaucracy and other problems. However, he eventually arrived at the conference venue the following afternoon. 

I had hoped for a relatively peaceful week. It always takes me a few days to get over the brain-fog and exhaustion that hits me when I return to Cyprus. The heat and humidity don't help, but in early August it wasn't as hot as it had been in July.  32-33 degrees in the daytime, rather than 37-38 (or more). 

I was delighted to find a 'Foody' voucher in my email, reminding me that I hadn't used their delivery service for six weeks. Not really surprising, as I hadn't been in Cyprus for that period.  So I ordered a  takeaway salad that cost me almost nothing by the time the voucher was used, and provided a good meal for me without any effort. Not just on the day after I arrived back; there was plenty for lunch the following day, too. Which turned out to be a good thing...

The following day was not my favourite of the week. In our guest flat, Richard had discovered a slow leak in one of the pipes in the bathroom. Someone had put a small plastic container at the back of the sink cabinet to catch the drips, but had forgotten to let us know that there was a drip. We didn't know how long this had been going on, but there was some significant rust and it was clear that the 'manifold' was rusty and needed replacing. 

I had no idea what a manifold was, so Richard sent me a helpful diagram:

Our young friend L had been in Cyprus over the summer and had done several jobs for us, in our bathroom and elsewhere. But this was not something he felt able to do. So Richard asked a plumber whom we know to take a look. He is very busy, and said he could slot us in on the Wednesday after I returned. Which would have been okay, except that there was a family staying in the guest flat: friends of friends, who have stayed before. They usually go out for most of the day, but were not happy at the idea of an unknown plumber and his mates being in the flat without anyone else there.

So I had agreed to be in the flat with the plumbers. 

They arrived about 11.30, an hour earlier than they had specified. So I wasn't prepared or ready for them. Thankfully they left again for a break around 12.45 saying they needed to get some extra parts. So I was able to get upstairs again to the part of the house where we live. I ate my lunch at speed, and made a frappe, and used the loo... something I could not have done downstairs with the plumbers working in the bathroom. 

Then I filled my water bottle and found a book to read. They returned about two o'clock, and told me that they would probably be another two hours. At half past three, they said they probably wouldn't be finished before five. At five o'clock, they still weren't finished... 

I managed to read an entire book that day. I had to sit in the guest flat without using the air conditioning, since the plumbers wanted the front door open - they were in and out constantly to their van.  It took me a few hours before I realised I could at least turn on a fan. 

It took over six hours in all, with three guys on the job. We still don't know why it took so long, but the result looked good:  

As a friend commented, a manifold a bit like an octopus. Although ours doesn't have eight 'legs'. 

But the day was so draining it took me another couple of days to feel myself again. 

Family visiting Cyprus

 It feels like a LONG time since I last wrote. It's only four weeks, but our generally relaxed empty-nest routines were thrown out for a while. The house looked more lived-in than usual, with the coffee table piled high with books. The usual weekly cleaning didn't happen. The Roomba only ran sporadically, and I barely managed half an hour at my computer most days. We didn't watch a single film or even an episode of a DVD series. I usually read at least two books per week; in the past month I've only finished three full-length books, although I read a large number of shorter ones....

It was awesome. 

Our family - son, daughter-in-law and their two children - came to stay over the Easter holidays, with a few extra days each end (authorised by the children's school) so they could find affordable flights.  For just over three weeks they were with us, in Cyprus for the first time since the summer of 2017. 

Life is very different with children in the house.  At eight (nearly nine) and six (and a quarter) our grandchildren are a delight. At times they are noisy, and they rarely sit still, but they're loving, curious, and interested in everything. They love playing games, too - so we played a lot of board games. 

The Lego proved popular... though it only came out a couple of times.

They love books - they can both read fluently, but they like listening to books too, as my own sons did, well into their teens. My grandson discovered Garfield for the first time. We have quite a collection of the books, and I loved hearing his chuckles as he devoured them, one after another. 

In the first week Richard took them out sailing, and we had an afternoon on the beach. I thought we might have had more beach afternoons, but somehow they didn't happen... sometimes it was too windy, or even wet; more often there were simply too many other things to do. 

Cooking was an interesting challenge: my son is vegetarian, which is fine; I have leanings that way myself. But others like to eat meat at least a few times each week. My husband is dairy-free, but eats meat: so normally our house is dairy-free, but we bought cheese and yogurt for the family. Then the grandchildren won't eat any cooked vegetables, though they love raw ones. They also don't like strong flavours such as hot curries, and are reluctant to experiment too much with new foods although they're pretty good about trying things they're not sure about. 

Unusually for us, we ordered takeaways via Foody about once a week, since both of us had discount vouchers. Besides, I needed a break from cooking sometimes, to be able to enjoy an afternoon out.  Sometimes I cheated, too, with ready-made burgers (meat or vegetarian) or breaded fish (or chicken or vegetables). 

But I prefer to eat 'real' food (enchiladas, perhaps, or spanokopita, or chicken pie, or a jalfrezi curry and rice...)  and on the whole it wasn't too difficult to suit everyone's tastes, it just took some planning - and a lot of oven space - if I was making two or even three different main courses, some added form of carbohydrate if needed, and two or three cooked vegetables. 

Before the family came, I made a mental list of places that we could visit. There are local playgrounds and parks, of course, but our first bigger outing was to Cyherbia. We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but the children were thrilled to hear about the famous maze, apparently the only one in Cyprus.

We took a twelve-year-old friend with us, which is a good thing as the children raced around the maze, and our young friend was the only one who could keep up with them. 

Cyherbia also has a walk in the shape of the island of Cyprus, where we could see different landmarks, and there's a beautiful fairy village which we all admired: 

We spent a couple of hours walking around (or running, in the case of the children) and would have stayed out longer, but it started to rain. So we went to find our complementary hot herbal tea in the tea room, and the children spotted that there were ice creams. Ice cream was quite a feature of their visit; we lost track of how many they ate when out at various places.

Over the Western Easter weekend, our son and his wife drove part way into the mountains for a couple of days by themselves, and the children moved upstairs to what used to be our younger son's bedroom. It's become an electronics room for Richard, so although he tidied it up prior to their arrival, it's not ideal... however the children liked being with us upstairs so much that they slept there at nighttime for the rest of their holiday. 

While we had the children on our own, we had our second further-away outing, this time to the Camel Park.  It's somewhere else we'd never been, although we'd heard good things about it. We were very impressed with the wide range of activities: a playground for younger children, exercise equipment for slightly older ones, plenty to see including a terrapin pool: 

We bought fairly inexpensive bags of animal feed (carob pods) which were doled out to the many different animals in the park. Perhaps the enclosures were a bit small, but the animals seemed contented and very eager to reach out for their food. 

The highlight was a camel ride, which both the children enjoyed thoroughly: 

They even went in the swimming pool, although we thought it rather chilly. I felt a bit anxious the whole time, since neither of us are good swimmers and we had no intention of going in. I would, of course, have jumped in fully clothed had either of the children got into difficulties, but thankfully they stayed in the shallow end, splashing about and enjoying themselves until they finally admitted that it really was too cold. 

We'd been at the Camel Park for two hours and it was past noon, so we thought we would go to the restaurant for an early lunch. We had checked the menu in advance: they offered sandwiches of various kinds, and a children's section as well as quite a wide variety of Cypriot foods.

Then we had a disappointment: there was a big party at the Camel Park, so the restaurant wasn't serving meals. They did say that we could have something from the buffet (although it wasn't available for another half hour) but they couldn't tell us what it would consist of - and the cost was quite high for something that we probably wouldn't want, and the children most likely wouldn't eat. We asked if they would at least make sandwiches, and they said no - they weren't providing any other food until 4pm! 

So we bought bags of crisps at the kiosk nearby, as we were all surprisingly hungry; then we left to have our cold lunch back home. We would have stayed another hour or more if we'd been able to eat there. Picnics are not allowed in the Camel Park, so we couldn't have taken our own food. 

