Random images around Larnaka

 I'm trying to post on this blog more often, and on one topic - or no more than two or three - at a time. But sometimes there are random things where there's not a lot to say... so here is a small selection of my most recent collection of local photos that don't fit other subjects, taken over the last month or so.

We were given a small papaya plant several years ago, and this is the first year that it has produced flowers:

We have no idea whether it will eventually produce a fruit; that depends on the flowers being fertilised, and whether it's a male or female plant.  The flowers aren't spectacular, but there are a lot of buds.

Summer easing in gradually; restrictions ease

It's a bit of a shock to realise that my last post was early in March. Time seems to expand and contract more randomly than usual in these Covid-dominated years.  The weeks go by, and the main topics of conversation with everyone cover the epidemiological situation in various countries, the different vaccines, and the pros and cons of cloth or disposable masks.  We check numbers of new cases daily, we chat online with our family, and we wonder if we're ever going to be able to travel again...

Back to March, and one of my first signs of spring advancing well is a freesia blooming: 

Not many of my freesias flowered this year, and those that did have all reverted to this bright pink which has very little scent. Perhaps I should buy some more in the autumn. 

In March, we were allowed to have up to four visitors in our homes, theoretically for up to three hours at a time. We were able to send up to two text messages per day asking for permission to exercise, or go shopping, or to visit friends. The limit of four visitors didn't entirely make sense, since it meant that we were able to visit out closest friends (who are, currently, a household of six) but they could not all come here at the same time. 

We were also still allowed to exercise outside with one other person, so I continued walking by the Salt Lake with my friend Sheila first thing, three times per week. We realised that we take the flamingoes rather for granted once they have arrived and established themselves for the winter. But I did take one photo:

It rained, off and on; not excessively, and thankfully there were no leaks from our roof. And, as always happens in March, the yellow shrubs and wild flowers bloomed - and I managed one relevant photo of 'yellow month' too: 

It was quite chilly, sometimes, first thing. But we reminded ourselves to be thankful...

Now that we're part of the local Anglican church, we celebrate according to the Western calendar, which is out of step with the rest of the island. So there was a service on the UK Mothering Sunday where we were given little posies:

And Western Easter, on April 4th: 

But I'm leaping ahead of myself. On the last Wednesday of March, the monthly outside book sale at the church was allowed to happen for the first time since the end of November: 

A week or so after Western Easter, Richard was on his way out when a neighbour across the street called him over, and said he should have some lemons. A tree was absolutely loaded with fruit, and if they're not picked then next year's blossom won't be so strong - and there's also the risk of hundreds of rotting lemons all over the ground. The neighbour was giving bags of lemons to everyone who would take them: 

This happened twice. I froze lots of lemon juice in ice cube trays, for those occasions later in the year when I need a tablespoon of lemon juice and don't have any fresh ones. I froze larger amounts, too, in the hope that maybe one of our sons will be able to come out at some point, and I will make lemonade to celebrate. I no longer make lemonade it as it tends to give us mouth ulcers. 

I made lemon cake, and experimented with three different kinds of dairy-free lemon curd, including two vegan ones which were quite successful, if a tad runny. I made candied lemon peel... and I dehydrated as many lemons as I could:

I froze them in small tubs, and made the happy discovery that just one slice of dehydrated lemon in a jug of water gives a very pleasant lemony flavour. 

My birthday approached; last year we couldn't see anybody at all, so I wanted to celebrate with our friends - we are always invited to birthday meals for them, including the children. But we couldn't have more than four people in our house. They came up with the brilliant idea of us going to theirs instead - so we bought takeaway chicken, potatoes and salad, and I cooked a supermarket spanokopitta, and made extra salad and a pineapple cake with dairy-free cream cheese topping. And a dairy-free lemon cheesecake. Yes, we still had lemons...

We had leftovers, too, for a couple of days afterwards.

It was around this time that I realised our patio plants were starting to look very dry, so I began watering again first thing, three times a week, on days I don't walk with Sheila.

But the Covid case numbers in Cyprus were looking very bad. Vaccination was taking a while to be rolled out, and we were seeing over 700 new cases per day reported; this is an enormous number for such a small country. The UK was doing better and better, with their extensive vaccine programme, but the hospitals in Cyprus were getting overloaded.

