Greenery, construction... and a challenge for January...

Rather than continuing to recount my days in tedious detail, I decided to take photos every day, at least when I remember to do so, and write about them. Life in Cyprus has become normal to me, but visitors are still surprised at some of the things they see and experience.

Greenery

In many parts of the world, trees and bushes lose their leaves during the autumn months, and have bare branches during the winter. This is useful when there's a lot of snow, but that's not at all likely in the coastal areas of Cyprus.

We particularly liked seeing the citrus trees everywhere when we first arrived. Now we take them for granted, and this year the lemons on the trees look fairly small and sparse. Perhaps that's because there was so little rain until December. 

This, for instance, is a normal sight at this time of year, although usually there are rather more lemons on the local trees:

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...

Flamingoes by the Salt Lake... and a few older board games

After a fairly dry and mild end to last year, and indeed beginning of January, the weather turned colder about ten days ago. We had some torrential rain - when it decides to rain here, it doesn't usually drizzle gently. It pours... I don't know if it's helped the reservoirs, which once again are much lower than they ought to be, but it's certainly helped the ground and the wild flowers locally.

On Tuesday morning, I grabbed my camera as I set off to walk with my friend Sheila; it had stopped raining so I knew it would be muddy, and hoped we might see a few flamingoes on the Salt Lake. The sun was shining and there were puddles every few metres, which we mostly managed to avoid:

Some years, the Salt Lake is quite full by this time of year, but even after a couple of days of extensive rain, there's still a lot of 'beach' showing:

We quickly saw flamingoes, although in this picture they just look like pink dots:

Here they are a little closer - there are thousands of them!

As we neared the Airport Road, we walked down onto the sandy area near the lake, and saw these baby flamingoes, still white rather than pink.  If you look carefully, you'll see a long row of pink ones in the background too:

We managed to get closer than I've ever been before without disturbing the birds:

However, although they didn't display any alarm, they did start walking away. And as we were trying to get closer still, as stealthily as possible, we were startled by a shout to keep away by someone with a large camera, perhaps a journalist or other professional, who was trying to photograph them from the road.

As we returned, we saw odd markings on the sand - evidently flamingo footprints!

We finished the walk, then sat and chatted for a few minutes on our garden swing, as we usually do. Then Sheila departed as two of her daughters had to get to their piano lessons, and I sorted out our breakfasts. Around ten o'clock Sheila's daughter K arrived with some knitting which had gone slightly wrong; so I helped her un-knit a few stitches and set her on the right path.

Shortly afterwards Sheila arrived with her two youngest daughters, after their piano lessons, and they decided to spend a couple of hours building and playing imaginary games with Lego.  K started reading one of my Chalet School books... so I suggested Sheila and I play some of my older two-person board games, which I recently brought up from our guest flat. I had planned to teach them to her daughters but they were all otherwise occupied.

We started with Quandary, a game which apparently originated in the early 1970s. I remember playing this regularly with a close school friend when she was at our house in my mid-teens.  It's a simple game to learn, but quite complex to think ahead. We played three rounds, all of them fairly quick:

I then opened Octago, a game which I don't ever remember playing.  Apparently it came out in the mid 1980s, so either it belonged to one of my sons, or - more likely - we bought it at the Thrift Shop when we moved to Cyprus. It's a game a bit like draughts/checkers, with the variation that pieces can turn rather than (or in addition to) moving.

It was quite a good game, though neither of us really worked out any strategies. I won in the end, but it took me a lot longer than it should have done to capture the final piece.

I then got out Kensington, a game which apparently didn't come out until 1979. I had thought it was earlier than that. It's very efficiently packed, in what appears to be a record sleeve (for those who remember records...).  I don't remember being particularly good at it - and, indeed, after initial frustrations as neither of us were getting anywhere, Sheila won rather resoundingly...

