Month: December 2018

September 2018

On By Sandra PoynterIn 2018 The Beginning of Our JourneyLeave a comment

4th September

Well this week was as bad as I thought it was going to be, it’s just been a lot of hard work that has gone on and on day after day, it didn’t help that I kept finding things to add to the list of things to do, so as fast as I was crossing things off I was also adding them on, I did re paint the bathroom, and then I noticed that where we had pulled the carpet up in the front room last year to expose the wood floor it had pulled off a bit of paint on the skirting boards so I had to repaint those, by Friday I had done all the painting that needed doing around the house among lots of other jobs, and my last job Friday morning was to touch up some of the hole marks that Nick had filled in on the living room walls from where the pictures used to be, only Nick said he would do it, I had a feeling it was a bad idea as he is not a good painter, anyway at some point I went to check to see how it looked and he had done splotches of paint all over most of the walls, not just the little nail holes that needed a tiny dab of paint, I think he enjoyed having the paintbrush in his hand and just went a little bit mad…and the whole thing, all these splotches of paint all dried a different colour, I think it must have been because the paint on the walls has been on for two years so it gets a bit darker… so I had to spend most of Friday painting walls in the living room that hadn’t needed painting, anyway somehow I found the funny side of it but it was another tiring day, anyway the jobs have just seemed to go on day after day, and I went to bed exhausted every night., I am happy to say that I did eventually get to the end of my very long list, I have done all the cleaning that could possibly be done and all of the painting, Nick has kept busy doing bits and pieces and moving furniture, going to the tip and collecting the cones that we need to block the space off outside the house for the removal truck, he has been running things to the charity shop, so he has kept as busy as I have and we muddled along quite well which I think was a miracle to be honest.

13th September

We did the Southampton trip on Thursday to take the car to the docks, it was such a tiring day, we left here at just after 8am and didn’t get back to the Isle of Wight until two o clock, so it took us six hours in all, it was weird knowing we weren’t going to see the car again until we were in Cyprus, it was hard coming back to have to do more jobs and also walk Maggie, I really wouldn’t want to do this last couple of weeks again for anything.

Christian our next door neighbour had said he wanted the cooker, only yesterday afternoon Nick bumped into him and said what time was good for him to bring it over and fit it for him, and he said he had changed his mind…..it was one of those oh no moments lol, as we didn’t want to be stuck with a cooker at the last minute and have to call the council to collect it, I wish he could have told us a week ago and I would have put it up for sale, anyway we remembered that we have someone coming this morning to collect the fridge freezer so we gave him the cooker for free just to get rid of it, I hated the thought it was going to have to go to the tip as its in good working order and I spent hours cleaning it to make it sparkle, anyway the worst is over now and all the hard jobs are done, we spent yesterday packing our cases which was easy enough as it was just shorts and t shirts mainly, one pair of jeans and a couple of sweaters in case it was chilly, I think it’s the easiest packing I have ever done, but what is in the suitcases has to last us around six weeks so I hope we have it right

17th September

At lunchtime today (Monday) the shippers came, two young guys who really knew what they were doing, and all I had to do was keep them in cups of tea, they worked hard all day and that night slept in the moving truck, apparently they have beds at the back of the cab and even a TV. I have to admit I did find this part hard as we were trying not to get in their way but there was nothing for us to do apart from make them tea, there was nowhere to sit, every chair had been packed and with the guys being busy there was nowhere to really even stand in the house so it was uncomfortable and a bit stressful, we ended up going out for the afternoon just to get out of the house and that night we had the usual fish and chips that is mandatory on moving day and we slept on mattresses on the floor, so not the best night’s sleep and the following day when the guys came back into the house to finish packing everything, the weather had changed and it was windy and cold, it poured down with rain all day, so even escaping into the garden was out of the question, I think we were both glad when everything was packed and we were glad to get to Nicola’s my daughters house in the end and so was Maggie as she was starting to pace, I think the move upset her.

18th September  –  8 Days Until We Fly

It was lovely arriving at our daughters house and knowing that we had finished all of the jobs and the furniture had gone and so had the car, although I don’t think life has been as relaxed as I would have liked this week, it just feels like it has been really busy, we found out today that our car that we took to the docks has now been delayed, but they wouldn’t tell us why, just a few apologies, so it seems instead of getting the car two or three days after we arrive in Cyprus, we now have to wait two weeks for it after we get there, so that has sort of thrown things out of whack a bit, so now we will have to hire a car when we get over there, it is annoying as we spent ages trying to get the dates right but I guess life never goes to plan does it.

22nd September  –   4 Days Until We Fly

This week at my daughters house we also finally got my sister Cath’s shed sorted out, her old shed was falling to bits and wouldn’t have been any good to hibernate her tortoises so she bought a new shed last week, so we had to go and pull her old shed down and put the new one up, she was good though and as Nick was pulling the old one down she really worked hard with me dragging the wood to the other side of the garden, so it was a combined effort with all three of us, and then Nick built the new shed, but it all took time and was a bigger job than I thought it would be, and really tiring, all he has left to do is to put the door on but with this rain we have had today we have put it off until it stops, I think they said rain all day tomorrow and hopefully Monday will be a better day, and its good she can keep the tortoises now as she does love them.

25rd September – The Day Before We Fly

This morning we are off to the vets, as Maggie has to have her fitness to fly stamped on her passport, she already had her rabies a while ago, she also has to have two more treatments this morning as they have to be given within 48 hours of her going into Cyprus which are going to knock her around a bit, I looked them up and one of them I think is going to make her feel a bit unwell, I hate that she has to go through all of this and I am not looking forward to putting her into her cage at the airport, I have had so many sleepless nights about it, whether she will even survive the flight….I don’t feel good about it at all, but we couldn’t put off leaving for another few years as neither of us wanted to feel we were waiting for her to die, we actually want her to live forever lol., anyway hopefully all will be well and our vet said she would be fine and hopefully this vet will say the same this morning, but I will be really nervous tomorrow when the plane takes off worrying if she is ok, and I will probably cry all over her when she gets off the plane and I see she is ok lol.

We have booked an extra-large taxi for tomorrow morning to take us to Gatwick so Maggie will have plenty of room, we thought catching the train and it being a busy time of morning would add to her stress so hopefully this will help a little bit, plus it will help us as well as we have three suitcases, one of them is Maggie’s as it will have her bed in, with her dishes and food etc. its funny that she has her own passport and her own suitcase lol.

I am glad we are going to Cyprus at this time of year as apparently it is cooling down a bit from last month, they are mainly in the high twenties now with the odd day at thirty degrees but thankfully they are out of the middle to high thirties so I think I will like the weather at this time of the year, here in the UK I continually feel like I have two blocks of ice at the ends of my arms, for some reason my hands are always really ice cold so I think that is the part I am looking forward to, just being nice and warm again.

Well it is now afternoon, the vet visit went well, Maggie did well with her examination, the only thing at the time that was a bit worrying was that it wasn’t injections she had to have but lots of pills, I did tell the vet that when she gets stressed she won’t eat anything let alone pills, and going to the vets office does stress her out, even if someone was to offer her a piece of steak when she is anxious she won’t eat anything., anyway Nick and the vet tried for ages to get the pills down her throat but it just made Maggie more anxious, apparently the vet is supposed to see Maggie take them before she stamps the passport but the vet was lovely and in the end stamped the passport anyway and said we could give her all the pills when we got back to our daughters house once she had calmed down. The vet did tell us about a spray called Activelle that we could buy that emits hormones that the mom dog produces when she gives birth to puppies and it’s a calming hormone, so Nick has gone off to the pet shop to find some for Maggie so that also might help her.

The Journey…..26th September

The taxi came nice and early this morning at 8am to take us to the airport, we had a lovely send off from my daughter, granddaughter and grandsons, and it felt quite exciting as we set off on our mad crazy adventure, the taxi was lovely and big and Maggie soon settled on the floor and we thought all was well until after about ten minutes into our journey the taxi stalled, thankfully the driver got the car going again, but then ten minutes later it stalled again, and it was like that for the whole journey to Gatwick, the taxi kept making awful noises, it seemed every time the driver stopped at lights or slowed down to go around a roundabout or had to give way to other cars it would stall, so we stalled a lot and got lots of angry beeps from other motorists, it also sounded like the brake pads were going as every time he touched the brakes it made a horrible noise, the journey was really worrying at the time, and there were a few times that we both thought that we weren’t going to make it to Gatwick.

When we finally got to the airport we both breathed a sigh of relief, not just that the taxi made it but that we made it alive lol, it was the most horrendous journey I think I had ever been on, and I don’t think we spoke a word to each other for the whole trip as it was just so nerve wracking with all the stalling and the angry beeps from other motorists.

We had got the taxi driver to drop us off at the back of Gatwick where there are some big warehouses which is where we were told to take Maggie, so we went into the office to check Maggie in, to discover to our dismay that we had been given the wrong time, so we had to hang around outside the warehouse for over an hour, which wasn’t too bad really as at least the sun was shining, it could have been worse and it could have been raining lol.

