This is Cyprus...

Unpredictable Cyprus weather in January

2012-01-23T16:22:00.000+02:00

One doesn't, of course, expect warm weather in the Northern hemisphere during January. But Cyprus is renowned for having plenty of sunshine. We wear two or three layers of clothing during the daytime, sleep under a warm duvet at night, and run our central heating morning and evening, although sometimes it doesn't even cut in because the house is already warmer than 15C. I really don't mind January at all, in general.

Just over a week ago, it was a gorgeous day. Richard was out, and my friend Sheila suggested a walk, without any children. We went to the Salt Lake trail, and saw the flamingoes looking very pink:

After the amount of rain we've had, the Salt Lake is looking quite full this year. We walked for a little over an hour, and felt distinctly warm by the time we returned. I even took my fleece off during the walk, although I had to put it on again shortly after returning home. Even after fourteen years, I still find it odd that it's often warmer outside than in.

During last week, however, the temperatures plummeted. A couple of times it got as low as 3C overnight. It was no more than 12 during the daytime, and we had to run the heating a couple of times in the middle of the day just to stop ourselves from shivering.

Cleo is very much enjoying Richard's sabbatical, and keeps warm by sitting on him any time he's home. She likes his black chair, too, which nicely camouflages her - or so she thinks:

Sophia curls up in a tight ball wherever she happens to be sleeping, which is not very photogenic, but Tessie isn't quite so used to sleeping on beanbags, and was happy to pose when the sun came out:

There has been a lot more rain, too. The reservoirs are fuller than they have been for a long time, and some of the dams are even overflowing. Most of the island's water comes from the snow (in the mountains) melting in the spring, so it's very good news that we have so much water already.

But I was glad to wake up to some sunshine this morning, even though it's still a bit cold.

Roof holes and loft insulation in Cyprus

2012-01-15T12:30:00.000+02:00

It has been a recurring theme of this blog that, when it rains (mostly in the winter in Cyprus), the roof leaks. Not over anything that matters too much, thankfully, but a steady stream over the (uncarpeted) stairs. It had almost become a way of life - when the sky turned grey, I went to fetch a bucket and the cool box to catch the worst of it.

A little over a year ago, after some other leaks had developed, Richard and his sailing buddy Tim P (The P distinguishes him from our son Tim) went on the roof and mended some of the holes they found. They stopped the bathroom leak; but, sadly, their efforts did not fix the one problem we have had ever since moving into our house - the leak over the stairs. Tim P did comment that there was a huge amount of bird mess on the roof, and he wanted to clean it off. We could not imagine how it would help; if anything, I thought that it would help to plug holes in the tiles!

Richard has kept studying the roof, off and on, and we - like a few others who have crawled on our roof - could not understand where the hole could be. And, while there is some loft space above our bathroom, where Richard did manage to spot one of the holes a year ago, the area where the leak was happening was inaccessible.

So, early in December, Richard decided that the only way to solve the problem was to cut a hole into the loft area that he could not reach. If nothing else, he thought that perhaps he could affix some kind of membrane inside the roof, to channel the water out when the next heavy rain happened. Here's the area - beautifully panelled - above our stairs, which he decided to cut into:

He had not been sure how to do it without making a mess; but Tim P had bought a useful tool for the boat, which enables holes to be cut without first cutting into the piece to be removed. So Richard borrowed it, and set to work:

It made such a dreadful noise that there was no way I could stay and take further photos. Even Richard, who tolerates loud noises better than I do, went to fetch some ear defenders. But the eventual access hole looked like this:

To his surprise, he found that there was already a membrane inside the roof - unusual in Cyprus, but then the guy who built our house did it very well, on the whole. That cast a whole new light on the leak problem. The hole in the roof could be anywhere - it was being channelled down to the lowest point, which was, indeed, where our leak was happening.

Richard also noted that it was very cold up there, and thought that it might be a good opportunity to put some loft insulation in - also not common in Cyprus.

The hole remained for a week or two, then he bought some hinges and other fittings, and made a very tidy job of turning the removed panel into a door:

A couple of weeks ago, after a few dry days, he and Tim P went back onto the roof again. They searched thoroughly, but simply could not find any holes. They talked about using some special sealant to pour over the tiles, which would plug any small leaks, but Tim said, while they were there, he wanted to clean away the awful bird mess. So they borrowed the hose from the boat, and attached it to ours, and cleaned away a vast amount of - mostly ancient - bird mess, bits of bird nests, and other gunk.

The following day, it rained torrentially. I put out the bucket to catch the leak... and there was no leak.

It rained overnight, steadily, for several hours. We were not awoken by drips on the stairs... and when I got up, they were completely dry.

Apparently, the bird mess had formed some kind of dam on the roof which was catching water that then dripped through the tiles. Getting rid of this meant that the rain simply slid off the tiles as it was supposed to, and any small cracks did not cause problems.

It was like a miracle!

So, Richard found somewhere that sold loft insulation - the pink fibreglass stuff that we've used in the UK - and last weekend, they cut and fitted it. It didn't take all that long, but left a lot of dust which I've swept away and mopped.. but at night my throat seems to get scratchy and tickly even now, a week later. It's so cold that we don't want to leave windows open... so I've suggested that they don't do any more insulation until the spring.

Has it made the house any warmer? Hard to tell, really. On a cold day, houses in Cyprus just do feel cold... I'm sitting here wearing two sweaters and a fleece, and while not as cold as I was at our old house (we do have good double glazing here, and central heating that we run for a couple of hours, at about 14-15C morning and night) I'm still not warm.

Lots of rain in Cyprus... and lots of mosquitoes too

2012-01-12T18:14:00.000+02:00

Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. And sometimes it seems as if the reverse is true. We've had one of the wettest winters I can remember in Cyprus, in the past couple of months. Oh, there has been plenty of sunshine, and the daytime temperatures haven't been TOO cold. We keep having a week or two when it's mostly dry and sunny, then out of the blue, yet more rain.

Today it came on to pour just after lunch. For about five minutes, it was absolutely torrential, and even included some hailstones:

I was glad not to be outside in it. Glad, too, that the reservoirs are filling up, and the water table doing better, and that, with the new desalination plants currently being built, water shortages in Cyprus should (probably) be a thing of the past.

So, the clouds in Cyprus do indeed have a wonderfully silver lining. But the resultant rain brings another problem, which I hinted at when I wrote about going for a walk to the Aqueduct.

Yes. All this rain, and relatively mild temperatures means that there are also more mosquitoes than I can remember at any time of year, let alone January. We don't normally expect them at this time of year at all. But for the last few nights, I've been awakened by that annoying bzzzzzzzzzzz in my ear more than once. I've been here long enough that mosquito bites no longer cause pain or even itching, but it was a bit of a shock to discover, yesterday morning, just how many bites I had on my face.

Today there were even more. I look almost as if I have chicken-pox. I even took a very unflattering photo of myself, enlarging the middle area to demonstrate my current spottiness:

And there are more on my forehead:

There are some on my arms, too. None of them itch, but they're not very pretty.

This morning I did manage to squash THREE mosquitoes that were resting on the bedroom wall, low enough for me to hit them. While I don't like destroying any living creature, I'm afraid I have no compassion for mozzies. Particularly since it was evident on their demise that they had, indeed, been biting me...

Technology and communication

2012-01-10T18:09:00.000+02:00

While there are many good things about living in Cyprus, it's not easy being thousands of miles away from our sons, most of the year. So we're very thankful for modern technology which enables us to stay in touch regularly. Tim and I often chat briefly via Google Chat (on Gmail), and we've used Yahoo! Instant messenger regularly too.

It was nearly fifteen months ago when we experimented with a game of Settlers via Skype with Tim. It was so successful that we've played several similar games since. So many, indeed, that I don't tend to blog about them any more. Last night we played another game, from 8.30 until about 9.30 (Cyprus time). We use 'Facetime' now rather than Skype, with the video camera to project the game board to Tim, but the general idea is the same as it was when we first thought of it, and it works well.

However, there are always questions, at the end, about how we might improve the quality of either the sound or the picture. We also wondered whether we could try having another computer open with a different kind of chat, so that Tim could see us as well as the game board. We did manage that the first time, but our bandwidth is not great, and it reduces the quality. So they tried Google chat... it didn't work too well on Richard's computer, so we fetched the Chromebook - wanting to give it something to do - and Richard played around with that:

Then Tim spotted that Daniel was online too. He and Becky are currently staying in Barcelona with Becky's Mum; we had a good online chat with them on Sunday evening. But Tim thought that, using the 'Google Plus Hangout' system, we might be able to have a three-way chat.

He was correct. The sound quality wasn't bad at all, and although the pictures went a bit pixellated at times, we could see small images of all three of us, and a larger one of whichever of our sons was talking at the time. So this is what we saw when Daniel or Becky was speaking:

And this is what we saw when Tim was speaking:

All very clever stuff. Dan and Becky couldn't stay for very long as they were going out, so we never did discover if we could have set it up on both the laptops here, to have a four-way chat... I couldn't quite see the point of Richard going to another room to join in, but sometimes people in my family are just curious to know what can be done in theory...

Epiphany and Twelfth Night in Cyprus.

2012-01-06T17:33:00.000+02:00

Today is the last day of the Christmas Season. Next week, schools will start, businesses will re-open, and life will get back to an approximation of normal. As I explained last year, Epiphany - 6th January - is a big deal in Cyprus. The Greek Orthodox Church (unlike some other branches of Orthodoxy) celebrate Christmas on December 25th like we Protestants do, but Epiphany is marked too.

Not that we did anything special this year. It's a public holiday, and I had vaguely thought that, if nothing else, I would take down the Christmas decorations. After all, Epiphany is also known as Twelfth night.. right? Or so I had believed for many years. Indeed, this is apparently what I was still convinced of as recently as 2008 when we took down our Christmas decorations on January 5th, a day early, as we thought...

However, by last year I had done some research, and realised that Twelfth Night starts on the evening of January 5th. So, if one is going to follow tradition, decorations should come down at some point on the day before Epiphany. I'm not really into tradition, but this time of year seems as good at time as any to put away reminders of Christmas, or we'd get so used to them we might forget they were there.

It wasn't until yesterday evening that I suddenly remembered that there was some confusion over the date of Twelfth Night. So I looked it up again, and then, since I wasn't doing anything else for twenty minutes, I decided I might as well take everything down. 'Everything' being a bit of a misnomer as we don't really do a lot of decorating for Christmas.

First I collected the various candles and their holders that we place around the house, and our somewhat stylised Nativity scene, which we were given when we first moved here. I took down the Christmas cards too - rather reluctantly, since some of them only arrived this week, and it's highly likely that there are a few more still to come. This is the sum total of our non-tree decorations:

Next, I un-decorated the tree. That didn't take long. It looks rather a scanty set of items here, some of them slightly odd... they're quite an eclectic mixture. Some with memories attached, some because we like them, and some which just appear in the decoration box each year...

Then the tree lights. We bought these about ten or twelve years ago - inexpensive ones, since they never seem to last more than a year or two. Evidently these ones were good value, however, as they're still going strong. Last year we just bundled them up, and they were a bit tricky to untangle when I put the tree up a few weeks ago. So this year I attempted to put them in the Christmas light holder, with not a lot of success...

Finally, after putting everything else in boxes, it was time to take the tree apart and pack it away in its box. Sophia always seems to find this part very interesting:

Then all the boxes were packed away in a high cupboard in my study, and we sat down to watch one of my Christmas DVDs - the excellent 'King's Speech', which our sons recommended highly to us.

A plethora of inexpensive tomatoes in Cyprus

2012-01-04T19:39:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning, I went to Achna Fruitaria. I wanted to buy some oranges, and a couple of sweet potatoes. I also thought I would get some bananas, since Tim has now gone back to the UK. Oh, and I wanted a few cherry tomatoes for lunch.

As always, I looked at the special offers. I noticed that amongst the pre-bagged produce for a euro, there were some cherry tomatoes. I shook my head inwardly.. we would never get through that many, even if they were a remarkably good deal. I did pick up a bag of regular tomatoes, also at a euro, however. I find them hard to resist.

However, when I looked at the ordinary cherry tomatoes, they were something like 3.79 per kilogram. I only wanted about 250g, if that... but it suddenly occurred to me that it would be far better value to buy the huge euro bag, even if we ended up throwing half of them away. And they looked to be fairly good quality.

So I staggered home with, in all, about 14kg produce (which cost me a grand total of just over 7 euros). I put all the tomatoes straight in the fridge.

Today, I thought I should sort through the cherry tomatoes, throwing out any that had gone bad, and selecting the best ones for eating. I was surprised at how many good ones there were, and chose quite a few - nearly a kilogram of them - which we can eat over the next few days:

Even more surprising, none of them were bad, or mouldy. Quite a few had split, some were a little squashy, and some had slightly brown skins, but they all smelled good. So I thought I might as well boil them quickly to produce juice, and then freeze them for future use. There were this many in the saucepan:

.. and after simmering for a few minutes and cooling, I froze five tubs, each with a little over 400g tomatoes - the equivalent of one medium sized can:

Then I looked at the large tomatoes I had also bought. I kept a few out to bake, then cleaned, chopped and simmered the rest of those too. Those eventually made NINE tubs, again at a little over 400g each:

And that would have been fine, except that when I opened the vegetable drawer of our large freezer, I realised that I already had six tubs of tomatoes, frozen from previous batches.

So now we have the equivalent of 20 cans of tomatoes in our freezer. They will be useful for making soup, and ketchup, and for general cooking use in the next few months...

But I really must try and resist buying more tomatoes when I see them on special offer!

Walk to the Kamares Aqueduct in Larnaka

2012-01-03T15:49:00.000+02:00

It was about ten days ago that I went for a walk with friends around part of the Salt lake nature trail. We had planned to walk as far as the aqueduct, but left later than intended, and met the other friends part-way along. I commented at the time that I had never actually walked as far as the aqueduct.

So, when today was evidently going to be another warm (for January) and sunny day, I agreed to walk there..

Like yesterday, there were huge puddles everywhere:

And, yes, the sky really was that blue.

It's good - from the perspective of the island's water supply - that the ground must be so water-logged that these haven't drained away or dried up two days after the last rain. But it's rather worrying from the perspective of new mosquito breeding grounds appearing in so many places.

There was a mini waterfall with some rushing water, too, a little further along. Last year, apparently, the children splashed around in it and had fun. But it's fenced off now; it did look rather dangerous. So they were dissuaded from going down there.

Elisabeth had sat happily in the buggy for the first kilometre or so, but was eager to walk for a while. And Helen was starting to get tired. So she climbed in:

I suppose three kilometres is quite a way for a three-year-old, although she has done it before. Katie and Lukas were ahead when we caught sight of the aqueduct not far away:

According to Wikipedia, the Larnaka aqueduct (known locally as 'Kamares') was built in 1747 during the Ottoman empire, and was used to transport water until as recently as 1939.

Lukas immediately decided to climb part-way up the side of one of the many arches:

He's wearing a white shirt, near the middle of the photo.

Meanwhile, Sheila and the three girls walked across a plank bridge, beside yet another newly-formed large ~~mosquito haven~~ puddle.

I stayed with the buggy, and attempted to catch the sunlight just shining through one of the arches. I probably should have used one of the manual camera settings...

Katie wanted to stand next to Lukas, so Sheila helped her up:

But she didn't like it, and quickly came down again. So Sheila decided that she would climb up herself. Elisabeth put her arms out and said 'Up!' - so I lifted her up, and she sat there too:

It was all very pleasant, and we stood there chatting for a while.

The only problem was that, it being January, none of us had thought to take water with us, and we were all getting a bit thirsty. And we were nearly 3km from home. So the walk back was harder work, with Elisabeth wanting to be carried, and Helen insisting on being in the buggy for most of the way.

But we made it. I was quite surprised to see that it was 12.30 by the time we were sitting in our friends' kitchen, enjoying glasses of water. We had been out for two and a half hours. I was then a little shocked to find how very tired I felt by the time I walked the last 500m or so to our house.

Sunshine after the rain, and a pleasant walk

2012-01-02T18:21:00.001+02:00

It's been wonderful having Tim here for the past two weeks. But all good things, as they say, come to an end - and he departed in the early hours of this morning for his flight back to the UK.

Today is officially a public holiday - I did pop out earlier to see if the fruitaria was open, but even that was closed - and, indeed, it's still technically a holiday week; many businesses and all schools are still closed, until after January 6th.

But still, it felt like the proper start of Richard's sabbatical, and of life assuming some kind of normality - if such a thing is ever possible in Cyprus - after the Christmas break.

We had very heavy rain on New Year's Eve, and for most of yesterday morning, but today the sun had come out. In the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk, just down to the PO Box.

The rain must have been even heavier than I had realised; I don't think I have ever seen quite such deep puddles in some waste ground:

I just hope they dry up soon, or we could be in for a major infestation of mosquitoes in the spring.

As we approached Larnaka town, we were amused by this life-size Christmas scene outside the municipality music school:

What amused us wasn't that Santa was apparently reading a book, but that the cat sitting under the reindeer was in fact a real cat, who watched us and twitched its ears a few times.

There were a couple more Christmas cards awaiting us at the PO Box. Mail from the UK was very delayed in December, and we collected several parcels and a couple of cards on Friday, so I wasn't really expecting much today.

The last week of 2011, racing by as ever

2012-01-01T18:22:00.000+02:00

After all the preparation for Christmas, and an enjoyable day, it's a bit of a shock to find that it's now 2012. A week has somehow rushed by without us really noticing it.

It began well, relatively warm and sunny. We didn't have anything planned for Boxing Day, unusually, so I pottered, and tidied, and cleaned, and generally relaxed. I think we probably played a game in the evening, maybe with our friends, but it feels like a LONG time ago now.

On Tuesday, we were invited to lunch with some other friends who used their outdoor gas-powered barbecue to cook some lamb, and potatoes, and onions... it was still warm and sunny, and we sat outside, enjoying the best of Cyprus in the winter:

As the afternoon wore on, the sun became low in the sky and there was a bit of a chill in the air. So we moved in to the sunroom - where Lily, one of the dogs, attempted to make friends with Tim:

On Wednesday, we were invited to a 'recital'; mainly guitar students, ages about 7 to 15, plus one violin. The two families concerned have 14 children between them, although the younger ones do not yet play anything. Before we started, quite a few of us managed to fit on one sofa:

Elisabeth, now a little over 18 months old, has become very photogenic:

Tim arrived late, missing - deliberately! - the younger children's performances. But he was very glad to catch up with two friends from years ago... I enjoyed watching three tall thin people from three different generations (although all young at heart) and three different cultures, deep in conversation:

Unsurprisingly, a couple of recorders were brought out, and they did some jamming:

Tim had not played a treble recorder for many years, so eventually borrowed the second guitar for some more serious jamming:

On Thursday, we didn't have anything planned, and on Friday we looked after the four girls belonging to our local friends, so they could have a few hours to themselves on their anniversary. It was enjoyable but tiring and I didn't find a single moment to get out my camera!

Still, we saw them all again on Saturday, for a New Year's Eve gathering. On a very wet, thundery day when I was tired after being woken in the night by thunder and lightning. The other family they had invited were not able to be there, so it was a small group. Sheila wrote about the evening on her blog, so I won't repeat what she said... but I did take some pictures. They had managed to find some Christmas crackers - a British custom we have happily given up since moving to Cyprus. Still, it was fun opening them with the children. Elisabeth was a bit bemused to have a paper crown which was far too big for her head:

And Jacob was happy to find a pirate patch in his - or, as we decided to call it, an 'eye-pad':

The two older children went out, the four younger ones went to sleep. The adults - including Tim - played a couple of games, then decided that, as it was 11.30 already, we might as well wait until midnight. Richard set his phone up so we could see exactly what time it was:

Here are our hosts, getting ready for the excitement of a new year...

.. and here's the evidence:

We heard a few bangs from far-away fireworks, but it was still damp out, and nothing much seems to happen as the new year arrives. So we went home, and got some sleep.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day 2011

2011-12-26T17:56:00.001+02:00

Like Christmas Day 2010, my day started shortly after 6.30. I turned on the water heater, drank my coffee, read a little and sat quietly, thankful that we had cooked the turkey on Christmas Eve.

I looked at the tree, with parcels beneath, and switched on the lights:

I remembered to turn on the steamer for the Christmas puddings, which needed another few hours, and then I finished cleaning the kitchen, which I had abandoned around 11pm the night before after making a double-sized chocolate pineapple fudge pie as an extra dessert, as well as another dozen mince pies.

By the time we were all up, and had breakfast (if wanted) etc, it was 9.00. So we set to work to open the various parcels. Here's Richard looking at one of his new books, with a pile of mine (and a DVD) on the sofa next to him:

It's always hard to know what to get Tim; he seems to have everything he needs, and his wants are few. However he finally suggested that we could get some extra RAM for his laptop. We had it sent to his UK address and he brought it out here for me to wrap up so he could open it on Christmas morning:

Shortly after 9.30, Tim and I departed for Larnaka Community Church, as the service was due to start at 10.00. It was remarkably short; despite several people wanting to chat with Tim afterwards, we were home again by 11.05.

With the majority of the food preparation done the day before, Tim's role at Christmas is to pull it all together so that everything arrives on the table at around the same time. This shows the food (with the turkey and stuffing in the covered roasting pan, carved and arranged by Richard, and reheated for an hour).

It was only when I looked at the photographs today that I spotted that we'd forgotten to put out the juice we had bought, and hadn't put dessert spoons on the table either. Oh well. At least Richard remembered to offer the adults some wine, which we were given free at the supermarket when we picked up the turkey.

Oh, and that vast quantity of food wasn't just for the three of us. We had invited our friends with six children again. Once again, the sausages appeared to be the most popular item with the children, closely followed by potatoes. Tim had prepared an enormous number, and there were quite a few left at the end of the meal.

Then, when we were all pretty full, we cleared the plates and brought out dessert:

Not that most of us were hungry, but Lukas was excited by the dried fruit:

None of the children like Christmas pudding, so although I had made three - and steamed two - we only served one of them. Richard thought it might be fun to try setting it alight, but we had never done that before and didn't know that we should have heated the brandy first...

There was a sort of flicker of flame when we looked hard, but most of the brandy (about a thimbleful in all) dripped onto the plate. It tasted good, anyway.

After lunch, most of the children opted to watch our DVD of 'The Sound of Music', and the rest of us decided to play a game of Settlers of Catan:

After that we had a couple of rounds of Rummikub. I don't THINK Elisabeth understood what it was about, but one never really knows what's going through the mind of a toddler:

Sophia usually escapes upstairs when the children are here. But the smells were evidently too tempting, and she has become a bit braver recently. Still, she kept out of the way most of the time:

We weren't really hungry by 6.30, but the film had finished and we had plenty of tea-time food, so we loaded the table once more, with bread rolls - made on Christmas Eve - and veggie sausage rolls - which I'd made a week or so ago - and cut-up vegetables, and a small gammon joint which I boiled on Christmas Eve, and which Richard sliced. Several of the children ate cold potatoes too... but there were still quite a few left.

Then out came the mince pies, and the Christmas cake I decorated on Wednesday, and the rest of the chocolate fudge pie... and some dark chocolate Cadbury fingers, which Elisabeth liked very much. She had at least four:

Then she wiped her face on my convenient trousers, and Tim took the camera when she climbed on my lap:

It didn't take long before we had all eaten our fill:

By 8.00 our friends had gone home to put the younger children to bed, and we had done the initial clearing up. We were pretty tired, so decided to watch one of my new DVDs, 'Driving Aphrodite'. It was light, and amusing in places, and just the thing to end another enjoyable Christmas Day.

Happy Christmas, one and all (with link to our annual newsletter)

2011-12-24T19:31:00.000+02:00

It's been quite a long day. Before 9.00am I made more batches of almond milk, granola, and lemonade because I didn't want to have to do so tomorrow. I put a loaf in the breadmaker for lunch, too.

Then we went to Metro pick up the turkey we had ordered, and some sausagemeat, and some potatoes and veg... and various other bits and pieces that had appeared on my list. It wasn't anywhere near as crowded as I had expected, so that was good.

Tim has made two sorts of stuffings, and he and Richard organised the turkey to go into our guest flat oven, to be carved later this evening and re-heated in a roasting pan tomorrow. They've just peeled what looks like half a ton of potatoes, and Tim is preparing other vegetables.

Meanwhile I've made some bread rolls for tomorrow afternoon, and will do some more mince pies when Tim's finished in the kitchen. One of us will probably make cranberry sauce this evening, and I need to prepare an alternative dessert for those who don't like Christmas pudding. And then clean the kitchen and mop the floors.

Oh, and I have a few presents to wrap.

It's 7.20pm, and has all felt quite relaxing so far. I don't know why we tend to make such a big thing of Christmas food; I try and simplify as much as possible, and do what I can in advance, but still there seems to be a mammoth amount of preparation. This year Tim will not be playing at any church services, nor going to a midnight one, so we'll just go to a short service at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I will put a Christmas pudding or two on to steam when I get up; after we get back from the church service, it will be over to Tim to get everything organised so that lunch all comes together for about one o'clock.

So, since I haven't yet posted one so far this year, here's a photo of the poinsettia we bought a couple of weeks ago:

.. and here's a link to our 2011 Christmas newsletter.

Wishing anyone who reads this a peaceful and blessed day, with much love from family and friends, and time to think about the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Icing our 2011 Christmas cake, including a long-winded photo tutorial

2011-12-23T09:00:00.002+02:00

One of our friends asked me for a tutorial on how to cover a British-style rich fruit Christmas cake with marzipan and royal icing. So, this year, I took photos of the entire process...

The cake recipe I use, year after year, is the excellent Delia's Christmas cake. I usually make it early in November, then wrap it in foil, and put it in a cake tin out of the way. If I remember, I pour a tablespoon or two of brandy into little holes in the bottom a couple of times during the following six or seven weeks.

Then, about mid December, I unwrap it. Here it is, upside down:

Before putting icing on a cake like this, it's important to have something that stops bits of cake getting mixed up in the icing. Marzipan is the traditional first layer. I don't like it at all, but Richard does - and it certainly makes it easier to put icing on.

I've tried making my own marzipan, I've tried using Cypriot style almond paste.. but in my view, by far the easiest to handle is the English ready-to-roll marzipan that comes in boxes, and which can be found in the bigger Cyprus supermarkets during December. At a price... but hey, it's only once a year:

So. Remove the marzipan from the box, knead it a little, then roll it out on a surface dusted with icing sugar, using more icing sugar on the rolling pin. It should roll easily, and needs to be roughly in a circle which is the size of the cake, plus a couple of inches extra all round. Cypriot almond paste tastes better (in my opinion) but turns into a sticky mess when rolled.

Then, pick up the cake and dump it (still upside down) in the middle of the marzipan:

Note that many recipe books recommend using warmed apricot jam, brushed over the cake, to make the marzipan stick. I've done that sometimes, but as far as I can tell it makes no difference. This cake should be quite moist anyway, and the marzipan fits quite well so it doesn't matter if it doesn't fully stick. However, if you wish, warm a little jam, and then brush it lightly over the marzipan before putting the cake on it.

When the cake is in place, slide your hand underneath the marzipan, and flip the whole thing over, and onto a plate or serving dish:

Squash the side pieces in, so it fits around the cake. Pat it down, pushing it together if any little holes have appeared:

Then use a palette knife or similar to smooth it gently to remove any major bumps. I don't worry if it's still a bit bumpy:

Then put it in an airtight container to dry out a little for at least one day, preferably two or three.

Now comes the creative part. Perhaps.

Make a batch of royal icing. (Yes, that link was to one of my other blogs. Some of the photos are the same as on this one).

Pile the royal icing - or most of it - on top of the cake:

Use a knife to spread it roughly over the marzipan, and down the sides. It should be solid enough that it sticks easily without sliding down:

Pause in admiration at your cake, covered in gleaming white:

If you want to leave your cake rough-iced - in a theoretical imitation of snow - and then perhaps add on a few decorations you can then do something like this, which is what I did for our 2008 Christmas cake:

It's probably the simplest option. The effect around the sides was done by taking a knife and flicking the icing outwards.

However, this year I decided to put a little more effort into it. So I smoothed the top, as well as I could, using a (clean) ruler:

Then I ran a knife around the outside, with the aim of smoothing the edges:

I haven't really found how to do that properly. You can try using a wider knife, perhaps dipped in hot water. But my experience is that it simply removes more and more of the icing, eventually leaving it so thin that you have to pile more on and start the smoothing process again. So I don't aim for anything approaching perfection.

A couple of years ago, I came across the instructions for making a greaseproof paper icing bag - something I remembered from my high school domestic science classes. So, since I always find myself with left over royal icing after the smoothig process, I thought I'd try making a piping bag again this year.

It starts with a rectangle of greaseproof (or grease-free) paper, about 25 by 18.5 cm (10 by 7.5 inches):

Fold it so it looks like this:

Cut in half, along the longest edge of the triangles:

Now this is the bit I find tricky, but it's worth persevering. Move the papers so that the top points of the triangles are together. Then wrap one of the bottom corners around, so that the point lines up with the top points, something like this:

Of course, it's much easier if you're not trying to take a photo at the same time.

Now take the other bottom corner, and roll that up outside the first rolled bit of paper, so that all the points overlap, something like this:

There should be a fairly tight point at the bottom. If there's a hole, adjust it until it forms a fairly sharp point.

Then fold the back part tightly over, a few times, like this to secure the bag:

You can then just cut a tiny tip off the end, and use the bag for icing directly. But, like many people, I have a selection of plastic nozzles which have long outlasted their bought piping bag:

I don't know why these photos are a bit soft. I didn't discover that until I came to write this post, and I certainly wasn't going to go back and make another bag just for the sake of sharper pictures.

Anyway, the next step is to snip off the pointed end, and put a nozzle (if you have one) inside. I do this a little at a time until it fits rather like this - putting the simple nozzle with the small hole in:

So far, it's been like some basic origami. Now it gets messy...

Put a heaped tablespoon of royal icing inside the bag. It should be fairly solid, but if necessary beat in a little extra icing sugar.

Grasp the bag at the top, and push the edges together, gently pushing the icing down into the pointed end of the bag. From experience, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do this without some of the icing seeping out of the top, all over your hand. But that's life - frequently messy, no matter how careful we are.

If you want to, you can experiment with icing on a plate, or your counter top, but this year I didn't want to waste any effort (or icing) so I got to work directly on the cake.