We were interested to note that Octogo claims to be for ages six and older, Kensington for ages seven to 107, and Quandary for ages ten plus.  We thought that Quandary was probably the easiest of the games to understand, and the one most likely to be enjoyed by Sheila's daughters at some point.  I would have rated it 7+.  Octogo, we thought, was a bit more complex and easier to make mistakes; probably fine for a game-playing child of seven, but I'd have rated it as 8+.  As for Kensington, it's quite a long game and difficult to get anywhere.  I wouldn't really recommend that for anyone under the age of ten. 

A fortnight in January in Cyprus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Cold and Frosty Cyprus

I know. It happens every year. Just as we think that Spring might be around the corner, as the days get longer... wham! We're in the middle of such a cold spell that it's almost impossible to stay warm.

December was bad enough; for most of the time Tim was here, hoping for a bit of sunshine, it rained or was grey and rather miserable. But although chilly, it wasn't bitterly cold.  Perhaps ten or twelve degrees, but the cloud cover meant that it didn't get much cooler at night. And our house isn't too badly insulated, at least compared to the majority of Cyprus homes.

Since we returned from our UK trip, it's been quite sunny, around 15 degrees in the daytime. Not too bad at all, I thought. We've been running our central heating for a couple of hours morning and evening, and the house has mostly stayed reasonably warm.

On Tuesday I could see quite a few clouds so took my camera when I went for my morning walk with Sheila. The flamingoes were in evidence, but I didn't want to get any closer to the Salt Lake, and my camera doesn't have much of a zoom... but for anyone interested, those little dots are hundreds of flamingoes; clicking the small photo should take you to a larger version:

And yes, there was a pretty sunrise too, if a little spoiled by the overhead cables....

But this weekend was predicted by the local paper to be the coldest in a long time. As it was due to be around 2-3 degrees this morning, I wore a very warm jacket and gloves when I went out for my walk with Sheila.  That on top of two other warm layers. I did shed the gloves after about three kilometres of fairly fast walking, but put them on again before I got home.

The cats are spending a lot of time either racing around the house looking for things to knock over...

...or huddled up near radiators.

Jane doesn't go out at all, other than on our balcony, but Alex has always liked running around the rooftops nearby, so we let him out when he asks in the daytime. Today he's been out briefly perhaps three times, quickly returning through the incoming-only cat flap. At lunch-time I opened it for him and a blast of cold air came through. He turned and looked at me with a shocked expression. Surely I couldn't expect him to go out in THAT...?!

This morning I stayed somewhat active and warmish in the kitchen. The oven was on as I made my next month's granola, and I also needed to process 5kg tomatoes that I bought (for a euro) yesterday at the local fruit/veg stall. I made around 800ml tomato ketchup:

I stewed another couple of kilograms gently, then froze in four portions to use in place of canned tomatoes in future.  And I also decided to dehydrate another kilogram and a half, to give me dried tomatoes to use in one of our favourite bread recipes.

The dehydrator gives out a lot of hot air. While it's not exactly an efficient way to heat the kitchen, it's a great by-product at this time of year.

Even so, I gave the central heating an extra hour boost twice during the daytime, something I almost never do. Just as well it's only infrequently this cold.

Here's what the hourly weather forecast showed when I checked it just a few minutes ago:

Yes, it's due to be down to zero degrees, freezing point, by 8.00pm.

Still, I really don't mind the cold weather nearly as much as I dislike the heat and humidity of Cyprus in Summer.

Back in Cyprus

It feels like several weeks since my last blog post. Travelling can have that effect, as can the collision of two worlds. Normally when we are in the UK, we're focussed on the people and places there, and life in Cyprus takes a back seat. The reverse happens when we return home. It's as if, at some point on the aeroplane, one scenario is faded down, and the other faded up.

But when a crisis occurs, or someone we love is ill, or struggling in some way in the 'other' country, our focus moves to them, and it feels discordant, as if I'm in the wrong place, not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing. It was like that in December when our new granddaughter was in hospital in Carlisle, with the threat of a nasty infection. I could hardly concentrate on anything else until we knew that all was well.

