Spending time with friends

On Sunday, I took my young friend Katie to the service at St Helena's Church (Katie claims to like the songs they sing there, and the peaceful atmosphere). Afterwards she had a couple of biscuits, and spoke to a few people who evidently found her delightful, and then we walked to the nearby Municipal Park. There's a playground with plenty of interesting things to climb on, but the day was warm and there wasn't any shade, so five minutes was plenty of time.

She suggested we go and look at the birds in cages nearby. They always make me feel rather sad - birds should be free, in my view, not sitting in small, hot cages. The peacock displayed his tail proudly, and Katie thought it would make a good photo:


I preferred this picture of Katie herself, who will soon be six and is growing up rapidly:


We heard some music being played, so we walked to another area of the park, to see some kind of event being set up. Then we walked home - the rest of her family were at another church service that morning.

I don't often spend time with Katie on her own, so it was fun to be able to read her a couple of chapters of 'The Folk of the Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton (one of my very favourite books as a child) without interruption, followed by some watermelon to cool us down a bit, and then, for variety, a few chapters of 'Sophie Hits Six' by Dick King-Smith. That's one of the books that wasn't around when I was a child, but which I very much enjoyed during my sons' childhood.

Two days later was the regular Tuesday morning slot when my friend Sheila comes over for a couple of hours with Katie, Helen and Elisabeth. We started doing this about a year ago when the local Mother and Toddler group (which I used to help at) stopped running on a Tuesday.

Katie and Helen asked for some pictures to be printed - sometimes I very much appreciate the immediiacy of the Internet! - which they coloured; Katie is gradually decorating their room with nicely coloured pictures of animals, princesses and other subjects that appeal to her.

I read a couple more chapters of Faraway Tree, and also read a couple of picture books to Helen. Elisabeth played with Lego - she's been fascinated with it for several months now; of course we have to keep an eye on her as she's technically two years too young to play with Lego, but we keep the tiny pieces away from her.

Then Helen remembered the bubbles which I was given on my birthday over a year ago... we've finished two of the six bottles so far. They have been very successful! So out they came... Elisabeth (who will be a year old in a few days) is fascinated by bubbles:


And Helen, who is two-and-three-quarters and still seems to consider me her best friend, has recently learned to catch bubbles on the wand:

Walk in the Salt Lake Park in Larnaka

Yesterday morning, after popping to Orphanides Express, and making some bolognese sauce to simmer in the slow-cooker all day, I went to collect three young friends to take for a walk while their parents were in a meeting. They live near the Salt Lake Park, so after some discussion we headed for the shortest direction, via the roads rather than the nature trail.

Our destination was the little playground. It's been vandalised, sadly, so the see-saw doesn't work and the 'den' is rather broken. But the swings are fine. The two little girls enjoyed the 'baby' swings in their various ways:


And their brother spent some time on the bigger swing. Then the two older ones played on the slide, and the climbing place, moving much too fast for me to attempt any photos. Then, getting bored of what they were 'supposed' to do, since they are home educated, they spent considerably longer dragging branches of trees to the broken den, trying to figure out what to do with an old wooden slat they found, and generally co-operating in all kinds of imaginative play.

There were no other children there at all. On one bench there was a man, smoking, who left soon after we arrived. On another bench were a young couple, probably teenagers, talking and cuddling. And there was a rather lonely looking dog whose ears pricked up any time anyone walked another dog through the park - he even went off to play with some of them - but then came back and lay down. He was quite friendly. I hope his owners find him and that he hasn't been abandoned.

After about an hour or so, the sky was turning grey and I had a sense that it was going to rain. Probably quite hard. 'No problem', said one of my young friends, 'the buggy has a rain-cover'. I pointed out that would be fine for the small person occupying the buggy, but the rest of us didn't want to get soaked. Or, at any rate, I didn't. We might be short of rain in Cyprus, and I'm happy when it does happen to rain... but that doesn't mean I want to be caught out in it.

So we headed back, on a rather circuitous route directed by the oldest child, where we saw that there is a significant amount of water in the Salt Lake now, although the foliage still all looks very brown:

My camera was still playing up - I suppose I really ought to change the batteries, as it keeps telling me to, but so long as it continues to take pictures it seems a bit silly.

As we walked back - and that probably took another half hour with the lengthy route - the sky lightened. Perhaps I was wrong, I thought. Thankfully the children didn't seem to mind, and were happy enough to be going home.

When we got back, their parents were still in their meeting so I suggested we play a game. They produced 'Labyrinth', something I vaguely remember playing with my sons when they were about seven or eight, although they got bored after a few games. It requires some logical and spatial awareness, but there isn't much scope for strategy, and one game is much like another.

As we played, we heard the roll of thunder. Then the sky darkened again, and it started to rain. Not very heavily at first but by the time we finished the game, it was pouring down. I stayed until it cleared up, and then went home, along streets that were full of huge puddles.