Well the time came to put Maggie into her crate, all the worrying and stressing I had been doing for weeks over this moment and it was here, I don’t think it helped that Maggie has always been a very sensitive dog and gets anxious really easily, so the thought of putting her into a crate and what she was going to have to go through had been stressing me out for weeks. I have to admit I felt really emotional, and all the thoughts I had about her journey came rushing back to me, I guess we all feel protective towards our animals, but I think it was her age that worried me the most, was she going to survive the journey, and if she didn’t survive, not only would life without Maggie be changed, but the guilt I would carry around with me knowing I had done this to her. What really was a help though was something I had read on one of the Cyprus forums, this particular person had told me that when they moved over to Cyprus they had put one of their old t shirts that they had worn for a few days, even slept in I believe, they put the t shirt into the crate with their dog so it would have their smell on the shirt, so before Maggie got into the crate we placed the t shirt in that I had been wearing on and off for a day or two and sprayed it with the hormone spray that Nick had brought from the pet shop. When we opened the crate door for Maggie to go inside, she straight away just went in and lay down, and that was it, no pacing, no panting, she didn’t looked stressed in the slightest, she just lay there and looked quite comfortable, the crate was a lovely size for her and she had plenty of room to stand up and turn around, and the whole thing to my amazement was much less stressful than I thought it would be, she looked very comfy and very relaxed when we left her, I thought it would be more upsetting than it actually was, so at least that was something that had gone right.

After boarding the plane we were told that it was going to be delayed as two people had checked their luggage in which had gotten taken to the plane, but then the couple didn’t show up to get on the plane, I think everyone was worried that there was something awful in their suitcases, the air steward said that the airline was not allowed to take off with someone’s case on board if they weren’t on board, so the airline had to go through all the luggage in the hold and find their suitcases, but an hour and a half later and the plane finally took off.

When we landed we went to find the taxi that we had pre booked as we needed one big enough to take Maggie and her crate, there were a lot of taxi’s holding name cards but our name wasn’t on any of them, at this point I wasn’t surprised lol, we did a lot of running around the taxi’s trying to figure out which one might be ours, in the end we realized ours wasn’t there which was a bit worrying and confusing, the taxi did show up just over an hour later, he said he had been there the whole time but we knew that wasn’t true, but at that point we were just grateful to see him, in the meantime while searching and waiting for the taxi, one of us had been running around the airport trying to find out where the dogs get taken when they land, it appeared not one person knew where they take the dogs which was also worrying at the time, all in all we spent two hours searching for Maggie, until suddenly I saw a woman outside the airport with a dog and she told me where to go, it was really frustrating as we had asked everyone inside the airport and everyone just kept shaking their head, so we eventually found her, poor little thing still in her big wooden crate, we asked if we could donate her cage to a charity which they were really happy with, but then the taxi driver said he wouldn’t take her without her cage as she might dirty the bottom of his taxi….I had already seen his taxi which was dirty on the floor, but the guy from the airport customs told me that the taxi guy was after keeping the cage so he could sell it which is why he refused Maggie without the cage, at this point it was now past midnight and there was Nick and this taxi guy trying and trying to get the cage in his big taxi but it wouldn’t fit lol, so it got donated in the end and the taxi driver was really annoyed.

We eventually arrived at the Airbnb house in Kouklia at nearly 1am, but the guy who owns the house sat patiently and waited for us, we were exhausted by the time we came into the house, the home owner had bought us groceries which was lovely of him so I can count that as something finally going right lol, he bought bread, milk, butter, cheese, biscuits, ham, beer, tea and coffee, it was such a nice thing to do and we were really hungry so that was really lovely, although to be honest at that point all I wanted was a very large Bacardi and coke which I promptly had as soon as he left lol.

Since that night though we haven’t seen him, he was supposed to pop back to let us know about hiring a car and show us how to work the TV, I don’t suppose it matters to much but it would have been nice to have some TV on now and again, thankfully we do have our laptops with lots of movies etc. so it’s not important and we have seen somewhere in the village that does car hire, so first thing Monday morning we will pop down there.

Our First Day……… Thursday 27th September

Well here we are…finally in Cyprus.

This morning I woke up at six thirty, exhausted still, but to excited to go back to sleep, I wanted to look out of all the windows and see my first glimpses of this lovely island, when I wandered out into the small back garden I was amazed to see an orange tree, a pomegranate tree and a huge fig tree and they were all full of fruit, how amazing, and the weather was beautiful, blue skies and sunshine, and it was hot lol.

The village that our Airbnb is in is called Kouklia, and it seems really pretty, we have had a few walks around the village, the weather is glorious and it is really hot, unreal that in another few days we will be in October, but it feels like the middle of summer and a heatwave lol, today I saw a banana tree in someone’s front garden with loads of banana’s hanging, I find all of it quite fascinating to be honest, we are taking Maggie out for her walk at eight in the morning and again around seven in the evening, even then it is still really warm but it is cooler for her, I am happy to say I have finally put cardigans away and its great being back in shorts and t shirts.

We walked down to the village square on our second night, which is only a ten minute walk, there are four or five taverna’s on each corner, it seems every Thursday night they close the roads and fill the square outside with tables and chairs and put on a buffet and Greek dancing, the whole thing was really fabulous as the evening was really warm and the music was very Greek, the food was delicious and the Greek dancing was really good and at one point they even had little Cypriot children dancing, it was so entertaining, we actually felt like we were on a movie set of Moma Mia lol, apparently they have this wonderful evening every Thursday throughout the summer, we will definitely have to go again.

We are hiring a car on Monday as we have to start looking for somewhere to live, but it has been nice having these few days not doing a lot, I woke up on Thursday with really aching legs and my knees hurt, I didn’t know whether I had been doing too much or they needed exercising, but the pain felt pretty bad and not just like leg ache, anyway by Saturday they were back to normal so I am guessing they had been overused lol and just needed a rest.

Maggie is doing well, and is also eating well, I have been putting some of the ham that the house owner left into her food so it’s nice to see her eating properly, and this morning she finished off a whole bowl of scrambled eggs that I cooked for her lol, I always feel happier when she is eating well as she is the pickiest dog I have ever met, thankfully there are huge ceiling fans in all of the rooms so she chooses a different one through the day, the house is air conditioned but we prefer the fans on as we both like to be warm.

Yesterday as I was talking to the neighbour I asked her what was growing wild opposite the house as they had big funny looking fruit on them and she said they were prickly pears which I think are normally quite expensive to buy, but here they are just growing wild.

The neighbor is a strange one but really lovely, her name is Katie and she looks after a lot of the village cats, I think there are probably about thirty cats that I counted one morning but there could be more, I was shocked on our first morning here to see them lying outside her house, they are all wild cats so she told me to be careful of stroking them, she said there are a lot of stray cats in the village and the taverna owners all help to feed them, so as we are out on our walks we see them everywhere, they look happy to be roaming  around and it’s nice to know the village feeds them, some of them are so beautiful but I am a bit too worried to even try to pet one of them.

This evening after the sun went down it was pretty hot so we had all the doors open to get a breeze going through the house which was lovely, but then I spotted a stray cat wandering through the house, followed by another and then another, I think we had about five cats in all just wandering around the living room and the kitchen, I actually just sat there in shock, I am a bit scared of cats as we once took a stray cat in and I got badly bitten, and of course with the neighbor Katie telling me to be careful as they are wild cats I have to admit I was a bit worried so I tried to sit as still as I could so they wouldn’t come near me, Nick had gone into his room to play a game on his laptop so I was shouting him but he didn’t hear me as unbeknown to me he had his headphones in lol, then I tried calling him on his mobile phone but he had left that in the living room, it was funny but also a bit worrying, anyway one by one they just left through the doors and windows, but one decided to stay and she was adamant I was going to stroke her as she kept crying and purring, so after about half an hour I actually did get down on the floor and stroke her, she was lovely, but then she wouldn’t leave, when Nick finally came into the living room he wasn’t impressed at all and when he got her out the door she lay outside on the patio all night, I think she wants a home poor little thing, but she had gone when I woke up, I did wonder if she would be back later on, but the following day I found out that she is a he and he is called Noddy and he lives a few doors away and isn’t a stray at all lol.

October 2018

On By Sandra PoynterIn 2018 The Beginning of Our JourneyLeave a comment

1st October –  Monday morning

Well unfortunately this morning we had another blip, as apparently there are no cars to rent in the area that we are in as they are all booked, the earliest we could book one was for Wednesday morning, so its just a case of waiting for two days, in a way I guess it’s done us good as it has made us relax for a whole week, and I have to say I was surprised this evening to see on my Fitbit watch that my heart rate was down to 58 beats a minute, which I haven’t seen in months., so this rest has done us good, we have done bits of walking here and there and even taken naps when we felt like it, it must have been needed and I think we are both feeling refreshed and full of energy again, I have to say I am loving the heat, most days it is between 27 and 31 degrees which is lovely and hot and the evenings are either hot or warm depending on if there is a breeze, I am totally loving not being cold or chilly and being in shorts and t shirts all the time, it is amazing.