Two years ago, I did something rather like the Christmas cake I made at school, with a grid and some stars, and was quite pleased with the result, which looked like this:

Possibly I should have gone with what worked, and repeated the effort this year. But it was a lot of work, and besides, I wanted to do something different. I thought I'd keep it simpler, and use our plastic decorations again... so I stuck one in the middle, and piped lines going out of it. They weren't quite even, so I put a few more decorations at one edge. All rather random - and not at all helped by my sleeve dipping in the icing nearest to me at one point - but by the time the icing in the bag was used up, the cake looked like this:

The icing bag was a mess so, rather than trying to re-use it with a different nozzle, I made another and put a star-shaped nozzle in it. I did a few at the top, which looked all right - to make a little rosette shape, just push down the icing for a moment, then stop pushing and lift the bag away.

The sides looked rather a mess, so I tried a few stars there, but they didn't really work. I was running out of icing in the bag, too. And I was getting pretty fed up of my hands getting so messy, particularly as I had to keep washing at least one of them to take another photo:

This is what the icing bowl looked like, with the first icing bag abandoned inside:

Inspiration struck. Everyone needs a plan B. Here's how it works:

You need a small pot of glacé cherries, which you bought a week or two back, vaguely thinking they might come in useful:

Remove about eight of them from the pot, and using a sharpish knife, cut them into halves, as neatly as you can. Sixteen should be plenty.

Next, take a clean knife, and get as much of the spare royal icing out of the bowl, and swish it around the sides of the cake. Try not to disturb the effect on the top, but go for a rough-iced effect which is so much easier than the smooth one:

Start to stick glacé cherry halves on the side of the cake. Just do it by eye...

.. and then discover that sixteen halves was not nearly enough.

Take another five or six cherries out of the tub. Six is best, just to be on the safe side. Cut them in half. Continue around the cake until they're all done.

Discover that five extra would have been plenty, so eat the remaining cut cherries.

Take a look at the mess nearby:

Lick the spoon absent-mindedly, and then scrape out a bit more - you don't want to waste good food, after all.

When you've had enough, dump the whole lot in the washing-up bowl, quickly wipe the counter-top, and then leave it all to soak.

Take a photo of your completed cake:

This was the point at which I sighed inwardly, and realised that the cake I made last year, rough-iced and peaked without the hassle of icing bags, was actually just as effective and rather prettier:

A Sunny Stroll around the Salt Lake at the Solstice

2011-12-22T17:05:00.000+02:00

(Apologies to those who are cringing at the excess of alliteration in the title!)

December in Cyprus can be chilly, but equally it can be sunny and warm during the daytime, with temperatures hovering around 20C (68F). Yesterday morning was one such beautiful day, and I was invited by some friends to go for a walk around part of the Salt Lake trail. It's not far away, and I hadn't been for a while; I knew the Salt Lake had plenty of water after the rain last month.

We could see the flamingoes almost as soon as we arrived - probably thousands of them:

They return year by year, although it's hard to see how such a relatively small stretch of water can provide all the food they need.

The sun was out, the sky was blue, and there were some pretty clouds over the mountains:

I don't know how far we walked - perhaps a kilometre or so. We weren't walking fast. There were small children with us, who kept stopping and starting, and we were deep in conversation, as ever. We walked towards the aqueduct, until we met the other family who were joining us, then we turned around and walked back.

At one point two of the children ran toward the Salt Lake, shouting... and the flamingoes took flight:

If you click on the picture to see the larger version, you can see how startlingly pink they are.

Somehow I didn't manage to take any photos of people, other than this one of Elisabeth, who is now 18 months old:

.. and this one of the bird-watching place, where some of us walked to and then took a break:

The transformation of Daniel's room...

2011-12-20T15:46:00.000+02:00

It's the end of another era, in a way.

When we moved to this house, five and a half years ago, Daniel had already left home. But it was important to us to have a bedroom for him, which we painted in a colour of his choice, and hung the curtains I'd made for his room at our previous house. Richard also put together Daniel's bed, transported out from our UK house.

After discussion with Daniel, on the other side of the world, Richard then built a desk unit underneath the bed:

.. and, by the time Daniel was ready to come back to Cyprus for a three-month furlough early in 2008, the desk was varnished, and a new set of bookshelves had appeared at the end:

Daniel used his bed again in 2010 when he had his second three-month furlough in Cyprus. But in April this year, as regular readers of these posts will be aware, Daniel married Becky. They hope to come and visit us in January some time, but will be staying in our guest flat. We talked about turning Daniel's room into a double guest room, but it wouldn't exactly be used very much since we have the entire ground floor of this house available for visitors.

We may well move our double sofa-bed (currently in my study) up there at some point. But in the meantime, Richard is taking a six-month sabbatical from work. Among other things, he plans to write his second book. And he has wanted a study of his own for some time. So... the obvious room to use is Daniel's.

Happily, when we offered his high bed with built-in desk to our friends, their eldest daughter said she would like it. So yesterday Richard dismantled it, with Tim's help, and then remantled (if that's not a word, it should be) the bed at our friends' house.

Ikea has proved useful once more, so that Richard now has a comfortable chair for reading in, even if Tessie thinks it was bought for her benefit:

And he has constructed a kind of desk out of a couple of inexpensive Ikea tables:

The chair is his office one, borrowed for the duration. Since it's important for an office chair to be comfortable, and one can't sit in every Ikea chair for half an hour or more to test them, the best idea seemed to be to use one which he knows from experience suits him.

It looks good. I'm sure it will be useful. At the same time, it feels like another bittersweet stage in the 'empty nest' journey.

Putting up our Christmas tree

2011-12-13T19:12:00.005+02:00

I wanted to put our Christmas tree up this week. I didn't want to do it on my own. So I had the bright idea of inviting my small friends Katie (6) and Helen (3) to help me. They came over this afternoon, accompanied by their mother and small sister, and after playing with Lego for a while and reading some books, remembered that I had promised that they could help me with the tree. Katie informed me that I was 'so lucky' to have a tree in a box, just waiting to go up:

I couldn't remember exactly how the base and trunk went together; I would have figured it out, but Sheila is better at that kind of thing, and put it together quickly. I then explained to Katie how the different sizes of branch had different letters to show where they should slot in, and she grasped the idea immediately:

Elisabeth (now 18 months old) thought it was fun putting them in too but she thought it was equally enjoyable taking them out again. Fortunately, the combined efforts of Sheila, Katie and Helen ensured that more branches went in than went out... I was behind the camera, so had a good reason for not helping..

However, the next task was to unravel the lights, which had been bundled into a box in January, and, as wires do, had tangled themselves up in the intervening 11 months. Katie held one end and I gradually unwound them.. this time Sheila got her camera out:

We'd made the slight mistake of putting the tree up right by the box, whereas I wanted it in the corner of the room near a power socket, so after wrapping the lights around, I carried it over to the Christmas tree spot. The girls then oohed and aahed over our somewhat eclectic selection of ornaments, not all of which I would personally have chosen, but most of which have a little history or nostalgia attached to them. Not all... there always seem to be a couple which randomly materialised since last year. Perhaps tree ornaments breed during the spring.

Katie was very helpful:

Helen couldn't manage them so well, so she passed me ornaments to hang:

Then they put some tinsel on the tree:

Elisabeth thought that the tinsel was a scarf:

I had thought that the tinsel would be the final addition, but the girls then discovered some red ribbon which we put up around the walls of our old house about eight or nine years ago, and which I've never quite brought myself to throw away. I'm not sure it really added much, and may subtly remove it at some point... but Katie and Helen were very pleased with their handiwork:

Buying fruit in Cyprus

2011-11-27T15:56:00.004+02:00

The cost of living in Cyprus is a lot higher than it used to be. But locally grown fruit is still excellent value, and great quality too. I like to pick up bargains, so I often pop down to Achna Froutaria first thing (well, about 7.30am) on a Saturday morning. I wanted some apples and oranges, primarily for juicing, so was very pleased to see that there were bags of them on the euro aisle. I looked quickly to check that none of them was obviously bad, and picked up one of each.

In the 'pink bag' (reduced, but not ready-bagged) section I spotted some Cyprus bananas - which taste so much better than imported ones, even if they go brown a little more quickly - and some figs.

When I arrived home, a little weighed down by my purchases, I put the euro-bags on the kitchen scales of out curiosity, and also checked the bill.

Rather neatly, I thought, I had managed to buy approximately:

3.5kg oranges
2.5kg apples
1.5kg bananas
0.5kg figs

That's 8kg in all - for a grand total of €3.70.

For those that prefer imperial measurements, 8kg is about 17.5 pounds weight. And for those who think in other currencies, €3.70 is approximately $5 (US dollars), or £3.20 in sterling.

It seems good value to me, anyway. And certainly both healthful and delicious.

Thanksgiving in Cyprus with friends

2011-11-26T17:11:00.005+02:00

Last year I wrote about our good friends Mark and Joan, who provided a wonderful feast for Thanksgiving - an American feast which we have enjoyed ever since we lived in the USA for a couple of years, back in the early 1990s.

This year, we were invited again. Joan said she was not going to cook quite such a feast as she did last year, but when we arrived on Thursday evening, it looked, once again, like a sumptuous spread. All the more amazing because her hob/oven had broken, and had not yet been replaced, so most of it was made using a single burner!

There were: stuffed eggs with carrot sticks - standard Thanksgiving fare where Joan comes from:

Greek salad - since we were in Cyprus:

And a spread of other dishes - turkey breast, corn on the cob, butternut squash, brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes, green beans.. and some Cyprus halloumi:

So we filled our plates, and then realised there was also a ham and potato casserole which had been simmering in the crockpot:

I had offered to bake a pie, but Mark and Joan prefer a lighter dessert, so she made a jelly mould with lots of fruit in and around it:

We ate it with yogurt.

All the food was all delicious, and the company was very enjoyable. After eating we played a game of Ticket to Ride, although I forgot to take a picture. Then we decided to pose for the occasion, using the delayed button on the camera. For some reason the lighting looks rather strange and dark, but I like the expressions of all four of us:

Washing our thick duvet...

2011-11-22T16:37:00.005+02:00

Life is not all exotic beaches and Greek food in Cyprus...

I have written before about the difficulty of washing our thicker (9 tog) double duvet, which I like to do each summer. Cyprus is a dusty environment, and cats sleep on our bed.. and I've read all kinds of unpleasant articles about dust mites, and the like.

Although our single duvets, and our thin (4.5 tog) double one will go, one at a time, in our washing machine, there is no way that the thick one will fit. At our old house I would struggle to wash it in the bath, which was near the back door, and then lug it outside to the line. No fun at all. At this house, our bath is upstairs, but we do have an outside sink by the washing line.. however the sink is not big enough to take the duvet. So, if anything, it's even more difficult to wash.

However.. this year, a friend mentioned that she had discovered that a double duvet would fit nicely in one of the washing machines at the Larnaka Marina. Since Richard is a member there, we decided to try it ourselves. Of course, being good at leaving things until the last moment, we had not got around to doing this during the summer when it would have made the most sense.

Last week, when the weather turned chilly, I found myself feeling extremely cold at night under the thin duvet. So, finally, on Sunday, we decided to take the duvet to the marina. We even remembered to take some washing powder with us.

Unfortunately, we had not realised that it would not take coins. Richard called the friend who had told us about it, and she told us that we would need to buy a token at the office. But the office is closed over the weekend.

So we came home, and found a single quilt which I have not yet washed this year, and placed it, without a cover, over our light-weight (covered) duvet, for Sunday night. Cleo was happy:

I was too, as it was very cosy, and I slept well.

Richard had the day off on Monday (yesterday). So, mid-morning, we returned to the marina. Just before leaving ,I wondered aloud how we would get the duvet back when it was still wet... and we picked up a large black bin liner. I was rather glad to have remembered that.

This time - after a brief hiatus when we were given the token for a different machine - we managed to get it working. Even with this big machine, the duvet only JUST fit inside:

We went for a walk while we waited for it; the cycle lasted about an hour. It wouldn't quite fit in the bin liner when it was done, but most of it did. We sat it in the back seat of the car:

I wanted to put a seat-belt on it but Richard thought (correctly) that it would be fine.

Rather than lugging it up the stairs - it was still fairly heavy, despite a powerful spin - we hung it out downstairs on our guest flat washing line:

Despite it being a sunny day with a little breeze, it gets dark around 5.00pm now, and the duvet was not fully dry by then. I did manage to flip it over onto another line to allow the other side to dry, but we decided to leave it out overnight and keep the same arrangement with the added single quilt.

This afternoon, about 4.00, I went down to check again. This time, the duvet felt perfectly dry, so I bundled it up in my arms and brought it upstairs. I was going to put a cover on it, and put it on our bed, but this is what I saw:

I didn't have the heart to disturb them. Nor, if I am honest, the energy to try and fight with a clean duvet cover. Wednesday is the morning when I usually change the bedding anyway, so I put the sparkling clean duvet in Tim's room with the door closed... the temporary arrangement will stay in place for another night.

Water, water everywhere...

2011-11-17T22:21:00.003+02:00

Our friends who stayed for a week left on Sunday night. The week of their stay had been fairly warm, with lots of sunshine. We had warned them that November in Cyprus can be quite chilly... and they returned to the UK just in time. On Monday, I woke to grey skies. I did manage to get out to the PO Box, the bank and the fruit shop, but by the time I got home again, around 10.30am, the sky was even greyer, thunder was rumbling around, and there was continual drizzle.

Unusually for Cyprus, the rain continued all day. Without a break. And got heavier and heavier, accompanied by some wind. Usually when it rains, it's torrential for an hour or so, and then the sun comes out. But we didn't see any sunshine at all on Monday. Rain came through our roof, and the wind was so strong that it also managed to come in a couple of other spots, in our bathroom ceiling and even in our bedroom. There must be more cracked tiles.

The sun did come out for about half an hour on Tuesday, but was followed by yet more rain. I don't think I have ever seen the street look so consistently wet:

The house was getting cold, too. Despite wearing four layers of clothing, I was chilly. So Richard decided that the time had come to service our central heating. That meant checking the pumps, basically, and making sure the boiler was working:

It didn't take all that long, and there wasn't much air in the radiators. So, happily, we now have the heating coming on both morning and evening when the house is less than 15C. As it has been.

It rained again on Wednesday. It's very good for the island, which so often suffers from lack of water. However, houses are not very well optimised for this kind of weather, and there have been flooded basements and leaking roofs all over the place. The Cyprus Mail reported that excessive rain caused problems - however, it IS good news that there has been so much rain so early in the winter, and that the reservoirs are now filling up rapidly.

We have our strategically placed bucket and cool-box as usual on the stairs to catch the worst of our leaks:

Today was dry, and even quite sunny in the morning, but tomorrow is supposed to be another day of continual rain...

Returning to Cyprus, and cooler weather

2011-11-15T15:42:00.002+02:00

It's three weeks since I last wrote. The rest of the week after Tim's graduation raced past, with visits to and from other family members, meeting friends, and, of course, a few more Catan games. We said goodbye to our sons and daughter-in-law at the end of October and drove down to Sussex for a couple of days with Richard's mother, than back from Gatwick Airport nearly two weeks ago.

I know from experience that jet-lag is far worse coming this way. Not that I was particularly tired, but my brain feels foggy and unable to think creatively. It's only this week that I'm really feeling like myself again. Still, I did manage to do a few important jobs such as sorting the freezer out again, and baking this year's Christmas cake.

