Yet another microwave oven (Samsung brand)

 In March last year I wrote about how much we liked the Westpoint microwave we had bought a few months earlier. It replaced one which had become corroded and rusty inside; the interior surface looked more sturdy than the previous one, but we were careful to keep the door open after each use, to cover anything we cooked in it for more than a minute or two, and to dry it if there was obvious moisture inside.

And it kept working well...except for one little thing. The digital time display started to deteriorate. I suppose we'd had it for about nine months when the first bar, the bottom one at the right, started to vanish. At first it was just fainter than the rest, but over the course of a few days it disappeared entirely. 

It wasn't a huge issue, just mildly annoying that, for instance, a digital 8 looked like a digital capital A, and a digital 3 looked like a backwards capital F.  Then, a few months later, the top bar became fainter, and also vanished not long afterwards.  I don't know why I didn't take a photo of this - I take photos of pretty much everything else, after all. The only one I can find is one I took of the whole kitchen when it was quite messy, so cropping to just the microwave makes it very poor quality:

But perhaps it's still clear that it should say 12:07 and the 7 just looks like a back-slash. 

Update about shopping and ultra-processed products

 During January, I tracked all our grocery shopping, and even took photos. I was following an unofficial 'challenge' to see how long we could go without buying anything other than fresh or minimally processed foods.

I updated this at the end of February, listing the processed (possibly ultra-processed) products that we had bought during the month. They were still minimal. And by that stage I was taking more notice of the ingredients of even standard products which we had previously bought: packaged tortillas, for instance, or pitta bread. 

I did try making pitta bread early in March, but it wasn't very successful:

Quite apart from the strange shapes, there were almost no pockets on the inside. And it was a lot more complex than naan bread, which I do make about once a month; my recipe makes eight, so we use two and freeze the rest in twos. 

A new printer

Short version of this post: I bought a new printer:

Long version with historical context:

I thought I had probably had my last printer, an HP laserjet, for about twelve or thirteen years. I recalled my younger son buying it - or contributing to it, anyway - when he needed to do significant printing. It was in 2013 when he came back to Cyprus after five years in the UK, so I thought perhaps it was bought around then, although I couldn't work out what it was he needed to print. 

Continuing to itemise my grocery shopping

 During January, I uploaded photos of most of my grocery shopping, and summarised at the end. I wanted to know how long I could go without buying anything other than fresh fruit and vegetables, and whether I could avoid anything ultra-processed.  The reason was that there's increased awareness of the dangers of eating too many ultra-processed foods. And while there doesn't seem to be any absolute definition of what constitutes an ultra-processed food, the working definition is anything that contains ingredients that one would not normally find in a regular home kitchen. 

I've never bought a lot of ultra-processed products, in part because many added ingredients are migraine triggers for me. What used to be a nuisance turns out to be a blessing, if it's true that artificial nitrites are carcinogenic, and that everyone should avoid additives such as MSG and artificial sweeteners.  Of course there are other problems with the western diet - too much sugar, for instance, and too much red meat. But very often they go together: for instance, deli meats are often from pork, and contain ultra-processed additives. Some sweets have no valuable nutrition, containing nothing other than sugar and additives. 

I continued taking photos of shopping this month, for my own interest, but I won't bore readers with uploads of everything. Suffice it to say I spent rather more, since several things had to be replenished. We did more entertaining in February, too, and I had used up most of the meals that I had prepared previously and frozen. 

I continued mainly buying fresh fruit and vegetables.  But in addition, during the first week of February, I also bought:

800g chicken mince
2 x 800g chicken breast
800g chicken thighs
1kg pangasian frozen fish
4 x 70g pots of tomato paste
1kg Greek yogurt
2 4-packs of toilet paper
2kg wholegrain bread flour
1kg sugar
1kg white cake flour
500g oats

On the first Friday, we went to Lidl, mainly for canned 'wet' cat food.  We were fairly restrained - we didn't need any more chocolate, for instance - and this is what we bought:

In addition to cat food we bought coffee, washing fluid, soap, frozen beans, large lentils, frozen salmon, more frozen pangasius fish (as it was on offer), and - yes - our first possibly ultra-processed product of this year, Alaska pollock fillets in breadcrumbs.  I had read an article online from a reputable source (though I can't now find it) which said that, while we should in general avoid anything highly processed or ultra processed, there are some foods which are beneficial in other ways that we shouldn't boycott. They included jarred pasta sauce (so long as free of nitrites or colourings), wholegrain bread, ideally with seeds, and fishfingers.  We're all supposed to be eating more fish, after all. We don't generally eat fish fingers, but we do like these breadcrumb-coated fillets, and the ingredients list isn't too bad. So they were included in our Lidl shop. 

I did not, however, buy any puff pastry - something which is good value in Lidl - and I experimented with a flaky pastry recipe using hard vegan spread [bought in December], to make spanokopita. Rather more work than using ready-made puff pastry, but I was able to use half wholegrain flour, and it turned out pretty well. 

The following week, as well as lots more fresh fruit and vegetables, I bought some cartons of juice, some small jars of spices to replenish ones we were running low on,  some cartons of passata, a bag of dried red lentils, frozen peas, frozen broad beans, and a box of twelve free-range eggs. 

In the second half of February, I bought another kilogram of Greek yogurt (I do like on my breakfast muesli; it's my one regular dairy product), two 300g tubs of 'planton' vegan yogurt, a bottle of apple cider vinegar, and some coconut oil. 

We went to Metro, for the first time since Christmas, as I wanted to buy some more dry cat food; once again we were mostly quite restrained, and this is what we bought:

Cat treats as well as dry 'Brekkies' food, some white cleaning vinegar, some malt vinegar for cooking, two jars of instant coffee (another thing I have to admit to liking, though I know it's not considered real coffee by many), pineapple chunks, brown basmati rice, a rather large bag of garam masala, but I haven't been able to find it in smaller quantities, two cans of coconut cream with minimal additives... and some mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is processed, maybe ultra-processed, but I haven't been successful in making it, and it's a lot of hassle. And we don't eat a lot of it.