3rd October

Well it is now a few days later, we finally got a car hire today and went exploring, there aren’t too many houses for rent but we did manage to find one that we liked in Tsada, it is high up in the hills and so its cooler than Paphos, of course not knowing the area’s we don’t know if we will like it or not, so we have decided to take it for one year and hopefully by then we will know the area’s better, it’s a lovely house though and after living in a tiny English house this will be a nice treat, its a detached house, all open plan which we both love and it has an amazing swimming pool which you can see through the patio doors from the living room. Tsada is around four to eight degrees cooler than Paphos so I think we might like it up in the hills, the scenery as we were driving up to Tsada was amazing and totally took my breath away, everyone that I had spoken to had said Paphos was the best place to live but as we were driving inland a bit more and going up into the hills I totally fell in love with Cyprus and it was how I had imagined it in my mind…..so we are going to accept the house we looked at, and hopefully be able to move in around the 18th October, so not long to wait really as today is the 3rd October.

Last night we met a lovely English couple called Linda & Graham who live two doors away from the Airbnb where we are staying at the moment, they are English and have lived here for around 11 years, they popped over for a drink, and they have said I can pop round in the morning and log onto their internet which was lovely of them, not having internet or a TV that works in the Airbnb is a nuisance.

11th October

The one thing we are having problems with at the moment is food as everything over here is meat orientated, they don’t cater for vegetarians in the supermarkets so most of the dinners I have cooked have not been very good, so I am going to have to learn some new recipes but hopefully soon we will have time to play more in the kitchen, I don’t even seem to be able to find any fish I like, a few nights ago we had catfish, it was the only fish I could find in the village shop and oh it was awful lol, anyway I am sure we will figure it out when we are more settled.

I read earlier that Tsada where our long term rental is gets a bit more rain and it goes colder in the winter up in the hills, it will be interesting to see what the seasons are like around the island, I wonder if we will prefer it in the hills or if we will prefer it further down in Paphos, I guess we will see…..

We went through a terrible time with Maggie a few days ago….it really was a bit traumatic, one of the days she accidently did her business out of the back of the house where it is a bit like a balcony and not in the courtyard, and as I went out to her she realized what she had done and I think she thought I was coming to tell her off, so she went running down the steps only the steps lead to nowhere, it’s just a sort of drop off of about eight feet, sort of like a small cliff edge, so she ran down these very steep stone steps and when she got to the bottom she couldn’t stop herself and she went flying over the edge into the field below, I saw her land on her side and I honestly thought she was dead, the whole thing was horrifying to be honest and I just stood there yelling, Nick came running out and somehow got down the edge to the field below and Maggie was ok, I have no idea how she was ok as it should have broken her bones or killed her to be honest with the way she landed, we couldn’t get her back up the way she had come down as the ledge is to high so Nick walked her through the field and up the hill round to the front of house and she was fine, we both worried she was a bit achy from her fall so we started giving her painkillers for a few days, anyway she seemed as right as rain and we kept watching her for days in case she looked in pain, I do keep going over it in my head though and its pretty horrifying picturing it all again, but I keep telling myself she is fine, I wish I didn’t worry so much.

We got the keys at the beginning of the week to the house in Tsada that we have agreed to rent, so we popped up there to have another look, the neighbor’s that are directly behind our house and overlook our garden came over to introduce themselves while we were there as they have been paid to clean the house for us before the furniture arrives, they are a younger couple with a ten year old and a four year old, I think I will enjoy having children around and they seem like a nice couple.

The village center of Tsada is quite small really and about an eight  minute walk from the house, so apart from a shop on the outskirts of the village there really isn’t anything more apart from a coffee shop which looks nothing like an English coffee shop, there is also a taverna which is similar to a pub but looks nothing like a pub, we go there for coffee when we pop to the house and we have gotten to the know the owner Joanna who has lived in the village all her life, she is a lovely Cypriot lady and she was telling me that her cousin comes to the village once a week to do hairdressing so she has said she will take me to her cousins house once and then I can go on my own afterwards, apparently she only charges fifteen euro’s for a wash cut and blow dry, I think my hairdresser in Ryde was around 32 pounds….there is also an old Cypriot man next to the taverna that cuts men’s hair so that should be fun for Nick lol.

The neighbor’s at the back of the new house were telling us how cold it gets in the winter up in the hills, so I am a bit worried, but their cold might be totally different from my cold so I will have to wait and see, at the moment I am still in shorts and t shirts and still haven’t worn a cardigan, I am sure I will moan when I have to start wearing different clothes, but the weather every day is still staying at 27 degree’s which is still too hot for Maggie to go out during the day but she is enjoying her morning and evening walks and now and again if the day is breezy we drive her to the beach at Mandria for a walk

Well it is now a day or two later, Linda and Graham took us to Limassol to pick our car up from the port which was lovely of them, but it wasn’t as straight forward as we were hoping and with paperwork and trying to explain to different people about our car, the whole thing took hours, tomorrow we have to go back to Limassol and meet with the customs guy and the clearing agent for more paperwork which I know is going to take more hours of getting lost and waiting for paperwork to be done, we also found out it is going to cost more money than we thought, as the roof comes down on the car and even though it has a hard top they class it as a sports car., anyway we finally got over the disappointment of spending more money at some point, and we have the car now even though all of the paperwork isn’t done yet, but even after spending more hours tomorrow sorting things out there is still a lot more to do, like the emissions certificate, another MOT even though we just had one done in the UK, then registration, then the plates, road tax, and that’s without all the customs and port stuff,  plus insurance, I have a feeling its one of those things that is going to go on for quite a while.

17th October – Wednesday

We heard today from from the removal people and they want to deliver the furniture Friday morning which is the 19th at 8.30am, so that was good news, so I contacted the lady whose Airbnb we are in and told her we would be leaving at 8am Friday and to let me know what we needed to pay, and she was lovely and said she would give us one free night, so it didn’t cost as much as we thought it was going to, so this evening I have been scrubbing and cleaning her house so we can leave it looking really lovely for her, although I have been told not to bother cleaning as they get cleaners in when someone leaves, but still at least the cleaner will have an easier time of it lol.

So we are finally moving into our own place, it is really exciting and I can’t wait to unpack all the things I have missed and have my own things around me, and my own comfy chair and my own bed.

18th October – Thursday

Well today we got a phone call from the moving company to say the workers at the port were on strike, so we won’t be moving on Friday now,  they said possibly next Tuesday they could deliver the furniture,  but she didn’t give me a time so I thought that it probably wasn’t definite, i felt so fed up as i was looking forward to getting settled, but then they called back a few hours later and said that the people at the port said they will release our container and we will definitely have it delivered Monday morning at 10.30am, she said the crew have been booked so it is definitely for definite, it did cheer us up a bit as even if it’s just a day earlier than Tuesday it is still a whole day.

Anyway we took ourselves and Maggie off to the beach and went to the beach café for a drink, I never drink during the day but I treated myself to half a lager, I do like the lager out here, it’s called Keo and its really lovely and for a half pint it costs 2 euro’s and 2.50 for a pint so pretty cheap for a drink, and then we walked along the sea front, although I really wanted to be paddling as I walked but Maggie isn’t allowed onto the beach, but there are some benches along the way so we gave Maggie lots of sit downs, and it did make the day go a bit faster.

20th October – Saturday

We went out for a lovely meal with Linda and Graham in Mandria this evening, the taverna had grape vines hanging down which looked beautiful, it was a fun night with both of them.

22nd October  –  Monday and yes it is finally MOVING DAY

Peter Morton’s removals arrived at the house, and it was really exciting, I think at this point we just needed to feel settled and we needed to sleep in our own bed and sit on our own chairs.

The guys were lovely and we made them endless cups of tea and coffee, they worked tirelessly and every box and every piece of furniture went into the right room, they did an amazing job.

When they were taking the boxes from the truck to bring into the house I had to tick the boxes off a sheet of paper to confirm we received each box, to my surprise there were 121 boxes.

In all it took us three full days to unpack, 121 boxes is a lot, it was mainly because of the unwrapping and the great job that the shippers in England did, they had more than triple wrapped everything in huge huge sheets of paper really tightly, one small drinking glass was wrapped in three huge sheets of paper so each item I unpacked took about five minutes, even one small bottle of nail varnish was wrapped in two huge pieces of paper, on the second day of unwrapping I was so fed up as it just took forever and I started to dread every box that I saw lol, but we only had two small breakages so I guess that shows what an amazing job they did really as I have heard the containers really get knocked around a lot on their way over.

27th October

So we are finally unpacked and more or less sorted out now, it was a busy week though, normally when we move it just takes one day to unpack and sort things out and the following day we hang pictures, so this move was a new experience for us, but thankfully it is all done, everything is unpacked and pictures are on the walls and everything is looking nice, and I never want to unwrap another thing lol.

