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. 

A third sleepover for young friends

Three years ago, we experimented with a sleepover for our friends' three youngest children, while their older siblings were at camp. The idea was to give their parents 24 hours to themselves. Their parents were in fact expecting to collect them soon after breakfast on the following morning, and - at the girls' insistence - they ended up staying until after an early lunch, 27 hours in all, although tempers were getting a little frayed by the end, and Elisabeth, who was only four at the time, was very tired.

Last year we repeated it, with similar results. The girls ended up staying 26 hours and, once again, the last couple of hours were rather fraught.

This year, we weren't sure if it would be able to happen at all. I was hoping to go to the UK for three weeks but dates weren't arranged until very recently. I'm not in fact going until Saturday; moreover, camp is a little earlier than it was in previous years.  More of a problem is the fact that our son Tim's cat Lady Jane has moved here, as he has gone back to the UK, and she's treating what was his bedroom (years ago) as her domain. To have three lively girls sleeping there would have caused her immense stress.

However, Katie - who is 11, and quite outspoken - was sensitive enough to realise that this might be a problem, and said, about a week ago, how she understood that they probably wouldn't be able to have a sleepover this year. So I said that perhaps we could all sleep in our guest flat... and she was so pleased that we made a date for them to sleep over last night.

Since the paper dolls I printed for them last year were so successful, I looked for more a couple of days ago, wondering if I could find some with 18th century ball gowns of the kind that they like to colour. In searching online I discovered this wonderful website with printable paper dolls from many periods in history.  I only intended to print three or four... I ended up with about twenty pages for each of the girls. There are many more for future visits.

Remembering the somewhat stressful ends of the previous two years, I suggested agreeing in advance that this year's sleepover would be 24 hours only. And they arrived yesterday around eleven o'clock in the morning, after seeing their older siblings off to camp on the bus.

They were delighted with the historical paper dolls and started colouring immediately:

However, although Elisabeth is now six, she doesn't concentrate for as long as her siblings, and soon wanted a break. She loves to play games, so we had a few rounds of Ligretto:

Then Helen, who is very good with her hands, decided to continue some knitting she started a couple of months ago. She's becoming quite proficient, and has even managed to figure out how to reverse mistakes and pick up dropped stitches:

Katie, as ever, took some time to read:

Elisabeth asked if I would read to her; the only book I actually read her in the whole 24 hours was 'Dogger' by Shirley Hughes, which is my favourite children's picture book:

Richard was out all morning but came back for lunch. I'd made a new loaf of bread, and some peanut butter, and boiled some eggs, and cut up lots of salad vegetables:

After lunch, Helen and Elisabeth got out 'their' Lego. I've allocated a small crate to each of the three to store their various creations from week to week, so they don't fight over who built what, and this seems to work quite well.

Katie, meanwhile, continued colouring her paper dolls. She kept thanking me and saying how much she liked them.

Alex spent most of the morning curled up on top of the printer...

Elisabeth then asked if we could play 'Misfits', and Helen said she'd join in too. It's a very basic game suitable for children of about three, but they still like it, and are amused by the resultant ridiculous people that get created, different each time:

Afterwards, Elisabeth put them all together 'properly' before putting them all back in the box. Well, she insisted that she put everything away but then Katie found one of the pieces by the bookcase later in the day...

Out came the Lego again:

When they didn't need me, I sat in my beanbag and read, keeping half an ear open to respond to questions. There was a complex war of some kind going on in these two Lego worlds, but it was relatively quiet and civilised:

I haven't been doing much cooking in the past few weeks as it's been so hot, but I knew the girls would want a hot meal, so I turned the air conditioning on in the kitchen late afternoon, and made some pastry. Then I concocted a couple of sausagemeat pies, one with onions and one without, and also a spanopitta as I mostly avoid eating meat.

I made some coleslaw too, and produced some chopped up cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes. All the girls chose sausagemeat pie without onions, and between them ate what was officially supposed to serve 4 people. Richard, meanwhile, ate a quarter of the one with onions, and I ate a third of the spanopitta.

I was surprised when Katie informed Helen that in order to make the sausagemeat pie I must have taken all the skins off lots of 'English sausages' (as ordinary sausages are labelled here) and assured her that I'd done no such thing. I just used some frozen sausagemeat I'd bought before Christmas but hadn't used. She said that her brother Lukas takes the insides out of sausages to make this kind of thing, which seemed like a very complex process to me, and not something I would even think of doing!

I'd bought a melon that morning; it was a bit hard but still quite tasty so we had that afterwards. And then Elisabeth was quite eager to go to bed. I tried to dissuade them as it was only 7.15, and I didn't think they would get to sleep for at least another hour, but they wanted to brush their teeth... and as I hadn't slept well the night before and was very tired myself, I shrugged and agreed, and we went downstairs to the guest flat.

Helen and Elisabeth got ready for bed easily, and Katie, who stays up till 9.00, sat in the living room reading. Of course they didn't get to sleep at once... I ignored quiet talking, but Elisabeth came out about three times to drink water, or to tell me something Helen had done, and Katie went to turn off lights at least twice, and apparently found them jumping on beds. By then I had rather a headache and was feeling shattered so I got rather annoyed...

Richard, meanwhile, fed the cats, changed the litter, put on the dishwasher and locked up the main part of the house. And shortly after Katie went to bed, I did too.