Something similar happened last Sunday. I had mentioned that Cleo, our very elderly cat, had become disorientated and confused on New Year's Day. Perhaps, we thought, she had a stroke. But she wasn't in pain, and our friends in Cyprus were looking after her. As the days progressed I thought about her less. Then last Sunday morning, quite unexpectedly while we were at a church service, I had a sense of Cleo slipping away; an image in my mind of her being greeted with some surprise by someone who died a few years ago. I suppose I knew then that we were losing her.

When I opened my computer a couple of hours later, I had two emails from Sheila, our friend who was cat-sitting in Cyprus; the first one let us know that Cleo had stopped eating and, that morning, seemed to have lost the ability to walk. If nothing changed, she and another friend felt they needed to take her to the vet on Monday morning.

The second email, sent an hour or so later, simply said that Cleo had died. It must have happened around the time she came to my mind so strongly.

We felt numb at first, with that sense of being in the wrong place. Then sad, along with a sense of inevitability and rightness. Her time had come, and she slipped away peacefully in her own home. We felt worst about our friends having to see her go downhill so rapidly, and deal with what happened.

Daniel and Becky's close friends came over in the evening for a meal and a Settlers game, and it was good to be distracted, though I had an underlying sense of sadness and disorientation.

I don't remember what happened on most of Monday. I didn't take any photos at all. On Tuesday Richard drove them to have Esther's birth registered in the morning. He spent some time at Daniel's office helping him with some projects, and also sorting out some equipment he had ordered to take back to Cyprus.

On Tuesday evening, Daniel and Becky decided that it was time for David to have his 'main' Christmas present. For a long time they had been talking about getting him some kind of keyboard. They didn't want a 'kiddie' one with poor quality sound, but of course full-sized ones are expensive. They thought they should wait, in any case, until they know where they will be working next.

Then they managed to acquire an old but good quality keyboard that would otherwise be thrown away. Daniel checked that it was working, but didn't want David to have it amidst the excitement of Christmas and other presents. But on Tuesday evening they were starting to take down Christmas decorations, so David was given his 'plano', as he called it. He was thrilled, and quickly figured out how most of the buttons worked:

Meanwhile, Esther was growing stronger and more alert each day. Unfortunately being awake in the daytime did not mean that she slept any better at night, but it made a good opportunity for me to start reading some books to her, and she seemed to find the pictures interesting:

On Thursday we went into town, and Becky could not resist buying an inexpensive set of  four 'Tiger who came to tea' jigsaw puzzles from 'The Works'. David, it seems to me, is remarkably good at jigsaws; I've never before seen a child so young look at the colours and shapes, and deliberately find pieces showing faces or bodies to match one he had found already. He put the 12-piece jigsaw together in a couple of minutes, without any help, and then needed only a few hints to put together the 20-piece puzzle:

Our time in Carlisle was rapidly drawing to a close. I read large numbers of books, I played with David's Postman Pat figures, I helped him build structures with Duplo. He doesn't in the least mind his different worlds not just colliding but colluding: if Postman Pat has a breakdown, he calls Bob the Builder to help him. Mog the cat fell through the roof of the Duplo house and tried to make friends with Postman Pat's cat Jess. David himself was, by turns, Mr Strong and Mr Happy and Mr Slow.. and sometimes 'just David'.

Every so often he spent another five minutes at his 'plano', content to use a fairly low volume, and mostly very careful. I'm sure all grandparents believe their grandchildren to be uncommonly wonderful - as, indeed, toddlers are pretty much universally. At times he showed that he's still just a small child; he sometimes confuses words, telling us that a 'bandage' is a 'bank', for instance, or asking Becky to put Marmite on his 'Bridget' when he meant 'crumpet'.

I didn't understand what he meant by a 'bock' at first, until I realised that he was using it as the singular of 'box'. When I told him that one of them is a 'box' and two are 'boxes', he muttered, 'books and bookses'.  English is a very confusing language.

At last, it was time to leave. We had to book four pieces of checked luggage; in addition to the modest single case of clothes that we had taken out, we had been given a lot of Christmas presents, and bought some new jackets with Christmas money. We also had rather a lot of equipment which Richard had ordered, which needed flight cases to take them back.

Our flight was at 1pm Saturday from Liverpool. We had decided to drive to Liverpool on Friday evening rather than having to leave early on the Saturday morning; the weather was unpredictable (much of the country had snow, though we didn't see any) and we didn't want the stress of traffic jams or other holdups when we had a flight to catch. So we said our goodbyes and left around 7.15pm, just before David went to bed.

The drive was straightforward and took about two and a half hours; we stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn Express, which is much like a Travelodge but (in our view) somewhat nicer. Our flight was on time and, since we had so much luggage, two friends met us, with two cars, at the airport.

We mostly unpacked last night, feeling sad that there was no Cleo to greet us, but pleased that Alex and Jane seemed so lively and (after pointedly ignoring us for a while) very friendly to us, and each other.

We went to the PO Box this evening. There were 21 Christmas cards waiting for us. Some had been posted as long ago as Dec 12th; yet they had not arrived by the 27th, when we flew out. For some reason, post to Cyprus always seems extremely slow during the second half of December and we usually receive most of our Christmas cards in January.

So, once again, we'll keep them with the Christmas decorations and next December will display them all and think of the recipients as we put them up.

Family visits (not in Cyprus)

Ten days ago, we flew from Larnaka to Gatwick. Winter is not a time when we normally choose to be in the UK, but events came together this year in a way that really gave us little choice. I wrote in an earlier post about our new granddaughter, born a couple of weeks early in Carlisle (and now in excellent health). Naturally we wanted to meet her as soon as possible.

I had also mentioned back in September that our younger son Tim is now living and working in Surrey. At the time he had a temporary job and was living in temporary accommodation. So a great deal of his stuff (particularly books and kitchen equipment) was stored in Cyprus. In November he was offered a permanent post, and was then in a position to look for a flat to rent longer term. He found somewhere and took possession in the middle of December, but since he was spending Christmas with us in Cyprus, the only things he had bought for the flat so far were a bed, bedding, and some crockery.

After Christmas, Tim prioritised his stored stuff, and we booked two 20kg suitcases for each of us (yes, that's 120kg of checked luggage!) on our flight, and Richard - who is excellent at packing - worked out what would go where.

We needed two cars to get to the airport, and happily two of our friends were willing to drive us there. Checking in was no problem, the flight was on time, and all the luggage arrived safely. Since we got to Gatwick after 11pm we had booked overnight at the Travelodge which, as usual, offered good value and a large breakfast.

In the morning, Richard and Tim went to pick up the rental car we had booked. They were expecting to pick up a VW Golf. Tim was then planning to get the train from Gatwick to his new place, while we hoped to fit the luggage in the car in full estated form.

However, the only Golf available was 500 miles away from needing a service, so they were offered a free double upgrade. It's a car which Richard likes very much, and which easily took all the luggage, plus the three of us:

Our first view of Tim's flat was a bit mixed.  The living room area was bare and empty, the second bedroom filled entirely with packing material from Tim's purchases so far - but no furniture at all. However, we very much liked the kitchen. It's quite compact, but fully equipped with oven, hob, a large fridge-freezer, and even a dishwasher.

After we had brought the cases in, my job was to sort and tidy rubbish and packaging material, and unpack suitcases (other than the two containing books) while Richard and Tim went to collect a transit van, rented for the day, and then to drive around collecting various second-hand furniture that Tim had ordered through 'GumTree', a classified site that, in Surrey, seems to have a great deal of inexpensive and high quality items.

By the end of the day,Tim had acquired a sofa bed for us to sleep in, an office table and chair plus a computer monitor, an Ikea sofa (in pieces, still) a dining table and chairs, bedside cabinets, and - his favourite purchase - a gliding chair, all for a fraction of their worth. Thankfully, although it was very cold outside, it was not raining.