So as the last week of April and the first week of May were Easter holidays for the schools (Greek Easter being May 2nd) the government decreed a two-week lockdown: just one outing per day allowed, no visitors in houses, no church services, all shops shut other than those selling food, and pharmacies. The April book sale was cancelled, and while the Orthodox Churches were allowed their Holy Week liturgies and a mass for Holy Saturday, with an extended curfew until 1am that morning only, there was no congregation allowed in Sunday services for two weeks. 

Bizarrely, though - or perhaps they knew that this would happen anyway - we were allowed one exception to the 'no visitors' rule, on Greek Easter Sunday. Better still, rather than being limited to four visitors, groups of up to ten in total were allowed to gather. So our friends came over for the first time this year, for a Sunday afternoon of games, a DVD for the younger ones, and a shared cold meal which ended with rather a lot of chocolate:

I was able to book a vaccination for a week ago, and today, at last, Richard has managed to book one too  (for tomorrow).  Vaccinations are happening rapidly in Cyprus now, and over 40% of the population has had the first one.  Case numbers are going down again - between 100 and 300 the last few days, with the hospitals doing much better - so the two-week lockdown came to an end on May 10th, and the SMS permission requirement has been shelved. 

Instead, people need 'safe passes' to go to certain places - big retail shops, church services and other potentially crowded venues. We could have rapid tests, but don't fancy waiting outside in the heat, in long queues, but as we can go to most shops anyway, we're not too worried. In a fortnight's time I will be 'safe' anyway, due to having had my first vaccination three weeks earlier. 

At the end of April, we had something of a heatwave - it was up to thirty degrees, a couple of times, during the middle of the day. It stayed reasonably cool overnight, and it wasn't humid, but we did start using the ceiling fans - for a few days, until it cooled down again. We had been using our winter-thickness duvet (9 tog and 4.5 tog held together with paperclips) for months, but on May 1st I removed the thin one, giving us just the medium one. A week later I switched them, and washed the medium one so it could be packed away until the Autumn. Just a week after that, I put the thin one away too, so we just have a double duvet cover. Even though it's cooled down since the end of April, thankfully, we don't seem to need more. 

We also put away some of our winter clothes, and dug out our shorts and tee shirts. I'm gradually washing jackets and packing those away for the autumn. And whereas the temperatures have often soared into the mid-thirties again by mid-May, it's not happening this year. So far, anyway.  Last year, my Facebook memories inform me, it was 39C in the shade on May 19th. This year, it's a mere 26 degrees today, with 28-29 predicted for the next few days. Jeans would be fine, but having moved to the shorts part of the year, I'm somehow reluctant to switch back again. 

It's good that the temperatures aren't too extreme, because Richard's boat is currently out of the water having its 'dry dock' maintenance, something he plans to do every other year. He had hoped it would be lifted out a couple of months ago, but arranging it all took much longer than usual. His Kingfisher Yacht Cyprus blog gives photos and descriptions of what he's been doing, if anyone is interested.

We need to clean our air conditioners within the next couple of weeks, and I should give the curtains their annual wash before it gets too hot to think. If only it would remain like this, sunny and warm but neither too hot nor humid... 

Spring, Lent, and Yellow Month in Cyprus

It happens around this time every year in Cyprus. The heating doesn't come on in the evenings, as the house is already warm enough. The days get longer, the sun shines with more regularity, and yellow weeds - often quite attractive weeds - appear in abundance on waste ground, like these ones pushing their way over the path on the Salt Lake trail:

Citrus trees are fruiting too. The one thing I occasionally miss about our old house is the fruit that seemed so unusual to pick at first, then commonplace. But our local friends have a lemon tree that's prolific this year, and have been generous in passing bags of lemons to us. I asked if we could have a few earlier in the week, realising that Shrove Tuesday was coming up, and we Brits traditionally eat pancakes with lemon and sugar.  But I agreed that I could use more than a few...

Easter is an important festival in the Christian Church, and also culturally in Cyprus where the majority of the population are Greek Orthodox, albeit in name only in many cases. In most years, there are two Easters, their dates calculated by different methods. But this year, as happens from time to time, both the Western and the Eastern Easter will be on the same Sunday in the middle of April.