The neighbours at the back of our house bought some micro beer over one of the days as a welcome present which was sweet of them, they seem a lovely young couple, and now and again in the evening I hear the kids laughing which is really nice.

It was lovely moving from the Airbnb, Katie’s two dogs kept barking at Maggie which she didn’t like and there were a lot of flies from all of the cats that she was feeding, thankfully there are no barking dogs where we are now and no flies, I think we were also really ready to see a proper TV and have some internet, although for four days I didn’t manage to go on my laptop at all as it was a bit chaotic and even though we have the television set up we don’t actually have TV to watch as over here of course all the programs are Greek, but there are a few things that we can sign up for, the cheapest is called TV Mucho and costs forty eight pounds a year after we have bought the android box so we will try that one first, its english TV, only everything is two hours behind the UK, so Coronations Street we would get at half nine instead of half seven, so we will give it a try and forty eight pounds for the year is really cheap, so even if it doesn’t work out we haven’t lost very much.

After our days of chaos emptying all of the boxes, on the Thursday I would have liked to have stayed in and had a rest as I was feeling pretty poorly, I think one of the removal men had a cold and of course I caught it,  but the cupboards were bare so we had to go and do grocery shopping and some more running around to do with the car which honestly seems like it is never ending, but now thankfully the cupboards are now full and we have all the paperwork for the car finally, so we now just need to go and get the car registered, then the MOT, and then the road tax and new insurance, it really feels like it has been ongoing for a while now, but we are still glad we bought the car over, as we know there aren’t any problems with it, so at least we have something reliable that we know runs pretty perfectly, so it was all worth the running around.

We did have a storm that started Wednesday night, there was a lot of thunder and lightning, and Thursday was cloudy and windy, it was our first day of experiencing chilly weather, it really made a change from hot sunshine, although Maggie was happy as she got an afternoon walk lol, but the following day it was back to nice weather again, today its 23 degrees and next week its going up to 28 degree’s again, I don’t think I will ever take this warmth for granted, it is nice in the hills though as with the kitchen window open and the patio doors open we get a nice breeze going through the house, we also discovered we have a solar panel on the roof of the house, which gives us free hot water every day, there is a switch for a heater so if the sun doesn’t shine we can still have hot water, and so far with showers and washing up it seems like enough and we haven’t had to put the water heater on yet.

So far I am finding most things cheaper over here, there isn’t any council tax as such, just a thirteen pound charge every month to get the bins emptied which I think we have to pay for yearly, we were paying £125 just for one month in the UK, I have heard that water is also cheaper, we are not sure about electricity, but it will be interesting to see what our first bills are.

Slowly we are finding some of the cheaper shops, a few days ago we found one called Smarts, and I really liked the prices in there, so it seems if you shop around there are some good deals to be had, one of the removal men was telling me his wife goes to three different shops to do her shopping as then she gets the best deals, so we will do the same, I guess it’s all just learning, we bought our little freezer that we had from the UK, it’s just a small under the counter freezer with four drawers, so we took the dishwasher out of the kitchen here and have put the little freezer under the counter instead, I find it easier being vegetarian to make bigger batches of dinners and freeze them as certain things are time consuming.

Nick actually cooked the dinner last night as I was still feeling unwell, and it was edible sort of, he did add to much salt and did add to many stock cubes, there were a few things wrong with it but I did manage to eat half of it, and then praised him up lots lol, I really want to encourage him to cook a bit more as he will need things to do now and again now he is retired, so hopefully I can encourage him to try making new things, I love playing around in the kitchen and he has never had a chance to see if he likes it so we will see what happens.

The house itself is lovely but to be honest I think it’s a bit big for the both of us, I think I would prefer something smaller but I wonder if it’s because I just got used to small houses when living in the UK, and maybe this isn’t too big for us, I guess we will know what we want over time, it’s all open plan which I do prefer so that is something we both like, and we definitely need to buy some rugs as the ceramic tiles are really cold on the feet, but I guess that will be nice in the summer, I think everyone puts their rugs down in the winter and takes them up in the summer, we did have one rug that got stored in the shed in the UK and it has a few big mouse nibbles on it, but I do like the rug so I will tape the edges when I can find some edging tape.

I am finding it amazing having more space, I actually have most of my clothes hanging up for a change as all of the bedrooms have lovely big wardrobes, and the kitchen has enough cupboards to put everything away which also makes a lovely change, the only two things I can see wrong with all of it is the sun isn’t in the right place lol, I would have liked the sun to have come in through the windows more which I have read helps to keep it warm in winter, and I am still getting used to be the patio being overlooked by the neighbor’s, but its only their bedroom windows that overlook us, but their house is quite close,  I have sat out a few times and I am trying not to feel like I am being watched, hopefully I can get over it at some point and not care too much.

30th October

Well I spent half my week last week cleaning, and the other half we spent still running around getting the car sorted out, it has felt like a really busy week again, but I am slowly getting there and hope to have caught up with all the cleaning in the next day or two, also the windows need cleaning as it looks like they haven’t been done for a while, the young couple were supposed to clean them but said to me there was no point as it might rain lol, I just nodded and smiled, but it’s a good job I didn’t have that attitude in the UK as our windows would never have gotten cleaned lol, the young guy is also cleaning our pool for us every week as we are paying for it in with the rent, so he is going to come twice a week in the summer and once a week in the winter, he is doing an amazing job though and the pool is spotless.

The pool we have in the back garden takes up most of the patio, it’s strange not having grass but it’s going to be nice not having to cut it or worry about it with lack of rain, it does look lovely though, but because the overnight temperature has gone down the water is really cold, but I am sure next summer it will be lovely, our next door neighbor who is the owner of this house actually has a small bit of grass in his back garden, I think it’s the first piece of grass I have seen since being over here, I guess it’s because of the heat, anyway we met our landlord next door who owns the house we are in, he owns all three houses in our row, they seem a really nice couple and they came and introduced themselves to us, they only come up at weekends as they have a house in the city, they told us how big it was and it is obviously a mansion, but anyway they do seem nice.

Maggie isn’t doing too well this week, her walks seem to be getting shorter and shorter and over the last few days they are literally about fifteen minutes, its mainly her arthritis which is a shame, I hate to see her limping so much, the pills she is on were working so well on her but at the moment they don’t seem to be working as well, so we will give her another week or two and then take her to the vets to see if they can come up with anything new.

We finally got our S1 medical forms through the post from England, we were supposed to have them weeks ago delivered to the Airbnb house we stayed in, but they must have gotten lost so we called them up and finally got them through a few days ago, so now we have to find something called the Citizens Centre and they are supposed to send them off to Nicosia to be registered and then we should get issued with medical cards so we can then register with a doctor, so hopefully we can do that this week sometime, I really am feeling like I need a few days of just staying at home as its feels like its been so busy lately.

We signed up for the British TV called TV Mucho, and it works really well, and definitely worth the forty eight euro’s for the year, it has been so nice watching British TV in the evening, so at the moment we are watching it though one of the laptops but one of the days we will go and check out the android boxes which we will be able to watch it through, it is a good deal and it gives us seven day catch up TV from the previous week and also live TV, it is so good having TV again.

Our daytime temperatures are still hot and we are still in shorts and t shirts and this week the temperature is at 28 degree’s which is really hot, but we are noticing now that the evenings are getting colder and so during the day the house is a nice temperature and we can have the doors open but in the evening it suddenly just goes really cold in the house, I guess the ceramic tiles on the floor and the high ceilings also makes it cold, I am so glad I bought slippers with me, so I don’t think it will be long before we have to have a fire in the evening, but we will be wearing shorts in the daytime which is crazy but I guess we will get used to it, one of the neighbors said he starts lighting his fire in the evenings in the middle of November but the day time temperatures are still hot, its all very weird. He was also telling me that all of his family got pneumonia within a few months of being in Cyprus, and he has heard of other people also getting it, he said it’s all to do with the weather as it never gets really cold enough to kill any of the germs, and with it being warm and humid that is the weather that germs seem to like, I thought that was quite interesting but let’s hope we can stay healthy.

I have been really surprised to find out that the only ibuprofen that they sell over here is something called Nurofen which contains ibuprofen but it costs a fair amount, and Paracetamol over here you can only buy in pills called Panadol and another name which I have forgotten, you also can’t buy either of them from a supermarket or a shop but it seems you have to go to a pharmacy and ask the pharmacist, which I also found really strange, so when I go back to England I will have to stock up on them, I have asked Brian the guy we met in Ryde if he will bring me some over when he gets here, I think he is due to arrive sometime in December., we have stayed in touch with him and have offered to pick him up from the airport to take him to an Airbnb that he has rented, I think it has been nice for him in a way hearing about all the blips that we have had so hopefully he won’t have so many, and also we seem to know where most things are now, we were lucky in meeting Linda and Graham our neighbors from the Airbnb who were really helpful to us so it’s nice now to be able to help someone else muddle through everything lol.

Today we finally got the car sorted out and finished with, Monday we did the MOT and the car insurance, the MOT was only thirty five euro’s which is about thirty pounds, it used to cost us around fifty pounds on the Isle of Wight and only lasted for a year, but over here it lasts for two years, and the car insurance was also cheaper, so that made us both happy, then Tuesday today we went out to get the car registered and got Cyprus plates for it, anyway it’s nice to finally have that completed.

We seem to have a problem with ants since moving in, every night they appear from somewhere and are all over the downstairs floors, mainly the kitchen and living room, last night we sprayed so much ant spray that I had to go and sit outside in the dark as I couldn’t breathe., hopefully at some point they will go if we keep spraying, but when we moved into the house there was a tin of ant spray in the cupboard so obviously it might be an ongoing problem, at the moment we can’t seem to figure out where they are coming from, but hopefully in time we will, I told Nick that tonight instead of spraying and killing them we need to follow them, so maybe that will work lol.

2018 November

On By Sandra PoynterIn 2018 The Beginning of Our JourneyLeave a comment

5th November

I have actually had a few more days of staying in which has been nice and relaxing, and I have caught up on all the jobs I wanted to do, my last job was scrubbing the stairs, I don’t know if they are stone or concrete but they were very grimy, so I spent an hour or two with a scourer and they came up lovely and clean which made me feel better,  and the house is starting to feel more like home, I think the more you clean the more you sort of make it your own.

We did try and sort out our medical cards last week, but there was another blip, when we first got over here we were supposed to be sent our S1 forms for medical coverage, only they never arrived, so after calling them in England they said they would send them again, and so last week they actually came through the post, but when we went to the Citizens Centre over here to register them it seems that they only sent Nicks through and not mine, so we have had to call them again to get them to re send mine, I guess three times lucky lol, anyway it was disappointing to find out we still have to wait, but its lucky we don’t need to see a doctor, although I think I will be glad when we can sort it out just in case.

The weather has been really hot every day, although yesterday for a change we had rain and cloud all day, it was actually really nice to see some rain as the plants outside were looking a bit sad and I thought I was going to have to spend my afternoon with the hose, there is a sprinkler system that is on a timer, but I am not sure there is enough water coming out of the sprinklers, anyway the weather took care of the watering for me, I am finding the days are really hot and the mornings and evenings are chilly, it’s still not chilly enough to light the fire though but I am wearing a cardigan in the house as the house is always cooler than outside as we don’t get the sun coming through the windows and the ceramic floors also makes the house colder, we need to buy some more rugs at some point but have to find shops that sell them, but I am still in shorts and t shirts and when I am in the house I put a cardigan on and also I am finding that we are needing our slippers as he floors are feeling really cold.

We had Linda and Graham pop over one of the days which was nice, Linda looks after a little Russian boy who is three, although he looks like a four or five year old and is so intelligent, already he speaks Russian and English and is now learning Greek, I can’t believe he is only three lol, so they brought him with them which was nice, and he is so cute, we had a nice visit with them, they were our first proper visitors.

I am starting to cook a bit more and have come up with a couple of different recipe’s that I made a few years ago, and when I went grocery shopping I have now found all of my dried beans and different lentils, so this week I will start trying a few different things, I do intend to make some fish cakes this week, and a lentil meatloaf, I made a fish crumble a few days ago which was lovely, its called fish crumble as you use breadcrumbs instead of potatoes. Now Nick has retired I am looking forward to playing more in the kitchen with more lentil and bean dishes to see what I can come up with and Nick seems to be wanting to cook a bit more as he made my special rice a few days ago, I was hovering a bit to help him but he did really well and we managed to freeze about ten containers,  I am hoping he can start experimenting at some point but for now I think he is enjoying making the odd thing that he knows will come out ok, so I guess it’s a learning thing, although he did find an online recipe for a vegetable casserole that had raisins and apricots in it, and he seemed to really want to try it, I don’t think it’s something I would make lol but I went along with it and it will be interesting to see if he attempts it, I am enjoying having him at home, he is such a help with Maggie and doing different jobs and now he is getting into cooking, it does feel lovely not to be running round like a crazy woman.

The little girl that lives at the back of our house came over a few days ago to bring us a bookmark each which she had made herself, she is ten and called Sofia, she speaks Czech as she is from Czechoslovakia and speaks english really well, in fact I thought she was english, she is also learning Greek, she actually talks like a 13 year old as she isn’t too silly lol, so it was fun having her in the house for a while, she made a big fuss of Maggie and then when I turned around she had gotten engrossed in the TV lol, in the end I think she was here for about two hours. she said she is looking forward to swimming in our pool next year as they don’t have one and apparently she said the people who lived here before us were really horrible, she is a funny little thing lol.

Well today we are going to try and open a bank account, this will be our second attempt, but we needed proof of Nicks pensions and they also wanted our income tax numbers which we haven’t been able to find, but on Friday after Nick called the tax people in England it turns out that your tax number is your national insurance number unless you have done a self-assessment and then you get a different number, anyway so we have figured all of that out now and have printed off Nicks pensions so hopefully today will go to plan and we can open a bank account, once we have that done we can have Nicks pensions go into it and then we won’t pay so much tax on them, as we lose a fair amount every month in tax in England, but in Cyprus the tax rate is really low so we should be better off, that’s the plan anywal, let’s hope there are no more blips today lol.

11th November

Food is starting to get a bit better over here, we made a lovely big casserole in the slow cooker one of the days and used lots of lentils, we also tried it with Thyme, turmeric and cumin which gave it a lovely flavor, I think I got it from one of the BBC websites, a year or two ago we stopped having casserole after we went vegetarian as Nick said he would miss the meat in it to much and it sounded boring without it, but anyway he totally loved it and it lasted two days which was good, also my fishcakes that I made came out really well, they did seem to take forever to make, but I did make a double batch so I have a spare dinner in the freezer now, and I also made lentil meatloaf and put half in the freezer as that also takes ages to make, I do intend at some point to put some of my vegetarian recipe’s on my blog,

We have had some nice walks around the village which I have enjoyed, everyone seems really friendly and says hello which is nice, we pop into the taverna now and again for a coffee on our walks, it only costs four euro’s for Nicks coffee and my tea, the owner Joana gives us a hard time about paying, she said it’s because we have our coffee and tea black with no sugar so she feels bad about taking the money from us, isn’t that strange but also really sweet, but we are still insisting on paying her as it wouldn’t feel right, and on Tuesday she is taking me to her cousins house where she does hairdressing one day a week for the villagers, my hair has gotten a bit long so it definitely needs sorting out, I was going to ask her how much her cousin charges to dye hair as if it doesn’t cost a lot it would be nice to have it done properly, but I picked up some hair dye from Alphamega last week and used it a few days ago, it’s a good job I know how to dye my hair as the instructions were all In Greek lol, anyway it was a dye I hadn’t used before although I know they sell it in the UK, it was called Excellence and it said ash blond on the box, and my hair actually came out ash blonde with lots of ash in it, so thankfully that turned out well.

This week Nick called the Pension people in England to start having his pensions paid into our bank over here so that’s another job done and we also popped into the tax office in Paphos to see if we could get a tax number as we will save a lot of money by paying tax over here rather than in the UK, but we were told we couldn’t apply for a tax number until we had lived over here for six months, so we have to wait until March time which is a shame.

We bought the TV android box a few days ago so now we don’t have to use our laptops when we want to watch TV, and this week now and again I have put Good Morning Britain on, although I have to wait two hours before I can put it on because of the time difference, so if I am home I put it on at 12.30 as in the UK it starts at 10.30, I like it on in the background as I am doing things around the house and they talk about some interesting topics.

We had a couple of cloudy days last week, it was a shock not to have the sun shining as I think I have gotten used to it now, on one of those days we had rain with thunder, I was happy about the rain though for the plants outside, but I am happy we are back to blue skies again and still in shorts,  I was reading someone’s blog yesterday of their first winter in Cyprus and they were saying that in the winter they took clothes off to go outside as it was warm and sunny and they put clothes back on to go in the house as their house was cold lol, so it’s definitely the cold houses that are the problem and it doesn’t help with the cold tiled floors and high ceilings, sometimes I feel that they are just big concrete boxes, although after saying that I do like the house we are living in, I still have to get used to the size of it as it seems huge compared to our last house in the UK, anyway we will see how we get on over our first year, the thing we both like is that the landlord said he will never sell it, he owns four houses at least, so it would be nice to stay as we would never have to move again, it’s crazy really that this lovely big villa is also a hundred pounds a month cheaper than our small house in Ryde which is quite mad for a three bedroomed villa with a pool, and did I mention it also includes the pool guy who comes once a week through the winter to clean and maintain it and twice a week in the summer.

