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……
Moving to Cyprus 