We made another nut shop visit, too, and bought our standard nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc, as described last month.

The following week, as well as yet more fresh fruit and veg, I bought another kilogram of wholewheat bread flour, and one of white bread flour. I also bought a bag of cornflour, and another processed product: a pack of digestive biscuits. I use them from time to time to make various desserts, and don't like to run out. But I'm going to look for recipes, to see if I can make something equivalent to keep in the freezer.

So, rather more 'extra' products this month, but the only ones that might be considered ultra-processed are the breaded fish, the mayonnaise and the digestive biscuits.  Given that reports state that, in most western countries, over 50% of the food eaten is ultra-processed, I'm not too worried. 

Conclusion of the January shopping challenge

As mentioned in the earlier posts this month, I aimed to do minimal food shopping in January: mainly fruit and vegetables, as we had a lot of food in the freezer. I did also buy some minimally processed other food, but wasn't sure how long that could continue. 

Since the previous post I did three more trips to the fruitaria: last Friday, Monday and yesterday.  On Friday last week, I bought what has turned out to be my normal fruit and vegetable selection, with minimal variation, plus some packets of passata and a few tubs of tomato puree. 

I know I could make those at home, and did attempt to do so at one point. I regularly stew and freeze tomatoes, to use instead of canned tomatoes, and that's well worth doing. But to simmer them down to puree level without letting them burn is a task that I found almost impossible. And I had to use so many tomatoes that it was barely worth it financially. 

So this was what I bought on Friday 23rd:

I made tuna pizza (with a scone dough) one evening that week. Usually I would have bought and grated some commercial vegan cheese. But, keen to keep using 'real' foods, I made a recipe for vegan 'mozzarella' using almond meal as the base. It worked pretty well, and melted nicely.

On Sunday a week ago we were entertaining in the evening so I made the dairy-free version of our favourite brownie recipe, which turned out very well. 

But that used up the last of the eggs which I'd bought at the end of December. So on Monday's trip to the fruitaria, I bought another dozen free-range eggs, in addition to the usual oranges, bananas and other produce.

We still had some processed food in the freezer, as well as meals I had previously prepared. Richard really likes meatballs in sweet and sour sauce, so I cooked some Lidl brand meatballs for him. Usually I would buy ready-made frozen falafal for me, but we didn't have any of those left, so I made myself some lentil-balls, which turned out well:

Of course, I made the sweet and sour sauce from regular ingredients, but I would always do that. 

And so to yesterday, my final grocery shop of January. For the first time in the month, I bought some meat: about 1100g chicken, to make into a lemon chicken dish in the slow cooker for tomorrow. We are expecting some guests arriving early evening - friends we have not seen in nearly thirty years - and I want to have a hot meal ready for them.  Most likely there will be at least three two-person meals left over to freeze for the future. So although this is all for February I bought it in January since I try not to shop on Sundays. 

So, to summarise the whole of January, in addition to plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, I bought:

- 60 euros' worth of nuts, seeds and dried fruit
- eight toilet rolls
- six litres of pure grape juice
- 800g frozen peas
- 1 litre olive oil
- 1 litre sunflower oil
- 2kg flour
- 1 litre Greek yogurt
- 1 pack greasefree paper sheets
- 1 bottle of dried parsley
- 3 packs passata 
- 4 small tubs tomato puree
- 12 free-range eggs
- 1100g boneless chicken thighs

All those extra food products count as 'minimally processed', in my understanding, as none of them have anything extra added to them.  The entire grocery bill for the whole of January came to just over 212 euros. I'm quite pleased with that. 

It was possible to do this because I had so many meals made previously in the freezer, and leftovers from Christmas, as well as some products bought previously.  And we didn't do much entertaining. In February I will be buying rather more meat and frozen fish. I'll also be buying cat food, something we stocked up on in December.  

But I hope to continue avoiding ultra-processed foods. I won't continue posting photos of what I buy, but will try to update the results at the end of each month. If I remember... 

Chilly weather, central heating... and yet more about shopping

As I sit here, wearing three warm layers, with a cooling wheat bag on my lap, it seemed like a good idea to mention our current chilly snap in Cyprus. Among other things. 

Central heating

I don't remember, now, when it started to feel cold out. Maybe a week ago, maybe more. When we're in a cold spell, it somehow feels as if it's always been this way, and probably always will. I know, of course, that it will warm up again soon. We don't have long winters here. Summer - which lasts about six months - is much more difficult for me to deal with. So I'm not complaining. Truly. 

We have a large gas canister outside, and have to phone the company when it shows less than 25% full. At least, it appears to be a percentage, but we're not exactly sure what it refers to. We last had it filled in March last year, after a chilly period in February. If we weren't using central heating, it would probably last us several years as a supply of gas for the kitchen hob.

We finally replaced our old, inefficient boiler almost two years ago. The new one has to be serviced annually, ideally before we start using it. Because November was so warm, we hadn't got around to calling the engineer, but in December he came and did a thorough service. It wasn't very cold, but sufficiently cool that we wanted a bit of heating to come on in the evenings. 

We're very thankful that we have central heating. It's not normal here; houses are built for the summer, not for the winter. We have double-glazed windows, too. But with tile floors and quite high ceilings, it's not easy to stay warm when the temperatures outside drop below 15 degrees Celcius, as has been the case for the past week or ten days. It's been down to 5 or 6 degrees, sometimes less, overnight. 

When we checked the gas levels shortly before Christmas, it was still showing 55% full. We used the heating sporadically over the Christmas/New Year period. We kept checking, and it seemed to go down very slowly. It wasn't until about ten days ago that the levels were approaching the 25% level, so Richard got in touch with the company, and the truck came just over a week ago. 