As often happens on holiday, the second half of the visit seemed to race past. The children went to local parks several times, and visited the fort in the town. On Greek Good Friday (a week after the Western one) my daughter-in-law organised a hunt for small chocolate eggs for the children around the house and side yard; they took some finding as the hiding places were quite creative. 

I made hot cross buns (I never can get the flour paste on the top to look right, but they tasted good). In the afternoon, the children went to our friends' house to experiment with dyeing and decorating hard-boiled eggs. It's  something my grandson had read about but they had never previously tried.

For the next four days, the family was even more enlarged as our younger son and his wife made a short visit, staying in a local AirBnB, and bringing the warmest weather we'd had all year. Just as well, since my new daughter-in-law is very allergic to cats, so they couldn't come into the house. 

On the Saturday, they all visited an interactive science fair not far from Nicosia, which we'd seen advertised.  I decided to have a day to myself, so I didn't go. The children enjoyed it, but overall the adults felt that it was a bit disappointing. 

The advertising said that visitors would need at least two hours to interact with all the different displays. In the event, about 25% of them were not working - or not working properly - but there were no staff available to assist.  Not that it was crowded - despite being Greek Easter Saturday, there was almost nobody else there.  So they spent as long as they wanted to at all the working exhibits, and still finished in under an hour. 

On the Sunday, we barbecued lunch outside after going to church services to celebrate the Resurrection. Our local friends came over in the afternoon for games followed by a cold evening meal, with 14 of us in all sitting around tables in our side yard. I think it's the most people we've had sitting down to eat out there at one time, and probably the maximum we could accommodate from the point of view of comfort.

On Monday they had a morning of sailing. On Tuesday morning, our friends came over for games, then one of my sons treated us to lunch out in the town. In the afternoon we took a walk by the Salt Lake... and in the evening our younger son and his wife departed to return to the UK overnight. On Wednesday afternoon we took the children to St George's Park, followed by ice creams, and our other son treated us all to food in the Metropolis Mall. And so, time gradually speeded up in our perception as their imminent departure was measured not in days but hours... 

When they left I was sad, but not as devastated as I felt five-and-a-half years ago when they departed after staying all summer.  That's mainly because, in 2017, they were going to join a ship the other side of the world, and we had no idea when we might see them again. Now we see them more often, and video chat fairly regularly so it's not such a wrench. 

I wish we lived closer and could see them more frequently; I certainly hope they come again before another five or six years have passed. But for holidays to be special, they need to have their own everyday lives with their own routines.  And I was quite tired; much as I miss them, it's good to have my own space, with time to relax on my own to recharge my psychological batteries. 

Sorting our Guest Flat

The ground floor of our house is a separate flat - it was the house that was originally built on our plot, before the owners extended upwards. Since we moved here in 2006 we have considered it our 'guest flat' - and over the years it's been quite widely used. We've had relatives staying, and friends, and friends of friends... we've also had people connected with Richard's work, and other random people, needing a place to stay. The only criteria is that if we don't know them, we know someone who can vouch for them.

We don't run it commercially - it's not an AirBnB or anything like that - it's part of our home. When it's not occupied by guests it sometimes gets used for construction work, or things related to Richard's boat. Some years it's quite busy, other years less so.  And, of course, last year there were virtually no visitors at all. We did have someone who stayed a few nights over the 2020 New Year, but then she was able to go somewhere else that was more convenient. Visitors due to come in the spring - and the autumn - had to cancel as the world went into lockdown. 

In September last year, we did host the son of friends who flew back from another country and had to self-isolate for a week or so, and a few weeks later hosted a young woman who was here for a few days working with the refugees. But I don't think either of them did any cooking - one had food provided by his family, the other was out and about.  We did a quick vacuum and mop before both these people arrived, of course, and ensured the bedding and towels were clean. But it was a long time since we did any serious cleaning - there didn't seem to be much point, as nobody has stayed there since October 2020. 

At the start of June this year, we hosted our first barbecue of the season for our closest friends. I realised as I took lids off salads that I hadn't brought down sufficient serving spoons, so I popped into the guest flat and grabbed a couple out of the drawer. And was shocked at the mustiness. I washed them, of course, and afterwards they went through our dishwasher. But I made a mental note that before we had any guests in the flat, we would need to go through all the drawers and cupboards, and wash all the cutlery and crockery. 