I woke about 5.30am and came upstairs to have a shower, then went back down to read. Helen woke about 6.15 and had a shower in the guest flat, then came to play with one or two of the puzzles we keep downstairs, then the K'nex, which also lives in the guest flat.  I didn't take any more photos... I forgot at first, then thought there had probably been enough.

The girls had breakfast about 8.30; I knew there was some cereal in the guest flat, left behind by other visitors, so I brought it upstairs and they were delighted to find some chocolate granola, which they finished. Some of them had toast, some of them had bananas, some had some other cereal, and they had a few pieces of apple.

After breakfast, Katie coloured more paper dolls and read some more; Helen did more knitting and colouring; three of us played a few rounds of Ligretto; two of them played with Lego.... and at 11.00 their mother arrived to take them home again.

Elisabeth had become a bit bored and whiny a few times, not in a major way but often enough that I realised it was the right decision to stick at 24 hours, at least for this year.

Now they're a little older, I didn't feel nearly as exhausted afterwards as I did in the previous years, but still - being very much an Introvert - quite drained by so much focussed people-time.

Laundering Lego...

As I have mentioned before, from time to time, on Tuesday mornings my friend Sheila comes over for a couple of hours, bringing one or more of her daughters. We started this when the 'Mums and Tots' group which she belonged to and where I helped stopped meeting on a Tuesday, many years ago now. The girls are a great deal older than 'Tots' age, but are all educated at home. So we've continued the tradition, and mostly enjoy it very much.

Sometimes they spend most of their time colouring or drawing, sometimes we play board or card games, sometimes we read a lot of books... and sometimes they spend their time with the Lego. I always considered Lego one of the most important educational tools: it teaches construction skills, various maths concepts, and also exercises the imagination. My sons had a lot of Lego as children, mostly sets given by generous relatives. They would always start by building the relevant objects or scenes, but would then quickly adapt them, and eventually incorporate them into other imaginative play. For some years they had a huge Lego city, which led to many hours of play with their friends.

We've gradually given away most of their childhood toys, but the Lego has remained. The boxes and instructions are long gone, but it doesn't matter at all.

A couple of weeks ago, H (7) decided to build a straw house, so she used a lot of yellow:

E (6) meanwhile had her king and queen feasting:

This 'forest' seemed a bit sparse....

K (10) had built this house, and was creating inside scenes:

E asked for some yarn, and then created a carriage out of what had been a ship:

After a couple of weeks of intensive Lego, I started thinking about the rest of our collection which was stored in our guest flat. From time to time we've gone down and gathered a few extra pieces - mostly dragons and horses - but I knew it was a muddle of pieces, some of which could potentially be useful.

So I went downstairs to fetch it. And the girls were delighted, and found several things they wanted to use....

Unfortunately, it had been stored for some years in an old trunk which had begun to disintegrate. While it was now in a more hygienic plastic box, it smelled very musty. So when Sheila and her daughters had gone home, I decided that it would be a good idea to wash it.

It was a pity I didn't think of that sooner, since a lot of the musty pieces had become mixed up with the Lego we previously had upstairs, meaning that ALL of it had to be washed. And this proved to be a major task, which took me most of the rest of that day, and almost all of Wednesday.  There were several times when I rather regretted having started, since the temperatures were quite hot - then again, it did all dry fairly quickly.

I used crates to wash pieces, a few hundred at a time, in the sink with a bit of washing-up liquid, then spread everything on a towel to dry.

As I did, I started some rough sorting, including finding parts of 'people' which, in many cases, were muddled up with other pieces. The heads, round and yellow, were fairly easy to spot but some of the leg pieces were hidden until I spread them out and began to go through every piece.

It didn't all dry quite as fast as I hoped, so the kitchen was a complete muddle for a day and a half, with scenes like this:

As well as sorting people, I made a box for trees and foliage of all kinds, and was surprised at how much there was:

Another box took wheels and the pieces that held them together.

The girls had told me that they didn't need many of them, so the big 'space' and 'snow' wheels went in a box to go downstairs, along with some of the basic bricks and all the 'technic' lego which is really intended for older children and teens. They never play with the 'space' lego either, so when I found something that obviously belonged to that, I put it aside for downstairs too.

One of the 'people' we had upstairs was a skeleton, and I knew there must be another one somewhere, probably in parts, as we had a spare arm or two.  To my astonishment, I kept finding more skeleton pieces, and Tim told me that the 'Pharaoh' masks were supposed to go on some of them, as they were part of the Egyptian explorers sets which they had at some point.

Eventually I put together six of them, three to keep upstairs, and three for downstairs:

The girls were coming back Thursday morning, so Sheila could go and help at the Oasis refugee centre, so it was a useful deadline.  And sure enough, with a great deal of sorting - it became compulsive, somehow! - I managed to get everything back in the cupboard by nine o'clock Thursday morning:

I even managed to find three stacking blue crates, one of which I allocated to each of the girls, so they can keep their current projects in them rather than having them muddled in with the main box.

As well as Lego in the downstairs box, I found the boys' old Meccano, which has gone downstairs again:

I also found several pieces of K'nex, which I added to the larger box of that, also downstairs currently:

And this miscellaneous box of bits, which I might sort one day:

Or maybe not. Most mysterious of all are three purple knobbly square plastic objects, about a centimetre across. I've put them with the K'nex for now, although I think they belong to something else. But despite asking around, and even putting a photo on Facebook, I still have no idea what they are, or what toy - or game? - they belong to: