2024-02-16 12:48
Before I ramble about on our recent experience, I should explain that when I talk about 'Billies' I'm not referring to:The lightweight pots (billycans) used for outdoor cooking, popula… Read More
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This Is Cyprus... Blog
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An ex-pat in Cyprus - enjoying the sunshine in winter, estivating in summer; everyday living, and some of the quirks of the country.
2024-02-08 14:07
I mentioned in my last post that the weather, at last, was beginning to cool down in mid-January. Our central heating boiler, which had been unreliable for many years, had another serv… Read More
2024-01-13 13:59
Wasn't New Year just a few days ago...? How can it be nearly half-way through January already? Time has a way of racing past, faster and faster and I really don't know where the last w… Read More
2024-01-05 14:54
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 cook… Read More
2024-01-01 18:41
Christmas Day went well. The weather has been warmer than usual - I don't think it's got down to single digits yet, even overnight. It was about 13 degrees when I woke up, so I went out for… Read More
2023-12-24 15:32
I quite like Christmas being on a Monday. It means we collected our turkey and did the last bits of shopping yesterday, so today was - theoretically - a bit more relaxing. I thought of… Read More
2023-10-28 14:48
We have lived here long enough (26 years) that I no longer expect summer to be over by the start of September. In our first few years, I would feel a stab of disappointment on the first day… Read More
2023-08-10 13:59
Holiday brochures advertise Cyprus with 'sun, sea and surf' (or similar). Which is all very well for visitors, staying in hotels by the beach for a week or two. But when one lives in Cyprus… Read More
2023-07-26 15:32
In my last post, I wrote about some of the things we do to prepare the house (and ourselves) for Summer in Cyprus. July and August are always hot, and usually humid. Computers don't like tem… Read More
2023-06-28 15:32
I have written several times before about our preparation for Cyprus summers, and here I am again, on the same topic. After more than quarter of a century living here, we're used to it… Read More
2023-05-31 19:08
Short version (which is hardly worthy of a blog) On Monday, I made some strawberry jam, although I had not been planning to do so. Long and rambling versionSome of today's children… Read More
2023-03-26 17:17
It's fairly easy to eat healthfully in Cyprus. Fruit and vegetables in season are generally inexpensive; I have often bought a crate at the outdoor fruit market, typically two or three… Read More
2023-02-17 14:46
Short version of this post: my wonderful husband spent three hours putting together a flat-pack desk for me, early last week. This was the result:For those who like to read my ramblings, her… Read More
2023-01-20 16:41
I last posted on this blog nearly three months ago. I was planning to write on Christmas Eve, two months later, as I have done in previous years. I was going to say what an awesome yea… Read More
2022-10-24 13:38
Several people told us that there was a lot of rain on September 6th when we returned from our UK visit. But by the time we arrived back the sky was clear and the ground mostly dry. We… Read More
2022-09-13 14:12
A week ago we were at Gatwick Airport, a tad frustrated and rather bored because our flight back to Cyprus from the UK was delayed by a few hours. Apparently there had been a major sto… Read More
2022-07-17 17:19
After over two decades, I am used to summers in Cyprus. I don't like them, but with ceiling fans, air conditioning, and somewhat cooler temperatures in the early mornings, I've learned… Read More
2022-06-21 15:19
In my previous blog post, I mentioned that we were having some work done upstairs, and that I would write about it when it was complete. To introduce it, I need to backtrack six y… Read More
2022-05-23 13:02
No, Dustin is not a new cat, nor any other animal. Neither is Dustin a lodger, or a guest or a new family member. Not a human one, anyway. But an extremely effective worker, mostly found und… Read More
2022-04-09 18:02
So it's over two years since the pandemic started. Case numbers are still fairly high in Cyprus, given that the population is not much more than a million. But restrictions are easing, as th… Read More
2022-03-06 15:40
January, as I described at length, was mostly taken up with Covid. Not that I had it seriously, thankfully, and Richard never did catch it. By the end of the month normal pandemic life had r… Read More
2022-01-24 15:44
Continuing the post I wrote ten days ago, about being ill, confusing test results and voluntary self-isolation. I was reassured by comments telling me I was doing the right thing, and s… Read More
2022-01-11 13:31
On Monday January 3rd, we went to look for a new small upright freezer for our guest flat. There are several people booked to stay there over the next few months, including some families. Ou… Read More
2021-12-24 16:23
As has become a tradition, I'm writing a post on Christmas Eve to wish a very happy Christmas to anyone who might read this. I don't suppose I'll turn my computer on at all tomor… Read More
2021-12-07 18:01