Our new friend Brian that we met in Ryde is due to arrive in December and as he is shipping half a container, he has told me he has lots of spare space, so a few weeks ago he told me that if we thought of anything we had forgotten then we could have it sent to his house and he would bring it over for us in the container, well since then I realized I was nearly out of face cream, and discovered that the cocoa butter I like they don’t sell over here, so Brian went out and bought me ten tubs of cream as they were on sale for buy one and get the second one free, we did deposit the money back into his bank, then a week later I found that they also don’t sell the oils I like to make my face cream in Cyprus, so I ordered everything I needed and got it delivered to Brian’s house, thank goodness he has space in his container lol, I could buy them on eBay but the shipping was about thirty five pounds which is mad, I think from now on every time I get a visitor from the UK I will order the things I need online and pay for them and get them delivered to whoever is coming over and get them to bring them over for me, so it should work out well I hope, crazy that they don’t sell the things I need over here.

Friday night we went out to the taverna for a meal, it was english night, and it was full of english people which was nice to see,  they were all in groups so they have probably known each other for years, the owner said that they all go every Friday night,  we did have a nice time though and the food was lovely and it was nice not to have to cook or clean up,  it’s good that it doesn’t seem as expensive as going out in the UK, and there are some fish items on the menu which sound lovely.

Today we went and had lunch at a place called Polis, it’s on the west coast of Cyprus, it took us thirty five minutes to get there from Tsada, it’s more like a small town and is right on the sea front, they had a nice sandy beach which I enjoyed and a café on the beach, and we wandered around the town, I had heard nice things about it and it was quite a nice town but I think I am more in love with the little villages rather than the towns but it was nice to go and have a look to see what it was like, I think I would like to go again next summer to see how busy it gets with tourists.

17th November

Last night we decided to start lighting the fire in the evenings to take the chill off, it seems mad to be in shorts and be hot outside during the day and have a chilly house during the day which turns into quite a chilly house in the evening, but I am not moaning as I am loving the sunshine, the fire seems to do the trick though and hopefully it will all be ok, we still haven’t bought the calor gas fires but hopefully we will do that soon, about ten minutes before bed time I go and switch my electric blanket on which is so lovely and warm, I wish I had got one years ago, the good thing is that within ten minutes it seems to make me fall asleep lol.

Tomorrow I plan on going nut hunting lol, as just down the road there are some almond trees so I am going to take a little plastic dish with me when we go for our walk and see how many nuts I can collect, I would love to find a walnut tree, I keep looking but so far can’t find one, but I do know they grow over here so its something I will keep my eyes open for, although I am happy to say the stores are finally selling oranges, its been unreal that the shops haven’t had any in since we arrived at the end of September, I can see that they are finally going ripe on the tree’s, it feels like forever since I have had one, but they all start going ripe in November, it seems most houses have an orange tree in their garden and it looks so pretty when I am walking through the village to see them all full of beautiful orange fruit, there is a tree on the side of the road that belongs to no one that is full of oranges so hopefully I will be picking them soon, I think I am a scavenger lol.

I had a bean day on Wednesday, my first bean day since getting over here, I soaked and cooked kidney beans, chick peas and black eyed beans and then tried a new one called Alubia beans, which is a white kidney bean, I had never seen it before so thought I would try it, anyway I had to stay in for most of the afternoon, but it was nice to get my beans all cooked and in the freezer, it works out so much cheaper than buying them in tins and I am going to have a go at making falafels now I have lots of chick peas cooked, I also want to try new lentil recipe’s at some point, I am enjoying having a bit more time in the kitchen these days, I had an allotment on the Isle of Wight which took most of my time up, but now I am actually feeling like a retired person lol, so far I haven’t missed it the allotment but I am glad I bought lots of garden pots and my metal shelving out of the greenhouse so just in case I want to grow anything I can, I have to say I do love the tomato’s that they sell in the stores over here, they are so big and so red, I fell in love with them instantly lol, they are beautiful, the cucumbers are funny though, they don’t sell big cucumbers anywhere, they are all tiny but they do taste nice, I do wonder if they will still sell the big red tomato’s in the winter or will they will be not so red and a bit tasteless like they get in the UK over the winter, it will be interesting to see.

I finally got round to having my hair cut, I met up with Joanna the owner of the taverna Tuesday morning and she took me to her cousins house and I was so pleased at what she did, she cut it the right length with layers and didn’t straighten it which was lovely, at my hairdressers in Ryde no matter how many times I told her not to straighten it too much I would always come out with flat hair and have to go home and re wash it to give it some body, but this woman got it right first time and didn’t even get the straighteners out, so I feel really lucky that I have her, she charged me 15 euros which is about twelve pounds, which made me laugh, so I gave her twenty as it didn’t feel like it was enough.

On the way home I stopped off at one of the coffee shops in the village, it’s not like a proper coffee shop, just a small room, and outside there are hard backed chairs in a row against the wall, it’s very strange, all the old Cypriot guys sit there in the sunshine on and off through the day drinking their coffee, I found it quite good fun going in there and asking for a cup of tea as it threw them into a bit of confusion lol, and I sat outside with all the old guys with my chair up against the wall, it did make me chuckle lol, it was only one euro for a cup of tea.

Nick is going to get his hair cut next week by one of the old guys in the village who has a little shop next to the taverna, we are a bit worried that he may have shaky hands, so Nick has been putting it off for a few weeks now, but we think it’s important to give business to the locals rather than to go into one of the bigger shops in Paphos, I think Nick is worried though and has been putting it off for weeks now lol, but his hair is now getting so long he has no choice but to go next week to get it done, I think I will have to go with him and have a coffee in the taverna next door to make sure he goes lol.

We went out with Linda and Graham last night to a taverna down on Paphos sea front, they invited 16 other people,  and what a laugh we had, I think it has to be the best night out I have had in years, all night we all just kept making each other laugh, it was lovely, most of them were on holiday over here and they were Linda and Grahams friends from back home in England that all happened to be over at the same time, still it was good fun and a night to remember so I am glad we made the effort as it was such a laugh.

I keep forgetting to take a bag out with me when we go on our walks to pick the almonds from the tree’s, they don’t actually look like almonds as they are in an outer shell that you have to take off to get to the other shell, anyway I pick a few on my walk to put in my pocket and then bring them home but they are mounting up, now I just need to buy a nut cracker as we seem to have lost ours.

I finally got my medical form (S1) through the post so we went and took them to the citizens office, and now we just have to wait for them to be registered and apparently we will get a card through the post, we also went and bought a calor gas fire which will come in handy to help warm the living room up, I think I want to get one for the upstairs next, as the bedrooms at night are now pretty cold so I think if we get another one and leave it on low for an hour before bed it will take the chill off, I guess it all takes time to figure out what we need over here and how to make the houses work with not having central heating, I do still find it funny that I am outside boiling hot in the daytime and wrapped up warm with slippers on in the evening in front of a fire lol, the days are still either warm or hot with blue skies.

I did ask the lady that cut my hair why all the people over here seem to wear jeans or trousers when it is so hot and she told me it’s because its winter which made me laugh, she said because their summers are really long and really hot they find this weather a bit chilly, I actually did read something like that before we came over, but I have also read their real winter starts in December so it will be interesting to see how warm or cold it is then as I haven’t got a clue and when I have researched December weather it is mixed so I think we have to experience it ourselves to know.

The only other thing we need now for the house apart from the upstairs calor gas fire are some rugs for the floors, we have one rug which we had stored in the shed from Canada, but we need two more, so we are going to measure the floor where we need them and see if we can find some, so I think that is what we are doing today.

24th November

I have enjoyed having the calor gas fire this last week as some evenings we just put it on low at the other side of the living room and it saves bothering with a fire, and so far it seems to warm the room up, we also figured out last week that there is a little pull out bar on the woodstove that blows hot air out, so when we have lit a fire it has been lovely and warm, the fan makes all the difference, everything is a learning thing I guess.

Our weather is a bit mixed at the moment, we are going from about 19 degrees to 24, and some days we have full sun and it feels hot like we are in summer and then other days we have cloud, sometimes when its cloudy its warm but on the odd day if it has rained it feels chilly, we are still in shorts and t shirts though and now and again I take my cardigan out with me if I see cloud in case there is a breeze.

We have had some nice walks around the village, but still haven’t explored all of the little roads and side roads yet, I am still loving all the almond trees, they seem to be everywhere, we have gotten into a routine of taking the nut cracker that we finally bought out with us, as on our walk with Maggie we walk for about ten minutes to a wall of an abandoned house and then have a sit down on the wall to give Maggie a rest before we start coming back, as at the moment she is limping a bit, so we sit and eat almonds that we have picked on the way, I have learned this week when to tell if the almond is ready to pick and eat, it seems the first outer shell has to be split open a bit otherwise when you crack the regular almond shell there is no almond inside, it took me a couple of weeks to figure this out though lol.

I also discovered one of the tree’s we have in our little side garden has a fruit called pomelo fruit on it, the size of it is the size of a grapefruit, I did some research on it and they are really healthy, our tree only has one fruit on it which is a shame but hopefully next year we will get more, we have a clementine tree which has about nine little clementine’s, and also a regular orange tree which seems to have lots of oranges and there is a lemon tree that actually has lemons on it lol, I am happy we have some fruit tree’s as everyone seems to have them, I still have to find a walnut tree though and I look every time we go for a walk, but it gives us something to look out for, I actually bought some walnuts in the shells today when we were shopping as I got fed up of trying to find a tree lol.