And yes, the sky was blue, and the sun was out, so it didn't feel all that chilly outside. But the clear sky meant that the nights were very cold.  At least, very cold from our perspective, and cold enough that we needed to wear extra layers in the house. Yesterday the heating came on even during the daytime, when it has to be lower than 15C to click on. We haven't checked the level recently, but I expect it will be going down rather more rapidly than it did in December. I'm sure we'll need at least one more gas delivery this year.  Maybe more. 

Shopping, continuing from previous posts

Early in January, I wondered how long we could go without buying anything other than fresh fruit and vegetables. We still had quite a lot of food left from Christmas, several frozen meals from November and earlier December, and plenty of other things in the freezer. I quickly realised we also needed nuts, seeds and dried fruit, as well as packaged fruit juice... so changed to thinking about only buying unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Which is what I prefer anyway. 

However, until the end of last year, I would buy - without really thinking about it - products such as wholewheat pitta bread (from the fruitaria), and I regularly bought commercial coconut milk (both the drink and the canned versions) and oat milk. I wrote about starting to make my nut and oat milks at home again in my last post, as well as vegan 'cheeze'. 

While I mainly use fresh fruit and vegetables, there are some which (in my opinion) are a whole lot better when bought frozen. And we were running low on frozen peas. We have tried many different brands, and have come to the conclusion that it's well worth paying a bit more for the Birds Eye variety. The fruitaria stocks this, in their freezer section, rather less expensively than the supermarkets. 

So this was my fruit shop purchases on Friday: 

And yes, it does look remarkably similar to the previous photos, albeit with the addition of frozen peas.  Taking photos each time has been an interesting exercise, demonstrating that, although we do eat quite a lot of fresh produce, there's not a whole lot of variety from week to week. The large number of carrots is so that I could make carrot soup for guests on Sunday evening. 

Having said that, in the summer there are many more fruit choices than there are now; peaches, plums etc are quite seasonal. And although I've seen some early strawberries, experience tells me that they're usually a bit tasteless at this time of year. 

In addition, we were given a couple of aubergines by a friend. I do occasionally buy them, but don't often think about it. We had one, simply sliced and roasted, a week or two back. With the other, I made ratatouille, something I had not made in many years.

I had noticed that our supply of sweet chili sauce - bottled - was getting lower. This is something we've only discovered fairly recently. There are a few different brands available; obviously I avoid any with chemical-sounding additives. But even the best brands are, essentially, sugar water with a bit of chili and garlic. Surely, I thought, I could make some myself. 

I had browsed many different recipes before finding one that used apple cider vinegar, and which gave the option of using chili flakes or powder rather than small hot chili peppers. This was a good thing, as the fruitaria doesn't have any hot chilis. Cypriot food doesn't tend to be highly spiced, and even supposedly 'hot' food at restaurants or fast food places is, to our tastebuds, quite mild. 

So I experimented. The result was surprisingly good, similar to the bottled variety in texture. I was concerned about making it too hot - chili powder is a bit unpredictable - so erred on the side of caution. Next time I'll use a bit more chili powder. But as it's so quick and inexpensive, I don't suppose we'll buy the bottled variety any more. 

On Saturday I realised that we had run out of wholemeal pitta bread. We usually have that with our weekly curry - and I was still using up curry portions that I had frozen last year. So I decided to make naan bread, something our son used to do regularly when he lived at home.  The breadmaker deals with the mixing and kneading, so all I had to do was divide the dough into eight, rest it for a while, roll it out thinly, and then cook in a pan. 

Last time I made naan, I used a tortilla press instead of rolling, but it was a bit messy. Rolling was quite strenuous, but the dough was stretchy, and I could roll each one as the previous one was cooking. And they were pretty successful. We used two, and froze the rest in twos for future curries.

By Monday morning, I realised that we were getting very low on wholemeal bread flour, and also the lighter wholewheat flour which I use for cakes. I did have some white bread flour, and also white cake flour, but didn't want to have to make fully white bread, though I use a small amount of white flour in bread, and about 50/50 in pastry and cakes. I had started my reserve bottles of both sunflower oil and olive oil, too, and I hated the thought of running out of either. And I was craving Greek yogurt... 

So I before I went to the fruit shop in Monday, I went to the mini-market opposite. And here's the result of Monday's shopping:

Packaged flour and olive oil are 'minimally processed', as I understand it. And Greek yogurt is processed. The only additive is gelatine, which I would prefer to avoid - but this brand is, in my view, much the nicest. It's the only dairy product I have on a regular basis. 

And if anyone's wondering why I have some produce in plastic bags, it's because the fruitaria has a kind of colour code: the green bags are for their best quality products, the blue bags are for their mid-range, and the pink are for the ones which are either in excess, or which need to be used up quickly. I mainly buy blue-bag and pink-bag products (I have taken most of the fruit and veg out of their bags for the photos). And I re-use all the bags, for things like cat litter. So at least they're not 'single-use'. 

Second week of Advent

 I woke up on the second Sunday of Advent to see that it had rained in the night, apparently quite heavily. My phone showed rain predicted for much of the rest of the day, but I was able to go out for a short walk before breakfast. 

Later, I went to a local church service where the second Advent candle was lit. It was good to have an hour to focus on the real reasons for Advent. Afterwards there were a couple of Christmas craft stalls outside, where I bought some delicious-looking bakes and a couple of attractive crocheted decorations. 

By lunch-time it was raining in earnest, and continued doing so, steadily, for most of the afternoon. We had planned to go to one of the annual outdoor Christmas markets in the evening, but decided we would give it a miss this year. Even if it was not actually raining at the time, we thought the place would probably be very muddy. 

After the autumn clock change

I know, after thirty-eight years living in Cyprus, that September is not going to herald the start of Autumn. I'm learning that October is really the end of summer, at least as far as I'm concerned. The humidity reduces, and temperatures do too, at least a tad. As I had explained in my post early in October, we started to experience under thirty degrees during the daytime, under twenty overnight. 

