Summer in Cyprus: Sweltering, Spraying, and Staying Indoors

Holiday brochures advertise Cyprus with 'sun, sea and surf' (or similar). Which is all very well for visitors, staying in hotels by the beach for a week or two. But when one lives in Cyprus, it's not quite so simple... 

June this year was - by Cyprus standards - reasonably cool. Warm enough that we didn't need to wear anything other than tee shirts and shorts. I switched from trainers to sandals, too, or flip-flops... I much prefer wearing trainers and socks but strongly dislike having over-warm sweaty feet. 

By the end of May we had started using our bedroom ceiling fan at night, and some of the other ceiling fans in the daytime, as needed. But through the whole of June there was no need for air conditioning, even for the computers. With windows open, a pleasant breeze cooled the house through the day. 

Then we spent twelve days in the UK, as I wrote about in another post. It was busy, and productive, and - for me, at any rate - a wonderful break, seeing many of the people I love the most. We arrived back in Larnaka after 10pm on July 12th and while it was warm - I had removed my coat and sweater before leaving the plane - it wasn't unpleasantly so. I was particularly pleased that it didn't feel humid, since we had to spend about ten minutes standing on the steps of the plane waiting for the bus to the terminal. 

Sweltering...

Reality hit home in the morning. I didn't wake up until about 7.30am, and it was already thirty degrees outside, according to my phone's weather app. But although I was tired, I knew I had to get to the froutaria for some oranges and other fruit for our breakfast. So I went out, keeping mainly in the shade. It was probably good to get some fresh air and sunshine first thing, but I don't think I appreciated it much. 

That was the start of a heatwave that lasted two weeks, breaking all kinds of records. Most of the southern part of Europe experienced something similar. Then a couple of days that were more normal, for Cyprus in July, and then there was another high temperature warning for the next few days.

'How do you cope?' This is a question I'm asked regularly. I've never been good with hot temperatures, and I know from experience that if I'm outside in the sunshine, or if temperatures are more than about 30C at most, I really don't 'cope'. I become slow, lethargic, and often develop a migraine. 

So over the years in Cyprus I've developed a kind of summer routine. While I often try to be out of Cyprus for a few weeks, there are always some hot summer days when I'm here. I used to say that I do everything I need to do before 8am, then 'aestivate' until the evening. I don't actually go to sleep, but I don't leave the house, if at all possible. I shop locally first thing, and if we have to go to a bigger supermarket, we go in the evening rather than the daytime. 

Spraying

One of the things I like least about Cyprus summers is the increased insect population. Not mosquitoes - they are worse in the spring and autumn, and we mostly avoid those in the house by having netting over open windows. No, my 'bête noire' is, literally, a black beast whose name I still slightly shudder to mention.  (Whispering): Cockroaches.  

I had hoped that by having our house connected to the mains drainage there would be fewer - certainly we have fewer access chambers in our side yard, and the lids fit much better. But a neighbouring house was having a lot of major renovations and for the last couple of weeks of June, and most of July, we had at least one of these nasty beasties in the house every day.  Mostly deceased, I'm relieved to say. Some caught by the cats, and some stunned by the 'biokill' spray. I use that liberally around all possible entrances and as many hiding places as I can think of. 

I did this as soon as the first one appeared in June, and again just before we went away. Then I repeated the process at the end of July.  Thankfully there have been fewer since August started.  

Salads

One feature of the last few years has been eating a lot of salads; not just lettuce and tomatoes but a wide variety of different salads, inspired by both cookery books and online sites. This, for instance, is a sardine and lentil-based salad: 

From July 1st until at least August 31st, I don't turn on the oven. Originally I determined to do all the food preparation first thing in the morning, but that hasn't happened this year. It's mostly in the half hour or so before we eat. 

After lunch on Sundays we have, for a couple of years, eaten dark chocolate Bounty bars - not entirely dairy-free but low-enough in dairy that they're not a problem for Richard. 

We used to buy these in airports before flying back to Cyprus, then for a while they were available here. Nearly two years ago, we mentioned this to some friends who were soon to fly out, and they scoured their neighbourhood, bringing out over 40 of these bars, enough to last nearly a year. Here are just a few of them:

Alas, they were discontinued nearly a year ago. We didn't realise this, but were disappointed not to find any during our UK trip in January. We did look again earlier this month, but were not surprised to find them still unavailable. 

On the Sunday after we returned, we ate the last of our stash. Possibly the last dark chocolate Bounty in Cyprus... 