I made some mushroom burgers a few days ago, it was a new recipe and they were not to bad, buying the vegetarian burgers over here made with Quorn which is a vegetarian meat replacement seems to be really expensive in Cyprus, so I decided to try something new as I am sure it is probably healthier making them ourselves, anyway they were really nice in pitta bread so another recipe added to the list.

Today I am making falafel balls to have with our rice, they are made out of chickpeas so they are really healthy, so I intend to freeze lots, and I am also making some falafel patties so we can have them with salad or roasted veg, it’s been slow going figuring out what to have for dinner every night although it has gotten a bit better, we came up with a new plan yesterday, we have now decided that each of us has to come up with one new recipe a week each and then we have to make the recipe ourselves, so that should be fun and interesting.

Maggie isn’t doing to badly, we have cut her walks to twice a day as we were taking her for three short walks, but she seems to be doing better with two, it’s quite painful for her to walk with her arthritis poor thing, but no matter how much pain she is in and how much limping she is doing…. every night at around 7 in the evening she gets her ball out for me to play with her, quite often at that time I don’t feel like playing, but she makes me and I have no choice lol. she can only play for about twenty minutes and then she is tired out but for years now that has been her playtime with me, I think it goes back to when Nick used to be on nights in Canada and so evenings became our playtime, she is off to the vets next week as she will have run out of her pills so we are hoping they can give her something for her pain or change her medication as I don’t think these pills are doing much for her at the moment.

We have had a few days out in Paphos this week trying to find some rugs for the floor, I think it took three attempts of driving around in the car on different days, and finally we found a shop that had rugs that weren’t too bad, so we got one for the living room and one for my bedroom, I love the one I got for my bedroom as it is has some lovely colours in it, but I am not sure whether I like the one for the living room, it has blue in it which is good but it’s a busy rug and I seem to like plain better, the good thing is that Maggie seems to love the rug as it is so soft, so that is a good thing, and really the rug is only for the winter and then it will probably be put away, anyway I am sure it will help keep the place warm or make the floors feel warmer this winter.

As we were walking Maggie this morning this old pickup truck stopped and asked if we wanted any fruit, and the whole back of his truck had boxes of fruit that he had picked from his fields, it was so lovely to see everything with leaves and twigs on, so we got bananas and little oranges and pears and he gave us some guava fruit for to try for free as I was asking him what it was, it was really nice, and smelled amazing and tasted very creamy, it was interesting to see him stopping in the streets selling his fruit from the truck, I have to add that the fruit he gave me, I put in the fruit bowl and the Guava made the whole of the living room smell amazing, its definitely something I will buy again,

Its amazing that we have now come to the end of November….I wonder what December will be like over here……

December 2018

On By Sandra PoynterIn 2018 The Beginning of Our JourneyLeave a comment

1st December 2018

This week I have been cleaning grout between all the ceramic floor tiles, as I noticed when we moved into the house that they were really dirty, the worst area that really needed doing is the kitchen which isn’t taking to long really  I found a recipe for baking soda and hydrogen peroxide which is amazing and gets it all really clean and turns the grout back to white again like magic, so far I have only done half the kitchen floor so I will finish it all in the next day or two.

Well here is the usual ramble that I do about food lol.

Nicks new recipe that he made this week was Sweet Potato, chickpea and cashew nut curry which was amazing, he picked the recipe himself and actually made it with no help, and it was so good, I think it’s the best recipe we have at the moment so he is pretty pleased with himself and hopefully it has given him the confidence to try another one next week.

My new recipe that I came up with this week is vegetarian meatballs, so I am excited to try it out later in the week, one afternoon I re did my recipe book that I made and printed out all of the new recipes, hopefully soon I will have a four week rotation going on, and just to be ultra-organized next to each weeks menu I want to write the shopping list down with all the ingredients, it’s something I have wanted to do for ages so it’s nice to have a bit of time now and again to do things I have wanted to do but never had the time.

I have also been trying to research roses, as we have quite a few in the garden and they are huge, and taller than even Nick, so trying to find out when to prune them has been a challenge, at the moment I think its February in Cyprus that everyone prunes but I will do more research I think.

Maggie went to the vets twice this week, it’s really strange that we don’t have to make an appointment to see the vet, you just go when you need to, and apparently you don’t wait more than a few minutes, I thought it was strange but it seems to work, her arthritis had gotten worse and when she was walking she was really splaying out her paw and I was getting to the point one of the days where I just dreaded walking her poor thing, anyway they gave her an injection and we had to take her again the following day for another injection, they said it will help her as it’s a boost of anti-inflammatories, we have to take her back again this morning as they want to see how she is doing and thankfully I can see an improvement, they have also changed her pills so hopefully they might work better than what she was on., I have to say I am really impressed with the vets over here so far and the price, to see the vet twice and have two injections was 40 euro’s which is about 35 pounds….in Ryde it was 35 pounds just to see the vet once without any treatment, I did read before we came to live in Cyprus that the vets were a lot cheaper, but what I really like about them is that they really seem to care about the pain that Maggie is in which is nice.

We are still having sunny days and cloudy days but I think I am nearly ready to get my jeans out of the closet, in the house my legs get cold in shorts, but then if it’s sunny outside you can feel really to warm in jeans, I am finding Cyprus weather a bit confusing at the moment.

We had another wander around the village one of the days this week, exploring some little roads that we haven’t walked along, and we actually found a few walnut trees, we only managed to pick about a dozen walnuts but it was pretty exciting finding them, it seems walnut season is virtually over as there were only a few on the tree’s, but I will remember for next year where to go to pick them, I think walnuts are my favourite nut apart from cashews, which by the way are really quite expensive over here.

One of the evenings this week, it started to rain with lots of thunder and lightning, it was pretty impressive and the lightening was like a huge display in the sky, we had to go and sit outside under the porch as it was just amazing and the rain was torrential, at one point after we had gone inside the rain actually started to seep under the front door so we had to put a towel in front of the door, we did try to take some videos of it but it didn’t really capture how impressive it was, it really was a sight to see, and when we woke up the next morning the sun was shining and then within an hour the storm was back and really bad again for a few hours, I think we were both glad when it was all finally over, apparently the storm came from Greece and had weakened by the time it got to us, I dread to think what it was like over in Greece if they said it was weakened here lol.

I made a cake in the week it was called Apple and walnut cake, and oh my goodness it was awful lol, I read the recipe, it had 64 reviews and everyone was raving about it and all the reviews said it came out perfectly, in the recipe it said it took one hour and ten minutes to bake, but after two hours in the oven mine still was wet in the middle, I had the temperature in the oven at the right setting, it ended up being burnt even though it was covered, it did smell amazing though lol, the only thing I did differently was instead of putting the mixture into two loaf tins I put mine into one, so I  think it was too big to cook through properly, sometimes I could smack myself on the head lol, anyway I am going to make it again in a few days and this time I will make sure I use two smaller tins.

December 6th

We actually met some english people this week which was good fun, we had gone on a walk and stopped at the taverna in the village for a coffee beforehand and an English guy was sitting at the next table and so I got talking to him, at some point his wife turned up and then a friend of theirs turned up, it turned into a lovely afternoon, their friend that turned up had been in Tsada village for fourteen years, and the other couple had been here for nearly three years and they still totally love it, mind you it is easy to see why as there we were sitting outside in the sunshine and it was the first week of December! anyway it was fun meeting them and hopefully we will bump into them again.

After having some lovely warm days last week and at the weekend we then went into some really bad weather, we had torrential rain every day, with the biggest thunder and lightning storms I have ever seen in my life, the storm just kept going and coming back, One of the days Nick had to go into Paphos and within five minutes of him leaving the house I went through the worst thunder and lightning storm I have honestly ever heard in my life, I actually thought the lightening was in the living room as it was that bad, and the thunder was the loudest I have ever heard, I think for a few minutes I couldn’t move, it was like I was stuck in the middle of the room, I think it was shock lol, I actually enjoy storms but that one was a bit too much, we lost our internet that day and it didn’t come back on until the following day, and then we lost power twice, thankfully I always have candles on the coffee table so that was handy, I think I will keep them there just in case lol, although I have been told that the storm we have just been through isn’t typical for this time of year so that was good to hear.

A lot of people have been really happy about all the rain we have had as they apparently don’t get any rain in the summer, I kept hearing people say that the reservoirs need filling up, of course I wasn’t happy about the rain lol but it did seem weird to me that everyone else was, I guess I have to experience the hot dry summers that they get over here to appreciate the rain.

With all the rain going on I started putting the calor gas fire on during the day, rain always makes you feel damp and chilly, and we bought another calor gas fire for upstairs as I find my bedroom to cold, so we put the fire on for an hour upstairs before we go to bed just to take the chill off which is working out well.

