Further restrictions in Cyprus

It's only a week since I wrote about some new restrictions in Cyprus, until the end of the month.  The only one that affected me was that shops would only serve those who were vulnerable and/or over 65 from opening time until 9.00am. And that masks are required outside as well as in public places, other than when exercising, or in quiet street with nobody else around. 

Sadly, it hasn't made any difference to the number of new cases being diagnosed daily. Here's the Worldometer graph that's now showing:

There was a shocking peak of over 300 one day last week, although thankfully that has not been repeated. But the numbers in hospitals are high, and yesterday four more people died. The hospitals are not able to cope with many more admissions; this is a small country. So on Monday the epidemiologists and other advisors met, and last night there was a meeting to determine exactly what new restrictions would be in place.

We were more-or-less prepared for another lockdown, although we didn't expect it to be as strict as the one that started at the end of March. More is known about the virus, and it was fairly certain that schools would not close. I didn't expect to go back to the SMS system of needing authorisation to leave the house, either.

So last night, around 8.30, I kept checking the various local news sites. I was most hopeful about Kathemerini, a Greek site which seems to get the news more quickly than any of the others. And, indeed, it did. It gave a live stream of the Cypriot President giving a speech asking people to follow the new regulations, and then one of the Health Minister explaining what the new rules are. The Greek was much too rapid for me to understand more than about one word in five, but text was being updated every minute or so as he spoke, and I right-clicked 'Translate to English' to find out what we would be facing.

It turns out that, other than for folk in Limassol and Paphos, not a great deal has changed. The measures from a week ago are still in place, and will remain so until the end of the month. There are some additional rules: no visits to nursing homes or other high-risk areas; the shopping time for the vulnerable and over-65s is extended by an hour. But we can still meet in private homes or outside in groups of up to ten people, which is the most significant thing for us at present. 

However, as the article (and others linked below) points out, Limassol and Paphos have had around 70% of the new cases in the past couple of weeks (compared to 28% in the Spring), and have also had around 70% of hospital admissions currently.  Seven out of eight of the people who have died with Coronavirus in the past week are residents of either Limassol or Paphos. So there are gong to be much stricter measures in those two districts, starting today. 

For one thing, movement is going to be restricted, to ensure that nobody can get in or out of Limassol or Paphos, other than for essential work (health care, mainly) or going to/from an airport. For another, they are having a full curfew from 8pm to 5am (it's 11pm to 5am in the rest of Cyprus). 

Also the universities and lycaeums (schools for age 15-18) in Limassol and Paphos are closing, with online learning only, and various activities are cancelled.  Many businesses are closed too. Shopping malls are shut, and outside groups of more than two are not allowed. However, surprisingly, up to ten people at a time are still allowed to meet in homes in those towns too. 

I was mildly amused at the auto-translation of the notification that churches are closed in Limassol and Paphos: 

"Ecclesiastical and other forms of religious worship in religious places are performed without the presence of believers."

Today there was a summary (in English) on the Cyprus Mail website although I don't think it's particularly helpful to use the word 'Draconian' in the description of the not-quite-lockdown for Limassol and Paphos. It is, after all, nowhere near as severe as the restrictions during April.  

However the best place to look for all the details is the press release on the PIO site.  I checked, out of interest, and the phrase about church services in Limassol and Paphos states:

"Church services and other forms of religious worship in religious places take place without a congregation present."

Which is how we had understood the odd auto-translation above. While this still sounds a bit strange to those of us of Protestant backgrounds, it's important, as I understand it, for the Greek Orthodox priests to say/sing their liturgy in their church buildings on Sundays and other special occasions, but it doesn't matter so much whether anyone else is there. The Protestant churches will have to return to live-streaming, probably from their homes. Or maybe from their church buildings, if they are able to do so without any congregation present. 

So Cyprus has essentially introduced a 'tier' system, a little like those which the UK and various other countries have adopted, although it hasn't been officially described as such. But I assume that, if cases start to get worse in Larnaka, we too are likely to have these stricter measures implemented. 

We just hope and pray that numbers will reduce, here and elsewhere, and that the hospitals will cope. There are more effective treatments now available, as the virus is better understood, but all over Europe and the United States people are still dying, more than did back in the spring when some of the treatment was guesswork. 

After the first week of relaxed regulations

Living in Cyprus, where the infection rate is low and where we don't personally know anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the situation still feels almost surreal at times. We read news sites, both local and international, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who have died.  But when we come across people who don't believe it's nearly as bad as reported, we can almost understand why they feel this way.  For most, the disease is mild. Many are exposed but don't catch it. Every day the Cyprus papers report hundreds of tests of known contacts, yet only a handful test positive.

Since I last wrote, we celebrated Greek Easter, albeit in a somewhat subdued way.  On Greek Good Friday (April 17th) I made hot cross buns for the first time in many years. Half a recipe was sufficient to make eight, and while they weren't very beautiful, they tasted good on Good Friday and Easter Saturday:

For Easter Sunday, we decided to have a proper roast lunch.  We almost always have a cooked meal at lunch-time on Sunday, although for the rest of the week I cook in the evening. But we don't usually bother with a roast chicken.  However, I made an expedition - using up my one authorised absence from home for the day - to the supermarket around the corner on Easter Saturday, to buy a chicken.

I also made cranberry sauce, as we had frozen some cranberries left from Christmas, roast potatoes and three kinds of vegetable.

Last year we bought some silicon moulds for chocolates, and I filled them in two different ways, wanting to make an equivalent of creme eggs that were dairy-free.  This year I simply made a dairy-free coconut mixture, something like the middle of a Bounty chocolate bar, and filled a variety of chocolates with that. They worked very well.

Of course, since we couldn't share either the lunch or the chocolates with anyone else, they lasted us a long time.  We had cold chicken on the Tuesday, fajitas on the Wednesday, and still froze some more for future pies. The chocolates lasted us all week.

I celebrated a milestone birthday that week, too.  I made a carrot cake, and for the evening spanokopita, my favourite food (dairy-free versions of both). We were eating them for several days, as we had nobody to share them with. In the evening, we went out for a walk. It was a very low-key birthday. I'm not sure what we'd have done if we had not been in lockdown; we hadn't made any plans. Just as well, really.

I mentioned in my last blog post that we were running low on cat litter.  But we had sufficient for the Easter weekend, even though it makes me a little anxious when we're close to the end of something. I usually buy new cat litter when we are down to our last couple of bags.  Instead, we almost reached the end by the time we went out shopping together, with the car, for the first time in over five weeks.  We did remember in time that Friday May 1st was a public holiday, so we went the day before.

To make it worthwhile both getting authorisation for shopping, we went to three shops (and the Post Office before that).  The first one was the shop we call the Nut Warehouse, where usually we can select different kinds of nuts to put in paper bags, though seeds and dried fruit come ready-packaged.

This time, however, even almonds and walnuts were pre-bagged.  The staff were wearing masks, but as there were no other customers we both went in.  When we got home, knowing that the coronavirus lasts less than 24 hours at around 20 degrees, but potentially up to two weeks in the fridge, I spread our purchases out on the work surface and left them until the following day:

Not that there have been any recorded cases of people becoming infected through stray viruses left on packaging, but it seemed safer not to refrigerated anything, even though it had all been at room temperature in the shop probably for at least a day or two already.

We went to Metro too; since they were counting people in and out, Richard stayed in the car and I went in. Someone waved a thermometer at my forehead, and told me to sanitise my hands and put on plastic gloves, People were pretty good about social distancing, and since they were limiting customers, it wasn't crowded. I bought four bags of cat litter and a few other bits and pieces that we were running low on.  We also went to the froutaria together, for a change.

When we got home, I noticed our glass recycling, which we'd forgotten to put in the car.  This is what six weeks of glass looks like for us:

One empty Marmite, two small instant coffee jars, one honey jar, one jam, a mayonnaise, and a few others.   We'll take them next time we venture to Metro.

May Day was inevitably muted; the government was wise to extend the full lockdown until the following Monday, rather than relaxing regulations on May 1st, as it would have been difficult for people not to want to march and congregate.

But on May 4th, since the statistics were pretty good, the first phase of relaxation began.  During lockdown, we were supposed to stay at home unless we had to get out for essential reasons (which included exercise) and could only go out once per day, sending a coded text message to get authorisation.  Now we can go out three times per day, and are no longer limited to 'essential' outings.  The construction industry has started up again, and many shops have opened.  We're no longer limited to exercising within a kilometre of our house, though we must stay in our district. And it's permitted for two unrelated people to exercise together, so long as they observe social distancing.

What a difference it makes to be allowed out three times per day!  I had not been out for any early morning walks for six weeks, not wanting to use up my one chance of getting out of the house in cases I needed to shop later, or go out for a walk with Richard.

So on May 4th I went out for a local walk on my own, just because I could, first thing. And in the evening we went down to the marina for the first time in six weeks.  It's about a kilometre and a half away, and certainly not 'essential'.  Richard was worried that there would be a lot of growth around the sides of the boat, but was pleased to find that it wasn't too bad at all.  He opened her up for a bit of fresh air, and emptied out the dehumidifier, but it wasn't overflowing.

It was strange seeing Europe Square, opposite the marina, almost deserted:

On Tuesday, since two unrelated people can now exercise together, I resumed walking with my friend Sheila.

We weren't sure about the Salt Lake trail, as it's only about 1.8 metres wide, but mostly we walked on either side, or one of us was slightly in front of the other.  Perhaps we weren't always quite 2 metres apart, but we observed the social distancing principles, and when both facing forward and walking it would be almost impossible for a virus to be transferred if one of us happened to be infectious.

Then on Wednesday evening, Richard and I went for a short walk along a part of the trail, so - for once - I saw the Salt Lake at sunset:

We still can't have any gatherings in our house, or go to anyone else's home. Not that our neighbours seem to be taking this too seriously, but they have many fewer visitors than they used to. Richard can't take his boat out for a sail, though he hopes to do some work on her in the next week.

If all is well, the next phase of the relaxation will start on May 21st, and he'll be able to sail then. We'll also be able to gather in groups of up to ten people, and are very much looking forward to doing so.  Yesterday there were only two new cases of covid-19 in Cyprus, and today only one new case.

This is very encouraging;  with six days of relaxed regulations, a spike was expected.  That may still happen next week, but figures suggest that the virus is almost entirely gone from the community.  There are still around 400 active cases, around ten of them serious, but extensive testing is not revealing widespread infection. Early lockdown with rigorous tracing, isolating and testing seems to be a good method of combating this horrible thing.

So life plods on.  We're still playing Settlers of Catan by a Zoom online meeting with our friends one evening per week. Richard is still recording (again via Zoom) and uploading services for St Helena's Church to premiere on Sunday mornings. 

But, all being well, we're hopeful of resuming something closer to normality within the next couple of weeks. 

The middle of April, still under Covid-19 lockdown in Cyprus

Two weeks ago, the last time I posted, we hoped that the lockdown in Cyprus would prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and that the island might start to open up again on April 13th, as was first proposed.

It was no surprise, however, that this didn't happen.  Instead, the lockdown was extended until April 30th. And most recent news reports suggest that it might continue beyond that, with a few changes starting to happen mid-May.  That's another month. I like being at home, and my own company. But I'm finding it increasingly stressful, not being able to go out any time I wish, not seeing friends, not going for early morning walks. For those more active and extraverted than I am, it's extremely frustrating.

So we take one day at a time.  We try to stick to our normal daily routines as far as possible, eating regular meals, taking showers and getting dressed at the usual times.  I've been waking up around 6.30-7.00am most days. I have taken the opportunity to do a bit of watering and weeding amongst the plants in our side garden and front patio.  The herb planter has survived this winter much better than it did last year.  The basil and oregano died off, but the rosemary and aloe vera are still thriving, and the mint is threatening to take over entirely:

I was also pleased to see that a plant given to me by our younger son a year ago has not just survived, but is about to start flowering again:

After doing a bit of gardening each morning, I walk up and down around the side garden until I've done around 1000 steps. A very small amount, but at least I start the day with some fresh air and a tiny bit of exercise, without having to get permission to go out.

We've been out for a few walks in the evenings.  We have to ensure we stay within about a kilometre of our house, but that still gives scope for a fair bit of walking. We haven't been every day; sometimes it rained, sometimes Richard was too busy, sometimes we just didn't feel any inclination.  On Fridays I use up my once-a-day permission going to the local shops.

A few days ago when we set off to walk we realised that our white-and-brown cat Alex was accompanying us:

He used to do that when I went for early walks, until we shut the cats in the kitchen area overnight.  This is the first time he's done this in a long time.  So we walked around our block, Alex trotting with us all the way. When we got home again, we took him inside, and then went on our longer walk.  We did wonder what would happen if we put a collar and lead on him; Alex has a few dog-like tendencies. But we really don't want him to learn about routes that go further from home than he goes already, and suspect, in any case, that he would hate it.

Alex has not been so popular with either of us on three occasions in the past week, including this morning, when he caught a bird out on the balcony at the top of the house, then took it into Richard's study to eat.  It always leaves a terrible mess of feathers and worse.  He's caught birds on occasion before, but never quite so many in a short period of time.

I have continued going to the local fruit shop on Friday afternoons, as described in the post a couple of weeks ago.  The second time, on April 3rd, my experience was very similar.  I returned home with around 15kg fruit and veg, hoping I was not infected with anything as social distancing wasn't enforced, although most people were being careful. There were rubber gloves and open doors. Nobody was coughing.

Last Friday we needed a few extra things in addition to fresh fruit and veg:  grape juice, sugar, coconut milk, chocolate chips, matches.  Perhaps they weren't 'essential' in the way that fruit and veg are; I could make coconut milk with desiccated coconut again, Richard could drink water instead of diluted juice; we could not have any chocolate mug cakes on Sundays.  But they seemed important enough to me that I went to the mini-market opposite the fruitaria first. I did also buy some extra cat food, which is certainly essential in our household.

My trolley wasn't big enough for everything so I carried two bags back over my shoulders in addition, and this is what I unpacked:

I wiped down all the tetrapacks with kitchen roll and liquid soap, just in case they were infected. But didn't want to do that with the sugar, which is just in a paper pack.  So I put it in the back of the cupboard. We still have some open sugar, so by the time I start this one any viruses should have vanished.

It's not supposed to be possible to catch the virus from actually eating anything, but I still separated the new fruit and from the few that were left from the previous week:

(If that looks like a pitiful amount of fruit for two people for a week, I should add that there were also about 24 oranges and 500g strawberries which went straight in the fridge).

Unlike many of my online friends, I haven't done lots of extra baking in the past few weeks. I've made bread with the breadmaker, of course, and Richard makes a chocolate mug cake to share each Sunday after lunch.  But we've felt the need for extra sweet stuff. The first week, I had found a pack of Lidl chocolate biscuits at the back of a cupboard, well past their sell-by date, but still in good condition. So we ate those over the course of that week.

Then I decided to bake a coconut-chocolate thing that's very quick and easy:  just sugar, eggs and coconut on a chocolate base.  Except that we were a bit low on eggs, so I decided to use a substitute and thought a chia egg would work. It looked a bit odd - almost like the inside of a dragonfruit - but tasted just the same as the usual recipe, and, if anything, held together better.

When we had finished that, I decided to try our family favourite one-bowl brownie recipe.  When our son makes it, it's always perfect.  I did substitute three tablespoons of aquafaba for one of the eggs, but basically followed the same directions.... and failed. At least, I failed in making brownies.  Straight out of the oven, it was messy and gooey (albeit tasty).  But after a night in the fridge, it  turned into delicious brownie-flavoured fudge.

As for communication with others, it's been limited to online. We've had some lovely Whatsapp video chats with our grandchildren, and an enjoyable Zoom family meeting last weekend for a birthday.  Since none of us would have been together even without the lockdown, it's one small benefit, I suppose, that we've made the effort to connect the family this way.  I hope that will continue.

We've had Zoom meetings, too, of some of the St Helena's church congregation after (or before, last Sunday) the online services which Richard has recorded remotely, edited and uploaded.  And despite my being an Introvert, I find these online chats encouraging and even energising.

We've played a few games online, too. My friend Sheila and her daughters usually come over on Tuesday mornings to play board games. We can no longer do that, so we've managed to play 'One Word' and also 'Taboo' via Facebook messenger:

We had a family game of 'Drawful' one night, with our sons and daughter-in-law.  It's a short game, and perhaps a tad silly, but very enjoyable nonetheless.  It worked very well in three different locations.

Naturally we also played Settlers of Catan with our local friends which worked well by Zoom.

We did a five-player version with our sons, although it was a bit slow-going. Then last week, Alex tried to stop us.  We call this picture 'Cat-on':

Zoom allows one camera to show the board, and the other to show us so we can chat while playing. Much easier than when we first thought started playing Settlers via Skype with our younger son nearly ten years ago.

So three weeks have passed. In addition to a bit of cleaning, regular cooking and laundry etc, I have read books and written reviews, scanned slides, posted on help forums, updated the St Helena's website, and spent far too much time reading online news updates.  They are mostly very depressing. So many people have lost loved ones. Many more are struggling for their lives, without even being able to have their loved ones at their sides. We may be a bit frustrated here, but we are safe and healthy, at least so far. 

By the end of yesterday, Cyprus had 695 people who have tested positive to Covid-19,  and twelve people who have died of it.  The government has opted for extensive testing, tracking down every contact of everyone who tests positive, so many are found who are asymptomatic. Numbers are not increasing significantly, but they're not yet decreasing either.

Not knowing much about the illness makes it worse.  We know that people with underlying health conditions, or who smoke, are more likely to have it more seriously than those who are fit and healthy.  We also know that older people are more likely to have it badly than younger people.  But there are exceptions, and some young, apparently healthy people have died through complications.

Are there people who are naturally immune? It would seem likely, as many who come into contact with affected people do not test positive. In countries where there is limited testing, it's possible that contacts had the illness asymptomatically. But that's not the case here, where every possible contact of affected people, all hospital workers and most other frontline workers have been tested.  Does virus load make a difference?  Probably.  Hence the importance of self-isolating as far as possible.

So we wash our hands a lot, and keep away from everyone, giving a wide berth if we're out for a walk and meet anyone.  We eat plenty of fruit and veg in the hope of staying healthy. We also eat the extra cakes and chocolate to reduce stress (at least, that's the theory).  We've heard all kinds of speculations about possible drugs or other things that can help, many of them either untrue, or exaggerated, or potentially dangerous. Most are not available over the counter anyway.  But we do take extra Vitamin C and try to get a bit of sunshine each day for Vitamin D. If we feel any hint of cough or sore throat, we take manuka honey, which has some anti-viral properties. Perhaps these things don't make any difference, but they're unlikely to do any harm.

In the next week we really need to visit our PO Box; we're not sure quite what category of authorisation that falls under. But we might combine it with a visit to a supermarket, which will become necessary soon as our supply of cat litter is running low. It will probably be the highlight of the week. 

A week of lockdown in Cyprus

As I said in the last post, from 6.00pm a week ago, Cyprus has been in 'lock down' mode. We aren't just advised to stay at home, we are required to do so by law, unless we have an acceptable reason for going out. And when we need to go out, we either send a mobile text message, or fill in a form (printed or hand-written) stating the reason. At least, that was the case until today; now anyone under 65 must request authorisation by SMS, and we can only go out once a day at most (other than for urgent medical problems, or to walk a dog).

There are those who find this extremely irritating, or even an infringement of liberty. Every day in the past week, the police have booked over 100 people around the island, either on foot or in a car, flouting the rules. Last night there were reported to be around 300 violations. It's not stated whether they didn't have the right documentation, or were in groups bigger than two people, or had been out too long, or something else. But each time someone is booked, they are either fined 150 euros on the spot. or taken to court.  I assume the latter is for the more dangerous violations, or perhaps for resisting the police. From today, that fine has doubled.

For us, while of course we don't LIKE being stuck at home without seeing anyone else, it seems like an acceptable way of trying to fight this awful pandemic. Cyprus is still seeing 10-20 new cases each day, and seven people in the main part of the island have died so far.  Possibly one of them, who was already ill, might have died anyway; but at least one was otherwise fit and healthy with no prior conditions.  The fewer people everyone sees, the easier it is to track contacts when someone is diagnosed with the virus, and - hopefully - the quicker it will be stopped.

Wednesday felt a bit strange. My phone alerted me to the monthly church book sale, which was, of course, cancelled. I was watching the news, and the worldometers site too closely - but fortunately for me, I had a project: to check continuity and proof-read a novel which my father has been writing and tweaking for at least five years. We decided at the end of last week to go ahead and self-publish it via Amazon KDP.  The title is 'The Finneal Solution'.

It was helpful having something specific to focus on for a few hours each day - and as of a couple of days ago, the novel is online, available for purchase.  Unfortunately, with postal restrictions and delays, the paperback edition won't be delivered for weeks.  So we've made the novel free in its Kindle version, until the end of this week. (If you try to download it, and your Kindle is registered to a different country, you should be able to find it, using the same code, at any of the other Amazon sites). 

On both Tuesday and Wednesday evening, we couldn't really concentrate on anything. The pandemic keeps spreading. We can pray, and we can self-isolate, but there's nothing else we can do to help.  However, I realised, as the week progressed, that I actually felt less anxious than I was the previous week. We knew a full lockdown was possible, maybe imminent; but we didn't know when it would happen, or what it would involve. But now we know. We can no longer decide whether or not to see anyone else - it's forbidden.

On Thursday night we decided to play a two-person came of Cities and Knights, for the first time in many months.  Usually our closest friends here come over to play the game with us - usually on Wednesday nights, but sometimes Thursdays.  We also play it with them every other Sunday. But that won't be happening for a while.

Alexander the Great was surprisingly disturbed. Instead of settling in the box lid, as he usually does, or even walking over the game to get our attention, he kept nuzzling the chair that Richard usually sits on to play the game, and mewing. It appeared that he was telling us we should wait for our friends...

One of the regulations which has been in force for a couple of weeks now is that supermarkets and other food stores are open only for over-60s and other vulnerable people between the hours of 6.00am-10.00am.  I won't be sixty for another few weeks, so although I prefer to buy fruit and vegetables at the fruitaria when it opens around 6.00am, I went at around 6.00pm on the Monday, before the lockdown, to make sure we had sufficient produce for the week.

I had hoped to wait until yesterday before going again, but by Friday it was clear that we were running low on fruit. It's important to stay as healthy as possible during this crisis, and to build up our immune system as far as possible. We've both had colds which seemed to be lingering, though not serious. We've been taking extra Vitamin C, and a little Manuka honey to ease sore throats.  But I didn't want to run out of fruit.

So on Friday, feeling oddly nervous, I sent a text message in the required format to the number given in the online press, and received a reply within a couple of seconds, telling me I was authorised to go out for a reasonable time. So I took my shopping trolley and ventured out.

Here's some of what I wrote on Facebook after the event:

The streets were pretty quiet as I walked there with my shopping trolley although there were a few people zooming up and down on motorbikes. At the fruitaria, which is about 500m from our house, there were disposable gloves by the door, but nobody enforcing them, nor checking my age, or ID, or stopping me going in.

It wasn't very crowded, so I'm sure there weren't more people there than there should have been, but nobody seemed to be practising social distancing... Nobody was coughing or sneezing, so I guess there's no problem but it felt a bit disturbing.

When I got home (with no spot check from the police) I looked at my receipt out of curiosity, as local delivery folk charge per 4kg of produce (I believe).  Apparently I bought around 15kg fruit and veg (at a cost of about 18 euros in total). We have plenty of other groceries in the cupboard and freezer, so all we need is fresh produce.

It occurred to me after writing this that 15kg fruit and veg sounded like quite a lot for two people for one week.  Then I remembered that 7kg of that was the oranges which I use to squeeze fresh juice each morning;  from about a kilogram of oranges we get around 400-500ml juice.  So in fact it's only about eight kilograms of fruit and veg for the two of us, or a little over 500g each per day (plus the juice). And that sounds like not much at all... according to the BBC site, 400g is the absolute minimum anyone should have each day. We're over that - but not much. 

But that's a digression. I expect to go to the fruitaria again on Thursday or Friday this week, but hope not to have to do any other shopping for the next couple of weeks. I know some people like to shop more often, and some don't have the funds to do a big shop once a month, but we're in the fortunate position of being able to - and we went a little more often right before the lock-down, to make sure we had plenty of crucial things like cat food and cat litter!  We had also visited the nut warehouse to stock up on nuts a couple of weeks earlier than we needed to. 

As well as his regular work, and doing the cover design and layout for my father's novel, Richard was working with St Helena's Church staff to try to arrange a live streaming from their house, since we're not supposed to go out or meet other people, even in a church building.  He tried various things, and hoped to make it work - unfortunately, this morning, it didn't upload properly. He was using a Skype link to the vicarage, and trying to livestream at the same time; we have quite a lot of bandwidth in our contract, and he used data on his phone too, but it wasn't good enough.  So, an hour later, they did the service again (about twenty minutes, all spoken) which he recorded, and then uploaded later.

So although the lockdown didn't actually come into force until a week ago this evening, by the end of Sunday it felt as if we had come to the end of the first week, and it had been fairly constructive.

Monday morning did not feel so positive. I don't have the same need of socialising as Richard does, but even I was beginning to wonder when this will all end. We have a lot to be thankful for, I know; we're safe and healthy in a spacious and comfortable house, we have good Internet connections with family and friends even if we can't see them for the foreseeable future.  Video chatting with our grandchildren most days, even for a few minutes, lifts the mood a little. And we have each other. It's much more difficult for those who live alone, or who are vulnerable and cannot get out, even for half an hour, to buy groceries.

But still. Cabin fever is setting in. 

Cyprus goes into lockdown...

When I wrote the last post, things were basically okay. We could see a limited number of people, we were washing our hands regularly and mostly staying at home, but it was fine to go out for walks with family or friends.

On Sunday, we drove to the St Helena's Church building so that Richard could live-stream a short service. There were only four of us there, keeping our distance from each other, and although there was a problem with the sound, it went well and people seemed to appreciate it. We hoped to repeat the exercise next Sunday.

In the afternoon, our closest friends came over for a game, a film for the children, and a shared meal.  This has happened every other Sunday afternoon for years; I wondered if it would be the last one for a while.  At 7.00pm we lit a candle in the window, in solidarity with family and friends in the UK (and many in Cyprus) doing the same thing, to indicate that we were praying about the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a little precarious, so we couldn't leave it there once we left the room.  After our friends had gone home, we went out for a walk, along the deserted sea front where we saw a handful of people and cars. We were rather concerned at the number of teenagers and young adults who seemed to be hanging out together, laughing and chatting and not even moving aside to pass in the street.

So it was no surprise, really, when yesterday evening the President announced that Cyprus was going into lockdown mode for three weeks from today at 6.00pm.  It wasn't immediately clear what this meant, but the article kept being updated.  We can no longer go out for walks or to each other's houses; the parks and beaches and other public areas outside will be closed down.

Apparently, over the weekend, groups of young people and families had been out socialising, disregarding all advice.  Not just in twos and threes for exercise, but in large groups.  This kind of thing potentially spreads the virus easily, and makes it much harder to trace all contacts if someone does contract it.

It didn't help that there were 21 new cases of the disease in Cyprus on Monday; over double the number reported on Sunday.  It's a small island, and the government wants to stop this thing so that, at least internally, we can go back to some measure of normality.

So this morning my friend Sheila and I went out for our last walk for three weeks.  We thought about it as we went into the Salt Lake Park, which will be closed from tonight onwards:

We thought about it as we wondered whether the lake will still be full in three weeks' time - if the lockdown is lifted - and whether the flamingoes will still be here:

And I realised I hadn't even thought about the fact that March is 'yellow month' in Cyprus.  There didn't seem to be nearly as many yellow wild flowers as usual, but this one stood out:

Sheila came over with her girls, mid-morning, for our last Tuesday morning of games for a while... we hope our goodbyes are only for three weeks, but nobody knows.

This afternoon I learned that not only do we need to have a good reason for leaving the house at any time in the next three weeks, but we must either send a text or fill in a form explaining who we are and where we're going. The authorities won't refuse requests, so long as we're not asking all the time... but it feels quite disturbing.  Not complying with the regulations will lead to an on-the-spot fine of 150 euros.