Celebration

A week after our return, we celebrated our anniversary. The heatwave was intense, and I didn't even want to go out in the evening. So we ordered a Lebanese takeaway, which was delicious: 

It was excellent value, too  Supposedly a vegetarian meze for two, it was twice as much as we could eat in one sitting, so it provided a second main meal the following day.  To make it even better value Richard had just been sent a seven euro discount voucher from Foody. 

Staying indoors

My aestivation might sound like a kind of lockdown, but it's not the same at all as the restrictions we were under three-and-a-half years ago. The main theoretical difference is that it's my decision, rather than being enforced by anyone else. Richard, who deals much better than I do with heat, has been out by car in the daytime many times to see people, or visit his boat, or pick something up at one of the DIY stores.

A major practical difference between my self-enforced aestivation and a lockdown is that there's no restriction on the people we see. A few weeks ago, we were invited to a young friend's 18th birthday dinner; it was the first time I'd been out in an evening since we returned from the UK, and the outside temperature was 36 degrees even at 5.30pm. I struggled to walk the short distance from the car to our friend's home, and was thankful it was not at lunchtime (as in previous years). 

However it was a very enjoyable evening, spent in our friends' air conditioned living room. 

Our friends continue to come for games mornings on Tuesdays, though during the summer we play in my study with the air conditioning on, sitting on the floor, rather than at the dining room table:

And another young friend, far more able to deal with the heat than I am, has been doing some repairs on the side of our house, where the surface spritz had been crumbling away. 

Steps

I don't want to lose the habit of daily walking. So I still aim to get out almost every morning at about 6am, if only to walk the 500 metres or so to the froutaria and back. On mornings when the temperature shows 30 degrees or more by 6am (and that's happened three or four times) that's more than enough. 

On mornings when it is only 24-25 degrees, I walk a couple of kilometres around the local neighbourhood. It's not a lot, but it gives me some fresh air and exercise, albeit limited. For the last few days our friends have been away and I've walked to their house shortly after 6am to feed their cats and (a couple of times) water their garden. Thankfully the temperature was only 26-28 by the time I was home again at around 7.30. 

During the less hot periods of the year - usually mid-September to late June - I walk an average of about 7,000 - 8,000 steps per day, or around 50,000 - 55,000 per week. When we were in London, walking all over the place, this continued. But at this time of year, I just about manage 30,000 in a week.  

I'm relieved to know, due to some recent research, that we only actually need around 2,500 steps per day (at a reasonable pace) to benefit our hearts and blood vessels, and around 4,000 to start reducing the risk of premature dying. More than that has a greater benefit, of course; but according to a Japanese study, the optimum number is around 5,000 - 7,000. That does talk about 'older people', and I'm not yet quite at the age they mention, but for me this is achievable. Much more is not. 

I'm trying to use my indoor air conditioned time productively: sorting and backing up photos, maintaining my websites, doing some filing, tidying up my folders, spending a bit longer at Duolingo. And reading a bit more than usual. August - so far - has been a tad cooler than July (which was apparently the hottest month ever recorded globally). The days are noticeably getting shorter and a month from now we might even be able to stop using the air conditioning.

As for the beach... we went there once with our grandchildren in April, It's been too hot to go there so far, this summer, and we haven't yet found a suitable evening to go with our friends. If we don't manage it this summer, I won't mind at all.  

Family visiting Cyprus

It's almost four weeks since the family arrived in Cyprus after a few stressful weeks packing up the house and travelling, via relatives in the UK, to stay here. They were all exhausted when they got here, and it took a few days for the children to get into somewhat regular sleep patterns.

David, at three, no longer takes naps in the daytime, and Esther, at six months, just takes catnaps, and still usually wakes at least once in the night. She's teething, has just started solids, and has reached the stage of frustrating backwards crawling. She was very clingy with Becky when she arrived, too, and David quite stressed and anxious about all the changes.

I had already planned, before they arrived, to find as much time as possible to be with the children. I'm hardly doing any writing, or participating in forums, or doing anything with my websites while they're here. Emails are written in odd moments, and I've been uploading photos to Facebook every few days, but it's taken me over a week to find the time and energy to write this blog post.

With the increasing heat, we're all quite tired - other than David, who seems to have vast reserves of energy - and inevitably have to spend at least the hottest part of the days indoors. I'm delighted to discover that David has an almost endless capacity for books, so we're all reading aloud to him, everything from simple picture books through to early chapter books with line drawings, such as Mrs Pepperpot and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Still, we seem to have done a fair amount of other things - a few highlights below.

On one of the first days, Richard and I took David out to the local park where he enjoyed climbing and digging in the dirt as well as the standard slides and roundabouts.

He's been to some Little Muse presentations and drama sessions (the last one before the summer break is today, giving me an hour to myself) and enjoyed doing some painting there:

Great excitement ensued when he went sailing with his Daddy and Grandpa:

Richard has been very busy with work in the past few weeks, so there haven't been any more opportunities for sailing, but they hope to do that again soon.

We've been to the beach a couple of times, although it's so hot that we can't really go before about 4.30pm at the earliest:

David's third birthday was a very important occasion, and Becky created a wonderful 'digger' cake:

One of his birthday gifts was a paddling pool, which has provided a great deal of entertainment:

We found a second-hand bike at the thrift store, and a helmet, and he's ridden that in an area Richard cleared in our side yard, although, again, it's really too hot to ride much:

Another gift (bought with birthday money) was a sandpit, which he likes very much indeed:

The shop where the sandpit was bought didn't have any play sand in stock, so after some research we discovered the Larnaka Early Learning Centre shop, which not only had sand, but let us know that on Tuesday afternoons they have play sessions for toddlers and young children, with plenty of toys and other activities available. So David's been to a couple of those:

We haven't managed many board games; they're not possible in the daytime, for obvious reasons, and by the evenings we're often too tired to do anything. But we've had a few, sitting outside the guest flat, as it hasn't - yet - been too humid:

Daniel and Becky's closest friends came out to stay for a week, too, which was very enjoyable for them all, and they managed to play games most evenings.

David's enthusiasm and exuberance are quite tiring for those of us who are more introverted, but they also mean that almost anything can be fun for him. Even a trip to the supermarket became a great adventure when he was able to drive the trolley for us:

Esther, meanwhile, is quieter, and more placid. She's very taken with a set of plastic balls which we bought a few years ago, before David visited for the first time. She can sit by herself but topples over if she turns suddenly, so we made a mini ball pool for her, in a plastic box, and she was contented for quite some time:

David is interested in building, mechanics and pipework, so Daniel bought some plumbing bits, and we've made various constructions for David to experiment with. One of his favourite activities is pouring water down a funnel, and seeing where it comes out:

He can concentrate for a long time, adjusting the pieces and trying again when connections break, or when water comes out in unexpected places. I tried to explain that it would pour out of the lowest available gap in whatever system we built, and he seemed to understand. He exemplifies the concept of learning through play!

A local friend told us about a park that's much nicer than the two local ones; it took us a while to locate it, behind St George's Church, but finally we found an afternoon to take David there. Unfortunately it's not open all the time, and has almost no shade until the late afternoon... but still, it's a wonderful park and we hope to go there again:

The family are here for another two months, and the weather is going to be hotter and much more humid, so we're going to look at the two recommended indoor play places that aren't too far away, and make the effort to go to the beach a bit more often.

We didn't move to Cyprus until our sons were nine and eleven, so we never had to find places to entertain very young children in the summer. By the time we moved, they were old enough to play outside safely by themselves (we had a huge garden in our rental house) and were also happy to sit inside during the hottest part of the day, reading books, or at the computer, or otherwise occupied with Lego or music or some other activity.

I am loving being an active grandma of a three-year-old, although I'm getting a lot more tired than I did when I was 27 years younger and had a three-year-old of my own.  

Summer in Cyprus. Approaching yet again.

Once again, the inevitable is happening. A chillier-than-usual winter in Cyprus gave way to a pleasant spring. I very much like March and April here. The sun shines, but it's still cool overnight. I have the energy to get things done, and the landscape is green with a wide variety of wild flowers, and cultivated ones too for those who go to the trouble of growing them in their front gardens.

It's been a pleasant 20-23 C in the daytime for much of the past few weeks. Now, as April draws to a close, the predictions are for hotter weather ahead. Here's what the Weather Channel site is showing for the next couple of weeks:

Yesterday, for the first time since about November, I spent most of the day without any sweatshirt or jacket of any kind. We went into town for various errands, and I found it was too hot in the sun, though still pleasant in the shade. Last night we ran our bedroom ceiling fan. It was only on the slowest speed, and we're still using a duvet... but the air felt still, and my face was too warm without the fan.

Today we realised that we haven't used our warm jackets for a week or two, and are unlikely to do so for the next few months. This is what our coat rack looked like:

Two scarves, and about five warm fleeces and coats. I removed them all, and put most of the jackets in the washing machine.  A few hours on the line and they were dry, so they're now hung up in our landing closet upstairs. I took the opportunity to put more of my winter clothes there, and extract my shorts... which I expect I'll start wearing soon, if the forecasts are correct.

I found my sandals, too, looking rather grubby, so washed them as well, in preparation for needing them all too soon.

Then I collected our surprisingly large collection of sun hats and put them on the now empty coat rack:

If Murphy's law holds, now I've made these preparations for Summer, we could be due for some unexpected and extra chilly weather meaning I need to get the jackets out again.  I won't mind in the least if that happens, but it's unlikely in May.

In the next few weeks I shall wash all our curtains, and we'll clean the air conditioners which we try to avoid using until at least June.  We'll switch to our very light-weight duvet, too, and then - probably only a couple of weeks later - just a duvet cover or flat sheet to cover us at night.

In other unexciting but typically Cyprus fashion, we went to Lidl just over a week ago. The shop has grown on us since our first unimpressed visit several years ago when it was new to the island.

This time,  I wanted to get some of their cat litter, which is about half the price of our usual brand and seems to work just as well. I also wanted a 2-litre bottle of olive oil, as our current one was running low, and theirs is usually the best value.  We didn't even look at the weekly brochure telling us what the special offers were, because we were only going in for these two items...

This is what we ended up with (plus two bags of cat litter) :

When we arrived, we remembered that our digital kitchen scales had recently gone faulty.  They were consistently weighing everything at about 75% of its correct weight, which was irritating and I didn't always think about the adjustment.  Happily, Lidl were offering good value kitchen scales with a bowl.

Then we saw a digital medical thermometer. I'd had what was probably a sinus infection the week before, and one day felt very shivery. We realised we had no thermometer, so no way of knowing if I was running a fever. Not that it mattered much, but at 2.99 euro it seemed like a good idea to have one.

Richard needed new crocs/clogs for casual use when sailing. We know the controversies about them, and that they're a bad idea for anything other than use on the beach or as slippers in the house, but he found just ONE pair in his size, in a colour he liked. So those were added to the basket. Along with our usual Lidl dark chocolate, and a new fresh basil plant, and a couple of jars of honey, and a couple or rolls of duct tape... and some seeded bread rolls for lunch.

A nicely eclectic mixture, not atypical for our Lidl visits. We still can't find most things we want there, and their fruit/veg are over-priced (in our view) but their special offers are often very good. 

Back in Cyprus, Lady Jane and the gradual end of Summer

When our son Tim moved back to the UK early in August, his cat Lady Jane Grey moved to our house, at least for now. Tim's new job is temporary and his accommodation not appropriate for a cat. Lady Jane is Alexander the Great's sister. Yes, historical chronology is a little skewed. Their other sister, no longer with us as long-term readers might recall, was Joan of Arc. And our elderly, eighteen-year-old cat is Cleopatra... 

However, Lady Jane had lived in Tim's flat for two years as an only cat, and had apparently forgotten that other felines exist. The first stage in her adoption into our house was to bring her to our guest flat, where Tim stayed for about three weeks after moving out of his flat, before flying to the UK.

That in itself wasn't too traumatic, although when she arrived she didn't want to emerge from the cat carrier for quite some time.  When she eventually did, she hid on some bookshelves:

After a few days of very tentative exploration, she became rather more at home in the guest flat. Unfortunately her initial introduction to Alex was extremely stressful. We let them 'meet' through a gap in a sliding door, and Alex wanted to play. Jane saw this as a terrible threat; she growled and spat.

Then Alex managed to get into the flat - twice - when the door was briefly open. He saw a new playmate. Jane saw an enemy.  There was a great deal of noise and she refused to look at any human who was involved in the trauma, for quite some time.

But before Tim flew back, we knew we had to move Jane up to our part of the house. Tim's old bedroom became her 'safe haven', as advised on several websites, and we put some of his furniture there. She spent a lot of time sitting on her cat tree looking out of the windows:

We tried letting Alex and Jane see each other through narrow doorways, but it wasn't encouraging. He lay down, evidently wanting to wait. She growled and hissed and spat, apparently terrified.

At the suggestion of a Facebook friend, we acquired some of the plug-in artificial pheromone Felliway to use in Jane's room and the living room for a month. She did seem a little calmer after a couple of days, but perhaps that was a coincidence.

When I went away to the UK for three weeks, we were still keeping her shut in her room most of the time. She didn't seem to mind, but did like exploring a little further when Alex and Cleo were shut downstairs.

Richard reported progress over the three weeks that I was away. She and Alex got a little closer. She didn't growl quite so much. She didn't seem to understand how to play, but he was very patient. He started letting them be loose in the house when he was home. Jane started having food in the living room...

By the time I got home, she was a lot more amicable than she had been. Was the Felliway responsible or would it have happened anyway? We have no idea. But we like to think it probably helped.