The day after we flew home, I walked down into town to our PO Box, relishing the rather cooler weather, and forgetting just how early the sun now sets, since the clock change. And having been out of Cyprus for nearly three weeks, I was aware of the skyline again as I walked home - so typical of Cyprus with the white buildings decorated with water tank and solar panels, the pine trees, and the wasteland, mostly brown after a dry summer:

I liked the colour of the sky, too, and the clouds which suggested that it wouldn't be too long before some rain:

Out of Cyprus: Tim's graduation day

2011-10-26T09:57:00.004+03:00

So, at last the day dawned which was the primary reason for our making a trip to the UK at this time of year. After three years of study, finishing in April when he handed in his final assignments, yesterday was the official date of graduation.

Being an organised sort of person, Tim had his suit cleaned and collected the day before, ironed his shirt, and was ready in plenty of time:

Newman University does not have a large hall for graduation, so they rent the Birmingham Symphony Hall for these occasions. It's not a very large university, but is considered one of the best for education-related degrees and teacher training, and has sufficient graduating students that even with the size of Symphony Hall, there were two ceremonies during the day. Ours was in the morning.

So after registrating and sorting out various other things, Tim dressed up in the robes he was renting (at great cost) for the day:

A nice security guard took this photo of us with him:

We were sitting on what's called Level Five of Symphony Hall, so had a good view of the building which we had never been in before (although Tim has been to a few concerts there, including some in which he sung and one in which he played their grand piano).

For twenty minutes or so before the ceremony started, there was an organ recital - doors closed to incoming visitors at 11.15 and the official proceedings began at 11.30, with various important guests and bigwigs processing in, and taking their seats at the front:

The students were all sitting in their robes (but without the hats) in a block in the centre, and after some careful study we did manage to locate Tim, who is right in the middle of this picture, at the end of a row holding the green folder we were all given with the order of service and general information about Newman:

There were various short speeches by different people, and then the actual graduation part where each student walked across the stage to shake hands and receive their certificates was fairly rapid - about ten seconds each, I suppose. This was Tim's moment:

Here he is at the point at which he shook hands and magically became a BA:

The whole thing took a little over an hour and a half, ending with a prayer and then a lengthy procession of dignitaries followed by students. Tim had decided that he did not want to pay (and queue) for official photos, so Richard took some instead, and we were quite pleased with this one:

We did some more photos afterwards, then - to our surprise and delight - bumped into an old friend, who was headmaster at the primary school which Daniel and Tim attended before we moved to Cyprus. So we chatted and caught up with him for a few minutes.

By this stage we were feeling quite hungry; Newman does not provide refreshments (unlike some universities) so we had arranged to go out to lunch with the family - six of us staying here currently - at a local pub/carvery. With the crowds and traffic, and a few minutes when we couldn't even move the car, it was 2.30pm by the time we sat down to eat. Far too late by my body clock, but we had a good meal.

So, it's been quite a year for us seeing Daniel and Becky getting married, and now Tim graduating.

Still out of Cyprus: more travels and an induction

2011-10-25T09:02:00.004+03:00

No, not the induction of a baby...

But let me first backtrack a few days for those who have avidly been awaiting an update to our UK travels.

Naturally we played some Settlers of Catan games with Daniel and Becky and their friends while in Carlisle. And a game of Ticket to Ride. And on the Monday afternoon we also managed an afternoon of Absolute Balderdash, which is rather like an extended, widened version of the original Balderdash... although we talked so much there was only time for one round:

They had been sent home from their office early, due to extreme high winds, so Euan had to check email from time to time. Hence the computer.

On the Tuesday, we had arranged to drive to Glasgow to meet the daughter of one of Richard's friends, who is studying there. The drive took about an hour and three quarters and was punctuated by quite heavy rain in places - really the first we had seen since arriving, which I suppose is not bad for the UK.

We did see a rainbow too, for a while. I have always loved rainbows:

We were quite surprised at the number of wind farms we also noticed by the side of the road. The windmills did not seem to be rotating all that fast:

However, on Scottish hillsides I can imagine they provide a useful extra source of power. We saw some quite close too, and were awed by their size, but I didn't manage to get a photo then. Nor did I remember to take any in Glasgow itself, where we enjoyed meeting our friend's daughter and sharing lunch. Glasgow seemed rather an attractive town although it was remarkably difficult finding anywhere to park!

Our visit to Carlisle came to an end all too quickly, but Daniel and Becky had taken ten days' break so, happily, we didn't need to say goodbye to them when we departed on Thursday. The plan had been to leave around 11.30 and have a picnic en route, but the weather was extremely cold (well, so it seemed to us) and getting ready took longer than we had intended, so in the end we ate a cold lunch at their house, and did not set out until nearly 1.00pm.

Richard's GPS application told us that it would take us a little over two and a half hours to reach my brother's new home in Derbyshire, but that assumes driving at the speed limit all the way. However, we thought that we might be there by about 4.00. I had emailed with our earlier plans and said we hoped to be there between three and four.

However it took much longer to get out of Carlisle than we had hoped, as there was a lot of traffic around, and then in various places along the way we had to slow down again. We had planned to stop at a service station for coffee, and thought we might call to let the family know we would be late, but had not seen anywhere particularly appealing; by the time we left the motorway it was already nearly 4.00.

The route was attractive, but the roads were winding and were evidently going to be at least another half hour. So we stopped at a suitable looking establishment which advertised coffee and tea, and attempted to phone my brother.

Alas, the region was not in a mobile phone reception area. We tried all the phones we had with us, but they all said the same thing: 'no signal'.

So we had our hot drinks quickly:

Then Richard wrote a text message to be sent as soon as we reached a more urban area. Which he did... but apparently nobody heard the beep so it wasn't much use!

It was almost 5.00 by the time we arrived at my brother's new Vicarage, just south of Sheffield.

Four other family members were there so it was a nice reunion. Living in Cyprus, we don't see my brothers and their wives very often.

Peter and Candy only moved to their new home a couple of weeks previously, but they had it well organised with plenty of space for visitors to stay. And had provided a sumptuous cold meal for us to share in the midst of their busy-ness. After we thought we had eaten all we could, a rather yummy looking cheesecake appeared:

They told us it came from their local supermarket, but it could easily have been home made. It wasn't the only dessert, either. Three of us were asked to cut them up, and Richard caught us in action, concentrating on this important task:

Afterwards, those of us who had been travelling had a quick wash and change into slightly more respectable clothes, and we then walked the short distance to the old church building. The reason we were all gathered was to be with Peter for his induction as team Rector of the parish. I couldn't take photos during the ceremony, but did take this one beforehand:

It was a formal service, but only took an hour in all; Peter smiled throughout, and the bishop gave an interesting talk, although unfortunately his microphone was not working so I doubt if anyone behind the first few pews heard any of it.

Out of Cyprus: celebrating a joint birthday

2011-10-19T18:22:00.004+03:00

Just over 25 years ago, our first son arrived three weeks early, on his Daddy's 29th birthday. It was a great surprise to me - everyone had told me that first babies were 'always' late, and I had only quit work a few days earlier. We had lots of plans for my last three weeks of pregnancy, such as tidying and decorating the room we had allocated for our firstborn.

Little did I know that Richard, who was rather anxious about the idea of being a father, had been talking to God and said that, while he knew it was a very minor issue in the scheme of things, he would love it if his baby could arrive on his birthday... and since he had already thought about it (though never expecting that it would actually happen) he mentioned, as we held our tiny and awesome new son, that Daniel's 21st birthday would coincide with his 50th..