An anonymous comment on this blog reminded me that I had not written here for some time. I was a little shocked to realise that it has been almost three months. Not that a great deal h… Read More
2021-09-13 16:44
I wrote in my last blog post about our complicated preparations for travelling to the UK this summer, with about ten days to do considerably more than is normally needed. Not that the pre-pa… Read More
2021-09-02 10:20
We usually - in the pre-pandemic days - travelled to the UK at least once per year, sometimes twice. All our immediate family members live in England now, scattered around the country. Last… Read More
2021-07-14 18:20
The ground floor of our house is a separate flat - it was the house that was originally built on our plot, before the owners extended upwards. Since we moved here in 2006 we have considered… Read More
2021-05-19 13:59
It's a bit of a shock to realise that my last post was early in March. Time seems to expand and contract more randomly than usual in these Covid-dominated years. The weeks go by, and t… Read More
2021-03-02 14:22
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 ho… Read More
2021-01-15 20:00
It's only three weeks since Christmas. That's easy enough to calculate, of course, but it feels like much, much longer. December - when we were still able to have up to ten people meeting at… Read More
2020-12-24 14:38
I have written a post each year for the past decade on - or close to - Christmas Eve. So as Richard is currently carving the turkey, with the doors closed to keep the cats out, I thought I m… Read More
2020-12-09 19:46
Although Advent started on November 29th, I wasn't quite ready to start thinking about Christmas preparations until December started. Well - other than making our cake a month ago, and feedi… Read More
2020-11-30 15:14
It's just over ten years since the 'Green Dot' company introduced recycling in Larnaka (and elsewhere in Cyprus). We were a little dubious at first, but it's been extremely efficient. Every… Read More
2020-11-28 13:12
Two weeks ago exactly I wrote a post with a few images I associate with Autumn in Cyprus. Some fruit, a cat bed, a cloudy sunset, and a few fallen leaves in our side yard.Since then th… Read More
2020-11-27 15:44
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the latest restrictions on travel, shopping, meetings etc in Cyprus. These were introduced in the hope of curbing the sudden increase in Covid numbers. L… Read More
2020-11-26 14:42
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 (a… Read More
2020-11-25 13:54
With over six months' worth of drought, from the end of April until the middle of November, the scrubland along the Salt Lake trail was looking very dry. Some plants survive the summer - the… Read More
2020-11-24 16:15
Anyone who has followed or popped into this blog over the course of the past decade and a half will probably have come across mention of our roof leaking. It's not uncommon in Cyprus to have… Read More
2020-11-23 18:25
As I wrote in a post nearly two weeks ago, I have a somewhat overcrowded shelf of books which I haven't yet read. I just stopped typing to count, and there are thirty-eight of them. That inc… Read More
2020-11-22 19:53
Our two years in the United States (1992-1994) made us somewhat bilingual as far as British/American words and phrases go. On the whole I use British phrases - a lift rather than an elevator… Read More
2020-11-21 12:20
Just two days ago, I wrote about the Larnaka Salt Lake. It's an interesting area not just because of the salt, but because it's home to thousands of flamingoes over the winter. There weren't… Read More
2020-11-20 13:57
Lidl supermarket, an international chain, has been in Larnaka for ten years this month. When we first visited, lured by some enticing advertising, we weren't all that impressed. By tha… Read More
2020-11-19 13:32
Having known about the Larnaka Salt Lake for twenty-three years, now, and walked along part of it probably 100 times or more each year since 2013, I tend to forget that it's quite unusual. L… Read More
2020-11-18 18:55
Some long-standing friends of ours are in Cyprus at present. We were surprised when we learned that they were here, having flown out from the UK early in October; most potential visitors hav… Read More
2020-11-17 18:19
I never liked sports when I was at school. All that running up and down, trying to get goals, or hit a ball over a net... it seemed entirely pointless. And I didn't much like the competitive… Read More
2020-11-16 17:49
Some years ago, we were 'warned' by a police officer that we were parked too close to a corner. We weren't parked for long, and we were not obstructing anyone's view; since other cars around… Read More
2020-11-15 18:07
Every other Sunday we have friends over for games, followed by a shared meal. I usually prepare a couple of loaves of bread, a dessert of some kind, and (during the non-summer months) some s… Read More
2020-11-14 15:22
Autumn didn't arrive until early November this year, after a much warmer than usual October. But it's still here, two weeks later. It's usually a very short season in Cyprus, sometimes… Read More
2020-11-13 15:02
Lady Jane Grey, our smaller cat, has lived with us for over four years now. She moved into our household when our younger son Tim moved back to the UK, and although it took her a few weeks t… Read More
2020-11-12 14:52
It's only a week since I wrote about some new restrictions in Cyprus, until the end of the month. The only one that affected me was that shops would only serve those who were vulnerabl… Read More
2020-11-11 13:31
I am not very good with large or sharp knives. I say this not to be self-deprecating, but in the interests of complete honesty. I am the only person I know - perhaps the only person in the w… Read More
2020-11-10 14:53
Richard went to the PO Box this morning, and retrieved four parcels - all of them for me. Each parcel contained one book. I ordered them nearly a month ago from the excellent Awes… Read More
2020-11-09 18:21
A week ago, I realised that we had stopped using our ceiling fans. One by one, we slowed them down, finally turning them off so that the lights work without them. Which meant that… Read More
2020-11-08 20:22
I grew up in a family that played both board and card games. One of my grandmothers played bridge at a very high level, even (so family legend has it, anyway) playing for Scotland at t… Read More
2020-11-07 15:46
On the whole, I like modern technology. Some of it, anyway. Kitchen gadgets make cooking and baking so much easier and more efficient than in the past. Digital cameras are a great impr… Read More
2020-11-06 14:08
We're sadly resigned to the fact that we won't be able to see our sons, or grandchildren, or any other relatives at Christmas this year. But the cooler weather reminded me that it's time to… Read More
2020-11-05 13:49
Yesterday I refreshed various news sites on my browser several times. Partly, out of mild curiosity, to see if anything had progressed on the other site of the Atlantic. It hadn't.But also i… Read More
2020-11-04 14:44
I had hoped to write, today, about the new restrictions that are expected in Cyprus for the next few weeks. The experts met on Monday; they have apparently agreed that stricter measures are… Read More
2020-11-03 13:16
I was alerted on Facebook, recently, that it was three years since we had converted our side yard into what, in the UK, we call a garden - although in the US it would still be called a… Read More
2020-11-02 13:50
Long ago, towards the end of last century when we first moved to Cyprus, we were told that electricity was 'very expensive'. The people Richard worked with used gas for all their cooki… Read More
2020-11-01 17:30
What a strange year it has been. Time has dragged at times, raced by at others. Here in Cyprus it hasn't rained for six months, although we hope it might do so some time this week. We've had… Read More
2020-10-21 14:36
It's nearly eight years since we bought our last microwave oven, although I wouldn't have been surprised to find that it was only four or five years ago. Time seems to be accelerating, the o… Read More
2020-09-16 14:59
I knew it was optimistic when I wrote, at the start of August, that we should be half-way through Summer. Cyprus Summers don't finish at the end of August. I knew it would still be hot… Read More
2020-08-05 16:35
July passed, a day at a time, rather more quickly than I had anticipated. It was apparently the hottest July in Cyprus for nearly four decades. I was very thankful for our new, more efficien… Read More
2020-07-08 13:02
At the end of May I wrote about Summer arriving in Cyprus. But, thankfully, it was just a temporary heatwave. Longer than typical for the time of year, but by June 1st we were seeing m… Read More
2020-05-28 14:44
The heatwave I wrote about in my last post reached the hottest temperatures recorded in May, and lasted almost a week. So despite being allowed to exercise with a friend, I didn't go ou… Read More
2020-05-16 19:03
I shouldn't have been surprised. My Facebook 'memories' were full of reminders about Summer arriving in Cyprus in the middle of May. Last year it happened on May 13th. But it had… Read More
2020-05-09 16:34
Living in Cyprus, where the infection rate is low and where we don't personally know anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the situation still feels almost surreal at times. We read n… Read More
2020-04-15 15:22
Two weeks ago, the last time I posted, we hoped that the lockdown in Cyprus would prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and that the island might start to open up again on April 13th, as wa… Read More
2020-03-31 14:43
As I said in the last post, from 6.00pm a week ago, Cyprus has been in 'lock down' mode. We aren't just advised to stay at home, we are required to do so by law, unless we have an acceptable… Read More
2020-03-24 15:21
When I wrote the last post, things were basically okay. We could see a limited number of people, we were washing our hands regularly and mostly staying at home, but it was fine to go out for… Read More
2020-03-21 17:06
I originally called my last post a 'lockdown', but apparently that is incorrect terminology. So I changed the title. Some countries are observing 'lockdown' where nobody is allow… Read More
2020-03-18 15:00
Sunday 15th March 2020We went to church in the morning. I had a feeling it might be the last time for a while. St Helena's is small enough that it was able to hold a service. Perhaps t… Read More
2020-03-15 16:47
I hesitate to add to the many, many articles and posts on the topic of the current pandemic. But writing a blog post is an easy way of letting folk know what's going on, and what life is lik… Read More
2020-03-04 14:17
As a child, I was mostly unaware of how clothes were washed. I put things in the dirty linen basket, and at some point they appeared, clean, in my room. Or possibly in the airing cupboard. I… Read More
2020-01-02 15:20
Back in September 2018, I wrote about starting to use a basic smartphone. I called it my 'slightly intelligent' phone as it didn't actually do all that much. That was good, I thought, as I h… Read More
2019-12-24 16:26
Once again I take keyboard in hand to write a Christmas Eve blog post. As usual, I'm illustrating with this year's Christmas cake. I made it at the start of November, and decided… Read More
2019-12-17 20:27
Over the years, Christmas preparation has become easier and more relaxed in our household. It helps that I have become a tad more organised, and give myself a kind of timetable to get… Read More
2019-10-20 17:37
It was a normal Saturday, late in September. I usually change the sheets and clean the house on Saturday mornings, in a fairly leisurely way. Before that on this particular morni… Read More
2019-09-16 14:42
As Facebook keeps reminding me, there are several years where I have spent most of August in the UK, and returned to Cyprus early in September. August remains my least favourite month… Read More
2019-07-30 18:43
I have always liked photographs. As long back as I can remember, anyway. I was given my first camera when I was seven. I took photos on holidays with my little Instamatic. At some point I wa… Read More
2019-07-24 16:53
Two months ago, I wrote a post about having our air conditioners cleaned. I mentioned that the one in the guest flat front bedroom no longer worked, so we had to have it replaced. This… Read More
2019-06-16 16:58
Today is Kataklysmos Sunday. That's Pentecost in the Greek or Eastern calendar. Eastern Easter was a week later than Western Easter back in April, and thus Pentecost is a week later th… Read More
2019-05-23 15:40
Summer arrived in Cyprus about ten days ago.I wrote back in March about the long, wet winter which we've experienced over the past six months or so. During April, rain continued off and on… Read More
2019-05-12 16:35
The last post I wrote, at the start of March, was about the very wet winter we've had in Cyprus. The rain continued, off and on, through the month, and most of April too. The weather only st… Read More
2019-03-02 16:45
At the end of October, I wrote about the first real rain of the season in Larnaka. It's always an occasion to mark in a country where drought is fairly frequent, and where there's virtually… Read More
2019-02-01 05:00
Ten years ago exactly, I wrote a post about the ten year anniversary of my home education website. I described its gradual evolution from a few pages on a long-gone platform to a site with o… Read More
2019-01-28 14:17
It's more than seven years ago that builders started digging up roads in Larnaca (and, we assume, other towns around Cyprus) in order to instal the new sewage pipes. The ones for storm drain… Read More
2018-12-24 10:09
It has become a regular occurrence for me to write a blog post on Christmas Eve, with a photo of this year's Christmas cake. I'm not sure at what point a regular occurrence turns into a trad… Read More
2018-12-17 12:30
We don't do a great deal in the way of decorating the house for Christmas. I'm not artistic, so we tend towards minimalism - anything more would look cluttered rather than attractive.But we… Read More
2018-11-24 16:32
When we first moved to Cyprus, we regularly bought bread at an excellent bakery nearby. I knew that it would be less expensive and more healthy to make my own bread, but I didn't get around… Read More
2018-10-27 15:49
As mentioned in a previous post, my friend Sheila and I resumed our early morning walking in the middle of September. It's a pleasant way to start the day, but in September we were often far… Read More
2018-09-24 13:17
Four-and-a-half years ago, I wrote about how we decided to move our landline phone and Internet provider from the national company CYTA to the somewhat newer Cablenet. It saved us abou… Read More
2018-09-15 15:29
It took me nearly a week to feel as if I'd recovered from returning to Cyprus. Not that I had any trouble adjusting to the two-hour time difference. And although I'd had a bit of a broken ni… Read More
2018-09-08 10:07
I didn't even have a mobile phone until 2007. By then, almost everyone else in Cyprus had one, and landlines were starting to vanish. After a couple of occasions when I realised it would hav… Read More
2018-08-26 21:38
After saying goodbye to our family, and walking away from the Logos Hope in Panama for the last time, we returned to the guest house where we had been staying. The journey was straightforwar… Read More
2018-08-16 13:44
It wasn't until we returned to near Panama City that we realised how good the weather had been during our break in Coronado. Perhaps that's why so many people have holiday homes in that… Read More
2018-08-12 14:38
After the frustrations of our first couple of days of family holiday, we settled down to a - mostly - relaxing break together. It's the first time all seven of us have been together for abou… Read More
2018-08-09 18:56
The family break was due to begin on Sunday 5th August. Our few days in Panama after going through the Canal followed much the same pattern as the previous days. We had hoped to get th… Read More
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