That means that Lent - the forty-day run-up to Easter - should have started at the same time too, one would think. But that's not the case. In our Western tradition, the last day before Lent is Shrove Tuesday, although it's more often known as Pancake Day by the secular majority.  Traditionally one was supposed to use up products such as eggs and sugar prior to a simpler, vegetarian or sugar-free lifestyle during the days of Lent, in preparation for Easter.  Shrove Tuesday was four days ago, and yes, I made some pancake mixture, which Richard cooked after we had our evening meal:

My recipe makes eight pancakes, which was fine when there were four of us living here, or indeed when there were three of us, as we could make them bigger or one of our number would eat more than two.  But this time we decided to put half the mixture in the fridge for the following day.

Back to the difference in Lent traditions, the Eastern church, at least in this country, begins five days before Shrove Tuesday, with 'Fat Thursday', or Tsiknopempti, as it's called here. It's the day when the faithful are supposed to use up all the meat in their household, with barbecues or feasts for the family; Lent as a fasting season was taken quite seriously until relatively recently.

When we first moved here, there wasn't much meat available during Lent, and we were told that we should be certain not to have barbecues or eat any kind of meat outside during the Eastern Lent period. Nowadays there's just as much meat available now as at any other time of year, and Cypriots openly cook and eat meat right through the Lenten period. There are some 'fasting' foods available: more vegan cheese than can normally be found, and a wide range of halva.  Tsiknopempti is celebrated by going out and buying more meat to feast on.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday last weekend were then the Carnival weekend in the Eastern tradition. There are floats and parades along the sea front, with children (and adults!) dressing up in costumes. The word 'Carnival' originally referred to the removal of meat, but that seems to have been forgotten. Carnival in Cyprus is safe and lively, not the dangerous brawls one sometimes hears about in other European countries, but it's too loud and crowded for me, and I keep away.

Monday was then 'Green Monday' (also known as Clean Monday, and the first day of Eastern Lent) which is a public holiday in Cyprus. It's roughly equivalent to the Western Ash Wednesday (the day after Shrove Tuesday) and in theory should be when people cast off sinful attitudes, forgive anyone they're harbouring grudges against, and ensure there are no tempting delicacies in the house.

In practice, at least in Cyprus,  many people spend the morning spring-cleaning their houses, then go out with their families and friends on a picnic, after which they fly kites.  Again, when we first moved here, we were told that on Green Monday we must make certain not to take any meat on a picnic as it would offend the Greek Orthodox.  Nowadays many Cypriots fire up their barbecues again with meat for their Green Monday picnics.

Back to our leftover pancake mixture.

On Wednesday, neither of us felt hungry after our evening meal, so the mixture remained in the fridge.

On Thursday, we decided to have our last pancakes after lunch. So Richard started cooking them...

.. and suddenly the handle sheared off the pan!  It's a heavy-based pan which I've used for omelettes regularly, and there was no hint that it was breaking. Happily the pancake was fine, but clearly, it wasn't possible to repair the pan safely:

So he finished cooking the pancakes in a smaller frying pan, and they were very good.

I knew we had to go to a supermarket that afternoon, and was undecided between Metro and Lidl.... we hadn't been to either since before Christmas, as I do most shopping locally, but we needed various things that couldn't easily be found locally.

I looked through the Lidl advertising brochure that arrives weekly, and discovered that they had a special offer on heavy-based frying pans, in the size we needed.  So that determined which supermarket we would visit!  We weren't too keen on Lidl when it first appeared in Cyprus some years ago, as there is a very limited range of regular items, but we now know what's good value, and sometimes the special offers are extremely good.

So we went to Lidl, and now have a new 24cm frying pan:

We used exactly one of our donated lemons with our pancakes. So this morning I processed the rest, freezing another litre with some peel for lemonade in the late summer or autumn when lemons are no longer available, and making more lemon cubes that can be used easily in drinks or food where a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice are called for. 

In praise of Cyprus fruit and vegetables

I could undoubtedly save a great deal of time if I ignored the local fruit stall, and if I was prepared to buy ready-made chutney, ketchup, lemon squash or orange juice. Actually we do buy ready-made lemon squash (for Richard) in the summer when lemons are out of season, and we do buy long-life grape and pineapple juice in packets.

Lemons started re-appearing in the shops in November, I suppose, but my memories of spending hours peeling/juicing lemons in previous years made me reluctant to start that again. I've been getting quite bad backache when I spend too long standing in the kitchen... however, for once my procrastination bore fruit (so to speak) since Richard and Tim - the ones who actually drink home-made lemon squash - offered to deal with them this year.

So about three weeks ago, we bought around 100 lemons (for three euros or so) - not organic, but unwaxed and locally grown.  They spent a couple of evenings washing, peeling and juicing them, producing a batch of lemon squash (three litres), four litres of pure juice plus peeled zest for the freezer for future batches, and about 72 lemon cubes (in ice cube trays) for quick additions to various recipes, or to make hot honey and lemon.

After a couple of weeks we were just thinking we might repeat the process when a local friend called by with two large bags full of lemons, freshly picked from his abundant tree. Here's the contents of one of the bags:

The first bag made another batch of squash, and another litre for the future, and another 24 lemon cubes. The second is still to be dealt with. 

On Friday we bought a crate of oranges - about 80 of them, I suppose - for an extravagant four euros, but they are very nice oranges. There's really nothing like freshly-squeezed orange juice, so I make some every morning. That takes between five and eight oranges for three of us, depending on the size of orange. Quite a few... so 80 last at most ten days. I put as many as I could in the fridge, as they won't necessarily keep for long out in the kitchen - here are the ones I could not fit in: 

And then, there's tomatoes. History repeats itself - just over two years ago I wrote about processing vast quantities of tomatoes to freeze, and to make ketchup and chutney and so on.  Last weekend I bought and used quite a few, making more ketchup and chutney, but who could resist a large crate for just two euros, at the stall yesterday? We certainly couldn't. They looked beautifully ripe; it's hard to tell the size from this photo, but I suppose each one is about 5-6cm (2.5-3 inches) in diameter. 

I was on vegetable duty for our house group last night so I made some baked tomatoes, and also sliced several for one of the children who likes them raw only, sprinkled with garlic and basil. I then put as many as I could fit into a large bowl in the fridge, which left just this many, on a tray:

This morning I cut up about 25 of them for the dehydrator, and they're now nearly dried. I put another couple of kilograms in a saucepan to stew gently, prior to making tomato soup tomorrow. Then I managed to fit the last few, somehow, into the fridge. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with them - probably I'll stew most of them to freeze in 400g portions, as that's what I use for any recipe that calls for canned tomatoes (which I don't use any more).

Except that our freezers - both the top of the fridge and the main upright freezer - are already rather bulging at the seams, and I already have at least five or six tubs of frozen tomatoes...

It would undoubtedly save time if I could resist these bargains - I didn't even mention the smaller crates of carrots and broccoli that I also bought - but I'm sure it saves money, and is a great deal healthier to use fresh, locally grown produce such as these.

(Although, given my current hacking cough, at the end of a cold that has lasted quite a while, it's a little ironic to think of being 'healthy'!)

Twelve kilograms of lemons..

We were running various errands (as they say in the US) on Monday, and I wanted to go to the fruitaria. Richard suggested we take the car, although I didn't think I wanted all that much. And, indeed, I could easily have walked home with the two carrier bags of produce I bought, even including some more walnuts and eggs.  I had hoped to buy a 3kg bag of lemons (in the one-euro bags) but although there were tomatoes, apples and more ready-bagged at this price, the only lemons were at the regular price of about 40c/kg, and did not look that great. I needed to make some more lemonade, but knew we had some frozen pith and juice in the freezer, so I wasn't going to pay full price for rather dreary looking lemons. 

Then, on the way out, we paused by the large crates of fruit and vegetables that were sitting outside the shop, piled high. There were some very good lemons, there, but the label '1.70' was attached to the crate. Surely they could not be charging 1.70 euro for a kilogram of lemons..?

As we pondered, I wondered if - at the other extreme - they could be charging 1.70 for the entire crate. Richard popped back into the shop to ask, and it turned out that this was the case. So we said we would have some. We didn't get to keep the crate - instead the lemons were poured into a large, dustbin-sized pink sack:

As soon as we got home, Richard weighed them on our bathroom scales. There were 12kg of lemons in the sack! 

I set to work to make a batch of lemonade using about 15 of the lemons, then decided to spread the rest out on a table, so that they would not get damp and go bad. Here are most of them: 

Yesterday, I chose about forty of the nicest looking ones, washed them well, and then used the potato peeler to remove the pith, freezing it in four little bags. Then I used the juicer attachment of our food processor to squeeze .. .and squeeze... and squeeze. So much juice. There were four more litres of juice which I froze in litre containers. This means that we now have plenty of frozen pith and juice for the summer, when lemons are out of season. 

I also froze two more ice-cube trays of 'lemon cubes', which we use in hot honey and lemon drinks, or when a recipe requires just a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. 

I still had four left over. 

Lots of lovely lemons

Lemons are very good at this time of year, in Cyprus. And they seem to be larger than usual this winter. I don't know if that's because of the vast amount of rain we've had, or whether it just happens to be a good year for lemons.

I've bought three or four euro bags from the fruitaria, each containing a couple of kilograms of lemons. I've been making lemonade, as usual, and also freezing some peel and juice for the summer, when it will be more difficult (and expensive) to get good lemons - sometimes all that's available is rather small green ones with not much juice. I make 'lemon cubes' too, in ice cube trays, which are useful for recipes that require a tablespoon of lemon juice, and also for hot honey and lemon drinks which are so soothing on cold nights, or when we have coughs.

A couple of nights ago, there was an unexpected knock on the door.. heralding a friend with two large bags of lemons for us:

He said there were plenty more on the tree, and they simply can't use them. So that's at least another three litres of lemon juice to freeze!

Summer has arrived in Cyprus

So, the first day of Summer was a couple of days ago, June 21st. Tomorrow, June 24th, is Midsummer's Day.

Logically speaking, then, the last day of summer should be June 27th.

Alas, it doesn't work that way in Cyprus. In the UK, some summers do seem to have only about a week of warm weather (though not, I gather, right now). But we're pretty much guaranteed heat and high humidity for the next two or three months, now that June is coming to an end. I really can't complain: the weather during May was warm but not over-hot. We had a couple of days earlier in June that seemed to threaten summer, but then a thunderstorm and some rain about ten days ago cooled the climate down, to about 27-28C, which is quite bearable.

We did run the air conditioning at night a few times, for a couple of hours, since the evenings were rather sticky. I've also got into my summer mode of doing any housework or shopping before 9.00am... as far as possible. Except that yesterday it wasn't possible. On Wednesdays I change our sheets and clean upstairs, and we have someone from the office to a cold lunch... and last night we were expecting friends for a meal too, who needed to go to the airport later.

So I needed to get out to the Froutaria; I did manage to do that fairly early. And I put a loaf of bread to cook in the breadmaker, and made some more lemonade as we had run out, and froze some extra lemon juice in ice cube trays...

By which time it was almost 10.00.

I was aware that I was feeling warmer than I like to be, but I took things fairly slowly. I changed the sheets, and did the laundry, and put away Monday's laundry, and dusted and mopped and cleaned out the cat litter trays and made the bed... which doesn't sound like much, but took me until nearly 1.00, with very few (short) breaks to sit down. Then I cleaned out the glass bottles where we store lemonade (using crushed eggshells to do so - very useful) and bottled the lemonade and made egg mayonnaise and washed tomatoes and hung the sheets and towels out to dry...

Then we had lunch and I sat down for half an hour or so to look at email and Facebook, etc. And was aware that I was feeling extremely hot and rather headachey and very tired.

So when I went to the kitchen at 2.30 to start cutting up fruit for fruit salad, and making ice cream, I put the air conditioning on. At 28C as usual... and I was astounded at what a difference it made. I don't think the kitchen was more than about 30C, but having the cooler air, and the humidity removed gave me a new lease of life. So I washed vegetables and fruit and chopped them and prepared food for an hour or two, feeling much more energetic than I had expected. I cleaned the kitchen too, fairly thoroughly, and emptied the dishwasher which went on after lunch, and FINALLY got into the shower around 5.00pm.

By then it was a little cooler, and I'd switched off the kitchen a/c. Our friends arrived with Richard shortly after 6.00 and we ate our meal by open windows with the ceiling fan on, and it didn't feel too hot at all. When we went to bed we ran the bedroom a/c for a couple of hours, as it gets humid in the evenings, but I slept just fine, and at 5.30am when I woke this morning it was still a little cooler out than in.

But I had a feeling it was going to be hot today. The prediction was for 33C in the shade. So I put away the laundry, and even did a little ironing, and emptied the dishwasher, and made orange juice, and froze 2.5kg tomatoes in a-little-over-400g pots, all before 8.00.

At 8.30, even having just had my shower, I felt rather over-warm. I checked the weather forecast, and it told me that it was already 32C. So I turned on my study air conditioner, and will probably leave it on for most of the day. Running it at 28 isn't very expensive, and is amazingly effective. I am very, very thankful for air conditioning.

So, summer is here, and will probably stay here for at least three more months.

A few busy days

I keep an ongoing online 'to-do' list attached to my gmail account, which includes both the important (such as bill-paying) and the trivial (such as mopping the floor); I can schedule things ahead or list tasks to do each day. I'm not actually very organised, naturally, but keeping a list that pops up every time I open my email is quite constructive. I usually have several things hanging over from previous days - if I don't re-schedule them - and find it oddly satisfying to check things off and then clear them from the lists.

On Thursday night, I actually got to the end of the things I'd planned to do for Thursday and the previous days. I was rather pleased with myself.

On Friday, Richard and I had planned to go by car to the Froutaria - it's only five minutes' walk away, but I wanted a kilo or so of lemons (for lemonade), two or three kilos of apricots (to make jam), a couple of kilos of tomatoes (to chop and freeze), some potatoes and sweet potatoes, apples, oranges... and I know from experience that there are often some irresistible bargains in the 'pink bag' aisle where produce is reduced. No way could I carry all that - and more - home on foot in one trip. Particularly as I would also need to buy two or three kilos of sugar (there are some other groceries available in the froutaria - it's not just fruit and veg). I wanted to make the year's supply of apricot jam as well as a new batch of lemonade and since I had nothing else planned on Friday, thought I would do it then. Apricots are plentiful and have come right down in price, but I don't want to wait any longer since the weather is getting hotter and stickier.

Thursday night, I didn't sleep all that well and for some reason woke about 4.30am. I couldn't get back to sleep so at 5.30 I got up. I had some coffee, and read for a while, then thought about doing my usual early morning mop of steps (inside and out) when I had a strong urge to switch on the computer.

I thought I would probably get distracted but decided I'd read email and Facebook for twenty minutes, and then get on with the mopping.

I found a long email from my friend Sheila who lives around the corner and who was expecting her sixth baby any day. About half way through the email, I did a double-take. She said that she had resumed writing in the middle of the night because her waters had broken... and then the next few sentences were punctuated with contractions at decreasing intervals. Since I was on call, day or night, to look after her three daughters during the birth (which was planned to be at home - unusual but not illegal in Cyprus) I rushed upstairs to take my shower and get dressed, mentioning to a rather sleepy Richard that I might get a phone call any minute.

Sure enough, Sheila phoned. So I walked to their house, collected the girls around the same time as another friend collected the two boys, gave Sheila a hug, and brought the girls back here. They were equipped to stay overnight if necessary, but I didn't think that was very likely since the contractions were about every two minutes by that point....

It was around 7.15am by the time we got back here. I hadn't even had breakfast. For the next three hours I sat on the floor and played lego, printed pictures for Katie (nearly 5) to colour, answered continual questions from her, produced bananas and cereal at random intervals for Helen (21 months) ... and realised that I am actually rather older than I was when I had my own two sons at that age. Sigh. I did remember to put bread ingredients in the breadmaker but nothing else remotely domestic.

At 10am Sheila phoned... and said the baby had arrived nearly two hours earlier! The midwife only got there just in time to catch the baby girl, who did not yet have a name. So we went over to see them :-)


I took some photos for them, and they asked me to stick around for a while... after about half an hour the two little girls were getting increasingly hyper and excited so I suggested I might take them for a walk for an hour or so.