By the middle of the month I was wearing long (albeit very light-weight) trousers rather than shorts, and we were using our light (4.5 tog) duvet at night. We were still using ceiling fans, but had stopped using any air conditioning. I was more comfortable using the oven, and started doing a bit of baking again. Friends stayed in our guest flat, and we enjoyed a meal out with them one evening. 

The clocks went back in the early hours of Sunday 26th October. I like the extra daylight first thing in the morning - so it's light by 6.00am now, though that will change as the days get shorter. And there's something about the early nights (it's dark shortly after 5pm) - or maybe it's just something about that last week of October - that makes me feel more energetic, more motivated than has happened for several months over the summer. 

I walked to a church service that Sunday, for the first time in a while; I don't like walking anywhere in the daytime when the sun is beating down and the temperatures are high. And we had a peaceful day; I pottered a bit in the kitchen, and read, and in the evening we watched the first episode of Doctor Who series five (Matt Smith's first), which we thought very well done. 

A visit to Ikea

 As may be clear from other entries in this blog, I am not, in general, a fan of shopping. With the notable exception of bookshops, of course, and some thrift/charity shops. Grocery shopping is a necessity, but my preference is always to walk to a small local mini-market or froutaria than to have to spend time in a supermarket. 

I have rather mixed feelings about large stores like Ikea. I very much like some of their furniture, and many of their prices are excellent. They used to issue annual catalogues which I would sometimes flick through, although they were organised by room rather than by style of furniture, so I found them a bit confusing. 

We were quite excited when the first Ikea was opened, in Nicosia. When we first visited, early in 2008, we were able to find some bookcases we liked, and various other items. Since then we've made a few visits - usually when going somewhere else in Nicosia anyway.  One of our favourite things to buy at Ikea is their classic 'billy' bookcases;  I wrote a lengthy post about buying billies at the start of 2024. 

Another new microwave (Westpoint brand)

 Microwave ovens are supposed to last about seven years. Some of ours have done so, or even a year or two longer. I wrote a post about the one we bought in October 2020, a Sharp brand, which - at first - we were very pleased with. Certainly the instructions were easier than our previous Carrefour microwave which, despite its complexity, lasted us for eight years.

I very much liked the straightforward options on the front of the Sharp microwave, and regularly used the ones such as baked potatoes or frozen peas. We also liked the fact that we could enter exact timings when necessary - for instance for warming plates with silicon mats, or making mug cakes. It came with a useful instruction guide, but mainly its use was intuitive, and we hoped it would last us at least seven or eight years. 

Unfortunately, within a couple of years the touch-screen 'buttons' had started fading quite badly. It's not all that clear from this photo, but the most-used ones were becoming impossible to read, and sometimes quite difficult to push:

Of course this didn't happen until after the statutory two-year warranty was over. And it wasn't unusable. Indeed, we continued using it for another two years or so. 

During that time, we noticed that rust was beginning to form inside. By December 2024, it was looking like this: 

It really hadn't worn well. We could not recall any of our previous microwaves having such a large amount of rust. Was it dangerous? We hoped not, although metal is not supposed to be exposed inside a microwave. 

And then one day something we had microwaved had a fleck of what looked like paint on it. And when we checked inside, we saw that the roof looked like this:

The enamel was bubbling badly.  Not what one wants in a microwave. We have no idea how long it had been like that; I had noticed a bit of bubbling a few months earlier, but it seemed minor and wasn't breaking away. 

It was only four years old, but we knew, for safety reasons, we had to get rid of it and buy a new one. We decided to go to Superhome Centre, which stocks quite a variety of microwaves, in various sizes and also costs. 

We had a few criteria that were important to us. 

1) Digital rather than analogue timing so that we could be specific for things like mug cakes

2) Big enough that we could fit dinner plates in it for warming, but not enormous. 

3) Not too expensive.

4) Not a touch-screen that was likely to be destroyed by pushing the 'buttons'.

5) If possible, black/silver colour rather than white, to match other appliances. But that was a relatively minor issue. 

In the past, we would often choose a well-known, trusted brand rather than one of the newer ones. But most appliances are reasonable quality nowadays, and quick online checks of reviews suggested that most of the microwaves available would do the job satisfactorily. 

We looked at quite a selection, rejecting the analogue ones, and the smallest. And then we found exactly what we were looking for, fulfilling all our criteria, including being a good price. We didn't know the Westpoint brand, but it looked smart, and had little buttons (which, we hope, won't break) and digital timing down to five seconds. 

It doesn't have the useful quick choices of the Sharp. Instead, to use a specific baked potato (or other) setting, one has to use the 'auto' button and select from menus, rather like the Carrefour one we had prior to the Sharp. It's too complex for me to remember, so I stick with the basics: cook and defrost. Both seem to work extremely well. 

Setting the clock is easy; I've had to do that a few times as we've had brief power cuts more than once in the past couple of months. On the other hand, we had to consult the manual to find out how to actually cook anything. We had to get used to a different way of getting the microwave to work: we first press the 'microwave' button, then the 'start' button, before turning the dial to set the time. 

If we forget the second step and turn the dial without pressing 'start' first,  it tries to set a different power instead. I don't really know why they have this option. Some recipes specify different microwave powers, but I've never really been aware of what wattage is being used anyway. We just go with the default. Apparently the maximum is 800 watts, and the capacity 25 litres. 

After setting the time - and it's easy to move the numbers up and down to get the right time - the start button has to be pressed again. It can be stopped at any time with the 'stop' button, if something has to be stirred or turned.

As for the defrost setting, we can either set a time or a weight; I've used both. Those are also set, by minutes or grammes, with the dial. It's useful and effective, and also easy.

Although I hope that the problems with the Sharp microwave would not be present with this one (we had never previously seen such rust, or roof bubbling on any other microwave), we're being more careful to wipe it out if there's steam after cooking, and also to leave it ajar when not in use. 