For about six months the second bedroom in the guest flat was full of boxes belonging to some other friends who have moved to a different country.  And although we've had a lot of people provisionally booking to come and stay in the Autumn, there wasn't anyone due to come before then. But I felt the urge to get started with the cleaning and sorting while the weather wasn't quite as hot as it was likely to be in July and August. So when I stopped walking with Sheila towards the end of June - as it was starting to get hot - I decided to spend an hour or so each day, first thing, doing some sorting in the guest flat. Richard was able to move the boxes, and also took away the last of his tools and sailing bits and pieces... and I began. 

I started with the main/front bedroom, as that seemed like the easiest. I washed the curtains and cleaned the windows, and the radiator (which was full of dust). We cleaned the air conditioner, and I washed the mattress cover and pillowcases that were out, and dusted and mopped.  That took a couple of days, but it was quite satisfying when it was done: 

Each day I did another load in the guest flat washing machine - other curtains, bedding, musty towels and tea-towels - but there's not a lot of hanging space outside, so I limited it to one load per day.  I did a load of washing up too - all the mugs, and then the cutlery, and then started on the pots and pans and other containers, leaving each load to dry before I embarked on the next.

And then I tackled the games cupboard - possibly not a priority for most of our likely guests, but it was beginning to smell more than musty. I'm not sure if the dampness on the bottom was due to a leak somewhere, or just the excessive humidity. But however it happened, some of the jigsaws at the bottom - old ones, mostly - and one or two of the games were beyond any hope of repair.  We have all our favourite games upstairs, so it wasn't a huge loss.  

Having got rid of the worst,  I washed everything that was plastic, sat musty boxes out in the sunshine, and realised that we really didn't need half a dozen different sets of chess pieces, or games with half the tokens missing. I found somewhere else to put the jigsaws and decided to limit the games to the top shelf of the cupboard only, at least until we discover the source of the dampness. The damp patch is rather obvious in this photo - I took this after thorough cleaning of the cupboard as well as sorting, cleaning and rationalising the games:

Friends had asked if we could host some of their friends for ten days or so in the middle of July, so suddenly there was a motivation to get the flat finished - and I was beginning to feel more and more overwhelmed. By the end of June, I was realising that just an hour a day was not going to get everything done, so we both spent more time sorting. I was glad it wasn't just me, as it turned out that some of the pots and pans were also past redemption - and there were so many of them, some broken, some mouldy.  We took everything out and began the task of sorting out and cleaning what looked as if it might be useful:

Given that most of our visitors stay only a week or two, and are out and about - or, if they're family or close friends, eating with us - it's really not necessary to have a vast amount of kitchen equipment in the flat. Particularly things that are broken, or can't be properly cleaned. We've tended to put things there when we run out of space upstairs, or invest in something new. And some visitors have left things behind for the flat - so we were fairly ruthless about getting rid of any rubbish, or anything that clearly hasn't been used in a decade or more.  

So the air conditioners were cleaned, and everywhere was dusted, and everything washable had been washed... but it still smelled a bit musty, though considerably better than it had done. And some of the drawers and cupboards (such as the bottom of the games cupboard) looked rather unsavoury, despite having been thoroughly cleaned. 

So we bought some inexpensive drawer-lining stuff, in white, and on the first Saturday of July determined to finish - if at all possible. We bought a small dehumidifying device for the games cupboard, too. 

The drawer lining made a huge difference to - for instance - the under-sink cupboard, which had been plagued with leaks for years until Richard replaced all the plumbing earlier in the year:

However, although we spent about three hours in the flat that morning, and achieved a considerable amount, it still wasn't completely tidy. And we were exhausted. By that stage the people due to come in the middle of July had cancelled, and although we'd had a query about early August, we knew those guests weren't likely to make it. And there didn't seem much point doing final mopping and vacuuming - or sorting the last few bits and pieces - if we weren't having any guests until the middle of September. 