Thankfully though the storm eventually passed and we are back to blue skies and sunshine again, so it was just one week that was really awful, but it felt like the storm was just never going to end, Friday morning when we woke up we were so happy to see blue skies back again and by the afternoon we were outside sunning ourselves lol.

I thought it was very odd when we first moved into this house to see the washing line is in the car port, and since moving in I have been told it’s the best place for it as during the summer it keeps the sun off the clothes, apparently the sunshine in the summer is so intense that it rots your clothes really quickly, especially things with elastic in them, so I guess I am ok with it being where it is, but we went out one of the days in the week and bought a big clothes airer, so I now have the choice of hanging things in the sunshine, it will also come in handy for damp clothes which we had last week with all the rain we had. It has felt odd though since we have been here hanging the washing up in the shade in the carport lol.

On Friday we went out with Linda and Graham, the venue included a buffet and a free drink and was quite a laugh and there was even dancing which was fun, both me and Linda had a lovely evening dancing, we seem to be going out a bit more than usual which is nice, and its lovely to go out and get dressed up and have a laugh.

I bumped into our landlord one of the days at the weekend, they only come up every other weekend in the winter so we don’t see them very often, anyway I asked him about chopping the roses down in February and he said yes that is the time to do it in Cyprus, I did feel pleased with myself lol, I am looking forward to buying some plants in the spring to have in pots everywhere, and as we are out walking it’s interesting to see all the different plants that they have over here, which I have no clue about lol, the only plant I recognize apart from roses is geraniums, and a lot of people seem to have them in pots and they seem to do well and are all still in flower even in December so of course that is one I will definitely have.

Sunday afternoon we went to Tala for lunch, it’s also in the hills and about fifteen minutes by car from Tsada, it was lovely seeing a lot of the houses tucked into hillsides etc. and the view was breath-taking, it looks a lovely place, after lunch we didn’t have enough time to have a wander around though so we will have to go back one of the days.

 December 13th

Our friend Brian arrived in Cyprus on Wednesday, we met Brian on the Isle of Wight before we moved over here, it was a coincidence meeting someone that was doing the very thing that we were doing which was moving to Cyprus, so after we moved over here we kept in touch with him by email, and he arrived this week, everything went to plan and Nick picked him up from the airport and took him to the Airbnb that he had booked, it was an evening flight but the flight was slightly early, we got him a few groceries to tide him over until he could go grocery shopping the following day, we were lucky that the owner of our Airbnb when we arrived bought us bread and coffee, cheese etc as we were starving by the time we got there at gone midnight, so I thought Brian would be the same, as it’s only a four hour flight they don’t feed you dinner on the plane.

The following day we popped down to have coffee with him and take him grocery shopping, I stayed at Brian’s place with his dog as our car is only a two seater so I couldn’t go with them, his dogs name is Molly and she is a cutie, I did have fun with her and took her for a walk, we plan on meeting up with him again next week.

Well I am definitely back into jeans during the day as we are having some cloudy days and some days of sunshine, the temperatures are still good and between 15 and 21 degree’s, but I think I feel the cold more than most people so the smallest cloud has me in a sweater lol, and I have started putting a thin jacket on when we go for our walks, some days when its 19 or 20 and the sun is shining it feels like summer, but then if it’s 15 degrees and cloudy it feels chilly especially if there is a breeze., so to me it’s all a bit mixed up and confusing, is it spring, is it summer or is it winter lol, I have no idea, but I don’t see me going back into shorts again until its proper full sun and over 20 degrees lol.

One of the days in the week when we popped to the taverna in the village for coffee, one of the old Cypriot guys paid for our coffee which was a surprise, he doesn’t speak very good english, but when I asked Joanna the owner why he did it, she said it was probably because Nick had his hair cut in the village and it was appreciated, it was really nice though and sort of meant a lot as the Cypriot guys seem to keep to their own group even though they say hello to us now, I am so happy in this little village, but I have to say it is warmer ten minutes down into Paphos, it’s because we are in the hills that we have it cooler up here, some days when its cloudy and I am chilly I tell Nick that we should move down into Paphos, but then it is so lovely being up here, I wonder why life is confusing and why I can’t have everything lol.

The apple and walnut cake I re tried last week is the nicest cake I think I have ever had in my life, I am so glad I attempted it again, I think the only reason I did was because there was over 60 reviews on it saying how good it was, and it really was, even Nick said it was the nicest cake he had ever eaten,

I also had another success as my new recipe this week of meatless meatballs was really lovely, I had to make it a day in advance and leave them in the fridge, but it was handy for going grocery shopping the following day and just cooking them in the oven when we got home so it turned into a nice easy dinner, I think the only thing I wasn’t too keen on was the pasta, I have never really been into pasta, and wished I liked it a bit more than I do, but the meatballs were really tasty so I might give some thought into having them with something else other than pasta.

I think we are enjoying coming up with new recipes each week, and everything is made from scratch so a bit more time consuming but we are both enjoying playing in the kitchen, I am curious as to what Nick is going to come up with for his new recipe next week lol.

I have to say I am so impressed with the vets here in Cyprus as Maggie’s arthritis seems a lot better since her injections and she is walking better and not splaying out her front right paw, it’s nice to see her not in so much pain, so she is doing well thankfully, I keep telling her she has to live forever as I won’t be able to get another dog, and I honestly can’t see me living without one, so she has no choice but to keep going lol.

Today while I was out walking, I saw one of the Cypriot ladies in her side garden with a big old rooster, so I said hello to her and told her I thought her rooster was beautiful which he was, he was all white and looking very regal, she surprised me by beckoning me into her garden to have a closer look at him, her english was as bad as my Greek but by hand signals and a lot of laughing she took me into a small barn like structure where there were six chickens and another beautiful rooster, it was really interesting watching them all, and when I went to leave and told her thank you, she said something in Greek and made a drinking motion with her hands and said coffee, I am so astonished at the welcoming spirit of these people, they are so warm, friendly and big hearted, Nick was waiting for me on the road and so I tried telling her that I had a husband waiting, and through lots of hand gestures and more laughing she did understand, I hope at some point I bump into her again and get to have that coffee.

Dec 23rd

How can the weather be this glorious two days before Christmas, its days like this when I know in my heart that we made the right decision to move to this amazing country, and it makes me think the only thing I will ever regret is not moving here years ago.

Well today we had to go grocery shopping as the cupboards were bare and it was two days before Christmas, we don’t actually celebrate Christmas anymore so it wasn’t that we needed goodies but we needed proper grocery shopping, how we forgot to do this sooner I have no idea, had we gotten lazier since moving over here I don’t know, but going grocery shopping just before Christmas day is something that that we would never normally do, as we were driving down into Paphos I just kept thinking what a waste of a day to be shopping on a day like today, pure deep blue sky and warm sunshine, so we decided to have lunch at the harbour before shopping, and it was fabulous, we walked along the seafront passing holidaymakers in shorts and flip flops and crazy floppy sun hats, and there was a really lovely holiday feeling, I even felt like I was on holiday and all thoughts of grocery shopping and cleaning and all of those mundane jobs just went flying out of my mind as we wandered along people watching and enjoying the warmth of the sun, we passed through outdoor restaurants and listened to guitar players, we watched little girls dancing to the music, and we watched little boats and big boats bobbing around on the water, deep blue sky and blue ocean what a fabulous afternoon it was, we did get the groceries on the way home but I am so glad that we took the time away from shopping to have some fun.

Weather

Even when the days are warm and the sky is blue, the mornings and evenings are so cold and chilly now, and on those warm days it is better to be out of the house rather than inside with heaters on…..we light the calor gas fire first thing in the morning now on three bars which keeps it fairly warm and now and again we light the other calor gas fire at the other side of the living room, especially if its a rainy or a cloudy day and at four thirty we light the log fire which thankfully has a fan on it which helps warm the room up,

December 31st

Well the year is at an end, and this evening we stayed up as its New Years eve, we wanted to see if there were going to be any fireworks anywhere as I would have liked to have sat outside and watched them, but we couldn’t see anything unfortunately, and for the first time ever both me and Nick missed twelve o clock, we always wish each other a happy new year but this year we forgot lol, I think its because we are two hours ahead of the UK so when we hit midnight it was only ten o clock in England, so even though we had english tv on it didn’t remind us, I did miss watching it all on tv as I do like to see the fireworks in London and Scotland which they always show, I did put the news on the following day to see the fireworks but it wasn’t the same watching them the day after.

2018 was definitely a year of changes for us, we had no idea last new year that this year we would be living in another country, life is funny, although I know one hundred percent that this move was a good one for us as we both really do love it over here, so I am hoping that this next year is as good as 2018 as I really did enjoy last year, we had a much needed holiday at the beginning of the year, I had a lovely summer in my allotment pottering around, and then planning our move over here kept me going for months, and then the excitement of the actual move, so I think for me last year was my best year for a long time, I hope this year can beat it lol, we will see……