Some microwaves leave the light on when the door is open, but this one has the excellent feature of automatically turning the light off after a couple of minutes, even when the door is open. But the clocks stays on all the time, unlike some of our previous microwaves. I find this a very useful (though not essential) feature.

It's not quite three months since we bought our new microwave, but I'm very glad we did so. So far, we like it very much indeed. 

Update: May 2026. Unfortunately, bars on the digital display started vanishing. So we took the microwave to be repaired under guarantee. A month later there was no repair or replacement, so we had to accept store credit, and then look elsewhere for another microwave. Details here.

How I spend my days... in theory

People occasionally ask me how I spend my days. So I thought I would try to keep track for a while, and also include some deliberate structure to the week. At least, as default, for days when nothing else crops up. It's too easy to get caught up in following links online, or doing puzzles, or answering questions on forums when there's no specific plan. That's fine in holiday periods, and is mostly what happened in the 'week between the years', when Christmas Day was over, and the New Year had not yet begun.

The earlier parts of my mornings are usually fairly similar. First thing in the morning (which can start any time from 5.00am to 6.30 or so) I do a few online games (Wordle, Connections and Strands) on my phone to help me wake up, and check the headlines on a couple of news sites. Sometimes I do some knitting (I make baby hats for refugees and asylum seekers). Sometimes I work on Duolingo, the language-learning app which I have on my phone. I might do just five minutes, I might do half an hour. Sometimes I read. 

Three days a week I walk five kilometres or so with my friend Sheila, leaving the house around 6.15am, then we sit outside and chat for a while. Three days a week I leave the house a bit later and go for a short walk around the neighbourhood, ending up at the fruit shop (and sometimes the mini-market opposite) where I do most of the grocery shopping. On Sundays I just go for a walk, for a couple of kilometres.

However the day starts, I'm usually in the kitchen (with groceries unpacked and away if relevant) by around 8.00am. I squeeze oranges and put nuts in a little ramekin dish, and heat up coffee, and take Richard a tray of breakfast to eat on our balcony. Then I have my own breakfast in the dining room (neither of us is sociable at breakfast time). Afterwards I sit in my study and drink coffee while reading, or doing Duolingo if I didn't get time earlier. 

Around 9.00am Monday to Friday the Roomba starts up, and I go upstairs. We spend anything from ten minutes to an hour chatting, talking about the day, discussing issues, or just hanging out. It's too easy to let time go by without connecting intellectually, so we try to ensure that we have at least this time together, without any distractions. On a typical day I then get in the shower about 9.45, when the solar panels have heated the water sufficiently, and Richard starts whatever work he's doing. Sometimes it's a bit later.

After showering, I potter somewhat - maybe putting on laundry (usually three times a week) and putting away the previous load if it's still hanging up on the utility balcony. If we ran the dishwasher the night before, I'll empty it. If the kitchen floor needs mopping, I'll do that. If I haven't done at least fifteen minutes of knitting, I'll make sure I do that. And I read the 'verse of the day' on my Bible app, and a few chapters of whatever 'plan' I'm currently following.

By then it's usually around 10.30-11.00. I have to have some idea of what I'm going to do, or the time will fritter away.

So, I decided to allocate a couple of hours on Monday mornings to working on my sites or other blogs, except on Mondays when there's a writing group meeting. On Thursday mornings I plan to deal with photos. I have got very behind on making photobooks and organising my digital photos, and thought it would be a good idea to allocate at least one morning per week to working on them. On Tuesday mornings my friend Sheila with one, two or three of her daughters comes over to play board games and hang out. On Fridays Richard and I do any shopping that's needed by car, and I allocate other Fridays to keeping track of our spending and printing statements, etc, as well as paying (online) any bills. 

As for Wednesdays, I thought I'd try to do something slightly different each week, not computer related. Once a month the local Anglican church has a book sale, for instance, on a Wednesday. I like to walk to the thrift store about once a month, too, to browse their interesting selection. I might walk into the town, if it's not too warm, or I might do a bit of baking.

On Saturdays I sometimes prepare a curry to go in the slow cooker in the morning, and I do the weekly cleaning. I change the sheet and pillowcases on the bed, dust surfaces that need it, clean the kitchen countertops, and run the roomba upstairs. I clean the bathrooms thoroughly, too, and sweep the stairs. If I'm feeling energetic and it's not too hot, I can get everything done in around an hour, but usually I take it more slowly, and that takes up most of the rest of the morning.

On Sundays I aim to go to the Anglican church service twice a month, although I don't go in the hottest months, and sometimes events conspire to stop me going anyway. On the other two Sunday mornings each month I am in the kitchen, preparing soup and a dessert for the evening which we spend with friends. 

All of which takes us to lunch-time. Six days per week we eat cold food: bread, salads, leftovers, cheese (dairy-free, mostly), humus, peanut butter etc or, on chilly days, soup. On Sundays, left over from the traditions of our childhoods, we have a cooked lunch which usually includes roast potatoes. 

By two o'clock I've had my coffee and cleared away, and hung out laundry if relevant. I'm ready to sit down for a break with more online puzzles, helping on a forum, checking email and Facebook etc. In theory I stop this about 2.30, but I know it's easy to get distracted; more realistically, it goes on to nearer 3pm. After that, for a couple of hours in the afternoons my plan is to write: reviews of books I've finished reading, or DVDs we've seen, or perhaps do some short-story writing or blogging. By 5pm I'm usually read to start food preparation.

We eat around 6.00pm, maybe a bit later, and afterwards I clean up, and do my evening Duolingo session (around ten to fifteen minutes, usually). 

At 7.30 or so we stop using the computers; three evenings we go out for a short walk, followed by either a couple of episodes in a DVD series, or a two-player board game. 

One evening a week we watch a film on DVD. On Thursday evenings, Sheila comes to play a game.  Every other Sunday she and her family are here for games/DVDs in the afternoon and a shared evening meal, and they stay until 8pm or later, after which I do Duolingo and read. On Saturday evenings either she comes for a board game, or we watch some Doctor Who. 

And some time between 9pm and 10pm I start getting ready for bed... 

Steaming in the Kitchen...

 Many, many moons ago, when we lived at our old, rental house, my parents had been staying, and wanted to buy us a new appliance for the kitchen. I had been reading about healthier cooking, and had seen several recommendations for electric steamers. 

I thought it would be particularly useful for Christmas puddings, but also for the kind of vegetables which (at that period) we would typically boil: broccoli, green beans, cauliflower etc. We hadn't, at that stage, discovered that roasting works so well for anything other than potatoes, carrots and parsnips. 

There were several possible steamers available in the shop we went to, rather to my surprise, and after some discussion we opted for the Morphy Richards 'health steam', which came with English instructions, a recipe book (also in English) and a two-year guarantee. Plus it was a name we trusted. And the steamer had a fair bit of use over the first couple of years, particularly when we ran out of gas for our oven, as happened sporadically. 

The recipe book wasn't in fact all that helpful; it was produced in conjunction with a slimming agency, and had rather complex low fat ideas, none of which were really appropriate for our family of four. But we cooked vegetables, and - once I had realised that steaming takes a bit longer than boiling - they came out well, and hopefully more nutritious than if we had boiled them and then poured away the water. 

It was also invaluable for cooking my Christmas puddings each year. Previously I had steamed them in large saucepans, with water half-way up the sides, feeling stressed in case the water dried up.  With the steamer, the timer has a maximum of one hour at a time. So I fill it up with water and put it on for an hour. I usually remember to top up the water and turn it on for another hour before it's finished, but if I get distracted and forget, the steamer goes off before the water can run out. 

I had a slight glitch when I realised that the bowls I had previously used wouldn't fit in the steamer. So we acquired slightly smaller ones, and as my recipe makes three, this three-tier steamer was perfect, year after year. This photo has appeared in a previous blog (as has the one above) but it illustrates nicely how very useful the steamer has been:

When we moved to this house, back in the summer of 2006, I kept the lesser-used appliances, including the steamer, in a cupboard. Which is all very well, and makes the kitchen work surfaces look tidy. But when something is packed away, in my experience, it's likely to stay away. 

I would occasionally get the steamer out to cook rice, but then realised it's simpler in either the oven or a regular saucepan - and it's not as if we eat rice more than once or twice a month at most. Occasionally I thought of the steamer for vegetables, but we discovered the delights of roasted veg - yes, even frozen green beans can be roasted. For those that don't work well roasted (eg peas and sweetcorn), the microwave is ideal. 

But the steamer would come out early every December to steam my newly-made Christmas puddings. It would come out again on Christmas Day, to re-steam the pudding we were going to eat, and also the brussels sprouts. I expect sprouts might also be nicer roasted, but the oven is so full on Christmas Day that there's no room for anything else. 

Then... about a month ago, when the 2023 puddings were steaming, I noticed that the one on the top looked rather lopsided. I didn't investigate until the steamer had run for about six hours and then cooled down. I thought perhaps one of the bases had slipped. What I discovered was that it had rather badly cracked and broken:

Richard pondered whether he could create a new base. But it would be a very complex thing to make, with the bits that stick out to hold it in place. And after more than nineteen years, the steamer didn't owe us anything. We researched a bit online then went to two or three possible shops to see if we could find a suitable replacement. But the new ones (including a modern Morphy Richards equivalent) didn't look as sturdy, and cost €65 - €70. That was more than I was willing to pay for something that really only gets used a couple of times a year.

Since the other two bases were fine, I cooked the sprouts and reheated a pudding in the steamer without any problem on Christmas Day. A day or two later, after cleaning and drying it, I packed the steamer away. And would have thought no more about it until next December, most likely...

Then, a couple of days ago, I went out to buy some yarn. And something - or Someone, perhaps? - prompted me go into the Thrift Store, which is not far from my favourite haberdashery. I checked the DVDs, as I do, but nothing looked interesting. I found a couple of mugs I liked for 50 cents each, and as I turned around I saw, on a shelf, another Morphy Richards 'healthsteam' steamer. At €8.50. 

I was on foot, and am never good at spontaneous purchases when I'm on my own anyway. But when I told Richard about it, he suggested we go back first thing Thursday, with the car. The steamer was still there, and looked in excellent condition. It was so clean and free of scale that I suspect it has only been used a handful of times. It might be almost as old as our original one, as they're no longer made in this style. But there's not much to go wrong: the base heats up and boils the water, a bit like a kettle. 

So we bought it: another, identical steamer. 

I washed it all thoroughly, and last night steamed some cabbage and peas, just to try it out. It worked as expected. I've decided not to put it away in a cupboard, but to find space on the crowded work surface; that way, I just might use it more often...

Putting up Curtains in Cyprus

 We  have new curtains in our dining room. 

It sounds so simple. But somehow things are never quite as easy here as one might expect...

Way back in 2006 when we moved to this house, we installed blinds over those windows. There wasn't space for the wooden pelmets that are everywhere else in the house, and we found some wooden slatted blinds that fitted perfectly, and for fourteen years or so they were just fine. Well, except for a broken slat (courtesy of one of the cats) on one of them. And the thing to turn the slats up or down had broken on the other. But we hadn't seen wooden blinds anywhere else - the shop where we originally bought them is long gone - and they were basically okay...

Then, towards the end of last year, one of the strings broke and we had a very lopsided blind. We managed to manoeuvre it into a horizontal position, but there it was stuck. We couldn't move it up, or down. So it was a bit draughty, on chilly evenings, and couldn't let sunshine in during the daytime. Not a huge problem in the fairly mild winter we've been having, but I knew that, once summer starts, I will want that window blocked from the morning sunshine. 

We had an identical blind in the kitchen, but that one broke a year or so earlier, and we replaced it with a basic white blind from Mr Bricolage:

It's functional, but not attractive. So we didn't want something like that in our dining room.  And there really wasn't much else available. There are very thin blinds that are a bit prettier, which are fine for blocking sunlight but not so good for keeping the cold out. And they didn't come in the right size anyway.

So we started thinking about using a pole rather than a pelmet, and hanging curtains, which we like better than blinds anyway.  We looked in a few shops and didn't see anything that we liked. But, early in January, right before the recent lockdown, we were in the Larnaka Thrift Store, and saw some that were in good quality fabric and the right width, in a pattern with colours that we knew would go well in the dining room. They were also at a good price. 

I knew I would have to make them shorter, but that wasn't a problem. So we bought them, and I put them through the washing machine, and we hung them on the back of a chair in the dining room so we wouldn't forget about them. 

Meanwhile we went back to Mr Bricolage, where we knew we had seen curtain poles and other necessary fixings. We headed for the light pine-style wood, as it's our default choice, and bought a couple of poles of suitable diameter (albeit a bit long), as well as matching end pieces, and curtain rings and so on.  

The poles balanced nicely against two of our bookcases: 

We knew another lockdown was imminent, but it seemed like a good project for an evening when we couldn't see friends and didn't have any other plans.  

It did occur to me, after a couple of days, that although we like light wood, and usually choose it, our dining room is full of dark wood items.  But we didn't really feel that we could take it all back and ask to replace it just because we weren't thinking when we bought it. We shrugged, and decided it probably wouldn't matter.

A couple of days into the lockdown, I realised something was missing.  We had forgotten to buy suitable pieces to fix the rods to the wall.

Oops.

So for the whole of January, when all non-essential shops were closed, the curtains stayed on the back of the chair, and the rods - except for one incident with the cats, which rather scared them - stayed against the bookcases, and the rest stayed in the bag.

The lockdown started easing slightly on February 1st, with retail shops re-opening a week later, on February 8th. 

So we went back to Mr Bricolage, found four pieces to fix rods to the walls, and brought them home. 

We then discovered that although the poles were 28mm diameter, these fixings were for 20mm poles.

Oops again. 

And although the lockdown is eased, we're still limited to just two outings per day, after sending text messages to the government. One can't just pop out at any time. So the following day, we went back to Mr Bricolage, and explained our problem to the helpful young woman at the returns desk.

Unfortunately, there were no fixings for 28mm poles. The return desk woman came and checked too.  She called the manager, who also checked, and then told us that these were end of stock, so they didn't have any alternatives. He didn't know if they would be stocked again, and all he could suggest was that we returned the poles and other fittings that we had bought before the lockdown, and look elsewhere.

We did look in a couple of other shops, but to no avail. We could possibly have gone to various other curtain shops, and might eventually have found fixings for 28mm poles. But instead of spending potentially hours doing so, we decided that we would do as the manager suggested. And then we could legitimately look for dark wood poles and fixings, which would undoubtedly look better.

Mr Bricolage was extremely efficient and friendly, so we returned everything a couple of days later, and were given a refund.

But then we were back to square one. Or, perhaps, square two, as we did still have the curtains hanging on the back of a chair, so much part of the scenery that we barely noticed them any more.

A few days later, our friend Sheila said she was going to Ikea in Nicosia and asked if we wanted anything from there. We checked their online catalogue, but they didn't have any curtain rods that we liked. However, very close to Ikea is another DIY store called Leroy Merlin. And their online catalogue showed curtain rail 'kits', in dark wood, the right length, and a good price. Most importantly, the parts to fix them to the wall were included.  So Sheila brought them back for us, and at last we had everything we needed. 

Richard was very busy at the time, but just over a week ago, on Monday evening, he felt like doing something different. So he decided to put the curtains up.  

He took down the first blind.  He started drilling holes... and his drill stopped working.  Evidently it wasn't going to be simple... 

The fuse was fine, but the drill - which is probably five or six years old - was not.  So after we had eaten, in the midst of tools and a taken-down blind and some dust, he called Sheila again and went to borrow her drill for the evening.  By that stage with nothing on the window he didn't want to stop.

What a great moment it was when the first curtain rod was in place!

And even more so when the first curtain, with the hem very roughly pinned, was up!

Compared to the previous problems, the disruption caused by Lady Jane when I was trying to pin the hems in place was almost irrelevant...

The second one went up more quickly, and at last we had two curtains in place:

Yes, the colours look different in the photo, due to different lighting, but they are the same, bluer than either of them look.

For the next week, I admired them, and enjoyed them, and felt very thankful. 

Then yesterday I decided it was time to sew the hems. And I wanted to do it properly, not just roughly while the curtains hung in place.  So I took the first one down, and extended our dining room table to its fullest length, and measured the hem exactly, ensuring it was the same all the way along. 

Lady Jane usually sleeps in the morning, but decided that what I was doing was far more interesting than a nap: 

Despite her 'help', I finished pinning, and cut off the excess material.  Then I got out the iron, something I haven't done for at least a couple of years, probably longer. It was a bit dusty, as was the ironing board, but thankfully the iron still worked. 

Hemming is one of the few useful skills I learned at school and still remember.  So I carefully ironed and re-pinned, and then sat down again to do the sewing. It wasn't quite 'invisible' - my needlework teacher would have tutted a bit - but with such a strong pattern, the tiny bits of thread didn't really show. 

Of course, Lady Jane thought that sewing thread was another game, and I spent as much time moving her as I did sewing...

But, at last, the hem was finished, and I hung the curtain up again. 

And one corner drooped.  

I thought perhaps I needed to pull the curtain strings a bit tighter, or that it would hang out... or maybe that the radiator wasn't properly square so it was an optical illusion. After all, I measured so carefully.  

When I showed Richard, and explained what I had done, he said that it might have made more sense to measure from the top of the curtain, rather than from the bottom.  And when he did measure, one end was about 3cm longer than the other. 

Yet another oops.