Then we had a query about the whole of August, from a family who have been before. As the flat was available we were able to say 'yes'.  And then, last Thursday, a young friend called to ask if by any chance a friend of his could stay, as her brother had tested positive for Covid, and she was told that if she wanted to continue working, she had to be away from him.  

So on Thursday afternoon, we did the final cleaning and tidying. I put the washed sofa throw and cushion covers back in the living room:

I put sheets and a duvet cover on the bed, and got out a fan:

Richard got rid of the last of the rubbish, and vacuumed, and swept, and I mopped:

And suddenly it looked like a habitable guest flat again, ready for visitors. 

Re-reading and Re-homing of Books

As I wrote in a post nearly two weeks ago, I have a somewhat overcrowded shelf of books which I haven't yet read. I just stopped typing to count, and there are thirty-eight of them. That includes five for the reading group I mentioned in that post, and three or four from my birthday earlier this year, or possibly even last Christmas. 

The rest are almost all from the St Helena's monthly book sales, some of them bought as long ago as November 2018. At fifty cents a book, it's very tempting to pick up all kinds of books I might not otherwise think about. If I decide I don't like them, I can donate them back the following month... or year, or whenever I get around to reading them.

What I didn't mention is that we also have about 3,500 books, most of which I have read at least once, in various locations around the house. And since I have some favourite authors whose works I like to re-read regularly, I try to intersperse around three or four new-to-me books with six or seven old favourites. 

I'm told I started reading books when I was about three or four. My first favourite books were by Enid Blyton (as was the case with most of my generation in the UK). For all her many faults in style and attitudes, she engendered a love of reading in many thousands of young children. By the time I was about ten or eleven, I had a couple of hundred books of my own, and during my teenage years I used to spend most of my birthday or Christmas money on inexpensive Armada paperbacks, which were popular in the 1970s, often on special offer during the January sales.

There wasn't much 'teenage fiction' in those days; I still re-read my older children's fiction (Malcolm Saville, Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Noel Streatfeild, Louisa M Alcott etc) and I also began reading 'grown-up' fiction when I was around twelve or thirteen. At school I discovered Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. My father introduced me to PG Wodehouse, my mother introduced me to Gerald Durrell, and my aunt, who worked in a bookshop, introduced me to Georgette Heyer. These are still amongst my favourite writers. 

It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I came across authors like Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy, and the whole world of so-called 'contemporary women's fiction'. I gradually collected some, many bought second-hand or given to me for a birthday or Christmas if I requested them. When I like an author, I try to collect all their works. 

By the time we had moved all our books to Cyprus, I had around two hundred volumes of 'my' fiction, mostly character-based saga novels, light Regency romances, contemporary fiction, some Christian fiction, and some oddities like Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series.  We also had perhaps a hundred biographies, two hundred or so Christian non-fiction books, a hundred or so of Richard's fiction (thrillers, spy fiction, and so on) and around five hundred children's books, mostly from my childhood and teens, and the ones given to our sons. And some general non-fiction, of course: dictionaries, reference books and so on. 

However, I'm not entirely sure how the 1200 or so books we had on our shelves around twenty years ago have managed to multiply to nearly three times as many. But we are finally running out of bookcase space, and - more worrying - of places to put new bookcases. I hate getting rid of books, though I don't mind passing them on to other people who I know will love them. So, until recently, when I need to make space in 'my' bookcases, which are in our dining room, I have moved a few more down to our guest flat. 

I've been keeping track of all my reading on GoodReads, LibraryThing and my book reviews blog for a little over twenty years, and in that time I've apparently read 2171 books.  That's not very many.  Since the boys left home the amount has increased, and I'm aiming to read 120 books this year, though I'm a bit behind schedule at present.  

But I worked out that if I read 120 books per year, and simply re-read all our book collection, without anything new, it would take me 30 years to finish. Now I'm not going to read Richard's books (around 1000, including both sailing and thriller-type fiction and some of his theological and missiological books) and I'm not going to sit down and read reference books, of which we have many. 