A day or two after I got back, Jane was in the kitchen asking for 'wet food' at lunchtime, so I put hers on the boot tray that we use for cat food dishes... and for the first time all three cats ate together:

Since then, she and Alex have been very friendly, chasing each other, batting each other in a play-fighting way, and even rubbing noses sometimes. Jane still doesn't like Cleo and spits at her whenever she sees her, but we suspect that she's trying to establish dominance and doesn't understand that an elderly matriarch is de facto the queen of the feline household.

Meanwhile September's weather has, far too slowly for my liking, been cooling down, and the humidity reducing. So much so that a week ago I resumed my thrice-weekly early morning walks with my friend Sheila, along part of the Salt Lake trail.

The Salt Lake is entirely dried up this year:

My break in the UK resulted in a great deal more energy than I had before I left, so, combined with the not-quite-so-hot weather, I've been doing more in the kitchen again. I have been using our latest Lakeland acquisition, a three-pot slow-cooker, so much more useful than the one large one which we were using (and which I still have, and will no doubt put into use again when cooking for large numbers).

I still haven't quite adjusted to cooking for just two of us, and last Sunday put together a casserole that wouldn't fit into just one of the pots, but it simmered nicely in two of them. A few days earlier I stewed a couple of large and rather soft apples, which was much easier than doing them in a pan that might boil dry.

I expect to use this more as Autumn progresses, so I can make two different curries or soups at the same time, either for entertaining, or for us with plenty to freeze for future meals.

We had the first real rain this week, during Tuesday night. It hasn't made any noticeable difference to the Salt Lake itself, but the overall temperatures feel much more pleasant. It was almost chilly this morning when Sheila and I set out on our walk, and watched the sun rise behind some of the palm trees:

We wondered whether the new looking greenery in the park could have resulted so quickly from the first rain.

I was pleased to note that in the coming week temperatures are set to be between 28 and 30 degrees C at the most, which is very encouraging after being 30-33 in the past couple of weeks. Today I only used my study air conditioning for a couple of hours; the rest of the time the ceiling fan was sufficient. 

Summer heat-wave and forest fires in Cyprus

I mentioned at the end of my last post that we started using our air conditioners on Friday, very thankful that we had them cleaned in advance. It's not unusual to become warm enough for air conditioning towards the end of June (anything over 30C counts) and occasionally we've had heatwaves this early in the year, but they're not usually as lengthy as the one which the island is still coping with.

This brief article about Cyprus in summer, written nearly a week ago, explains that the usual temperatures for this time of year are around 35C inland, and just over 30C at the coast. However there was a low pressure system, and it was a great deal hotter already, with predictions of 41C inland by Tuesday.

All of which is inconvenient, but I am very grateful for the ability - mostly - to keep cool. Far worse are the horrendous forest fires which are blazing in parts of the mountains of Cyprus. Started by careless people burning rubbish, over 15 square km of land has been destroyed, and at least two fire-fighters have lost their lives.

Fires are still raging, and volunteers are being asked to help, as it spreads towards some of the villages. Aeroplanes from Cyprus and several other countries are using sea-water to quench the flames; inevitably the salt will damage the forests further.

Back to everyday life... I didn't get my walk by the Salt Lake last Saturday, due to Alex being stuck on a neighbouring balcony, and yesterday I didn't wake until nearly 6.00. It already felt warm by then; but I wanted to see how empty the lake had become, so suggested Sheila and I walk at least a little way.

Last year was cooler overall with quite a wet winter, but we haven't had nearly so much rain this year, and Summer has come earlier. So this is what we saw:

There's still a little water some way out, but if this heat continues, it will have dried out entirely by the end of June.

I was struck by how very tall some of the weeds had become. Sheila kindly agreed to be in the photo too, to give an idea of scale:

They're already looking brown, however, as is much of the other foliage.

We walked less than a kilometre, and I was already feeling too hot. We still had to go and feed my son's cat, as he was in the UK, so we made our way back; it was probably a bad idea to go at all as I felt very headachey by lunch-time, and unbelievably tired.

Our house is much cooler than outside but the thermometer on the kitchen scales was showing 32C by 8.00 in the morning.  I realised that although the humidity is still relatively low, it's a problem that the heatwave has come early, as it's the Summer Solstice period, meaning it's light before 5am, so the sun warms everything up much earlier than it does in August, when we expect higher temperatures.

The heatwave is predicted to continue for at least another week. The humidity is 'only' at around 39% at present, which means that evenings and nights are not as unpleasant as they can feel in July. But even 39% humidity means that the temperatures feel hotter than they actually are. According to this chart, we're at 'yellow' alert (great discomfort) as far as heatstroke and other dangers are concerned. Inland, where the temperatures are due to rise to 40C or higher, it will be 'orange' alert, defined as dangerous.

So as far as possible I am estivating.