I was not happy. But I followed his suggestion with the other curtain, in the afternoon (when, thankfully, Lady Jane was asleep) and when I hung it up, it was much more even.  So I sighed inwardly and took the first one down, and measured from the top.  One end was the same length as the middle, so I only had to re-sew half of it. I really didn't want to. But I knew that if I left it, I wouldn't get around to it. And we'd both look at it from time to time, and find it irritating. Much better to get it right at the start.  And it was a great deal quicker hemming without feline interruption.

And so, just eight weeks after finding the curtains (and probably four months since the blind broke) we finally have completed curtains.  

In a slightly ironic postscript to this saga, the other job Richard needed to do was to fix quite a major leak in the pipes under our kitchen sink. Not a job he looked forward to, as the old pipes were in a tremendous muddle. Hanging curtains, he had thought, would be much more satisfying and straightforward.  

But in the event, the plumbing took him about half an hour. He had all the pieces he needed, including some special cement.  And it worked perfectly, first time.

Shopping at Metro (and the froutaria)

At the end of last week, I wrote about a shopping trip to Lidl, and the disadvantages inherent in going there, as so many items are inconsistently stocked. So, in the interests of balance (and also because I'm beginning to run out of topics to write on...) I thought I'd write about today's visit to Metro.

Metro is the supermarket that we liked best when we first moved to Cyprus twenty-three years ago. It was the closest to where we lived, and seemed to be the friendliest. It's the only one that hasn't changed hands in the past couple of decades, and it's still our favourite. It's only a couple of kilometres from where we live, there's plenty of car park space around it, and the shelves are nicely laid out. They are not too high and the aisles reasonably spacious. There's a good choice of products - and, unusual in Cyprus nowadays, we don't even have to put a coin or token into the supermarket trolleys to use them. 

We normally shop on a Friday, but Richard's busy tomorrow morning so we decided to go today. And while it wasn't yet urgent to go to Metro, there are rumours of more Covid restrictions to be announced tomorrow. So I thought we might as well go this week rather than next week. Since we only go around once a month, with brief forays into the local small Achna Discount mini-market most weeks, I made a list of the things which I knew were best value at Metro. 

It was less crowded than on a Friday; everyone in masks, of course, and being careful to 'physically distance' around the shop. And we found all we needed, plus a few extra things on special offer that would keep.  And then, as we were about to join a checkout queue, I spotted a rare and unusual delicacy: dark chocolate Bounty bars! We first discovered them in UK airport shops, and have brought many back to Cyprus. But of course we haven't been to the UK for nearly a year, so we ran out of our dairy-free Bounties many months ago. There were seven on the shelf, so - rather selfishly, I suppose - we took them all. 

Hopefully there were others in stock elsewhere. And if not, maybe their rapid disappearance will encourage Metro to stock them again... 

I don't think we're extravagant in our tastes, but it still surprises me how much more we typically spend in our monthly Metro shop than we do at the fruitaria over the course of a month.  Our bill did include five bags of cat litter (almost 20 euros) which should last us about six weeks. But even excluding that, our food, mostly store cupboard ingredients like rice, oats etc, came to 80 euros, for what didn't look like a vast amount of food. 

Part of the problem, of course, is the refrigerated produce: protein food such as meat and eggs, and the vegan equivalents of processed meat, cheese and yogurt. 

The variety and quality of dairy-free produce has improved vastly since we came here, but even though some of the 'cheese' was on offer, these are essentially luxury foods.  

Dairy-free Flora and our favourite bread flour were also on offer so we bought extras of those:  

And some frozen peas, which immediately had to go in the freezer when we got home. We've tried many varieties of frozen peas since moving here, but unfortunately the cheaper ones are somewhat tasteless and lacking in texture. The only two brands which we really like are Findus and Birds Eye, so we usually get a kilogram or so of whichever of those is the least bad value. 

Since the weather is somewhat cooler than it was, we were able to go straight to Achna Discount for a few other things that are better value there, leaving the cold and frozen items in a bag in the boot of the car rather than rushing to put them away.  We always get coconut milk and grape juice at Achna, for instance, and Lady Jane's wet food. 

We also bought some paper towels and toilet paper - and that lot all came to a little over 18 euros. 

Then over the road to the froutaria for a week's supply of fruit and vegetables. Or not quite, since we still had a few apples and carrots, a couple of sweet potatoes, a large courgette, half a head of broccoli and plenty of garlic from last week. 

This fresh produce took up almost as much space as the food from Metro, but cost us a grand total of 15 euros. And since we'd parked by the fruit stall, which offers crates of slightly older fruit and veg at ridiculously low prices, I also spent a euro on some fresh peaches, rather surprised to see them at the end of November:

I will probably stew and freeze most of them. 

As I said above, I don't think we're particularly extravagant in what we eat, but neither are we deliberately frugal. We eat chocolate, we use cocoa, and buy grape juice, all of which are considered (by some) to be non-essential. We eat chicken two or three times a week, and fish - which is surprisingly expensive for a small island nation - once a week. 

In addition, we don't visit a lot of different shops to find all the best offers, and we mostly choose what we eat for nutritional reasons as well as enjoyment and taste. Brown rice and wholewheat flour are (usually) pricier than the refined equivalents, but we like them better. And since they contain much more nutrition, they are healthier, and thus actually better value in overall terms. 

When people ask what the 'cost of living' is in Cyprus, it's impossible to give a figure, in part because there are such differing views on grocery shopping. We've known of people who use a lot more beans and lentils than we do for their protein, and spend no more than about 100 euros per person per month.  We've also known of people who buy ready-meals, or sauces in jars, and good cuts of meat, and might spend 250 or more euros per person per month. And that's not taking into account any take-aways or eating out.

I miss popping into the froutaria first thing, to buy just a couple of days' worth of fruit and veg, but doing everything weekly is probably more efficient. And it's always such a relief to have everything put away, and know that I won't need to do any more shopping for at least a week. Richard likes shopping, but I really don't.