Even if I just include 'my' fiction books there are probably well over 1000 of them, and there are some I want to re-read at least once a decade.  I read some non-fiction too, and there are some of my children's/teenage books that I like to re-read regularly. In my planned ten books per month, I usually aim for one Christian non-fiction, two or three new-to-me-books, one or two re-read children's books, and five favourite authors from 'my' fiction whom I'm re-reading. Sixty per year. 600 in a decade...

Thus I don't need to keep more than about 600 of 'my' fiction. And that's about the number I have on our dining room shelves.

So for every new book I read, and want to keep (and probably re-read eventually) I can move a book to the guest flat. Of course it doesn't quite work that way; usually I fit more and more in the gaps until I have no room at all, then select a dozen or so to take downstairs. That's what happened on Saturday, although I was more ruthless, and removed thirty books from the shelves. 

They were so squashed together that I spread them out a little.. I blew off some dust, too, and cleaned the shelves properly.  They do look cleaner, but while there are now one or two slight gaps, it doesn't look as though thirty books have been removed.

Then I looked at the guest flat shelves.  The bookcases are becoming over-full. And since guests usually only stay a week or two, they don't need many hundreds of books, so it finally occurred to me that I could actually pass a few of the guest flat books to the church book sale. A radical thought. There are books down there which I know I will never read again. There are some which I have never read at all. There are some I don't recall ever having seen before... 

I found about thirty books which I plan to give to the book sale. Here's a selection, two of which are duplicates of books we have elsewhere, some of which I read and didn't like, some of which I read and thought were okay, but I won't read them again, and at least one of which I am quite certain I have never seen before. Indeed, when I went to remove these books (and the others I found) from my GoodReads and LibraryThing catalogues, three of the ones I didn't recognise weren't there at all. Maybe books breed when I'm not looking. 

Or maybe a guest bought a book at the airport, read it, decided they wouldn't read it again, and left it behind. If that's the case, I just hope they won't look for the book when - in some futuristic post-pandemic world - they visit us again.

Installing air conditioning in Cyprus

Two months ago, I wrote a post about having our air conditioners cleaned. I mentioned that the one in the guest flat front bedroom no longer worked, so we had to have it replaced.  This wasn't difficult; after a little online research, we went to our favourite white goods shop George Theodorou.

We bought the least expensive one whose brand we recognised, and which was recommended by the shop owner. A few days later it arrived and was installed, with minimal difficulty.  It's on the ground floor, and there was already a hole in the wall, wiring in place, and a suitable place for the outside part. Since the old one was at least fifteen years old, the new one should be far more efficient, and also quieter.

About a month later, I was sitting outside in our side garden after walking with my friend Sheila. We had guests in the flat, and they were using the air conditioning.  There was just a gentle purr, rather than the rather obvious noise that the older one had used. I commented that it would have been nice to have a new, quiet and more efficient one in our bedroom.  But we certainly didn't want to have to pay two installation fees, to have a new one upstairs, and then to relocate our current one in the guest flat.

Besides, we didn't know how long our upstairs one would last. It was also at least fifteen years old, probably more. But it was working fine...

.. or so we thought.  Until one morning when I woke up and it was on, although I was certain I had set it to go off after an hour. The following night, I was awake when it went off... and then it came on again.  And refused to take any notice of the remote control. And it seemed to be getting colder... so eventually we turned it off at the wall.  

We changed the batteries in the remote; when that didn't help, we tried using a different remote (as there were three other identical air conditioners in the house).  The same pattern repeated. And unless we switched it off at the wall, it would turn itself on at random times.  

Evidently we needed a new one - and it wasn't a difficult decision to return to George Theodorou, where the same product we had bought in May was ten euros cheaper.  

Unfortunately, there was no way to get the external unit out of the window and secured into the brackets - or, indeed, to remove the old one.  So the installers had to rent a fork-lift truck for an hour, which cost us an extra forty euros. But there was no alternative:  

Sheila took this photo; if she hadn't, we would have no record. I was trying to look after our nervous cat Lady Jane who dislikes workmen of any kind.

Eventually it was installed.  It's smaller than the older unit, so at some point we'll have to touch up the paintwork on the surrounding wall.  But that can wait until the Autumn. 

The remote control has many more options than the old one.  The temperature setting is obvious. We use it at 28 or 29 degrees Celcius, to remove the humidity and cool slightly; too much cooling isn't healthy and can also be very expensive.  When coming into the room from 30 degrees and humidity in the bathroom, 29 degrees and dryer feels wonderful, particularly when the ceiling fan is circulating the air too. 

We knew about 'swing' too.  That moves the air more effectively than having it just pointing in one direction.  And we were relieved to see a 'lamp' option which allowed us to turn off the large LED light at the front of the air conditioner, when it's on. 

But the other controls were a little confusing.  

The instructions were only in Greek, and we could not find this particular brand online in any other language. We haven't yet used Air Flow, Turbo, Short Cut, Clean, or Follow Me.  We decided to use the ioniser, which apparently should help to clean the air and reduce the dust, though we haven't noticed any particular effect.  We tried 'Sleep', one night, assuming it would turn itself off. It didn't. It seemed to get warmer - not turning itself off when it reached the set temperature, but (apparently) blowing warm air out. We definitely didn't want that!

On our older air conditioner, there was a 'timer' button which let us tell it what time we wanted it to turn off (or on, although we never used that option).  We assumed this one would be similar.  It is... but rather more complicated. And with an odd quirk that if I set it to go off (for instance) at 11.45 pm tonight, then tomorrow I will have to adjust it by at least one minute, making it turn off at 11.44 (or 11.46).  If I try to keep it at the same time, it refuses to take it.  

I don't know if our electricity bill will be a lot lower due to this more efficient air conditioner; but it should be considerably better for the environment.  We're wondering, now, about replacing some of the other older ones before next summer, and possibly using them more often than we do to keep the house less humid during the worst of the Cyprus summer. 

Preparing for some important people to arrive in Cyprus

In the last few weeks we've been doing some extra preparations in our guest flat. We always make sure it's clean before anyone arrives, but we were expecting some very important (to us) people for the month of June: our older son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. A couple of weeks ago they heard that their expected plans had fallen through and they're actually going to stay in Cyprus for three months. We hope this will give them a good break, and time to relax after a very busy recent period.

Last Friday, we began by cleaning the guest flat air conditioners. They're not needed yet, but within the next few weeks the humidity will begin, and then they'll be essential overnight for refreshing sleep. We haven't done the ones in the main part of the house yet, but wanted the guest flat ones done before the family arrived.

Next we moved the desk/bookcase out of the front bedroom, so we could put up the cot for almost six-month-old Esther, next to the double bed.

We vacuumed the living room rug thoroughly, and put on the sofa throw which had been packed away by previous guests, who used the sofa bed to sleep on.

David, who is nearly three, will sleep in the other bedroom. I made up the bed with a Winnie-the-Pooh pillowcase (not shown) and a special extra visitor at the end of his bed:

Jess the cat is a knitting project I started a couple of months ago, knowing how David loves Postman Pat. He turned out considerably larger than I had expected - here is he with Lady Jane, for comparison:

We remembered that, when they were here in the winter when David was a baby, there was too much light in the front bedroom in the mornings. In the summer, we realised, it would be much worse with the sun coming up early and streaming into the room. So we decided to instal a blind behind the curtains.

This proved to be a longer job than anticipated. We measured the windows and bought a 160cm wide blind at Mr Bricolage, a local DIY store, only to find that 160cm referred to the entire width, including fixings, and the blind itself was only 156cm wide. So we returned that and came away with a 180cm wide blind. Richard installed that under the curtain rail.... only to discover that the door (which is a very high one) would not open.

To his relief, the gap between the ends of the curtain rail had just enough room for the blind, so finally it was in place:

We had moved the cot out of the room, not wanting dust from the wall to fall on it, but still had to do considerable sweeping and mopping afterwards. However, it's well worth it, and the room now stays cooler and darker when the blind is down.

A week or two earlier, we started looking for car seats for David. Esther's is part of her pram/buggy, and we knew that was coming with the family, but they couldn't bring David's. We had the option to borrow one but it was quite old, and not necessarily up to modern safety standards. It didn't have a cover, either. Had they just been coming for a month, we might have opted for that, but with a three-month stay, we thought a new (or, at least, reasonably new) one would be a good idea.

There were none at the Thrift Store. We looked in Jumbo, and they didn't have anything suitable. We went to New Baby City, and were shocked at the prices of suitable seats. Of course one can't put a price on the safety of a child, but several hundred euros seemed extortionate, particularly when the same or similar seats were under fifty pounds on Amazon UK.  Unfortunately, Amazon won't deliver anything as big as a car seat to Cyprus.

However, we then went to Mothercare - similar the UK one - a shop we had always thought of as expensive. But they were selling car seats suitable for a child from two to twelve, exactly what we were looking for, at similar prices to Amazon.  Richard checked online reviews, and we eventually chose this one:

We also looked for a dining chair booster seat for David, since Esther will be using our high chair. We found one at Mothercare.... only to discover, on getting home, that it's only for children up to 12kg. So that had to be returned. They didn't have anything suitable for a child of around 20kg - so in the end we borrowed a car booster seat from our local friends, which works well:

Richard bought some webbing straps to attach it to a chair, and since it's for older children it's quite sturdy.

We also bought a couple of baskets for toys to keep in the living room, and yesterday afternoon I found the things which we'd been storing since their last visit, and a few new items, and put them out:

The family had been visiting relatives around the country before coming to Cyprus, and reported that David had been a bit feverish, and not eating. However, he was getting better by the time they flew, and their flight arrived in good time (fifteen minutes early, despite leaving late).

We both went to the airport, and our friend Sheila also arrived with a car to take the luggage - they brought three large suitcases as well as the buggy and lots of hand luggage - and also to take me back, as only five people can fit in our car.  She arrived at the airport just before the family came through the barrier, with all their luggage.

What could possibly go wrong...??

Sheila and I set off with the luggage in the back of the car, while the family went with Richard (who had parked in the car park) so we assumed we would arrive back home five or ten minutes before they did.

Unfortunately, about a third of the way back, her car ran out of petrol. It had been a busy day for Sheila, and somehow nobody had thought to fill up the car.... so, after coasting several hundred metres on petrol fumes, we drew to a halt.

She put on the flashing hazard lights and tried to call the roadside assistance company... only to discover that the insurance documents with policy details were not in the car, so she had no number or information.

Meanwhile cars were shooting along the dual carriageway, some of them much faster than they should have been, swerving to avoid the car, and, in many cases, hooting.  I suggested putting the bonnet up, even though we knew exactly what the problem was, so that passing cars would realise we'd broken down rather than just stopping to admire the view over the Salt Lake:

Sheila was able to phone her son Jacob who agreed to go and buy some petrol and a canister, and cycle out with it to the car. So we waited.

Jacob arrived perhaps twenty minutes later:

He put a few litres of petrol into the car....

...but it wouldn't start.  It appeared that the battery had gone flat after the lights had been on for so long.

We'd been in touch with Richard, of course, who by that time was home with the family. So he said he'd come back with our van, which is equipped with a tow-bar.

Fifteen minutes later he arrived, then he and Jacob spent some time trying to find a place to attach the rope to the car.  They eventually found a place that required a special kind of eye, which we didn't have.

So after much discussion, we transferred the luggage to the van, and Richard took me and Sheila's youngest daughter (who had been in the car) back to our house, while Jacob cycled across town to buy the necessary gadget to enable the car to be towed. Richard had agreed to take Jacob in the van so they could tow the car back.

Sheila waited with the car.  Then a friendly stranger stopped and managed to use his jump leads to start the car again. She didn't want to stop at that stage to phone, in case the car stalled... so she drove straight home, and then phoned Richard. It was too late to stop him and Jacob travelling back in the van. But towing would have been a long and slow process, so they turned around and came home again.

We eventually ate our evening meal a little after 7.30, and Richard arrived back just in time.  So the whole frustrating experience had been under two hours.  Sheila said it's the first time in thirty years of driving that she's run out of petrol - and she hopes she won't do so again for at least another thirty years.