On the following day, which was cold and frosty, they returned the rental van and then we drove in the large car to Newbury, where my brother and sister-in-law were hosting my family's annual post-Christmas gathering. It's the first one Richard and I have been to since the tradition started about twelve years ago. Fourteen of us sat down to an excellent lunch, followed by present-opening.

Yet more of Tim's stuff had been stored in my father's garage in Alcester, and that had been transferred to Newbury, so we collected a couple of boxes of kitchen and computer bits and pieces, and his bass guitar. We drove back through freezing fog, which was not pleasant: a cultural experience that we have never had in Cyprus.

On the Friday we spent the day with Richard's mother in Sussex, with lunch at a garden centre; then we managed to find some winter jackets, reduced by 70% or more. I'd been wanting a new waterproof winter jacket for a long time as my previous one was over thirty years old and rather falling to pieces.

On Saturday Richard and Tim put his sofa together, and he bought some more important items: a biggish bookcase, a digital piano, and even a picture for his wall. His living room was starting to look quite cosy by the end of the day:

On Sunday - New Year's Day, though it felt like weeks since Christmas! - we visited Tim's church, which was friendly and welcoming, then had a rather worrying phone call from our friend Sheila who is cat-sitting for us while we're away. Cleo, who is now about eighteen-and-a-half, had been getting confused, wandering around in circles, and got herself into a tight spot where she had to be rescued after some furniture moving.

I happened to take a picture of Cleo shortly before we flew out; she was getting frail, and thinner than she used to be, but her coat was still reasonably clean, her eyes bright, and she was eating heartily. As far as we could tell, she was quite happy, and in full possession of her sight, hearing and other senses. She slept a lot, and had some arthritis and a swollen (but not painful) leg... but otherwise was fine.

We wondered if she had suffered some kind of stroke.  However, since Sheila assured us that Cleo did not seem to be in any pain or distress, we suggested waiting to see what transpired. There would only be emergency vet services on New Year's Day, and it's not as if a vet could 'cure' such an elderly cat (she's around 112 in human year equivalency). Cleo has rallied before when we thought she was on her last legs...and indeed she was better on the Monday. Worse again on the Tuesday, but then livelier and very friendly to Sheila for the rest of the week... at least, so far. More than one person has suggested that Cleo may be missing us.

Back to our UK trip... we played a board game after lunch before setting off for Alcester, where we admired my father's wooden Santa collection, some of which was on display on the mantelpiece:

We relaxed there for a couple of days, though my father was plagued with a nasty chest infection and I was suffering from a nasty lingering cough. Then on Wednesday we drove the longer distance up to Carlisle to meet Esther:

She was four weeks old yesterday, and still sleeps most of the time, though she's quite windy at night which keeps her parents awake rather too much. She's gorgeous, but not yet reacting much to other people. So, inevitably, we're spending more time with David, who, at two-and-a-half, is delightful. He rarely stops talking, and has an amazing imagination as well as an apparently insatiable appetite for books, something we're all happy to encourage:

I had a bit of an adventure with him yesterday when I took him out for what I thought would be a fairly quick walk around a few blocks, to give him some fresh air and let him splash in puddles. I didn't take my bag, thinking I wouldn't want my camera, only to realise after he'd led me along several different roads and paths that I had NO idea where we were... and did not have my phone to call for help!

Thankfully he has a much better sense of direction than I do, and although we must have walked for more than a mile he led me back to the end of his street and home in time for lunch.

When he's not being read to, or playing with his diggers, or Duplo, or Postman Pat figures, or doing jigsaws (I was impressed to find that he can do a 12-piece puzzle without any help, and a 16 or 20-piece one with only a few suggestions) he's role playing in some way; here he is, in a cool hat, having clicked on his imaginary seat-belt, and donned his imaginary sunglasses, driving a car:

It's going to be harder than ever saying goodbye when we return to Cyprus in another week.