Twenty minutes on the local swings was easy for me, but then we walked to the nearby nature trail which was hard going pushing a buggy... and Helen fell asleep within about five minutes so she couldn't get out and walk. And Katie talked non-stop...

We got back, hot and very thirsty (having forgotten to take water) by about 12.15 and I left half an hour later, so I could get lunch ready. Thankfully Daniel and Becky saw how tired and hot I was, and did that for me.

In the afternoon, we drove to the Froutaria to do the shopping I'd planned for the morning. We bought so much that we had to use a trolley - for the first time since we moved here! - and I was very glad we took the car. When we got home, we chatted for a while to some friends whose daughter was practising on Daniel's drums.

Then we had to go out to choose a gift for a family who are leaving soon, and I wanted to get something for the new baby too (I couldn't get it in advance as we didn't know the gender). The first was relatively easy... but finding a baby gift is not so easy in Larnaka. Richard wanted to do something at the marina so dropped me in the town centre for an hour... and I went into dozens of shops, with no luck. Eventually we met up around 5pm and drove to a bigger shop and managed to find something we liked there.

Dan and Becky cooked us a potato curry in the evening, and even cleared up, which was wonderful. Then we played a board game, and then Richard and I called in to see Sheila and the baby, as she'd texted to see if we could go over... and it was 11pm before I was in bed. Which is late for me.

And for some reason I didn't get to sleep for ages despite being exhausted. And woke at 5.30 on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, although I was tired and a little brain-fogged, I didn't have a headache. Dan and Becky spent the day in Troodos helping to put tents up at the camp-site, and Richard was working on King Malu. So I had the day to myself. Since it's getting warmer, things seem to take longer; I had to pop to the local supermarket for cheese and milk and a few other bits and pieces, and I also made the planned lemonade/cordial/squash since by then we had completely run out. I also made some more almond milk... Richard's trying to go dairy-free.

In the afternoon I made 12 jars of apricot jam, and also sorted out some photos to upload. Then I blanched, skinned, chopped and froze a couple of kilos of tomatoes, and also chopped and froze about 800g mushrooms which had been on special offer at the Froutaria. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it took most of the afternoon.

I was asleep by about 10pm and slept until nearly 6am, which is a huge improvement... but I woke with a nasty headache. I decided not to go to church, knowing I had to spend yet more time in the kitchen. At lunch-time we were going to the farewell meal for some friends, and I'd been asked to take a couple of desserts. I'd thought about something baked, but realised I could throw together some store-cupboard cold desserts and not use the oven. We also have our friends (the ones with the new baby...) over tonight for a shared cold meal, so I needed to make bread and desserts for that too.

So I made some jellies and banoffi pies, and the breadmaker made a couple of loaves of bread. I cleared up the kitchen and mopped everywhere since it hadn't been done for a couple of days.

We were out for about two hours at the lunch-time get-together, and enjoyed good food and catching up with various friends - although of course we're sorry to say goodbye to yet another family who are leaving Cyprus. It happens all too often.

And now I'm sitting down for half an hour; I even switched on the air conditioner in the study, as it's quite sticky today. All I need to do now is empty all the bins (since the dustmen come Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in our area) and set the table for eleven.

Perhaps I'll get time to work on my websites or do some writing tomorrow...

August rushes by in Cyprus

Due to the surprising popularity of my 'photo clues' in a post a couple of weeks ago, I offer another guided tour of selected parts of our house, with a different set of clues to a considerably more pleasant event.

Let me take you first into our dining room where, in a biscuit tin which has set empty for some months, there are now some Bourbon biscuits... or Bourbon clones, anyway. No dairy products in the ingredients.