For many years they enjoyed a joint celebration. So much so that Daniel felt quite sorry for Tim, who did not share his birthday with anyone in the close family. But time passes, all too rapidly, and when Daniel was 20 he had left home and joined the MV Doulos. We knew that he would not be able to leave to join us in Cyprus for his 21st birthday the following year, but we had just sold our house in the UK and bought in Cyprus, and had a fair amount of money left over, which enabled us (among other things) to have a wonderful holiday in Hong Kong and Kota Kinabalu, where Richard and Daniel celebrated this special birthday together.

In the intervening years they have not been together, but since we were coming to the UK for Tim's graduation late October, Richard thought it would be good to come and visit Daniel and his bride Becky, and celebrate their birthday together once again.

I already posted about the bookcase we bought for Daniel as a gift. It would have been rather difficult to wrap up, and he chose it himself anyway. He actually chose a few other small items when we were shopping in Carlisle on the Saturday, which I did wrap up... and the same for Richard, who is very difficult to find presents for.

A few cards and gifts had also arrived in the post, and of course Becky had bought some, so there was quite a pile of presents awaiting the two birthday people in the morning:

Of course, birthdays cease to be particularly exciting as one gets older, so neither of them was particularly eager to start unwrapping. Richard seems to be checking something on his phone in this picture:

But eventually they did unwrap everything, and were pleased with what they found. We had a leisurely morning, and then took Daniel and Becky out to lunch at a Toby carvery restaurant which they liked. I had a supposedly 'Mediterranean' veggie lasagne, which was perhaps the most delicious one I had ever tasted. As well as unlimited vegetables of various types. Richard was the only one who had meat from the carvery; Daniel (who had a nut roast) looks a little surprised at the amount of food on his plate in this:

Next door to the Toby was a large supermarket, open even on Sunday afternoons. We had decided to make a chocolate cake, so needed a few extra ingredients. And since Dan and Becky only had one large cake tin (for cheesecakes and similar) we also popped by Matalan - also open - and bought a couple of smaller sandwich tins. In Cyprus most shops are closed on Sundays still, which I think is a good thing in principle... but since people are working anyway, I don't have a moral problem with using the facilities if they're open.

I made the cake and Becky decorated it with jam and Bournville chocolate, although I completely forgot about taking a photograph. They had invited their closest friends over for cake mid-afternoon, so we enjoyed a piece each, and then had a birthday game of Settlers:

We had all planned to go to the evening service at 6.30; the church is about two minutes' walk from where Daniel and Becky live, but it meant that we didn't quite manage to finish the game. We decided after the service that we didn't really want to continue - so three of us were the joint winners. Very democratic.

Out of Cyprus: the building of a bookcase

2011-10-18T12:10:00.002+03:00

The reason we flew out of Cyprus when we did and drove to Carlisle was so that Richard and Daniel could spend their joint birthday together. However, we had not actually bought Daniel's present before leaving, hoping we could find something on the Saturday.

Daniel had asked us to bring some of his juggling equipment with us, and also one of his books. But when Richard packed the cases, we were quite a long way under our weight limit. Not wanting to waste weight, so to speak, he decided to bring one or two more of Daniel's books. I chose about four... and then Richard picked out yet more until our suitcases weighed just under the 20kg limit.

I was a little surprised at just how many books we had brought out, when they had all emerged from our cases:

So it seemed like a good plan to buy him a new bookcase for his birthday. The one they have already is a tall Ikea one in a beech style finish. Unfortunately the nearest Ikea is in Liverpool, and we really didn't want to drive that far on a Saturday. Ordering it online would have meant it arriving several days late.

So we looked in Argos, and found a slightly smaller bookcase in a very similar finish, and Daniel said that yes, he would like that.

Then came the problem of where to put it. Several suggestions were proposed, but we eventually thought it would work best next to the living room door. To check the width, and to ensure that the light switch was still reachable, I stood in position with a shelf, on which Daniel put a few books to add to the realism, so that they could check whether it looked right. Richard took this photo on his phone:

Daniel then set to work to assemble the flat-pack bookcase, with me holding the relevant parts in position as needed:

A friend pointed out that this photo looks as if I'm going head-first down a slide. Something I cannot imagine ever wanting to do...

The next part, nailing the back in place, took some time - not helped by the fact that Daniel could not find a hammer, so used a variety of implements before selecting a thick glass jar as the most effective - and it was time to eat before it was finished. So the bookcase leaned against the wall, looking rather sad:

.. and there it stayed, all night.

Sunday morning was the joint birthday, and most of Daniel's other presents were, to his joy, books:

So we turned the bookcase around and finished it, and admired it, and then Daniel put a large number of books in place:

However, we decided that a six-shelf bookcase was perhaps slight overkill for just the Kindle, so Daniel and Becky re-organised their other bookcase a little, in order to decide what might go on the new one:

.. and, as happens when bookcases are assimilated into a household, it wasn't long before the new one was looking completely at home:

Temporarily leaving Cyprus: airport delays

2011-10-17T19:47:00.004+03:00

On Friday, we flew out of Cyprus for a couple of weeks in the UK. We wanted to start by visiting Daniel and Becky - now married for nearly six months - in Carlisle. And we managed to find a reasonable value flight to their nearest airport (Manchester) at a remarkably sociable time, with Cyprus Air.

I did have a slight moment of panic when I saw on the Cyprus Mail website that their flights from Larnaka to Manchester are going to be cancelled... but breathed a sigh of relief when I realised that it's only after the end of October that it will no longer run. Cyprus Air seem to be making a lot of cutbacks, and we assumed that the flight was not heavily used.

We arrived at the airport shortly after 11.00am in plenty of time to check in for a 1.10 flight. We were surprised to find no queue, and thought that it might be a mostly empty flight. We wandered through to the lounge area, and Richard showed me that beyond the main (crowded) lounge there was an almost empty area, otherwise identical, with the advantage of plug sockets available for laptop chargers. So he set his up:

.. and I decided to follow suit with my little netbook, although I had to sit on the floor to reach it easily:

We were a bit surprised that, even by 12.00 there was no gate listed for our flight. Then around 12.30 -when we should have been beginning to board - a note appeared on the screen next to our flight saying 'delayed'. No hint of how long the delay might be. We suspected - and it was later confirmed - that this was due to the air traffic controllers' strike in Greece, making it difficult for flights across that part of Europe. There had been many such delays that week.

An announcement came, around 1.00, that the flight was delayed until 2.30. So we went to find something to eat, as we were evidently not going to have our lunch on the plane. We bought some over-priced (but good) sandwiches and Richard had a coffee, and then we returned to our computers to catch up with email and Facebook. By the time 2.30 arrived the flight had been delayed until 3.30. It was almost 4.00 by the time it finally took off.

We were quite surprised to find that the flight was completely full. Other than a little turbulence a couple of times it was a smooth and uneventful one, landing around 7.10 (local time) in Manchester. We had a rental car booked with Avis, which took about half an hour to get sorted (due to a short queue...) and when we got to the car we realised that although it was the size we had booked, it was only a three-door car. So Richard went back to ask if we could exchange it - and after about half an hour, discovered that he could not, although we were told that we might be able to change it at their depot in Carlisle.

So it was 8.30 when we finally set out on the two-hour trip to see Daniel and Becky. We had previously hoped to reach them by about that time, driving mostly in daylight. The car was not particularly comfortable, but the journey was straightforward, guided all the way by the voice in Richard's phone.

By the time we arrived it was nearly 11.00pm. I had woken at 4.00am that morning in Cyprus, for some unknown reason (possibly because we usually have night flights!) so had been awake continuously for 21 hours (taking into account the two-hour time difference). I was unbelievably tired... but jet-lag never seems to be much of a problem coming this direction, so after a good night's sleep and a cup of Daniel's excellent aeropress coffee, I felt pretty much myself again, and very happy to see our son and daughter-in-law.