Moving into the kitchen, and a rare glimpse inside the cereal cabinet: on the right, my usual muesli. Next to it, two items that have not been in the house since April: almond milk, and a large box of Weetabix:


If I quickly open the fridge (not too long, since the weather is still very warm in Cyprus) you might notice another package of almond milk, some pineapple juice, and a partly-empty bottle of home-made lemonade:


On the other side of the kitchen, the cupboard with walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds and so on has an extra addition: a jar of salted cashews:


Back to the dining room, and a clue that would confuse the issue for a lot of people: an almost complete set of Chalet School books by Elinor M Brent-Dyer nestling in our fiction shelves between the Binchys and the Boyds on one side, the Brontës and the Browns on the other:


Now into the living room, where, in front of the television, is a DVD with the last four episodes of the final season of 'Quantum Leap':


And the digital piano, which has lain quiet and uncluttered since April, now has various pieces of music on it, not to mention an empty glass:


Those who knows us well will, of course, realise that all this means that our younger son Tim is home, after completing his first year at Newman University in the UK. We have missed him enormously, and yet in some senses the time seems to have raced by.

Why all the extra items around the house?

Well, we don't usually bother with biscuits when Tim isn't here. There is generally an unopened packet or two in the cupboard, either given as a gift or bought on special offer. But we don't get around to opening them unless we have visitors. The same is true of pineapple juice. I usually have at least one carton in the cupboard, but we're more likely to open an orange or apple juice if we feel like packet juice. I mostly drink water anyway. And squeeze fresh juice every morning. As for salted cashews, they're very moreish and we all like them. But we really don't need the extra calories so I don't usually buy them.

Neither of us eats Weetabix or uses almond milk, but as Tim is dairy-free, that's his regular breakfast. And while I do make lemonade during the winter and spring, lemons are not in season now, so I hadn't made any for a couple of months. But last Friday I saw some quite nice looking lemons, imported from Argentina. They were rather more expensive than Cyprus lemons, and I don't usually buy fruit from so far away... but in Tim's honour, I did make one batch. About three and a half litres. Richard enjoys it too... but I continue to drink mostly water.

The music on the piano is self-explanatory. Tim is our pianist, and chose this digital piano about six months after we moved to this house. Yesterday afternoon he had several of his youth group friends over to try out music for the youth group variety night on Saturday evening. The empty glass was probably left by one of them... I found several glasses and an empty water jug on the table after they had left. Teenagers in Cyprus seem to drink a lot of water.

Quantum Leap? I used to love the series when it was on television, many years ago. When it was closed down, I stopped watching TV altogether. There wasn't anything else that interested me. So I was very pleased when I discovered that Quantum Leap was available on DVD. Over a few years, I bought or was given the five series that were broadcast. Before Tim went away, we watched one or two episodes most weeks as a family.

When he left, we had most of series four and all of series five left to watch. We did see most of them. But decided to leave the last three for Tim's return. We forgot all about them at Easter, but on Monday evening this week, we decided to watch one of them. Leaving the DVD out should - we hope - remind us to see the others too while he's here.

Oh, and the Chalet School books.

I've been reading that series since I was a teenager. I had about thirty of them mostly in paperback, which I had collected from charity shops in the UK. Two of my friends here (one aged 11, the other 70...) borrow them regularly. My mother had the whole series in the UK, with a fair number in hardback. When she moved to her current house, she asked if I would like them. But since there was no way of getting them here, they went temporarily to my sister's house, where they sat in a box in her guest room for a few years. And we kept forgetting about them.

Finally we arranged for my sister to take them to my mother's house, where Tim lives in the UK. I asked Tim if he would bring three or four of the earlier ones which I didn't have... and somehow he managed to fit about thirty of them in his case. Tim has also read the series many times, and - to my amazement - managed to remember which ones we had, and to bring all the others. Plus a couple in hardback which we only had in paperback.

I shall probably re-read them in the next few years, and I'm sure my two local friends will too.

As for Tim: he arrived - earlier than scheduled! - on Sunday evening. On Monday, he slept late, played 'Risk' in the afternoon with the children of some local friends. In the evening we watched the QL episode mentioned above. On Tuesday, he relaxed and read most of the day, and we went to play Settlers of Catan with local friends in the evening. Yesterday he went to visit the local inter-church holiday club for an hour or so in the morning, then worked on music, and had his friends over in the afternoon. Then while Richard and I went to the beach to meet the Cyprus home educators' group, Tim went to a leaders' meeting to plan for next week's youth group camp in Troodos.

So three days have raced past. Today we have nothing planned; Tim is reading and doing things on his computer: