7th January 2019
One of the sunny days last week we found a cemetery just around the corner, it was slightly hidden by a pathway that went slightly uphill and around the corner, it was quite fascinating really and did seem different to an English cemetery, on most of the graves there were oil lanterns and a lot of them were lit, I think it must look quite eerie at night lol, and there were little glass things on the headstones for people to put things in, I did take lots of pictures but then deleted them as they were really a bit too depressing to keep really.
Last week we finally got around to making mince pies, it was a combined effort as Nick wanted to have a go at making pastry, they turned out lovely, but Nick wants to have a go at adding brandy to them next time, if someone had ever told me Nick would be cooking and baking I never would have believed it, so I am making the most of it all in case it doesn’t last lol.
After we had eaten all the mince pies we had to make more of them as we decided to invite Anne and her hubby David and also Brian over to our house for lunch yesterday, Anne and David are just over here on holiday again, they came over at the end of November which is when we met them and then they came back again just before Christmas and are here until the 19th of January, the flights are so cheap that they just go back and forth every couple of months, anyway my lunch turned out well and it was a lovely afternoon and we all had a good laugh, we are hoping to meet up with them before they go back to the UK, and then they are back again in May so hopefully we will see them again.
January 10th 2019
I found a lovely shop in the week down in Paphos that we always go past, it’s called the Russian Market, it’s just like a regular supermarket really but they have a juice bar and you can order the most amazing juices and they are really cheap, the one I got the other day was orange, ginger and cucumber, and the amount of ginger she used made it quite spicy, I think they are about a pound a bottle or 1.20 in euro’s, so pretty cheap really so I will definitely go back again, it’s much nicer than going and having a coffee and much healthier, all of the oranges over here have now come down in price, I guess it’s because all the tree’s are full of oranges, there are so many of them around and they are selling them for 50p for a kg, so this morning I bought a whole carrier bag full which only cost me three euro’s so this week I can start making my own juice, I really did like the orange ginger and cucumber so I will definitely do that one again.
We actually stayed in one of the days this week, I think it was last Saturday, so apart from walking Maggie, we had a kitchen day, as what we were finding was most of our recipe’s take a long time to prepare and so if we go out for the afternoon then there isn’t enough time to sort dinner out properly as everything takes too long and the last thing we feel like doing when we come home is to spend hours in the kitchen, so we had a kitchen day, I made two lentil meatloaves, Nick made a big batch of fishcakes and together we both made a ton of meatless meatballs which I have to add are really amazing and we also made some falafels, and then we froze everything, I think those are the recipes that take the longest to make so it’s something I think we will do again next month, we had downloaded some sixties music which made it more fun so we had the music really loud and danced our way through it lol, but it was nice just to have a day in.
We did go exploring again, we have designated Sunday as our exploring day as all of our other days still seem quite busy, it is so interesting seeing some of the villages, so we went just a bit north of where we are now, we thought we would check out the villages near to us, they are all lovely, we went to Polemi, then Stroumbi, and then Kallepia, the views as we were driving were breath taking, they really are a sight to see with all the hills and the mountains in the distance, I don’t think we will ever know where we want to be as every village we have been to so far we want to live in lol, it was a nice afternoon though.
We met up with Brian to go to our big shopping mall which was a fun afternoon, there is a big shop called Jumbo’s in the mall, this particular store is three floors, and when you go in you have to go through all three floors to find the exit, its a really good shop as the prices are terrific, but its also a terrible store to go into as you can be in there for ages lol, the other weird thing about it is that you aren’t allowed to take any shopping bags in with you, there is a desk where they take them off you, only when you leave the store on the bottom floor you have to go up an escalator in the mall to get back to the third floor to retrieve your shopping bags, it really is a funny store lol, now and again when we are in the shopping mall and Nick says we should go to Jumbo’s I just laugh at him and say no as I know we will be in there for a long time, anyway it is a really cheap shop and they sell everything so we actually have been writing a list out over the last few weeks of all the bits and pieces we need from the shop so we only have to go in once to get the things we need, anyway it was a lovely shopping trip and we went with Brian for lunch, and then to make the day nicer I found some pajama’s that were a good price in Marks and Spencer’s.
I read the other day that the almond tree’s over here all start to blossom in February as the middle of February is the start of spring, it seems a bit early to me but it would be nice to see them all in blossom as the road we walk Maggie on is just almond tree after almond tree which is going to look pretty when they come out in flower, it will be interesting to see if it does happen in February.
I saw something online the other day and it said if you want to know what the weather is going to be, go to the beach and get a strip of seaweed. Hang it outside your window…..and…
If the seaweed is hot – it’s sunny
If it’s solid – it’s freezing
If it’s wet – it’s raining
If it’s moving – it’s windy
It did make me laugh.
We went to a place called Chloraka on Thursday as that is where Brian has just moved to temporarily until he moves into his new place in Peyia, it was nice to see what Chloraka was like, it seemed quite nice but I seem to prefer the villages, but we had a wander around and came across a nice english pub with tables and chairs outside which was handy as Brian had brought Molly along for our wander around, so we had a nice outside lunch which was lovely, eating out in Cyprus is so much cheaper than eating out in the UK, it was nice catching up though over good food and we got talking to some other ex pats who have lived over here for years, it was good fun, it’s really nice how we all get along so well, and we all seem to have a good laugh together.
I have read that our sun is setting at four minutes to five at the moment, and at the moment the sun is setting at 20 past four in the UK, although even though it says ours is setting just before five it’s odd as it doesn’t go dark until closer to half five, I have been watching now and again lol, so there must still be some light coming from the sun even when its going down, it’s the only thing that makes sense I think…but who knows lol.
JANUARY 19th 2019
Well on to boring things like the weather, our weather is really lovely at the moment although it hasn’t been so good over the past few weeks, so it’s nice to go back to sunshine again and next week we are going to be 18 and 19 degrees which is nearly 70 which is lovely, I hope my shorts are coming out again, everyone has been saying for weeks that this is the worst winter that Cyprus has had in over ten years, its typical that it is our first winter over here, but we haven’t found it to bad really, just a mix of sun, lots of rain and cloud and the temperatures haven’t been too low, but I guess for all the people that have been over here for years it might seem bad to them as apparently winters over here are quite nice with lots of sunny days, it would have been nice to have had a typical Cyprus winter just so we could see what it was like, but anyway I am looking forward to more sunshine and more days out at the beach, I always feel happier when the sun is shining and the skies are blue.
Last week we decided to give Maggie a day out as all she seems to get these days are walks around the village so on a really nice sunny day we took her down to lighthouse beach as there is a nice walk there and also a café on the beach, we met Brian down there with his dog and we sat for quite a few hours enjoying the sunshine, there were even quite a few people swimming, I did mean to go down to the water to see what it was like but I forgot in the end, the walk from the café goes around to the harbour where all of the restaurants are which would have been a lovely walk but we only got half way round when Maggie started to limp a bit so we had to head back which was a shame, I don’t think we will be able to do it too often with her as she seems really uncomfortable in the back seat of the car these days I noticed it last summer when we went out in the car with her, she pants and shakes a bit after ten minutes and seems really uncomfortable in the back even with the window fully open, I do wish she would lie down on the back seat as she would be more comfortable,, but I have had a thought of spraying the back seat with Actimol which a hormone spray for dogs, we have some left over from when we bought it for Maggie’s flight over so it wouldn’t hurt to try it, she has always been fine in the car so it must be an old age thing.
I was talking to this Cypriot man on the meat counter in the supermarket last week and moaning to him that Maggie had stopped eating again, so he sold me some really nasty stuff that looked like organs, oh yuk lol, and told me to roast it, season it, then chop it all up and freeze it into little bags, then to mix just a bit in with her food every night, so we did, it really smelled awful when I was roasting it, but it is now all chopped and in the freezer and every night we take a few spoonful’s out and put it into her food and so far so good and she has been licking the dish dry lol, so even though it was horrible to sort out it seems to have done the trick and she loves it so we will definitely keep it up, he was such a nice man so I will go back in and tell him it worked next week when I do my grocery shopping.
We have decided that we will move next October when our lease is up on this house, although we both want to stay in the village, I think the privacy thing with the neighbours at the back of the house is still bothering me a lot, it’s only the kids bedrooms that overlook our back garden and pool but the house is really close and they have balconies and the woman is always on the balconies hanging her laundry out, so she is in and out all the time turning her laundry over and putting more things out, she seems to spend her life on the balcony and it does drive me crazy, I also hate the fact that when I look out the big patio doors all I can see is her laundry, so this year we are going to put some really tall potted plants out the back to try and block the view of the house, and then at the end of the summer when our lease is getting close to expiring we will look around for another house, we do want to stay in this village though as we both really like it and the people are lovely, but if we can’t find anything in the village then we will just stay here for another year until something comes up.
Well after writing that we started discussing a place called Polis, it’s on the North West side of the island, we actually popped up there a few weeks ago to have a look round and it was quite nice, we have been watching the temperatures and it seems that they are warmer than where we are right now in Tsada but also we have read that they don’t get so much humidity during the summer, so it seems to be ticking all of our boxes, it’s more of a small town than a village with shops and taverna’s, I think we will have to go back and have another look.
I have been making a lovely juice concoction all of this week every other day, I have just been using oranges, fresh ginger and cucumbers, but the juice lasts me for nearly two days, and I don’t mind doing it every other day, I think every day would be too much, it is amazing how cheap the oranges are so I will keep it up until the price goes up, but someone told me last week that they tend to stay cheap until the end of the summer when they start running out, I do know I couldn’t find an orange anywhere when we first arrived over here at the end of September as they were all still growing on the tree’s lol.
This week I have done some daft things, yesterday morning after getting up I stood in front of the kettle and honestly couldn’t remember if I preferred tea or coffee in the mornings lol, how peculiar, I think my mind has been on other things over the last few days as a family member is going through some things, well anyway that is what I am putting it down to, anyway in the end I made myself a coffee and it was while I was drinking it that I realized I prefer my first drink of the day to be tea lol, it did make me laugh though, its amazing what stress can do to the mind.
The next daft thing I did was when I was trying to work out how much of something we used in a year, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember if there were 52 or 54 weeks in a year, I then proceeded when showering to put soap on my hair…..hmmm let’s hope tomorrow is a better day lol.
24th January 2019
We had an afternoon at the harbour one of the days, I think it was Monday as it was such a lovely day so we stopped off at the Russian market to buy some fresh juice to take with us as its fairly cheap, it is nearly triple the price if you buy it from the beach, so we had a nice walk and when we stopped for a sit down Brian and his dog went walking by which was really funny as Paphos is a huge place so to bump into him down there in a tourist area was just weird lol.
I decided this last week to start having Greek lessons, it’s not really needed as the majority of people speak English over here, although a lot of it is sort of broken english, but it’s easy enough to get by, but it’s something I decided I wanted to do even before we moved here, I think at the moment I have learned about five or six words, but I get so curious when I hear people talking in Greek, anyway so I start this Friday evening and Nick is starting with me, it’s just one lesson a week, Nick tried to talk me out of doing it but I was adamant that it was something I wanted to do so he gave in, although he didn’t have to join with me but I think in the end he didn’t want to be left behind, they say after thirty eight weeks you should be able to have a conversation in Greek which I think will be interesting, anyway it will be a cool hobby and I am really excited, although when I get loads of homework I bet the excitement will soon go lol.
We went out for lunch on Sunday with Brian, it was a bar restaurant in Chloraka, it was so cheap and we ended up having a traditional english roast dinner which is something we haven’t had in years, they didn’t have very much for vegetarians so I thought I would treat myself and I really enjoyed it, eating a roast dinner is not something I would do all the time but it was really enjoyable.
Yesterday we decided to have a day out in Polis, both me and Nick wanted to go back as we went a few months ago and we really liked the small town and beach, and Brian had never been so we decided we should all go for a wander, so this time we went to Latchi beach in Polis which was really nice, I meant to take lots of pictures but then forgot, and because Maggie is doing so much better she came with us and did really well with all the walking that we did, it was a really enjoyable day, although they had promised us full sun and the day ended up being part sun and part cloud so I am definitely not back in shorts yet lol, after a really long walk we stopped for a lovely lunch at one of the beach side taverna’s, and we got talking to another couple and this poor guy had gotten so burnt, but he said he hadn’t been out in the sun but had spent a few hours swimming and that he had actually gotten burnt while he was under the water, to be honest I had never heard of that so I had to look it up when I got home and he was right you can get burnt under water, I guess you learn something new every day.
Well I can’t believe that nasty little virus a while ago decided to come back yet again, so for the past week I haven’t felt well with all the same symptoms, cough, sore chest, bit of a cold but not much, headaches and really tired with no energy, it felt more like a virus than a cold and it was my third time of coming down with it, I didn’t know it was possible for a germ to keep coming and going, but it’s exactly the same as how I felt over the Christmas holiday and then again a few weeks later, and then this last week, so I have had quite a boring week lying around on the couch feeling too tired to do anything, after hardly getting sick on the Isle of Wight the only thing I have done differently over here is I stopped taking my Vitamin C tablets, so the next time I go out to the shops they are top of my list as I wonder if that is what has kept me healthy for so long.
I did manage to drag myself to the first Greek lesson last Friday, but I was so tired and had a splitting headache so I don’t think I learned to much, but he gave us loads of homework which I have been attempting to do now and again, this week’s homework was the Greek alphabet and some phrases, I have read that it’s one of the hardest languages to learn, isn’t that typical, and the teacher told us that the full course ends in three years, but I have enjoyed trying to learn the alphabet this week, now and again it’s given me something to do while lying on the couch, so I hope I can keep going for three whole years.
It’s been a good week to be inside with this nasty germ as we had dust arrive from Africa and it was very sort of misty and cloudy outside for a few days, even the car got covered in dust, and people with asthma were advised to stay indoors, it’s all gone now though thankfully and a few days ago its back to being nice again.
We had our appointment at Immigration on Tuesday, it was really hard making myself look decent when I felt so unwell but we got there for 8am in the morning, only after waiting nearly three hours when it was our turn to go in they said we needed to have our marriage certificate stamped by the UK government, it’s called being apostatized, so now we have to wait another three months for another appointment which is at the end of April, it was disappointing but I had said to Nick in the morning that with us nothing is ever straightforward so not to be disappointed when it goes wrong lol, they had given us a list of documents and different things that we needed to take with us but there was no mention of having to have our marriage certificate stamped, although there was a piece of paper on the wall in the waiting area that mentioned it but we didn’t know what it meant, anyway so another three months of waiting now, but Nick is sorting it out online so it will be sorted out by the time our next appointment comes round.
Maggie is still having the odd accident in the house, it stopped for a week and then every few days it happens, I guess it’s got to be an old age thing as it’s been going on for months, I am just glad Nick is at home now as it’s something I really struggle with, but it’s not every day just once or twice a week, and now and again we get through a whole week where there is nothing, thankfully Nick always sorts it out lol, we are both really pleased with her eating though, we are still buying all the nasty stuff from the supermarket every ten days, we roast it and then chop it and bag it up and put all the bags in the freezer, she even looks like she has put on a bit of weight which is amazing for her.
February 8th 2019
Our weather is mixed at the moment, we have warm sunny days and then cloudy days, Tuesday was really hot and I couldn’t even sit outside for more than ten minutes, but then Wednesday was cloudy and then it went back to sunny again so we are definitely a bit mixed, last week I noticed my roses have all got new growth on them, I was supposed to chop them down last week but didn’t get to it, but it’s lovely seeing all the new growth even though I am going to chop it all off lol, the reason I haven’t done the roses yet is my lovely ;little germ is still with me, I did get some vitamin C tablets and I do feel a bit of an improvement so hopefully at some point I will get completely well again, Nick has been so good though and has been juicing six oranges with loads of ginger and cucumber every day so he is trying hard to get me better again, I think he misses our nice days out though and wants me well again, although he seems quite happy to be cleaning and cooking.
I did get Nick to drive me up to Polemi one of the days as I heard they had some second hand single beds, and Polemi is only about eight minutes by car, so we managed to get two single beds for the spare room, they are in really good condition so I will use the carpet cleaner on the mattresses when I am feeling better and then buy some mattress covers, not that there is anything wrong with the mattresses but it will just make me feel better, now I just have to get bedside tables to go between the beds, so I will keep my eyes open for something when I am up and about again, but at least we are prepared now in case we get visitors, Linda and Graham also said they would like to stay over when they come over in the evening so they will come in handy for someone, I had a text off Linda earlier asking if they could come over this afternoon as they have just got back from their trip to the UK, but I wasn’t up to it and also didn’t want to pass my germs on so I need to get better so I can have a good catch up with everyone, we haven’t even seen Brian for two weeks and he will be moving into his new house soon.
I really have gotten fed up of not feeling well and I swear I have put a bit of weight on just sitting around so I need to get back to normal to get these extra bits of fat off me lol, I have some good yoga exercises I want to start doing but at the moment it’s just added to my long wish list of things to do.
February 15th 2019
Well I am glad to say I am on the mend, I think my virus started going yesterday so I am still a bit tired and worn out but I have a bit more energy now and don’t feel like I am dying lol.
I actually took myself off to the doctors a few days ago as I was worried about the tiredness and lack of energy that I have had and everytime I tried to do something it made my heart beat too fast, so I thought I would get myself checked out just to be on the safe side, so she gave me a really good thorough examination and did a blood test and I had to go back the following morning for the results, and the blood test showed that I have had a nasty virus which she said was on its way out, and she was right as the next day I started feeling better, it was funny though as she wrote me a prescription out, and just as I was about to tell her I wasn’t going to take antibiotics she told me it was herbs and would do me good, and when I went to the chemist it turned out it was sachets of powder that I have to mix with water and it contained Echinacea, Thyme, and minerals, and the pharmacy lady told me it would strengthen my immune system, I did find it funny that doctors over here prescribe herbs, but it also made me happy, I used to take Echinacea years ago when we lived in Canada and it kept me healthy for years and then I forgot about it, so I think I might add it to the vitamin C that I am now taking, I can’t believe I stopped taking my vitamin C when we moved over here and it’s been one germ after another, I definitely won’t forget to take it again.
I discovered something called Mountain tea a few weeks ago which I found really interesting, it was someone I was talking to that told me about it so I bought a bag of the flowers and stems and made some tea and it was on day two of drinking the tea that I started to feel a bit better, so whether I was on the mend anyway I will never know, I did lots of research into it, but not just googling it, I managed to find scientific studies that had been done on the stems and the flowers, and also studies from the universities, I was impressed by how many papers had been written about this plant, it has been proven to help with colds, viruses, chest infections etc. but then some of the more in depth studies covered depression and anxiety and it was proven to be as effective as taking Fluvoxamine which is an antidepressant, they had even treated children with ADHD and it had the same effect as proper medication only it is all herbal and natural, it was fascinating to read, but after hours of researching I am hooked on it as it contains lots of things I haven’t heard of but that have been proven to have an effect on health, anyway I wish I had known about it sooner, it makes me think there must be so many other things with herbs that I don’t know about that have been around for century’s, I am looking forward to being able to speak Greek fluently so I can have proper conversations with some of the older ladies in the village as I bet they know all sorts of things to do with herbal remedies, it was an older Cypriot man from the village that told me to make the Mountain tea and thankfully they sell it in the bigger supermarkets. I am amazed that even though I have been unwell I have made it to every single Greek lesson so far, I really have to work hard through the week though to keep up with everyone, so as soon as we have finished dinner every evening and cleaned up we spend the next hour on revision, so it has been hard going but we have gotten into a routine of doing it now and I think I would miss it if we stopped, for some strange reason I seem to really enjoy learning things, and then I make it into a game with Nick which he enjoys lol, so far we have learned the Greek Alphabet, then all the Greek numbers to a hundred and all the nouns and the feminine masculine and neutral letters, and now we have finally started learning different words so this week was items of clothing which was sort of fun, but it is hard remembering them and unreal how many items of clothing there actually are lol.
Maggie is putting on weight for the first time in her life, it’s all the tripey nasty stuff that we get from the supermarket butcher, we are sticking to it and it seems to be doing her a lot of good, and she is eating all of her dinner every evening, and thankfully Nick has taken over roasting it and chopping it all up, but it is doing her the world of good and she really does look fatter.
February 23nd 2019
I have decided to give myself this year off from growing anything, I think I need to see what the seasons are like, it’s a shame that we don’t even know what a typical Cyprus winter is, as every single person we have spoken to has told us this has been the worst winter in 35 years, and in the newspapers it said the worst winter since 1912, we did get a few thunder storms and there was an awful lot of rain but now we have to wait until next winter to see what a proper Cyprus winter is like, typical that it wasn’t this year, but if everyone thinks this was a bad one I can’t wait to see what a good one is like lol as I thought this winter wasn’t that bad.
I haven’t done too much this week as I had decided not to go mad and start dashing around now I am better, so I have mainly been having nice long walks and sitting in the sun on and off, I have plodded around the house doing bits and pieces, most of my walks have been around the village apart from one walk at the harbour, the walks around the village are the best though, I don’t think I will ever get used to the views up here as they are quite stunning, and it makes you want to go out walking a lot, our weather is still mixed, some days we have full sun and it feels hot and I think we are in summer, and then we get a day or two of sun with some cloud where I feel chilly and need a jacket on, I am enjoying having free hot water on the sunny days though as the solar panel on the roof heats up the water tank which I think is pretty cool.
I am looking forward to getting out and about a bit more now I am better, it’s been nice having a plodding week though and I think it has done me good, so today we are going to Peyia, it’s about twenty five minutes away by car, and Brian moved into his new house last week, I have heard its mainly made up of British people so it will be interesting to see his new place and have a wander around the area, I think it’s close to the coast as well so hopefully we might get a walk on the sea front.
It was funny this morning as we had our water bill come through, we both were expecting something quite high as on the Isle of Wight our water bill was always really high, and we had been in this house for four months now so we were expecting to owe a good amount, but anyway we both got a shock when we saw it was for sixteen euro’s lol, it did make us both laugh, it’s a good price for four months use of water plus watering all of the plants outside so we were pretty happy with that, someone told us the water here was cheap but it was still a surprise.
February 28th 2019
As we were on one of our walks a few days ago, we said hello to this Cypriot couple that live just around the corner from us, they were in the middle of pruning their lemon tree, and they came over and gave us a carrier bag filled with lemons, we do use three or four lemons a week so they will all get used up, so next time I make that lovely apple cake I will have to remember to take them one over to say thank you, the wife doesn’t speak any english but her husband does, he is a teacher and also a farmer, he was telling us that he has lots of fields filled with fruit tree’s including apricots so at some point in the summer he is going to take us up to his fields so we can have a wander, it was sweet of him to offer, I will enjoy taking lots of pictures of all the fruit tree’s.
Maggie hasn’t had a good week this week as her accidents in the house seem to be most days now, so it’s only now and again we get a day without it, I guess at some point we will mention it to the vet, although we both know it’s just an old age thing, mostly she doesn’t even know she has done it poor thing, and then on Tuesday while we were out walking with her, her back legs gave way and she couldn’t get up properly so Nick had to dash home and get the car, but after a ten minute sit down she seemed ok again, poor thing, she still plays ball with me in the evenings so she still has her playful side, I really hate watching her getting old though, and really hope we aren’t getting to the end with her as I am really not ready to let her go.
We had a nice afternoon out with Brian last weekend, and we also got the tour of his new house and then we went to lunch at his local taverna, it was a warm sunny day so we got to eat outside which was nice, and I am glad we got to spend some time with him as he has now gone on holiday skiing for the next month, while I think of it I have to mention that the salad I got for lunch had chopped up olives all over it, and I was surprised to find that I really like them on a salad, as I have tried olives before and didn’t like them, I think it was because they were chopped small which made them taste nicer and it gave the salad a bit of saltiness, so that was cool and it’s something I might start adding to my salads as olives are really healthy.
We popped to a garden centre one of the days as we want some tall plants in pots to give us a bit of privacy in the back garden, so we mainly went to price them up not to buy them, the guy was really interesting to talk to and spent ages telling us about different plants over here which was nice of him, I told him I was surprised that all of the geraniums and marigolds that people have in pots and in their gardens are still in flower and hadn’t died, and he said why would they die lol, he totally didn’t understand that in England they are annuals, so apparently over here they are perennials and never die back, I did wonder why everyone still has them in their gardens in flower, some of the marigolds are really big and look lovely in people’s gardens, so I will definitely get some to put into pots if they are going to keep blooming all year, it still doesn’t quite make sense to me though as I thought everything had to have a sort of resting period, anyway I am sure I will figure it out.
Talking of Marigolds though, I read a while ago that you can make an ointment from the flowers and it is really healing, it’s supposed to be brilliant for sunburn, and any irritation on the skin, and the stem apparently can get rid of warts, corns and calluses, I might give it a go this year to see how good it is, it seems a lot of Greek people over here also grow geraniums to use the leaves to make tea, they just put some leaves in hot water with a bit of honey and a stick of cinnamon and apparently it can reduce stress and anxiety, also relieves arthritis pain, migraines etc. not sure if I fancy geranium tea though.
The Greek lessons are going well, and I am amazed at how it’s all coming together, this week we have been learning how to tell the time in Greek, we seem to enjoy the hour after dinner that we study in the evenings, and I guess it’s a new hobby, but it’s sort of fun and sort of hard all at the same time.
I finally got my hair cut this week, I have been wanting to get it cut for ages now but I just kept getting that virus come back, anyway I finally have shoulder length hair again, I went to the cousin of the lady who owns the taverna again as she is so cheap, and she cuts hair on Tuesdays at her house for the villagers so it’s only a ten minute walk, it was fun this time as there were two older Cypriot ladies having their hair dyed, they all seem to like having jet black hair no matter how old they are lol, anyway so I was practicing my Greek while I was in there to see if I was saying it properly so it was quite a laugh really, and the two Cypriot ladies thought I was lovely trying to learn their language which was cute lol, I am so lucky to have found this lady as she is a really good hairdresser.
Today we had Linda and Graham come over for lunch, we hadn’t seen them since they left for England over Christmas so it was lovely getting together again and catching up on news, and we have promised to have an evening out with them soon, it was a nice couple of hours though, they were really interested in the mountain tea that I have been drinking so I gave them my last bag as Graham really wants to try it as he has a problem with his chest, so when they left Nick decided to go down into Paphos to buy some more, he is really worried I am going to get sick again and is convinced the mountain tea which I am drinking daily is keeping me healthy lol, so he went dashing out to get me some more, he does make me laugh, I think I have been sick for so long on and off that he really doesn’t want to go through it all again lol, poor guy.
March 16 2019
We had a lovely day out at the weekend at the Paphos carnival which was down at the harbour, it was a really fun day and nice to see the ocean again as it felt like it had been a while since we have managed to get down there, we had to get there early to get a parking spot so we had lots of time to walk around before it started, the carnival was amazing and based on Africa, the only problem was when it was finished we got stuck in the car park for two hours trying to get out, plus I had the worry of Maggie as I had timed everything so she would only be by herself for a certain amount of time, so the two hours sitting in the car park was frustrating, if we still have Maggie next year I don’t think we will go again as with trying to get out of the car park it just made it to long for her, although when we got home she was fine and we gave her a walk, but in my mind it was just too long, still it was a lovely day out and at least I can say I have been to the Paphos carnival.
On Monday they had a big celebration over here, it’s called Green Monday, it’s all to do with lent, so everyone takes the day off and goes into the countryside or down to the beaches and they all fly kites and have a picnic, the story that we were told by our Greek teacher was that by flying the kites they are letting go of all the negative things that they may have done since the new year started, so when the kite fly’s they get freed by negative thoughts, it sounded pretty cool so we decided to go out for the day with Maggie to see what was going on, unfortunately though as we all set off in the car there was an awful smell and we discovered after pulling over that Maggie had got an upset tummy, all over the back seat of the car, thankfully we were two minutes from home, and also thankfully Nick is really good at cleaning things up lol, so poor Maggie in the end got left at home which was sad., but the afternoon was lovely, and because we didn’t have Maggie we were able to walk from the harbour to lighthouse beach which is a nice long walk, and we found two spare sunbeds and dragged them down by the water which was lovely, it was really relaxing watching the kites and people swimming, there was even a really funny British man running up and down the beach yelling at his kite as it wouldn’t fly, it was funny watching him and I wish I had taken a video lol.
The rest of our days this week has been spent having some long walks on the outskirts of the village which has been nice, I have been trying to get my ten thousand steps in a day which is a struggle, I can make it to eight thousand and a bit but haven’t managed the whole ten thousand yet lol, the taverna in the village is about a quarter of the way through our walk so we tend to stop there and have a drink as it also breaks our walk up, we bumped into Mike and Sara, another english couple that we met a few months ago so we spent one afternoon with them at the taverna, it was lovely sitting in the sun with some english people, and they took us on this walk that had the most incredible views, I will have to go back and take a video or some pictures of it, I couldn’t believe later on that day that I had gotten quite badly sunburned, I was going to put some sun cream on but I didn’t think we would be out as long as we were so I am now a lobster colour, its mainly my face and arms and neck that are the worst so I will try and stay out of the sun for a few days until I have gone back to normal, I can’t believe I did that so I will carry my sun cream in my bag with me from now on.
I think Nicks latest hobby every day is checking the pool temperature lol as I think he is dying for a swim, but it is going up so slowly even though the weather is quite hot, we had to have a new water pump for it last week as the other one broke and it was making a really awful sound, but the guy that comes to clean the pool sorted it all out with the landlord so we didn’t have to do anything thankfully, the joys of renting.
23rd March 2019
It is nice that life does seem to be more relaxing these days, and I am sure it does us good not to be rushing around all the time, although we both said this week that we do need to start doing some exploring before the weather gets too hot to be wandering around.
We went to a lovely garden centre on Monday to buy the plants for the back garden that we have been after, all the plants are going to stay in pots and not dug into the ground, and we managed to get seven nice tall one’s in the end, we tried putting all of them at the back of the patio lined up to give us some privacy, but it looked too messy which was a shame, as it was the privacy from the woman at the back that we were after, so in the end we just put three of the large plants there, but unfortunately after all of that, I could still see the woman at the back of us and all her washing drying lol but it did help to break the view up a little bit, she seems to spend a lot of her time in and out of her balcony all day long turning her laundry over every half hour every single day, so there is no privacy at all, its all a bit odd as she has a perfectly good patio/garden to hang her laundry in but seems to want to do it on her bedroom balcony on washing lines that they have put up.
I think it’s been a week for plants as after spending one of the days buying them, we then had to spend another day trying to find all the right size pots for all the plants we bought as they only came in buckets, but we eventually sorted it out and then spent another day re potting them all and making a huge mess lol, and they actually look happier as even though we have only had them for nearly a week they all have a bit of new growth on them, today we have had to scrub the back patio and the front patio as we had made such a mess, and then this afternoon I started weeding, so it does seem like this week has been about plants and lots of dirt and mess, I still need to do more weeding which hopefully I will get to this week. When we went to buy the big plants they gave me some free small plants, and four of them were marigolds, so I have put them in a pot and it will be interesting to see what happens to them as I am sure I have told you that none of the marigolds in the village have died over the winter, they all still look lovely and are quite big, all of their geraniums are still blooming as well and some of them are pretty big as well, so I will have to get some geraniums next week, it seems the annuals over here are perennials, which I do understand as the weather is mostly nice, but I think I will understand it all a bit more once I have a few plants so I can watch them.
The other nice thing that happened this week was when we went to pay our rent, Olympia the woman we pay it to gave us a big container of olive oil, she was telling us she owns some fields filled with olive trees and she has a guy that looks after them and turns the olives into the oil, so she has said whenever we run out she will keep giving us full containers, it is such a lovely colour with a greenish hue about it, which is a good sign that it is pure, I was so excited as it hasn’t been over processed or mixed with other oils which is what a lot of companies do to their oil, I have even heard when I was researching olive oil a few years ago that some companies even add a bit of green dye to their oil to make it look more pure, anyway I have to say it did make me happy, I use a fair amount of olive oil when I make my bean salad so to get something really pure was amazing, so yesterday I made a huge bean salad for my dinner which was yum.
Maggie is having a better week, we have stopped taking her for walks this week and she just wanders around the house and garden with us, she actually seems a bit happier, so we might try her again next week for a short walk to see what she wants to do, I said to Nick maybe she just wants to be a house dog lol.
We have been told to be careful over the back field when we can get Maggie out for a walk, as there apparently are vipers nests around at this time of the year, so we will have to find a stick which is what everyone suggests when walking through long grass, I quite like snakes but I don’t think I would like to see a viper lol.
In the last few days we have had millions of Painted Lady butterflies flying over us and it hasn’t finished yet, it sounds like I am exaggerating but they have been flying over the house and garden for days and now and again you literally have to duck when you walk back into the house, then I read on the news that they have come all the way from Israel to Cyprus at the rate of 25,000 per hour and are now heading to Turkey and Greece, it has been fascinating watching them flying over in droves, I haven’t seen one of them land yet, it looks like they are on a mission and just don’t have time to stop.
March 30th 2019
We had a horrendous storm on Wednesday morning, it was just as I woke up at eight….the thunder was so loud, and then we had really huge hail, by the time I got downstairs the whole of the back patio was white with hail and it was bouncing in the pool lol, it did look funny., although I was a bit worried it was going to shred the leaves on all the plants we bought last week, but anyway after half an hour the storm passed us and the day was sunny again, we did lose some leaves from the plants and one is a bit shredded but I guess it could have been worse.
The day before we had been out and bought four geraniums and a Dahlia, and I had left them outside the front door until I had time to re pot them, so when I came down the morning of the storm, Nick was at the front door with the broom trying to drag the new little plants under the porch way, it did make me laugh but the hail was so big and coming down so hard that I think it would have really hurt him if he had gone out in it, he did manage to hook the plants and drag them under the porch in the end and we only lost a few flowers, if he hadn’t remembered they would have gotten smashed to bits with the force of the hail we had.
This week we had to go and buy a few insecticides as the oleander bushes in the back are really struggling with some kind of disease, the lemon tree’s leaves don’t look very well and the big yucca plant I bought last week has black round insects on it, someone told me to take pictures of the plants that had a problem and to show the pictures to the guy at the garden Centre, so I took pictures of everything that was bothering me and went to the garden center and the sales guy took pictures of my pictures and sent them off, and ten minutes later he told me what was wrong and what I needed, they obviously have an expert somewhere, but I found it pretty cool that it was all sorted out in ten minutes, so we now have three powders to mix together and a spray gun and he said it will sort everything out, he said we can also use it on our roses so they don’t get black spot which was pretty cool.
For some reason we haven’t been out exploring, I don’t think we have found the time this week as there always seems to be something else to do, and we seem to really love our walks around the village as there are winding country lanes and the views are beautiful, plus stopping at the taverna for a tea and a beer for Nick is nice and Joanna is so lovely she is only charging me 50 cents for my cup of tea lol, she says its madness to charge me more as I don’t take milk or sugar, she is funny, we met Mike and Sara again Monday afternoon and had a drink with them which was nice, but we have decided not to meet them weekly but once a fortnight so it doesn’t get into too much like a routine.
Brian came back from his skiing holiday this week so today we went to meet him and his brother Chris who is over for a holiday from Australia, we had a lovely afternoon at a taverna having lunch in Tala, the prices were amazing, it was lovely to meet his brother and also to have a lovely afternoon sitting in the sunshine.
We have had a couple of days wandering around the shops this week and we also had to go to Jumbo’s, that is the shop that it takes you hours to get out of lol, so that was one afternoon gone, we haven’t been to Jumbo’s in ages but someone told me that they saw a battery operated bitter in there which is what I have been after, as a few of my sweaters have lots of bits on them where they have been worn to much, not exactly bits but the wool itself has gotten bitty, anyway so I had to go to Jumbo’s to buy it, I did find a lovely pair of slippers in the sale at Marks and Spencer’s for six euro’s, they are the nicest slippers I have ever had, Nick then treated me to a new powder compact by Max Factor which wasn’t cheap, only when I got it home I discovered it was press on foundation instead of powder lol, such a shame and it was only after I had used it I realized so I haven’t got the receipt and the puff is now brown lol…oh well.
I came up with a really cool idea a few days ago, we still had a few to many lemons at the bottom of the fridge that the couple around the corner gave us a while ago, we had been using a few every week but there were just so many, so each lemon I cut into slices, and then froze the slices individually and then put them into a freezer bag, so when I have a cold drink or a glass of water I throw a frozen slice of lemon into the drink instead of ice cubes, it gives a lovely lemon flavor to everything, and is particularly amazing in my Bacardi and coke.
April 6th 2019
A few days ago we went to a different garden center as we met up with Linda and Graham for lunch at a beach café that we had never been to before, I do like cafe’s/tavernas where you can sit and look at the water and we never would have found this one on our own, we went for a walk with them afterwards and then they took us to their local garden center which was interesting as it has a cactus garden with some huge plants in, and a coffee shop, and it also has a sort of pub/venue which I remembered we had been to with them just before Christmas, anyway it was really good as they were having a sale so I bought a blue plant that I have forgotten the name of, and I also found some lavender which I had been after, they only sold French lavender or Cyprus lavender, so I went for the Cyprus one as it looked closest to english lavender, for some reason I am not too keen on French lavender, anyway it turned into a really nice afternoon.
I think gardening is still my main hobby, and this week I spent one whole day weeding and just making things look tidier, I also had to pot up my new blue plant and lavender, there are still a lot of things outside that I want to do but its finding the time to do it all.
We went to Polemi one of the days this week as they were having a tulip festival, I tried talking Brian into coming with us, and in the end it was just as well that he didn’t fancy it as it was really disappointing, it was just one field of tulips lol, apparently it’s the only field in Cyprus that can grow tulips which sort of makes it a bit special I suppose, but being British I think I was expecting more, but it was somewhere different to go, they had the grand opening of the charity shop the same day so we popped in to see John and to meet his wife Cath, she seems really nice and they have asked us out for a meal in two weeks’ time, they have to wait two weeks as Cath is having to fly back to England next week. it was nice of them though, so that should be a nice evening out.
Yesterday was a funny day, I had just an out of sorts day, we sat by the pool in the morning with our coffee and discovered a dead lizard in the plant pot which was awful as it was just a baby, I will have to look into what it is that kills them to make sure we haven’t done anything, it was a bit worrying though and quite sad, anyway in the afternoon we had planned to meet Brian as just outside of our village is a micro-brewery, and they do free tours, also their lunch menu is really nice. so I thought it would give us all something different to do., only when we got there, we found a nice table in the sunshine and we had only been sat for a few minutes when it started to rain, so we had to go inside and the only spare table was next to this huge group of people that had done too much tasting of the brewery and they were so loud, anyway after we had eaten we went to do the tour, which was the most boring thing I have ever had to endure lol, I eventually went to sit outside as the rain had stopped and the sun came out again. anyway by the time it was done we had time to go home for about an hour before going to our Greek lesson which was the hardest lesson we had done so far, and some of my homework it seems I got wrong. anyway for some reason I just felt out of sorts for the whole day and I was honestly glad when it was bedtime, I am glad I don’t often get days like that.
Our Greek lessons have gotten a bit harder over the past week as we are doing verb endings, and so the end of the word you are trying to say changes if its I, we, you, they etc, so this week I have gotten quite muddled lol, I have been told it will come if I keep practicing, but I am now dying for the Easter holiday to come, either for a break or to do some revising, I am not sure which lol, the Greek teacher last night told us that this is the hardest part of the whole course which was good to hear, it was kind of nice to know it wasn’t just me finding it hard.
Well today we are going to the garden center as Nick has promised to buy me a new pot for the patio, I have been after one that is a larger lower pot, I think it’s too hard to explain, but hopefully I will find one, I think he is treating me as I was out of sorts yesterday, it makes me think I should have more out of sorts days lol.
13th April 2019
The weather is so lovely over here, it was mainly the weather that we moved over here for as out of 365 days in the year Cyprus has around 320 sunny days, although the Cypriot people still tell me that the weather isn’t as hot as normal but I find it perfect at the moment, although I did get burnt again in the week, I think I am just not used to having to keep putting sunscreen on so I need to start remembering before I end up old and shrivelled lol.
It’s been a nice plodding week, and I have spent a few days playing with plants as I bought some new ones, I keep finding sales here and there and then can’t resist buying bits and pieces, I found some Osteospermums (African Daisy’s), I had some on the Isle of Wight and really liked them, and over the winter they were blooming all over the village which is something I still have to try and understand, we also bought a Broom plant which is a shrub but it is such a beautiful yellow, and then I bought some canna lilies which I am hoping will be red but I have to wait to find out lol, so I am slowly having plant pots here and there which is making the patio look nicer, the next plant I want is called a bougainvillea, but I need to do more research into it first, as it comes as a plant, as a vine, or as a shrub, but it is a really pretty plant.
I rescued a plant from a greengrocers shop last week that I was passing by, he didn’t want much for it as it looked half dead and we didn’t know what it was, anyway after doing a bit of searching it is called a frangipani, it will be interesting to see it in bloom, and this week I have spotted a new bit of growth on it so there is hope.
I have been doing research into plants over here and it seems that there are two growing seasons, one which is spring until the real heat comes in June where the plants apparently go dormant because of the heat, and then they bloom again in September, I guess I will have to wait and see but I am finding it quite fascinating learning about it.
We had the butterflies come back again at the beginning of the week, it really was beautiful to see them all, I had read in the local paper that there was a second lot on their way, it only lasted for a few days but it was pretty impressive, it’s a shame they don’t all stay as it’s like a wonderland when they are all flying around you.
On Wednesday evening we went out with John and his wife Cath to a curry house, it was nice getting to know them properly, she used to be a teacher, and there was something about her that reminded me of of my sister Pat, although she looks nothing like her at all, but I think it was the way she talked, and when she told a story, her storytelling was just like my sister Pats which made me smile, anyway it was a nice evening with them and I am sure we will do it again, they keep themselves busy with different groups and they also bowl, I think I feel more comfortable with friends that are busy so you just see them now and again, they also seem to travel a lot and go on lots of holidays, they must have really good pensions and done something right lol.
I had something funny happen in the week, now and again I say good afternoon to cashiers etc. in shops, which in Greek is kaloapuyevmah, and in return they say episise back to me which means ‘the same to you’, only a few days ago after a few people said good afternoon to me in Greek and I said episise back I thought I was getting some odd looks, and when I was doing my grocery shopping and said it to the cashier she looked confused, and after talking to her about it, it turned out I was not saying epeise, I had gotten the word wrong and I was saying epistie, so instead of saying ‘the same back to you’ I was saying I believe in God, it did make me laugh, I said to her I actually do believe in God, but no wonder I was getting funny looks from people, so they were saying good afternoon to me and I was telling them that I believed in God, it did make me and the cashier laugh.
We had to spend a whole afternoon cooking for Maggie this week, as the guy in the supermarket at the meat counter who helped us out with what to feed Maggie, was telling me all about dogs and their nutritional needs, he asked me did I ever see my dog eating grass, and so I told him she eats grass every single day, well according to this guy it’s because she isn’t getting any vegetables, so he sold us the usual nasty bits of meat that we roast for her, and then we bought a load of veg from the grocers, and cooked a big pan of rice, and have mixed it all together. we then bagged it into little freezer bags, it was funny as I was sure Maggie wouldn’t like vegetables so after I finished cooking them I gave her a piece of broccoli and she wolfed it down lol, I didn’t think she would as she will never eat bread or bits and pieces from our plate….who knew….anyway she is still eating really well and now is eating even better now she is getting vegetables, all these years I wondered why she was so picky and it seems she was missing veg lol.
Apart from her eating well, she isn’t doing too well really as her accidents in the house have gotten worse and she doesn’t even know she has done anything, when she does see what she has done she looks really upset so we can never moan at her, she still isn’t going for walks either, we do try at least once a day to get her out of the gate but after four or five minutes she turns around to come home, we keep saying we will take her to the vet to see what he says but we keep putting it off, I guess we will at some point but I think we both know there isn’t anything he can do.
20th April 2019
The fish festival we went to at Latchi Harbour last Saturday was really good. The fish festival is a celebration of fish in Latchi, and all of the food was free along the harbour, there was salad, bread and fish, although the fish were really big sardines, I was hoping it would be proper fish lol, I wasn’t to keen on the sardines though as they all had their heads on and that’s how everyone was eating them, head as well lol, what made Nick happy was they were also giving out free beer, it was a nice afternoon out though and we had lunch for free which I quite liked, they had Greek singing and dancing which made the whole afternoon really fun, we spent the afternoon down there and went on a really long walk along the seafront, it actually felt like we walked for hours and I think for once I got over my ten thousand steps.
They really seem to make a big deal of Jesus’s death over here which I think is quite lovely really, although here it is all celebrated on a different day, I did look into it and it seems it depends on which of the two calendars you chose to follow, the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar, so over here it is celebrated a week later than in the UK. They have a lit candle that is brought over from Jerusalem and every candle in Cyprus is eventually lit from the same flame by being passed from one village to another, and then there is one evening where everyone walks around with their lit candle, I do hope I get to see it as it does sound lovely, and on the Monday there is a religious procession which I think is to do with Jesus resurrection after the three days, it seems this time of year is a bigger celebration than Christmas over here which I think is a good thing. I have also heard that there are a lot of celebrations in our village to do with Jesus resurrection but I will have to wait and see what it is like but I am looking forward to it all.
We actually had a catch up with Brian this week as his visitors have gone exploring in the mountains, so one day we went to Lighthouse beach for coffee, I don’t know why I say coffee as the pair of them drink lager and I am the only one with a cup of tea lol, and we always end up having lunch, and then on Wednesday we all decided to try a different beach called Potemi which is on the Paphos Coastline, it was so pretty, the ocean was such a deep blue, but it was three different colour blue’s which I found so beautiful, I meant to take some pictures as it was quite stunning but with all the talking that we do I completely forgot until we got home, I am sure we will go back though as it was such a nice place.
One of the mornings at the beginning of the week we woke up to find we had no power, apparently lightening had struck a power plant., so after waiting a while for the power to come back on we drove down into Paphos to get a coffee, we decided to go grocery shopping afterwards hoping that the power would be back on when we got home, and while we were out I got talking to this lady about the power as she was saying it was hard putting her makeup on early in the morning and she had to use the torch on her phone to do it lol, I told her we really missed our tea and coffee, when she then said why didn’t you boil some water on the stove, honestly I could have kicked myself, as the top half of our stove is gas and the bottom is electric lol, and I think all of the stoves over here are the same, but it didn’t dawn on either of us that we could have boiled some water, we are daft lol.
We have started noticing something going on with Nicks legs lately, he has really bad varicose veins on the back of his legs and they have been bad for years, but we have started to notice his legs looking smoother than normal and the lumps and bumps seem to look smaller, I do remember Nicks doctor telling him he would be more healthy over here as the weather is good for blood pressure and it relaxes the veins more, but we were both surprised by how much better his legs are looking so maybe the doctor was right, they still aren’t normal but they really do look much better.
We have our immigration appointment again on Monday, we booked it up when we first got over here, and after three months we went for the interview but we hadn’t got our marriage license stamped by the UK government, anyway so we have done all of that now, and so it will be good to get it all sorted out properly on Monday, as then we can get a Cyprus tax code and pay tax on Nicks pensions over here instead of the UK.
I am shocked by how big my roses have gotten, as I cut them all down really small in February until they looked like little sticks in the ground, and in two months they are now above my waist when I stand next to them, which I find unbelievable, it has to be the hot weather I suppose, they are also covered in buds, it is going to look so pretty when they all bloom which I think will be this week, I guess it’s the weather over here that makes everything grow so fast, I was talking to a lady last week about geraniums and she said that they get huge over here and in one season are like small tree’s lol, so it will be interesting to see how big my geraniums get over here.
We were going to go to Tomb of the Kings in Paphos on Thursday but for some reason I was really tired and just wanted a plodding around the house and garden day, so we will try again another time, I do find if I have to many days out I just get worn out and at some point have to stay home lol, the joys of getting older I guess, I am looking forward to next week as after our immigration appointment on Monday we are going shopping to buy two sunbeds and a small table for the patio, we do have a table and chairs but we need another one at the other end of the patio.
It was a shame my phone contract ran out this week but it will save us money every month, and now we have a pay as you go Cyprus phone number, so I am using WhatsApp to stay in touch with everyone in the UK as its free to text and call as long as you are home as it picks up your WI Fi signal in the house.
The pool still isn’t warm enough for swimming but I think another couple of weeks it should be…. some days when we are sitting outside and are boiling hot all we want to do is jump in the water as it looks so refreshing and blue lol….hopefully soon.
27th April 2019
I am finding that I start off sitting in the sun and after fifteen to twenty minutes I have to move to the shade now, and we actually got the sun brollies out last week as I can feel the sun has intensified its heat, thankfully we have two brollies as I used to have one for the allotment mainly for the dogs and one in the garden, so they are coming in handy and it’s good to have one each end of the pool, I am finding the weather quite hot but bearable, so everyone seems to delight in telling me how much hotter it is going to get lol, but hopefully with having the pool it will help us to cool down like it did in Canada, and we did get used to 30 degrees weather over there, I don’t think I will ever complain about the heat as I do like to be warm or hot, it’s the cold I find hard to cope with.
The lizards love the heat over here and they seem to like basking on the rocks, slowly they are all getting names lol, so far we have Kevin that lives under the rock at the side of the house and Roger that lives in the mailbox, but we have now seen three more at the side of the house, they are only small but really cute and I do enjoy feeding them now and again, they really seem to love pears lol.
I kept seeing different birds trying to drink out of the bases of some of the flower pots a few weeks ago, so I turned an empty plant pot upside down and put the base of the pot on the top and filled it with water, and voila it turned into a bird bath lol, I am getting a lot of pleasure in the evening watching the birds drink the water and its lovely when they jump in and start splashing about in the water.
We went for our appointment at immigration on Monday, it was a bit of a worry and this time we were worried that somehow we had missed something else again, it doesn’t help that you have to wait three months for an appointment and we really didn’t want to have to go another three months of waiting, I don’t think either of us slept well the night before., anyway thankfully I am happy to say that this time everything was perfect and we finally did it, and all of our documents were correct, it felt quite stressful that we might have got something wrong again, but we finally have our meu1 which is a yellow slip saying that we can stay in Cyprus, what a relief it was when we got told to go to the photo department to have our pictures taken as it was at that point that we knew it was all ok and we both let out this big sigh of relief, it would have been nice to have gone and celebrated but after all the hours it took waiting in the immigration department we needed to get home for Maggie, plus it really seemed to wear us out, I think it was worry and stress lol.
We did get to go sunbed shopping one of the days in the week, I really enjoyed going round all of the shops, and we did eventually find two that we really liked, we just have to wait until the end of next week for them to be delivered, Nick said he is going to put his sunbed right next to the pool and when he gets to hot he will just roll off into the water lol, he does make me laugh as it’s something I know he will do.
I did buy a plant from our local greengrocers this week as I was intrigued by it, it had geranium leaves but they were hard and not soft, and it sort of had geranium looking flowers, and there was no smell to the leaves, so I bought it so I could research it, and it turns out it is a Royal Pelargonium, its only small but I am so glad I bought it as its really pretty.
I think the only other thing I have been up to this week is I had to have a bean day one of the days, and oh what a mess it all was, as somehow I bought two many bags of dried beans and decided to cook all of them lol, so the mess just went on for most of the day as there was a lot of beans, and now the one freezer is nearly full of bags of bean mixes, I don’t think we will have to make any more for at least six months which is good as cooking makes the house to hot, but I think next time I won’t cook up so many as it just took my whole day away, the following day I had to have a rice day and I managed to freeze 14 containers, and then Friday I had to have a cooking day for Maggie, and it took ages roasting all the meat, making the rice and cooking all the veg up, but she now has enough dinners for just over two weeks so at least that is another thing out of the way for a while, and I am looking forward to having more days off from the kitchen now.
Yesterday we went to Potemi beach to meet Brian which is where we all met up last time, it is so pretty as the café/bar is right by the water, so we had a lovely lunch and catchup, I had covered myself in factor 50 sun cream so I wouldn’t get burnt, and we all sat there for to many hours as none of us wanted to leave lol.
There is a real cat problem over here, there are literally thousands of cats with no homes, they mostly hang around the bins trying to find something to eat, it’s such a shame, the woman opposite us feeds four or five of them but she is moving in June so it makes me wonder what will happen to them as she isn’t taking them with her, and this morning I heard about this one British woman in Paphos who feeds 160 cats every day down by the park, only she has now broken her knee and is asking for volunteers to go and help feed them, the majority of British people when they start feeding the stray cats they take them in to the vets to get neutered which is a good thing, it’s a real problem over here though.
Well this weekend is Easter weekend as the Cypriots are Greek and follow the Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian calendar, so tomorrow night we are going to the village square to see what is going on, there are two nights of festivities so we will probably go to both of them, it’s a huge thing over here and banks and government buildings are all closed for the whole week, we found that weird as we are both used to things just being closed over the long weekend at Easter, and then we found out apparently it is against the law to open some shops on some days, it is going to be interesting to see what it’s all like, and hopefully we will get to see the candles being walked through the village.
4th May 2019
It’s been a busy week especially with the evening festivities in the village square, we had such an amazing time, it seemed to bring the whole community together and it was lovely to feel a part of it, it didn’t start until the evening which was good as the sun had gone behind the houses by then and it had cooled down, the Greek dancing was brilliant, and they did some stories with the dancing which was interesting, I did actually get up with some of the Greek ladies to try and dance at one point as they were dancing in a circle, but they were dancing so delicately that I felt like a big hefalump doing it with them lol, it was all really good fun though and it was on for two evenings, then to finish the night off they had a game of bingo and Nick won thirty euro’s which paid for our drinks for both nights and we actually came home with more money than we went with, it was a fun weekend.
I got myself burnt again last week so had to spend two days in the house as I was like a lobster, it is so weird that sometimes you just don’t feel yourself burning, we were out one of the days and we stopped for a drink, only the place was so nice that we sat outside for a few hours, I had put some sun block on my chest and face before we left the house, and I didn’t feel myself burning at all until we got home and it was a bit later on that I felt my shoulders, arms and legs were really hot, but anyway it was good to have two days in the house and do some spring cleaning, so I scrubbed the couch and chairs which virtually took me the whole day, and then I got Nick to do both of the rugs the following day, thankfully I do have a small cleaner that does both but it is still hard work, but I said to Nick if we want to have a nice lazy summer then it’s good to spring clean and get everything nice and fresh, it’s funny but I don’t think he has ever noticed all that needs doing in a house, he is still struggling with the fact that floors etc. need washing every week lol, and quite often tries to talk me into leaving things, he is not a good influence to have around sometimes lol.
The weather over here is amazing still and feels like we are in the middle of summer, we are in the 70’s now and some days get to 80 degrees although on Thursday it was 82 degrees, I have been told that it won’t cool down now until around December, and even then we can have sunny beach days which I do believe as we were on the beach last January in t shirts in-between all the thunder storms we had, the heat is warming the pool up really well so I think by the end of next week we should be able to swim in it, I have heard a lot of people are using their pools already but I think I need another five degrees before I get in it lol.
This week I decided to do my grocery shopping every two weeks instead of weekly, I really don’t like grocery shopping and really miss being able to do it online and have it delivered, it used to take me ten minutes to order my groceries from Tesco as you were allowed to save your favourite items, and then when it got delivered it took 10 minutes to put it all away, so having to actually go out and do it every single week just feels like a complete waste of an afternoon every week, so we have now started doing it fortnightly and hopefully I have everything we need for the next two weeks and we will see how it goes, I am really hoping it works, and maybe one day they might start doing online grocery shopping over here lol.
We had to start back at our Greek lessons last night, it was lovely having three weeks off, we were going to do so much revising but ended up not doing any apart from a little bit Thursday night, it just goes to show me that unless we have homework and know we have a lesson coming up then it’s hard to motivate yourself, so in a way I am glad that its started back up again, we were talking to some people during the weekend festival and they were saying that they started Greek lessons when they first moved over but after a few weeks gave up, and have now been here a few years and wish they had carried on, so I am glad we are managing to keep going and not give up as I think we would regret it like the people we spoke to.
So I haven’t been up to much as I really wanted to get all of the different jobs done before it gets too hot to do anything, but it has kept me busy while my sunburn was getting better, today I am staying in this morning to make lots of fish cakes and lentil meatloaf’s to put in the freezer, there always seems to be a fair amount to do, but hopefully next week now most of my bigger jobs are done and the windows are also nice and clean I can relax more.
Our sunbeds arrived on Thursday, they are lovely so I am glad I made Nick shop around until I found what I was after, so I am imagining lots of naps under the brolly lol, or am I just dreaming as there always seems too much to do lol.
I find the Cypriot people funny as even though we can have days at the moment of 80 degrees, they are still all mainly wrapped up in trousers and sweaters, this weather to them is spring and they seem to really feel the cold, even though its boiling hot, I think they like it to be over 80 degrees to feel the warmth, it’s really weird, but apparently it’s because all the heat that they have over here thins the blood so when the temperature drops even a little bit they really feel a chill, we have been told it will happen to us at some point, I have also read that when the skin is exposed to the sun we release something called nitric oxide which causes the blood vessels to widen which is good for blood pressure, varicose veins and heart health.
May 11th2019
Well first of all I have to have a moan about my week as it makes me feel better, I think it’s just been one of those weeks, anyway I thought I had caught up on all the horrible jobs in the house but I I forgot that I hadn’t sorted out all the damp patches, it was because we were using calor gas fires in the house over the winter, apparently you are supposed to have windows open when using them as they put a lot of moisture in the air, I did open a window now and again but obviously not enough, but anyway we landed up with three biggish black corners of the living room and also in my bedroom against one outside wall, I had been washing the damp patches down all over the winter with bleach so we had taken most of the paint off, so Nick bleached them, then scraped and plastered them and it took me two afternoons to paint them as I had to do two coats, it was a real pain to do as I just wanted to go out, or at least sit outside in the sunshine.
We spent another day going around lots of shops looking for quilts and covers for the beds in the spare room, and I couldn’t find any I liked, I honestly longed for the good old english shops, anyway in the end on the second day of searching we eventually found some quilts that weren’t too thick or to thin and we found two quilt covers that were quite nice, then we went more shops looking for two bedside tables which we did find in the end, but it feels like it has been another one of those weeks with too much to do and not much relaxing.
The pool was getting to a nice temperature a few days ago when the pool guy decided that the water level had gone down and he topped it up with freezing cold water which made the temperature go right down, just when it was getting to an ok temperature, so that really frustrated me lol, we had decided that we were going to top up the water in the pool ourselves with hot water from the kitchen tap using the hose, as our hot water is free from the solar panels, but Nick had forgotten to mention it to the pool guy, so now it’s back to being cold again, life is frustrating sometimes.
My moans aren’t quite ending there, one of the days one of the brolly’s in the garden decided to fall over and snap in half, which really annoyed me as it was one that had cost eighty pounds as it was extra big for the dogs, I do think I have just had one of those weeks this week.
Although after saying that, we did go out one afternoon to register with a doctor as the health system has changed over here now, and everything seemed to go smoothly with no problems, and then we went to the tax department to get a tax number and she took copies of all our documents and said our tax number would be posted to us, with both things going right we both felt very suspicious as our life never seems to go smoothly lol, so we will see at some point if we are actually registered with a doctor and whether we will actually get a tax number through the post lol, it’s terrible that when things go right we really don’t believe it.
Unfortunately with not having a good week, it decided to get worse, as one of the days I heard all this noise and was shocked to see that it was a digger, and it appears they have decided to build two more houses on the vacant plot just a few doors down from our house, so it looks like we are in for a very noisy dusty summer, I think I sulked for most of the day after seeing it and just felt miserable as I hate loud noises and the thought that they are going to be building all through the summer just fills me with dread, it doesn’t feel like a good week at all, although the digger has now gone as they have cleared the land, so it has gone quiet but I know they are going to be coming back, but the following day after the digger had been at work all day, our car was covered in fine dust and all the bottom of the pool was dusty and dirty, I dread to think what would have happened to my laundry if it had been out.
Well I think that is all of my moans out of the way and yes I do feel a bit better now lol.
We had a nice afternoon out yesterday as we met up with Brian for lunch and spent the afternoon at Lighthouse beach, it was really warm so we just sat in the sunshine all afternoon chatting, it was a nice break away from cleaning and painting etc. and it did us good, and thankfully this time I had my sunscreen in my bag as I bought a smaller bottle to carry around with me, the reason I keep getting burnt is because I was mainly forgetting to put it on, or we would be out and the sunscreen would be at home, so now I have one for my handbag I won’t forget again lol, it is factor 50 which is the highest one I have seen so no chance of me getting burnt again, I am learning slowly lol. Brian is a nice tanned brown colour already, and he keeps getting burnt on top of his suntan which is unusual, so even when you go brown it seems you can get burnt, so he has also started carrying sun tan cream around with him as well lol.
This week we had to spend a day getting the spare room ready for visitors and now all of the junk has been taken out of the room it looks quite nice, I am really pleased with the quilt covers I bought as they look better on the bed than in the package so that was a nice surprise, they are white with swirls on them, and the bedside tables look good, although it seemed to take forever to get rid of all the junk out of the room, isn’t it amazing that if you have a bit of space all the junk gets put there, anyway thankfully it’s all done, so I will make sure that room stays clear from now on.
I never did get to the weeding that I was supposed to do last week for some reason, so I had to spend two afternoons weeding this week, we had some overnight rain last week so I think that just made them shoot up and they all decided to pop up at the same time, it’s hard to get at the weeds in this garden as all of the dirt is covered in a thick layer of gravel so trying to get to the roots is hard going, and always ends up breaking my nails, and with gardening gloves on it is harder to get to the roots.
Brian came up on Sunday, it was really nice as it stopped me and Nick from doing too much and it’s nice to sit and chill, and we wandered up to the bar in the village and sat in the sun all afternoon, well actually we were all under a sun brolly lol, we were going to go for a walk but we all decided it was too hot to walk lol, so that was a good excuse, the pool is 24 at the moment and the water feels more tepid now so it is swimmable, but we haven’t found time to get in it yet lol, but I am hoping today that when I have washed my floors I might have time later on.
Yesterday Brian invited us to his house for lunch, he is really a good cook and made us some really unusual things to try, I think it’s the nicest lunch I had in ages, it was really hot outside though even under the brolly, but it was nice to relax and we always seem to make each other laugh a lot, I think it does us all good.
MAY 23rd (ish) 2019
Well tonight we get our first visitor, my niece Tracy, and in a few days my daughter Nicola arrives, I have been researching different places to take them but it’s going to be sort of hit and miss really as we haven’t been to most of the tourists spots ourselves yet, so some days it might not be as good as it could have been, so it’s going to be a learning thing for all of us.
It dawned on both me and Nick last week that we were going to have a problem in taking out Tracy and Nicola as our car is only, so Brian offered to do a swap with our car for his for the next while until Tracy and Nicola have gone, so in the week Brian put Nick on his car insurance, we already had extra insurance on our car to cover another driver so we didn’t have to do anything, but anyway at least that is now sorted and we have Brian’s car sitting outside and he has ours.
The weather this week has been so hot, around 28 to 30 degree’s which is a bit too hot to sit in the sun or have a walk, but for the first couple of days of Tracy getting here it’s going down to 23 or 24 so that will be nicer, but then when Nicola gets here it goes back to 28 to 30 degrees, I think we will be using the pool a lot to cool down, I did manage to buy some floaty things for the pool for them to mess around on so that should be fun.
There is a gap now in my blog as I was to busy to do any writing, I wish I had written about all the things we did and places we went as now it all seems like a blur, but we did have a lovely time together, and the ten days just flew by, we had some amazing days out and lots of evenings out, we did take them to Coral Bay beach, and we did a boat ride to the Blue Lagoon, we went out to eat in the evenings and went to the taverna in the village quite a lot, we had our last night with them at a lovely restaurant called The Muse which overlooks Paphos, we went to Sea Caves with Nicola on her last day as we had taken Tracy before Nicola got here, so it was nice they both got to see it, on Tracy’s last day we were supposed to go and see some ruins but the day was to hot and I think we might have melted lol, so we spent the day at the harbour which was better, I thought it would be awful if Tracy had to get on the plane covered in sweat and I did read it was not good to do the ruins on hot days, I do hate saying goodbye to people and it was hard having to do it twice at the airport, I always get leaky eyes lol, I have to admit that when Nicola left they had to leave me outside the airport after we checked her in as I just couldn’t walk her to the gate, so Nick did it while I sat on a bench with lots of tissues lol, I am silly.
Well we are feeling tired this week after my daughter and niece have left, it must be the continual going out which we did a lot of, but it was so lovely having them both come to stay, I am looking forward to relaxing in the garden for a few days but that will be after I have cleaned the house and weeded the garden and dead headed all the plants, and also caught up on all my laundry lol.
After Nicola had gone we met up with Brian afterwards at lighthouse beach so we could switch cars back again, it was so nice of him to lend us his car, I don’t think we will be able to ask him again as we put a fair few miles on his car, he is such a nice guy though, so we spent the afternoon sitting on the beach under a brolly watching the waves and chatting which helped take my mind off Nicola leaving, so it was a nice afternoon.
I had to laugh one of the days when we were out with Nicola and Tracy looking in gift shops, we popped into this one shop, and I was talking about the weather to Nick (as it was really hot) and the woman serving said that she loves spring and can’t wait for summer to get here, it was one of the days when it was boiling and much too hot to walk, and I just walked out of the shop shaking my head thinking this can’t be spring lol, it reminded me of when we moved over here and it was October and really hot and the guy on the radio said everyone was so happy it had cooled down and me and Nick just looked at each other and burst out laughing, it was funny, so I do wonder what we are in for lol, I have heard a lot of British people go back to the UK in July and August as they can’t cope over here, I guess we will wait and see.
With all of the heat at the moment, I have been having a problem with all the plants I have in pots around the patio, I started noticing that when I watered them the water that came out of the bottom of the pot was really warm, and I had read that the soil in the pots can get so hot that it can boil the roots when you put water in the pot, so I spent ages one evening putting gravel on top of all the soil in the pots to try and keep the soil cool, hopefully it will help a bit but it was hard work carrying all the gravel in the heat as even though it was evening it was still hot, but it was another job done that I won’t have to do again.
1st June 2019
It’s unreal how hot it has been for the last week, it has been around 90 degrees and even under the umbrella outside it has felt hot with a warm breeze, so I have been popping in and out of the pool, as when you get out of the water you feel really cool for ages, this heat does comes in handy for the laundry as if I have two loads to do, by the time I take the second lot of laundry outside the first lot is dry already.
Unfortunately the weeds also seem to like this weather and even though I only weeded just before my visitors came, they are all back again, I thought with no rain they might not come back but of course they grow beside my plants which have to get watered, horrible little things, I have been waiting until evening when it cools down to weed and it took me three evenings to get rid of them all again, I think I did a better job of it this time so hopefully they won’t be so bad next time, it’s annoying how all the gravel breaks my nails though, as through the winter my nails were amazing, but anyway I have been given a recipe for weed killer which contains vinegar so I have left a few weeds in the corner that aren’t noticeable so I can experiment, I just have to make sure the liquid doesn’t kill my plants which would be typical lol.
Maggie is not doing too bad with the heat, she has a small fan next to her bed that blows on her and she seems to love eating ice cubes which I used to give both the dogs in Canada when they got hot, she doesn’t move much off her bed during the day but she is out in the garden all evening when its cooled down and there is a cool breeze.
One of the days last week after going out for the afternoon, when we got back home there was a little lizard sitting on top of the pool thermometer, which was floating around the swimming pool, the top of the thermometer is only about an inch wide so he was having to arch his back to stay afloat, I did feel sorry for him, but I fished him out and he just lay on the patio for a good hour, I think it was shock and stress, and at one point I really didn’t think he was going to make it, but then finally he scampered off onto the stones, phew. Another day Nick found a lizard at the bottom of the pool, so he fished him out and put him on the stones and when he checked again later the lizard was gone, silly little things.
We saw our first snake a few days ago, we were driving back from the village green grocers and we saw it slithering across the road, so I got Nick to stop the car so I could get out and take a picture, only when I got out I couldn’t see the snake, but then I heard Nick saying that he was worried as I had left the car door open and he was concerned we were going to have a visitor in the car with us lol, which really made me jump back into the car and close the door quick, I think we were both glad to drive off, but it did make us laugh, I think I am going to leave snakes alone from now on as I read an article this morning about the whip snake eating the blunt nosed viper, the snake we saw looked like the whip snake so I don’t feel the need any more to take pictures of them lol, as thinking about what I did was quite a bit mad really, so I think I will keep my distance from now on.
We had to start back at our Greek lessons last night, it was hard as we had missed the last two weeks with having visitors, and not long before that we had a few weeks off for Easter, so it feels quite hard starting back, plus it seems like we have forgotten some of what we have learned, and the amount of homework he gave us last night was quite a lot, so if we get to sit in the sunshine this week it will be with our Greek books.
Our neighbor opposite us found a stray dog in their garage yesterday morning, they brought him over to show us and to ask if we wanted to keep him if he wasn’t claimed, but Nick said no, he looked like a puppy about eight months old, and when I went to stroke him he peed which made me feel so sad as he has obviously been mistreated, so I called around the shelters and found one that said they would take him, so if no one comes to claim him I have told our neighbor that we will take him to the shelter for them as Roman the neighbor is worried the dog will freak out in the car, he said he would have kept him but with them moving back to the Czech Republic there wouldn’t be enough time to sort the dog out with a pet passport etc.
Well since I started writing today, Roman just shouted me from his garden so I went outside and he told me that they have taken the dog to the vets and the vet said he has time to get all the vaccinations done and a pet passport so they have decided to take the dog with them back to the Czech Republic, I felt so emotional when he told me as the dog will have such an amazing life now, it’s nice to hear of a happy ending.
I have heard some terrible stories about the animals in this country being mistreated and it seems it is passed on to the children, although I have heard they are showing video’s in the schools about how people are supposed to treat animals which is good, but also sad that they have to be shown video’s to understand that animals do have feelings and can feel pain, there are a lot of hunters over here who have large packs of dogs which they lock into sheds until they are needed, which is a shame, and a lot of dogs are also dropped off into the small villages when they are no longer wanted, I have heard the animal abuse over here used to be a lot worse so slowly things in this country are getting better.
We also have someone in the next road to us who only comes to his house at the weekend, but he leaves his dog tied to a tree all day and all night, the dog is never let off the piece of rope, he just stays under the tree tied up, the guy pops by to feed him now and again, and when we leave the house to go out we have to drive past this poor dog, so yesterday I found the number for the Government vet and tried reporting it, they only took my name and phone number so I guess I have to wait for someone to call me back, the guy on the phone had never heard of our village which didn’t help, but anyway I really hope someone can do something as its awful having to walk past this poor dog, and now with all this heat it makes it even more cruel.
6th June 2019
This week we went and bought two ceiling fans for the living room, the problem though was fitting them, Nick is normally fairly quick at things like that and has no problems, but these two fans took forever and were very tight to get on the ceiling, we spent one afternoon doing one, it literally took hours, and then the following day Nick fitted the other one, what a pain it all was, but they look nice and work like a dream, they are have remote controls which we have never had before so we are cooler and happier lol, I think Maggie likes the one that her bed is under and we leave it on for her all night so she will have a better summer now.
Monday morning we went down to the Government vet office to report the dog that has been tied to a tree for the last few months, after calling them and someone saying they would call me back…they never did, so I am really hoping that they do something about it as I dread leaving the house these days to see him sitting there, but if nothing is done I will go back down there to find out what has happened, I have started popping over to take him some treats every few days, he is such a cute little thing and is ultra-excited every time he sees me coming, it makes me feel bad when I have to walk away from him, but anyway hopefully something will be done for him at some point.
Well they started building on the empty plot early Monday morning, it was really noisy, it seems they have just dug out where the swimming pool is to go, it made everything really dusty, but since Monday they haven’t been back as I think they are waiting for the pool to be fitted, but whenever they do come back I won’t moan too much, I had my one day of sulking about it a while ago so now I am not going to let it bother me as I intend to enjoy my summer, and if it does get to me we will just go out for the day, Monday after they had finished digging I did notice that the pool was dirty and the table outside was thick with dust, so I will start leaving a cloth outside for the table.
We actually had a whole day of clouds on Tuesday, I was so excited as it was cool outside as well which I thought was perfect to have a cooking day as it’s been a while since I have had one, so I made my rice mixture which is basically just mixing it with cooked pea’s, onions and sesame oil, and I managed to get 14 containers frozen, then I made lots and lots of fishcakes, and then I made a double batch of lentil meatloaf, I had been craving a cooking day so it was pretty fabulous to have one although it was tiring as I was in there for nearly the whole day. The sun was back in full force the following day which I was glad to see, I do love the warmth over here and knowing that every day I can just put shorts and t shirt on, but the odd cloudy day is really appreciated.
We met with Brian Monday afternoon for lunch at Lighthouse beach after going to the vets, so we spent the afternoon watching the waves and relaxing and also laughing a lot, it was a lovely afternoon, and then yesterday Wednesday we met up in Polemi as he was looking at a house there and there was a store I wanted to check out so we met at a taverna and spent the afternoon sitting in the sun chatting and making each other laugh, it is so lovely that we all just seem to get on so well.
We have Anne and David coming up for lunch on Friday, they are back in Cyprus until the end of June I think but we haven’t seen them since they have been here this time as David landed up in hospital in Paphos just after they arrived, I think he had blocked arteries, anyway they sorted him out and after a stay in the hospital he apparently is fine, so I thought doing a lunch would be nice for us all to catch up again, I have been trying some Cypriot food on and off so I am buying some Halloumi Bread and Tahini Bread and some other unusual things including spinach pie, and the usual salads, I would love to get more into Greek cooking but a lot of their recipe’s include meat so it’s not easy finding vegetarian dishes, but now and again when we are in the bakery I get them to let me taste the odd thing here and there lol, the halloumi and tahini bread is beautiful and their pita breads are like nothing I have tasted lol, it’s hard to be thin over here I think lol.
13th June 2019
It is also amazing how cool the house is staying even though it’s pretty hot out, but we have been told a few times that the houses are built for the summer and not the winter, I think because the houses are made of concrete and because of the cold tiled floors throughout, it really seems to help make the houses nice and cool, I remember in Canada in the summer the house used to get really hot and we couldn’t even cook inside and we also needed to use the basement a lot to cool down, but so far over here I am not finding the house to hot at all, I was worried a while ago about using the oven as summers in Canada we couldn’t, but I have used the oven now and again and the house still doesn’t seem to get to hot, although the temperatures are only going to keep going up so we are still going to use the BBQ when we can, but so far as soon I come into the house it is nice and cool.
For some reason this week has been so relaxing, we seem to have more time to sit outside and swim and do our Greek homework, it has done us both good to take things a bit easier I think, it has actually felt like we have been on holiday now and again as we have done all the things that people on holiday would do, which is nothing lol, I hope it stays like this for a while as it has been a really lovely week so far.
We did have our lunch with Anne, David and Brian last Friday which turned out well, it was a bit rushed at just gone four o clock as we had to leave for our Greek lesson, but I told everyone before they came that it was Greek night so they did understand, David was saying that when they arrived in Paphos this time for their holiday, that first night he started to have chest pains, he said he thinks he was really lucky he was in Cyprus when it happened as apparently when he got to the hospital in Paphos the pains disappeared and nothing was showing up on the ECG, but they kept him in to monitor him and on the third day something finally showed up on the ECG and they then operated on him within an hour to fix his arteries, but he said if he had been in the UK they would have sent him home if nothing was showing on the ECG, where he said he would have had a heart attack as his arteries were so blocked up, so he said he feels really lucky to have been here at the right time, he is the second person to tell me something similar about the heart surgeons over here.
Apart from lots of relaxing this week we did meet up with Brian at the harbour for lunch, we had some things to get from the shops close to the harbour, so we thought we would stay down there for a while, it turned into a pleasant afternoon as they had a market on at the sea front which I have never seen before, so I treated myself to a small dish that this Cypriot guy had made which has little sheep on it which is really cute.
I have heard that this weekend there is a celebration of Noah’s salvation of coming out of the flood, they call it the Kataklysmos Festival and it is celebrated 50 days after Easter, I’m not sure if we will go to that but it does sound interesting so we will see how the days go.
20th June 2019
We were actually promised some rain last Friday which didn’t happen and then again on Sunday but we didn’t see a drop although we did have two claps of thunder as I was swimming so I got out of the pool in case lightening got me lol, but there was not a rain drop or cloud to be seen, we could actually do with some rain as it’s been a while and everything is going brown and very dry and they say we are in for lots of fires this summer, earlier in the week we had our second lot of helicopters go over the house carrying huge water balloons so I guess a fire had broken out somewhere, I have been wondering lately though how the tree’s survive all these months with no rain over here.
Well we have another date for visitors, as my daughter Nicola and granddaughter Sarah are coming over on July 2nd, the tickets were 22.99 each one way, I was shocked when Nicola called me up to tell me, so they are both coming for less than fifty pounds, it is such a good deal that they would be mad not to make the most of it.
We did have some good news this week as when Nick went to pay the rent he asked Olympia who is our property manager what company she was using to take over cleaning our pool as Roman the guy who cleans it at the moment is leaving Cyprus in just over a week to go back to his own country to live, and she said that Nick could clean our pool from now on if he wanted to, and she would knock sixty euro’s off our rent, we did ask when we first moved in if we could do it ourselves but she said no and that only a professional could do it, anyway she really seems to like us so that is really good, it is nice when things go right, well I think that was the best thing that has happened this week, the worst thing that happened was I swallowed a fly, it took me ages to get over it lol.
We took Maggie to the vets on Friday as she had run out of her pills and I wanted her to have a check-up as most of the time she is really limping, I still find it odd that you can just walk in without an appointment and it seems to work really well, anyway they gave her two more injections and we had to take her back the next day for two more injections, normally when she goes in for injections her limping improves and we can get her out for walks, but this time it doesn’t seem like the injections worked and instead her back legs keep giving way on her, so we are continually propping her up when she flops down and helping her to stand up, poor little thing, but maybe she might pick up as the week goes on, I do hope so, I worry about her so much.
On Saturday we were going to go down to the festival which is to do with Noah and the flood, but we found out it was in the evenings over three days, I think we both prefer going out somewhere in the daytime rather than evenings so we decided to skip it and instead we met Brian at Lighthouse Beach for the afternoon, it seems it has become our meeting place lol, but it was handy as on the way home we have to pass the shopping mall so I wanted to check out t shirts as I need a few more, so I found some plain cheap one’s that will do for around the pool, but I couldn’t see anything really nice, nothing like all the pretty t shirts you get in the UK, but I will make do with the plain one’s and keep looking now and again.
When we moved into this house and I saw lots of gravel I remember thinking oh how lovely a maintenance free garden lol, but I am finding I am having to spend between one and two hours every evening in the garden, dead heading and cleaning up leaves, and chopping branches and watering and weeding, I keep thinking that one of these days I will catch up on everything but it never happens lol, but I am not moaning as I do love that time in the evening when it has cooled down and I plod about playing with flowers, over the last few weeks I have been dead heading my roses like I used to in Canada down to the fifth leaf, I never used to have time to watch to see how it branches and blooms again, but because these roses are just outside my front door I have been watching what happens and its quite fascinating seeing the branches come out with buds on them, it’s nice to have more time now to do things like that.
We did go out with Brian on Tuesday to go and look at a house that he is interested in buying, and afterwards we went to Sea caves for lunch, it is so beautiful with all the caves in the water, but I forgot to take any pictures, I had fresh sea bream which I love, I think the weather was a bit too hot to be honest but the sea breeze did help a bit, I can see though in another few weeks we will just be spending our days in and out of the pool as it will be too hot to go anywhere, I think I will enjoy that lol, I think I love this little island so much, and we don’t have more than two days go by that we don’t count our blessing for coming here, I think it is one of the best things we have ever done, I don’t know how we were so brave to just come to a place we had never been to before though.
28th June 2019
Well it has certainly gotten hotter over here, and I had forgotten what humidity felt like as it’s been a few years since Canada, but this week I definitely remembered, and at times it felt like I was back in Canada, especially when coming out of a lovely air conditioned shop and you just feel the heat hit you when you go back outside, so this week we had no choice but to finally stop all cooking in the house and we have been keeping some blinds closed where the sun comes through, it has all helped but thankfully with the pool we just get in when it feels to hot and instantly we are cooler, the evenings are lovely after the sun has gone down though so that is when I do my bits of gardening, I do enjoy the heat though and thankfully so does Nicola so I know they will be fine with it when they get here, growing up in Canada has helped.
The pool at the moment is just on thirty degrees so it’s a bit like bathwater, especially with my yellow ducks floating around as well, last week I managed to find a little blue plastic boat which I have named Bertie, it sounds crazy but now and again I like to sit and watch the ducks and Bertie the boat just floating along, Nick thinks I am quite mad lol.
We had the children opposite and also the little girl next door to them come over to swim for the last time last Saturday before they move, they were so noisy, I will miss them all but not the noise they make when they come for a swim as they scream and shout and no matter what I say they are loud lol, in a way it is good that they moved this week as I would have had them on and off all summer long so now I am going to have a quieter summer.
Sunday was such a lovely day as Brian came over and we made a new recipe with prawns and watermelon and feta cheese, it was actually Brian’s recipe that he found but he had never made it before, but we all did bits and pieces to make it, and who would have thought that hot prawns, cold watermelon and feta cheese totally went together lol, we were all shocked but we all wanted to give it a go and thankfully we all really loved it, I am going to try it out on Nicola and Sarah to see what they think.
I actually found a few t shirts in the week thankfully, I just needed t shirts with no sleeves to try and keep cool, so I managed to find four of them in the end, I think I tried on about twenty, still at least that will keep me going for a while, and while we were out we found a leaf blower for 28 euro’s which sucks the leaves or blows them, it was such a good buy as Nick has hurt his back twice now picking up leaves so at least we have solved that problem now, we couldn’t believe the price though as we had one in Canada and it cost a fortune, this one blows the leaves and also sucks them up, and it also shreds the leaves for compost, it’s unreal it was that cheap, Nick tried it out on the garden a few days ago and its brilliant thankfully.
Well only a couple of days until Nicola and Sarah get here, I am looking forward seeing them both and it will be lovely showing Sarah a bit of Cyprus, I do wonder how it is possible to do any sightseeing in all of this heat though, and it will be even hotter in August when Emma my other niece gets here with her daughter, apparently a lot of the British people go back to the UK in August as they can’t cope with the heat, I do hope Emma and Emily cope ok in the heat though.
7th July 2019
Well this week my daughter Nicola and Sarah arrived on Tuesday and the week so far has been lovely and relaxing and I have even managed to finish reading a book that I tried reading a while ago, the weather is now in the thirties which is really hot, it’s nice if you are staying around the house and the pool but really hard if you want to go anywhere, we had lunch at the harbour which we all found just too hot, even the sea breeze was hot, and yesterday we decided to try and go to Sea caves to meet up with Brian for lunch which was a lovely afternoon, but it was impossible to walk around really, and even too hot to sit under a brolly, it was funny as when we all stood up to come home we all felt like we had wet ourselves as our shorts were soaked and that was sitting in the shade under a brolly lol, it did make us laugh though, and it was nice getting back home into the pool.
Today Brian is coming over for lunch and a swim, I think the weather is at the point where you just need to be by the pool to keep cool, so I am glad I managed to do some sightseeing with Nicola last time she came over as this time it is so hot, but it’s nice learning these things as we go, I can’t imagine it getting hotter than this but I think it will lol.
Of course I am totally loving the weather, I love being warm all the time, and as long as I don’t have to go out walking in it then I am happy just being in and out of the pool all day and not doing a lot, I think this is the best summer of my entire life.
I read something recently that said that Cyprus has two springs, the first one is April to May and then apparently we get another one in September after the heat of the summer has passed, my neighbor was telling me that soon all the flowers go to sleep as its too hot, and then everything re blooms in September.
I did have one bad day last week as the day that Nicola and Sarah were due to arrive I dropped my laptop on the floor and it finally decided to die on me, it was about six years old but I was devastated, as I do my bible reading in the morning, listen to my audio bible on it when I am going to sleep, I love all of the music I have sorted into folders, it’s quite shocking really that you suddenly realize it contains all of things that you feel you need to keep you going through the day, so I felt just totally lost, Nick took it down to Brian’s house as he is a computer whiz but he said it was basically dead so I had to get myself another one….. a HP one to my disgust lol.
This week we have been seeing the tiniest little lizards ever, it seems our lizards out the back have had babies and they are so so tiny, it is cute watching them run around outside, yesterday two of them were chasing each other which was quite funny.
13th July 2019
It dawned on me today that we haven’t had rain now in months, I have to say I would love to see a bit of rain over here, it’s funny the things you miss when you haven’t seen them for a while, as the weeks are going by I can see things just getting browner and browner around the countryside, although it still looks lovely but in a different way, but brown grass means I am warm so I don’t mind it really and I am still loving the warmth of this amazing country.
This week we went to Coral Bay, it is so pretty down there with the sea and the cliffs, it has been so hot that it has been hard trying to think of places to take Nicola and Sarah where we are not going to melt, so a beach day was lovely, it was 38 degree’s that day which is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so we knew we couldn’t go anywhere to walk, it was still hot down there though but the water was really lovely and warm, the waves at Coral Bay are amazing and it’s a lot of fun playing in them, it is always a good day when we go down there.
We took Sarah and Nicola to a place called Latchi last Sunday and did the boat ride with them to the Blue Lagoon, it was a lovely day and they all had a lovely time in the water when we got there, I tried to go in the water but it was too deep and I like my feet to be able to touch the bottom lol, so I stayed on the boat and took videos of them all and lots of pictures which I did enjoy, it was a lovely afternoon though and Sarah said it was her best day here which was sweet, she was so appreciative of all of her days out.
We have had a lot of evenings out at the village taverna since Nicola and Sarah have been here, the food is good and its a lovely short walk to the village square, its lovely to watch all the little Cypriot children playing around the church in the evening as it is to hot for them to play out during the day, one evening when we popped up there they found out it was Sarah’s birthday and they all sang happy birthday to her, it was fun and made her day a bit special.
Thursday evening we went to Kouklia as they have Greek dancing at Gabriel’s, taverna and the food is lovely, we thought it would be fun for them both, and also we thought because it would be an evening thing it would be cooler, but we were wrong, even after the sun had gone down it was really hot and humid, there was not a drop of breeze to be found anywhere, they really did enjoy themselves though and they joined in with the Greek dancing, and we all drank to much, they did find it hard to believe that it could be late evening with no sun and still so hot lol.
Well today we are going back to Coral Bay for a beach day, Nicola and Sarah have three days left, their holiday seems to have gone so quickly for some reason, we all do love Coral Bay though as I do think its the best beach around with all the sand and the waves are amazing.
20th July 2019
Well Nicola and Sarah’s holiday came to an end on Tuesday, we all thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, but it is unbelievable how tired I have been feeling, I really wish I was back in my forties with plenty of energy lol, anyway I think we have about three weeks now until my Niece Emma and her daughter Emily get here so I should be fully recovered by then.
24th July 2019
We haven’t managed to get up to anything too exciting this week, I had one laundry day where I think the washing machine didn’t stop most of the day lol, and another day was grocery shopping, and then I had to go and get my hair cut and the following day I went to her shop in Paphos so she could sort the colour out for me as the last time I dyed my hair it didn’t seem to come out the right colour, it is still a bit darker than I normally have it but she said it will lighten up, but it does look better thankfully.
Monday we had to go to the tax office to sort something out to do with Nicks tax, and we have to go back to the tax office on Thursday as the woman we wanted to see wasn’t there, we also had to have a wander around the shops to try and find another umbrella for the garden as we had one blow over last week, thankfully they are really cheap over here and we also managed to find one on sale, and this time we have bought a heavier base, so hopefully it won’t blow over again, this week has seemed a bit busy with not much time to relax but it has felt like a nice week.
My niece Tracy has been staying with our friend Brian over the last couple of weeks, so Tuesday we invited them over for lunch and a swim as we haven’t seen them since meeting them last week at the beach café, I think meeting at our house at the moment is better as because we are in the hills we have a breeze, I don’t know how people cope down in Paphos as even when there is a breeze it is a hot breeze and you feel quite sticky and the air muggy, it turned into a lovely day, we made them the new recipe with watermelon and prawns and feta cheese, and Tracy said she really like it which was good, neither of them are looking forward to Friday when Tracy leaves.
We are going out with them both Thursday evening as its Tracy’s last night so we are going to the Muse restaurant again, they make the most incredible thing there called Sea bream in a bag, and it is the best thing I have ever eaten, so I am looking forward to my dinner tomorrow lol, the fish is cooked in a parchment bag with vegetables but it is the juiciest fish I have ever eaten because of the way they cook it, I have found the recipe online which sounds the same but I have decided not to try and copy it as going to the Muse is a treat, so it will stop being such a treat if I learn to cook it.
Well the poor dog that is tied to a tree nearby is still there, nothing has been done at all, I called the government vet office a while ago and they said someone would call me back, after two weeks and no phone call back I then went down to the government vets office and spoke to a lady there who took all the details and my phone number, but after about 2 or 3 weeks nothing was done, so then I typed a letter to the government vet detailing what was going on with the dog, I gave the address etc. and all of my details, and then I went down and actually spoke to the government vet lady who is in charge of everything, she read my letter and assured me that they would investigate, I was sort of hoping that because everything was documented in a letter that they would do something, but still nothing has been done, I think my last attempt was the 17th June, so I don’t think there is anything else I can do now, I have thought of taking him off the rope and taking him to a shelter where I could pretend I have just found him wandering around, but then the people might just buy another dog and tie him to the tree, so I am sort of stuck of anything else that I can do.
30th July 2019
For the past few days I have been trying to teach myself how not to be scared of going under water, so I have printed this list of things to do every day that I found on the internet, I can swim but have a fear of the deep end and I need to know my feet can touch the floor, so it’s something I am determined to conquer, yesterday on my list was going under water and blowing bubbles through my mouth, but I did make myself do it, and for the last few days I have been making sure that I dunk my head under the water 5 to 10 times a day which I still hate doing, but I will keep following this list just to see if I can get over my fear as when we went to Coral Bay with visitors, everyone got off the boat into the water and I had to stay on the boat as the water was too deep for me, so I am fed up of missing out and hopefully with this list of things to do under the water I can overcome it….we will see lol.
Yesterday morning we had to pop to the doctors for Nicks prescription, it is so lovely now that the medical system has changed over here, so we actually go to a private doctor for free, I actually saw this doctor when I was ill over the winter and it cost me thirty five euro’s to see her, so when the medical system changed we registered with her, yesterday was our first day of trying the new system out and it was perfect, we waited two minutes in the waiting room to see the doctor, she was really thorough with Nick and is doing all sorts of blood tests, urine test and even a stool test lol, so all of that is free and his prescriptions for his blood pressure pills and cholesterol were one euro each, so we were really impressed with everything, he went back to the doctors this morning where they have their own lab and he got all his tests done and was told the results will be in either this afternoon or in the morning, which we were surprised at, as at our old doctors in Ryde it was about one and a half weeks for results to come back, .Nick has to call in the morning for the results and then apparently she puts them online in our medical account so we can see the results ourselves if we want to, I think it’s such a good idea to be able to look at your own reports and medical records online, anyway the whole things was really impressive.
Yesterday we also went back down to the tax office to finally sort out Nicks tax, that will be our third visit in the last week, but finally it is done and it might take a while but we will eventually start paying tax over here which should save us money, it seems to have taken a long time of phone calls and forms etc. to have got to this point though.
The only other thing we have to do now is change our driving licenses over to Cypriot one’s, as we have been told that if the UK does leave the EU then we will have to retake our driving tests in this country, but if we exchange them before Brexit it’s just a case of sending them off to the Transport department to change them over, but we are waiting until our last visitors of the summer have gone back before sorting that one out, this time it’s my niece Emma with her daughter Emily which we are really looking forward to seeing.
This morning I had fun and games as a lizard decided to wander in the house and it took me ages to get it out, Nick was at the doctors getting his blood tests done, whilst I was trying to get it out of the front door with the broom it decided to run into the downstairs toilet, I was trying not to scare it too much as it looked really freaked out poor thing, eventually he sat on the broom and I carried him out on the broom head lol, it did make me laugh though.
2nd August 2019
I was told a really good tip a few weeks ago, my hairdresser told me to stop using conditioner and to use something called a hair mask, it comes in a tub, and to use it every time I wash my hair and to use it like a conditioner, but now and again to leave it on for twenty minutes, so I bought one, washed my hair and left it on for twenty minutes and then washed it out, and oh my goodness my hair felt so lovely, it’s something no one has ever mentioned to me before, but I guess because of all of the sunshine and also being in and out of the pool daily it all takes a toll on your hair.
Maggie is doing ok, she had a rough couple days a few days ago as she had an upset tummy, a few times in the house as well which was a bit horrible for Nick, and the rugs have had to be scrubbed which took Nick ages to sort out outside, we are still waiting for one to dry, her back legs have gotten a bit worse so sometimes she can’t have her ten minute walk in the evening, and now and again she doesn’t eat, but that could be down to the heat, I find if she doesn’t want to eat for two days in a row then I make her some scrambled eggs which she really likes and that seems to get her appetite back up again, she has to eat though to be able to take her pills which is why I can’t just leave her, so she isn’t doing too badly but of course she could be better.
9th August 2019
We went to a Beer festival one of the evening this week, it was fun as it was down by the seafront at Chloraka, we had never been to this sea front before so it was nice going somewhere different, the festival wasn’t a big one but the music was really good and very loud, and even though it was evening the temperature was over 30 degree’s, it was so hot and humid, I still wonder how people cope with the heat and humidity down in Paphos, we stayed for a couple of hours and then came back to go to the little bar in our village as it is cooler, but it was nice going out for the evening.
The weather as usual is amazing, it never changes and is always hot and sunny, it is lovely just getting dressed without worrying about the weather, I was reading through some things I wrote last summer when we were living ion the Isle of Wight and I was moaning that by lunchtime I kept having to put jeans on, so I am really impressed with summers here, I still wouldn’t mind seeing a bit of rain now and again though just to help with the watering.
My back has been playing up more this past week, so Nick has now taken over watering the plants as you need to bend down close to the pots to water so that wasn’t helping, so I have taken over the washing up while Nick now does the watering, I would much rather water plants though lol.
I had to have a baking morning one of the days this week to make more fishcakes as we ran out, so I had no choice but to use the stove, still there are lots in the freezer now, we have also done lots of cleaning this week all ready for my niece Emma and her daughter Emily, I don’t think there is anything that hasn’t been cleaned, but we didn’t clean last week so things were starting to get a bit dusty and now everything is lovely again thankfully, but it has felt like a busy week.
We have had the builders pouring concrete and making lots of noise this past week, I do hope they go a bit quiet for when Emma comes, but putting up steel girders last week and pouring the concrete this week was the worst so at least they have got that out of the way, so I am hoping it will all be peaceful. for their holiday, we also had our new neighbors at the back of our house move in a few days ago, so I am hoping that they are a bit different from the last lot of people and hope they give us a bit more privacy, so we will wait and see.
My sister Cath called me last night and was saying that they were getting really bad storms over in the UK and she sent me pictures, it did look a bit wild, I don’t understand what is going on with the weather over there, and I read this morning that this weekend the UK is going to be getting more rain and storms, we definitely moved in time to miss all the rain and storms over there.
26th August 2019
Well it’s been about two weeks since writing on my blog as my niece Emma and her daughter Emily came for a two week visit, they left yesterday so now it’s time to get life back to normal again, we did take them to some nice places and went out every day and most evenings, they both said they really enjoyed their holiday, we did the Greek dancing and buffet in Kouklia, and I was surprised but happy that they both joined in with the Greek dancing, and I think it made it more fun for them, we took them to a festival in our village for another evening where there was a lot of Greek singing, we went to Tomb of the Kings Archaeological Park to see the ruins, although the day was to hot so we didn’t stay for too long and we went to Lighthouse Beach to cool down as we all thought we were going to melt, they said they wanted to go to lots of different beaches while they were here, so we have been to Coral Bay quite a few times for the day, Geroskipou Beach another day, Latchi and Polis Beach, we had a walk on Corillia beach, and out of all of them we decided that the nicest beach is Coral Bay as its pure sand on the beach, and when you are in the water the waves are amazing, its really good fun to just jump in the waves which they both did enjoy lol, Emily said she wanted to see a waterfall, so I did lots of research and one of the days we went to find the one I read about online, there were lots of hills involved but by the time we realized about the steep hills it was too late to go back, the waterfall was really small but at least we got some good exercise I guess, I don’t think the waterfalls over here are good enough to go and see so it’s not something I will do again, we also had lunch and the afternoon at the harbour which was nice but really too hot to walk around, we have met our friend Brian out for lunch at Sea Caves, and one evening we took them to a restaurant called The Fountain where we met up with Brian and there was more Greek dancing which they both seem to really like, and at the end they both got up with us to join in with the dancing, we also met up with Brian to go and see his new house last week which both Emma and Emily thought was lovely, then on their last night we went out into Paphos for a few drinks which was nice, although it was still so hot even at ten o clock at night, so we ended up coming back to Tsada and going to the little bar in the village, we went to the little bar in the village most evenings when there wasn’t anything going on which they seemed to like, and on their last day here which was Saturday we decided to stay at home around the pool and have a lazy day, it was the only day we stayed home as they did want to go out every day and also most evenings, so I was really grateful to have more of a chilled day.
With all the visitors we have had what little savings we had left over from moving has now disappeared as not one visitor has brought money with them to go out, so it has been down to us to pay for everything with all of them, I am glad we had the money to be able to spoil everyone but it does make me sad, and if anyone else comes for a holiday they will have to pay for their own drinks and meals out.
With having such a busy summer and spending a fair amount of time down in Paphos over this summer I have to say I am so glad I don’t live down in actual Paphos, the heat is awful and even Emma and Emily struggled every time we went down there, we all just couldn’t wait to get back to the hills, even the air you breath down there is hot air, I said to Nick a few days ago when we were down in Paphos that if we had rented a house down there when we first moved over, as much as I love the heat I think I would have gone back to the UK, so we were so lucky that we happened to see this house in Tsada advertised as at that point we didn’t know what Paphos was like in the summer and it really is unbearable down there, I don’t know how everyone copes with it, but I think people coming over on holiday cope with it better as all of the hotels are air conditioned, but to use air conditioning in houses over here is really quite expensive, then of course I have heard there are mosquito’s, cockroaches, high humidity down in Paphos, so we do feel so fortunate to have landed up in a village in the hills.
It’s not long now until my niece Tracy moves over, I am not sure if I have mentioned it in my blog, but she came over for a holiday at the end of May and fell in love with our best friend Brian, so she is moving over in September to start a new chapter in her life.
This month we lost Maggie, at this point I have no words to say……..
5th September 2019
It’s been a funny week where I have tried to keep busy but I sort of feel a bit lost like I don’t know what to do with myself, it’s an odd feeling, I don’t know if it’s having no visitors or if its losing Maggie, but thankfully there is always something that needs doing in a house and we have been out a far bit which has helped.
This week I had to spend some time in the kitchen making the rice that Nick likes with onions and pea’s etc, so we have lots in the freezer now, I have also done some weeding and some swimming, and this morning Nick took me to the shopping mall so we could have a wander, he was really sweet and bought me a little Peridot green bracelet, it is really lovely and I don’t seem to be able to stop looking at it as it catches the light here and there,
I invited Brian up one of the days so I could make him lunch, I wanted to try out my mango and walnut salad on him which he really did like, and we spent the afternoon by the pool chatting which was nice, another day we went down to the harbour for lunch and tried to have a longish walk, but it was really a bit too hot, but we did try, it is nice down there walking along the harbour front so it did us good, on Wednesday night we went to Chris’s bar for something to eat, and we had been promising him we would try his food, so I had sea bream which he cooked really well so that was a nice evening.
One of the days we went down to the driving license place to change our driving licenses over but we have to have an appointment so they made us one for the 16th September hopefully we can get that sorted out before Brexit happens as otherwise we have to re take our driving test which wouldn’t be good.
Our Greek lessons start again in just over a week I think, so we have both been brushing up on what we learned in our first semester, I think we are going to enjoy getting back into it all again and its a nice hobby to have.
I have started again trying to get the government vet involved with the dog that has been tied up to a tree since Easter, so yesterday I wrote another letter but pretended it was from some guy in the village and I made up a false name, in it I put that he is upset about this dog that he sees on his daily walk that has been tied up for months on end etc., so we dropped that letter off, and I have now written another letter from myself and have attached a copy of the new law that has come into effect this year, which states that it is against the law for a dog to be tied up continually, there was also a few other laws that I highlighted, so I will pop that letter in on Monday morning as I don’t want it to look to suspicious after the unknown guy in the village writing a letter lol, but I am hoping I get to see the government vet on Monday when I take my letter in so I can find out why nothing has been done, anyway I won’t go on about it as its pretty sad.
The weather here is still hot, but today for a change there is actually some cloud around, so we got quite excited that we might get a walk this afternoon instead of waiting until this evening, but every time we put our shoes on the sun pops out and then it’s too hot, it feels like the sun is playing games with us
8thSeptember 2019
Since losing our dog Maggie I have been feeling really stressed and anxious, so I remembered reading somewhere that exercise is really good for anxiety, and it has totally amazed me this last week how much better it makes me feel, so I started exercising once a day, but I liked the anxiety leaving me so much that I have now started doing it twice a day on the days when we are home, even though I don’t like exercising lol, I do love that it makes me feel better for a few hours, I tend to find it builds up, so then doing another exercise session later in the day really helps, I really miss Maggie and I have been feeling really rough since she died, I guess it all just going to take a while to get over.
On Saturday we met Linda and Graham out for lunch as we hadn’t seen them in ages so we had a lot to catch up on, and at some point we popped over to the garden center which is a lovely place to walk around and have a drink, it was lovely seeing them again and we were all talking about hiring a boat trip one of the days which sounded like a lot of fun.
We are finding that we still can’t go walking during the day as it is still too hot, we have tried it twice in the past week and my goodness we both really sweated, so for the next month or two we have to go at seven o clock when it cools down, I do love the weather over here but I just wish the sky would provide me with some cloud for one hour in the afternoon lol., it’s still nice though going at seven in the evening, but then we have to stick to the main pathways and not the little country lanes which I like as they are getting a bit dark at that time.
Well I must be totally losing the plot as this coming Tuesday morning I am taking myself off to the village hall as I heard that they held an exercise class there, so I have decided to go and join, I saw a picture of all the women and they all looked either my age, a bit younger or a bit older, so I thought it might not be to embarrassing lol, it costs five euro’s a week for the Tuesday workout, I am sort of looking forward to it but also dreading it, I think it gets harder to walk into a group when you are on your own, I remember finding it quite hard joining the walking group on the Isle of Wight but I just made myself do it, so I will have a go at this and see how it goes, I am sure I will ramble about it next week.
14th September 2019
The weather this week in Tsada is still lovely and hot, and it’s ranging from 26 degrees to 28 degrees, its still a bit too hot to walk during the day so if we fancy a walk then we go in the evening, the house during the day is staying around 25 degree’s which is perfect, not to hot and not to cold, although for the last few days not a lot of walking has been done as I injured my toe this week from exercising so have been limping for days, hopefully another day or two and it will be back to normal.
We did meet up with Gill and David Tuesday lunchtime at the taverna in the village, but Nick drove us down there and I was able to limp to the table, they are the couple that we met a while ago, they actually came to look at the house at the back of ours, and then one day they turned up to have a second look but the house had been rented, anyway they stayed in touch and they eventually found a bungalow in the next village to ours, so Gill text me last week to see if we wanted to meet up for coffee with them, it was a nice afternoon sitting and chatting with them at the taverna, plus it kept me off my feet so my toe could rest, they are away on holiday now so we are going to meet up when they get back as Gill is interested in joining the exercise class with me, although hopefully I will have joined by the time they get back as they are away now until the 3rd October.
We had rain this week, to start with we had black clouds and thunder for about an hour, but then the sun came out and it was hot again, and then after an hour of hot sunshine it just started raining, it was pretty amazing as it was quite heavy rain as well, so I am sure it did all of the plants a lot of good, it has been months since we have seen any, it was really lovely.
Well yesterday was a good day as I could walk and dance around the kitchen which made me so happy to be back to normal, so I spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking and freezing things, it did literally take the whole day, it was a bit of shame to waste the day inside, but it needed to be done and at least it’s out of the way now, I also bought all of my dried beans when we went grocery shopping but I am leaving them until the middle of next week before I start soaking cooking and freezing them all as I now feel like I need a break from the kitchen.
Today we are going to Brian’s for lunch and he says he is cooking something unusual and different so that should be interesting, I am hoping it won’t be too hot in Paphos and that there might be a breeze.
19th September 2019
Our lunch at Brian’s last weekend was really nice, he is such a good cook, and we had a good afternoon as we really all just make each other laugh, so it was really lovely, the weather down there was still much too hot for me and my hair kept getting really damp, and there was one point where I felt a bit yuk from the heat even though we were all sitting in the shade, I know I keep saying it but I really don’t know how everyone copes down there as you just sweat continually, it’s always lovely coming back to the hills where it is cooler and there is always a breeze.
On the way down to Brian’s house we heard a couple of popping noises and the car sort of went down a bit, just like we went down a pot hole, I said to Nick I had the feeling something was wrong with the car but he said it was just a little pot hole we went down, but when we got to Brian’s we found out we had a completely flat tire, so that must have been the popping noise we heard, anyway it turned out we needed two new tires which cost us 130 euro’s, but at least it done now.
Monday we had our appointment for our driving licenses, for some strange reason we were really lucky and after one hour and fifteen minutes we had seen the person in charge and gave him our forms and he stamped them, then we had our pictures taken and then saw another lady who put all of our details into the computer, it was pretty amazing as I have heard of people being there most of the day, and when Brian did his driving license it took three days of going back and forth to the office, so we expected a nightmare and was pleasantly surprised, it does make a change as we tend to find most things we seem to get wrong and its normally me and Nick who have to keep going back to sort things out lol.
Yesterday we had Brian come over as he had a showing on his house, and it’s too hot for him to be wandering around with Molly so I invited him up for lunch, we had such a nice afternoon, it was lovely to catch up and we seem to spend the afternoon laughing like we normally do lol.
September 26th 2019
This week we have stayed home a little bit more which has been really nice, I had a bean day one of the days where I soak them overnight and cook them all, which did take the whole day but it’s lovely having lots in bags in the freezer and they will last for months, another day I decided to update all of my recipe’s in my recipe folder so that is all more organized and printed out, and I also revised our four weekly menu that we follow as some of the dinners we don’t eat anymore and we have added new ones, I do enjoy just looking at the menu’s when we go grocery shopping and it tells us what we are eating that week lol, I think I must be lazy lol but also organized, I have a new recipe to try in the next two weeks for vegetarian burgers, I have made a few different recipe’s but I am still looking for the perfect meatless burger so I will try this new recipe soon.
We did have a nice afternoon out on Sunday as I had read about a festival in a village called Statos, it was such a nice afternoon with Greek dancing which I do enjoy watching, it was in a mountainous region which was fun as the car just kept going up and up and at times it was quite scary, it is in a region that is famous for grapes and walnuts, the grapes were so cheap at some of the stalls as it is grape season, so a whole kg costs only 1.60 which was amazing, so I have bowlfuls of them everywhere lol, the nice thing about the festival was that it was in an area which had lots of tree’s so it was lovely and shaded to wander around. It is still too hot to go for a walk in the afternoons, we tried again last week to go for a walk as we had a couple of clouds, but by the time we had walked into the village we were both sweating and the two clouds we had seen disappeared lol, so we just stopped at the taverna and had a drink and came home to potter, there is always something that needs doing and thankfully its cool in the house and the garden with the brollies up.
This week I did actually make it to the exercise class at the village hall, all of the other woman are nice, they are mainly in their fifties, so apart from the instructor and another lady I think I am the oldest one lol, although only one of them lives in Tsada, but oh my goodness it was harder than I thought it would be, a whole hour of sweating and I couldn’t collapse into a heap on the floor after 25 minutes which was good, but left to my own devices I would have so it’s good to be in a group as it motivates you to keep going, everyone was covered in sweat and not just me thankfully, but it was also sort of fun as I didn’t know the moves so got quite confused which kept making me laugh, anyway I came home very sweaty but it was a nice feeling that I had done something good for myself and now I will go every Tuesday morning.
Our Greek lessons are going well, and we are still enjoying it, it’s a nice hobby to have sort of lol, and we have been learning new words this past week, it’s unreal that in January it’s been a whole year of doing it, but it is a hard language to learn so I think it is going to take a long time to get there, I have read it is good for the brain to learn a new language so hopefully that will also do me some good.
I have really struggled with my bible reading since our last visitor left, for some reason it was just harder to get back into it, but thankfully last week it’s all back to normal and I am not allowed my second cup of tea unless I start reading, so that is also helping to motivate me lol, I have now started on Matthew, I have done the New Testament so many times now but this morning I came across a couple of scriptures that I don’t ever remember reading, it’s funny how that happens
Well that poor little dog is still tied up, I have left it a while since taking the last letter in which I wrote but I had put it from a made up person’s name from the village, so this week I took my letter down there, and in with my letter I again printed out a copy of the new law, which I have put in bold as this dog ticks all of the boxes on the new laws, anyway I am going to give it a couple of weeks to see if this letter makes a difference as I also put in the letter that there are a lot of people in the village that are really upset about the situation….not true of course but I thought it might help.
We have Linda and Graham popping over this afternoon which will be nice, not for lunch thankfully lol, but it’s always nice to see other people as it livens you up a bit
October 3rd 2019
We had a lovely day a few days ago as it was shopping day which I don’t normally enjoy, but we decided to have lunch out at the harbour first and also have a walk while we were down there, although it was a bit to hot to walk for far, but it just made our normal shopping day much better which did us both good, I have to say doing it every two weeks is really brilliant and somehow it is working out a lot cheaper, I am really happy with my shopping bill at the moment so it seems it was a good thing changing it to every two weeks.
We have seen my niece Tracy twice now which is a surprise as I thought for the first few weeks of her moving over here to be with Brian that we wouldn’t see them, the first time was last Sunday, we met them at the café at Lighthouse beach, it was a nice afternoon, and then on Wednesday they came up to our house for lunch which was a fun.
This week on Tuesday morning I went along again to the exercise class in the village , it still made me sweat but this time I didn’t have the urge to give up after 30 minutes, so doing my exercising in my bedroom must be helping, I really hope it’s something I keep up and not get fed up of, I guess time will tell lol.
This week we have had a few nice days at home doing some gardening and catching up on some jobs that need doing, last week I actually had another go at planting seeds and I have finally had a bit of success, I read somewhere that September and October were good months to start seeds, so I started some parsley, Basil, chilies, some mountain tea, and some cuttings from my geraniums, and so far they are all doing really well and have all popped up, so at least I know now that this is the time of year over here for growing seeds etc. I am letting some of my other flowering plants go to seed so I can collect the seeds from them as well.
The weather is still nice and hot during the day, still too hot to go walking, and outside in the evening it feels quite chilly, the evening chill has put our pool temperature down this week to around 21 or 22, I think it was around the beginning of September that we stopped swimming which is a shame, we have decided that next year we will buy a pool cover to keep the temperature up as someone told us if we did that we should still be able to swim in September, so we will see, but for this year swimming is now over which we are both really missing, but I am still loving the hot sunny days.
7th October 2019
We went down to the harbour again on Friday for lunch and we were hoping for a longish walk along the front, but after five minutes of walking we gave up as it was still too hot, but today we some cloud on and off, the sun comes out for a few minutes and then goes back behind the clouds again, it is lovely and cool when the clouds are there but then hot again and still too hot to walk if the sun gets you lol.
Tomorrow Tracy and Brian are coming up for lunch as I have promised to make them my mango, avocado and walnut salad which is really yummy, I thought Tracy might like it so I wanted her to try it and it will be nice to catch up again on news, I don’t suppose it will be long before she is busy working and we also have to make the most of the next month while the weather is still nice, we still don’t know what a proper Cypriot winter is like as last years was awful and apparently it hasn’t been like that in nearly a hundred years so it will be interesting to see how cold it gets this winter, thankfully though winters are short over here, anyway I guess we will see.
This morning I am going to have a go at planting more seeds as I bought some lettuce seeds and some chives, it seems to be a good time of year for starting things off, anyway I thought I would have a go as my other seedlings are doing well, lettuces are easy to grow normally and I thought it would get me away from pesticides, I came across my metal shelving that we brought over with us so if I land up with too many seedlings at least I can put my shelving at the side of the house and have them all on there, I think that gardening bug is getting to me again lol, I might have a go at cherry tomatoes next week as I have heard they do well over the winter, so I will think about it.
Tomorrow is exercise class and this week I have Gill coming with me as they are back from their holiday now, so it will be fun going with someone and watching someone else suffer lol, I am amazed I am keeping it all up still as I do normally get fed up of exercise, but every day apart from Sunday I do it twice a day, I am amazing myself lol, but it is so nice not to have my back hurting and being able to water my own plants so I think that is the main reason I am keeping it going, I really don’t want to go back to a point where I struggle to get out of bed because my back hurts and I can’t water plants again.
14th October 2019
I injured my big toe again last week, it seems there is always something going wrong, it went quite swollen and red, I think it was from sitting on my feet while I was gardening, so when I woke up the next morning I did nothing for one whole day apart from sit down and thankfully the following morning everything was ok again, I was frustrated just for that one day though lol, but I sat and watched the new Lion King Movie and some others and also caught up on Greek homework, so the day wasn’t too bad but I was so happy when I woke up the next morning in no pain and able to walk again.
Apart from my toe injury, it was a nice week, with no rushing around or to many days out, I do love plodding days where I get to do all the things I like, I managed to get a whole day just playing in the garden which was lovely, I have no idea whether anything can be grown over the winter so I thought I won’t know until I try, everything I have planted so far is coming up, my basil is getting a good few inches now and I have a long tub of parsley which is doing really well, and this week my lettuce seeds and other seeds have popped up, I had to re pot my chili peppers into bigger pots so it seems to be all working, and the two Yucca plants we bought at the beginning of the year had so many side shoots coming off them so I chopped six off and have put them into their own pots, so it’s nice now not having to buy anymore plants as I think we have more than enough, so everything else I want will either be from cuttings of plants we have or from seed, we popped out one afternoon so I could buy cheap little plastic pots for seedlings and some soil so that was also a nice afternoon as I love going round garden centers, I was saying to Nick a few days ago that I am still glad not to have an allotment as it was hard work and took over so much of my life, I am happy that I had the chance to do it and it was a lovely place to be with the two dogs, but I am still enjoying having more time to do other things but still doing bits of gardening and growing things but in a way that doesn’t take over my life.
Last Tuesday when I went to my exercise class, the two women that tried my face cream came up to me and ordered a pot each, it did surprise me as they really didn’t say much when they tried it, but last week they were telling me how lovely it was, so obviously they must have talked about it after I left, so I have a small pot each for them as its exercise class tomorrow morning.
We invited Tracy and Brian to come with us to Latchi on Sunday, as we decided to go there for lunch, it is a lovely walk along the seafront and also there is a little market there once a month, and all of the little places to eat along the sea front are really nice, anyway I was pleased that they came with us as it was such a lovely day, and although the market isn’t to brilliant it was a nice walk and we spent the rest of the afternoon in a taverna sitting by the water which was lovely and relaxing.
Our temperatures are still really hot at the moment and I keep thinking they are going to cool down so I can go on some nice walks but the temperatures have actually gone up again instead of down lol, we popped into Paphos to get some things, but it was just in and out of the air conditioned car into the air conditioned shops and then we came home lol.
21st October 2019
We had a beach day this week which was lovely, we took our books and a picnic and had a lovely afternoon, the water in the sea is still warm so I did lots of paddling lol.
On Friday we went to the harbour for lunch as we had some things to get down there, and we were again hoping for a walk as the day started off with a few clouds, but as usual by the time we drove down there it was boiling hot so we still didn’t get a walk, in some ways I am looking forward to the winter as I do love walking, but then I remember how cold the house gets so I am quite confused really and think I would rather it just stay hot so I can be warm.
1st November 2019
I have found our temperatures are cooling a bit more now, and the house has gone cooler but thankfully no heating is needed yet, although morning and evening I do have a cardigan on now, but today I think it was walking weather although it could change tomorrow and be to hot again, from reading back on my blog it was the middle of last November when we started going for long walks and that’s when the house started to go cold, it seems you can’t have everything, but if I could choose I would give up the walking weather to have a warm house lol.
One of the days this week we decided to go exploring so we drove to some of the villages a bit north of us, most of the villages are just made up of little houses and there is usually one taverna in the village, so it’s not very exciting to be honest as there are no shops lol, but it got us out and it was nice driving around, we eventually followed one very long road and landed up at the seafront so we had lunch down there which was nice.
On my gardening afternoon this week I had to re pot my chillies and zinnias and lettuces as they had gotten bigger, so that was a nice afternoon sitting outside, I do like my gardening afternoons where I get to play in the dirt lol, all of my seedlings seem to be growing well as I think that they think it’s spring, but I don’t know how they will cope with the evenings being chilly, so with growing seeds at this time of the year I think is more a sort of experiment really.
We have had some nice days out over the past week, just mainly to the harbour and we did go to Seacaves for lunch which was nice, and we have also had some nice plodding days around the house doing bits of gardening and sitting outside which has been nice, the weather is still hot and still too hot to go for a long walk, but I am sure it is going to cool down in the next couple of weeks…..I am sure I keep on saying that lol.
15th November 2019
It sounds like the UK are having another bad week with more rain and winds, I am glad we made the move when we did, I do love the sunshine over here, and even though I don’t like sitting in the sun when its to hot, its always lovely in the shade, I am still waiting for this house to start going colder but so far we are still nice and warm, but I am sure it’s going to happen any week now lol, I did hear that next week we are going into the low twenties so that means it should be walking weather which I am looking forward to.
We had a lovely afternoon out on Saturday as we met up with Linda and Graham for lunch at the beach café which is on the way to the airport, its a lovely spot to sit and see the ocean, it was nice to have a good catch up with them as we don’t see them very often.
It was so funny one of the days this week, as Nick went into Paphos to get his haircut, and decided to try a new shop that had just opened up, anyway after having his hair cut he saw the guy take two ear cleaners and he dipped them into something, Nick wondered what he was going to do, and then the guy shoved them up Nicks nose, apparently it was hot wax to get rid of hair nose hair, he came home quite traumatized lol, no one has ever done something like that to him before, it did make me laugh.
Talking of Nick, he did have a bad week last week, he lost his last hearing aid while we were out with Linda and Graham so now he has none, as he also broke one a while ago so has just been managing with the one, which has been hard going with him not hearing to well, the day before that he picked up my iPad to have a look at the settings for some reason and he dropped it on the floor and smashed the screen, the following day he was washing his car in the driveway and somehow he broke the hose to the pressure washer which he had only had for a short time, that afternoon he then dropped my little dish in the kitchen that I put my tea bags in, poor Nick lol, he really didn’t have a good week. He was lovely though and this week treated me to a new Italian handbag which was sweet of him as my bag was falling to pieces and I think it was at the point of being embarrassing lol.
Yesterday was nice we met up with Tracy and Brian at lighthouse beach for lunch which was really lovely to have a catch-up, there was a lovely breeze so we actually all managed to sit in the sun which was different.
Today when we woke up we had rain and thunder and lightning which went on for a good hour, it was quite lovely really to see the rain again, but it has now stopped and the sky has gone blue and its getting sunny again, but today we are staying home as we went grocery shopping after seeing Brian and Tracy yesterday so today is cooking day, we are making 20 fishcakes, two big loafs of meatloaf which we will slice up and freeze, loads of meatless meatballs, rice mixture and homemade veggie burgers which is a new recipe, so that should keep us busy for a while lol, and I have promised myself that if there is any room in the freezer I am going to make two big lots of soup to freeze as now and again as I love soup, one will be the squash soup that we love, and the other soup is one I found last year called Bugger Off Cold Soup loI, I saw it posted online somewhere so I made it when I got sick last winter and Nick loved it.
22nd November 2019
We met Tracy and Brian on Wednesday which was fun, we met at the café on the beach, it is the prettiest café I think, they close through the winter as there are not many tourists around so we went for their closing day and they had a singer and there was also a market on the beach next to the café, so it was a nice afternoon, I bought Tracy a bracelet and found a really nice necklace for Cath which was made out of a nut and it had a bead inside the shell of the nut, I fell in love with all of her jewelry as it was all handmade and not too expensive.
Our weather during the day is still lovely at the moment, and yesterday Thursday there was some thin clouds so we went for our first walk since last winter, we just walked around the edge of the village and down some pathways, but it was lovely to be out walking again, we managed to find four walnuts and a few figs, but I was surprised to see that there were no almonds on the tree’s as we spent months last year picking them on our walks, I will have to research if they only fruit every other year.
We are starting to notice that as soon as the sun goes down the house goes chilly in the evening and the house feels chilly in the morning, but we haven’t put any heat on yet, but in the evening I put a thin sweater on and my slippers and sit with a blanket over me, so at the moment thankfully we are managing with no heat, it reminds me of last year where I wrapped up in the house and stripped off outside in the sunshine lol, it’s all very weird, but I do love still being in shorts during the day.
Some of my plants still seem to think its summer as my roses and geraniums are still in bloom, and my lettuces and chili peppers are all still doing well, the zinnia’s I planted are still getting bigger, I am not sure what will happen when the temperatures go down further at night though so it will be interesting to see, but I am sure I remember last winter there were lots of flowers in bloom through the winter last year.
Our clementine tree is totally full of oranges and they are just on their way to turning orange, and we even have lemons on the lemon tree which looks really pretty.
30th November 2019
This week our house has gone colder, it is still sunny and warm outside and we are still in shorts and t shirts but the house has now lost all of its heat so it feels quite chilly inside and it is best to be outside lol, I remember last year getting really confused over it all, but this year I am more ready for a cold house and warm temperatures outside, I got my hot water bottle out a few days ago so in the evening I sit with a blanket and my water bottle and feel quite warm, but when you have to get up and move then you feel how chilly it is inside.
We have had some nice walks this week, when we have to go to the shops down in Paphos we seem to land up at the harbour mostly for our walks as it’s so nice down there, it is lovely being back in walking weather though but it’s a shame the house doesn’t hold the heat anymore, so as soon as we get home I put something warm on and wrap up and fill my water bottle up.
One of the days when we were down at the harbour we were crossing the road and Nick somehow slipped on the curb and fell smack on the road, thankfully he landed on his arms so didn’t hit his head but it took him a few seconds to get up so it felt quite traumatic at the time, we had stopped at a store and bought some fruit so the bags and fruit landed all over the road along with my handbag that I just dropped in shock I think, but a lovely couple came over and helped Nick get up and help me sort the bags out, Nick was ok thankfully, he just grazed his arms and was a bit shook up I think, but it was definitely one of those moments that I won’t forget in a hurry.
We went to Peyia market last Sunday and met up with Brian and Tracy, it’s a lovely market as they sell so many things and it’s a good size, we then found somewhere nice to have lunch and spent the afternoon catching up on news which was really enjoyable,
My oranges are starting to go a lovely orange colour now, when we drive down into Paphos there are oranges just lying on the floor in the streets and also on some of the roads, there are so many orange tree’s that people just don’t seem to pick the oranges up, it is strange to see fruit all over the floor that everyone just steps over or drives over them.
Yesterday we went to a Black Friday sale as they had such good prices on TV’s so we thought it might be an idea to buy a small one and put it in one of the bedrooms so if we get to cold we can watch TV upstairs, the line up outside the door was really long and when we got into the shop the amount of people was just crazy, but we did manage to buy one and we eventually got out of the shop alive lol, but it took a long time and we both said we would never do that again, I think I would rather save the extra money up and buy something normally.
6th December 2019
For some reason the days seem to be going so fast lately, our weather has been incredible again this week, we had a bit of on and off cloud last weekend but since then it’s been lovely and warm and sunny with blue skies, it actually still feels like summer but without all the real heat that they get over here, I would say it’s a perfect time of year, I still do wonder if it will carry on as I have heard they have lovely warm winters but we can’t tell from last year so it will be interesting this year to see what a proper Cypriot winter will be like, at the moment we haven’t lit the woodstove downstairs as the house is all open plan and no matter how much wood you throw on it there are no doors to close so the heat just gets lost, last winter we kept feeding it from about 4pm onwards, with the calor gas fires on all the time and the house still didn’t warm up, so we have sort of given up and now just spend our time out in the sunshine, so far it is manageable as we are out a lot and when we do have a day at home we spend it in the garden or going for walks around the village and stop for coffee which has a nice outdoor space so we can sit in the sun.
We met up with Tracy and Brian on Sunday for lunch out in a village none of us had been to before, the village was really pretty although the roads to get there were really winding so a bit hair raising really as we were high in the hills and the drop down was a bit breath taking lol, but it was a nice afternoon out.
We actually had an hours walk on Wednesday as we drove to the harbour and then walked to Lighthouse Beach, it’s about half an hours walk there and then we had a break at Lighthouse beach café before walking back again, I think it’s one of my favourite walks as it’s along the sea front, the weather was hot but it was still ok to walk in which is nice, it is lovely to still be warm but be able to go for longer walks now, so at the moment I am really enjoying the Cypriot winter.
We also went to see some ruins, one of them was St Pauls Pillar which I have been wanting to see since we arrived over in Cyprus, its mentioned in the bible that Paul and some other disciples came over to Paphos in Cyprus to do some preaching work, and it’s also mentioned that Paul got 39 lashes, the Cypriots have old manuscripts saying that this white pillar was where Paul was tied to and where he got the lashes, it was all really interesting, next to the pillar are lots of ruins and columns from where there was a temple, it is all roped off but fascinating to see it all, it was a really nice afternoon out.
13th December 2019
We have had a funny week with the weather, as it has been lovely and hot right up until Tuesday morning and since then we have had some cloud and now and again a bit of rain, we wanted to go to the archaeological park so we went last Sunday while the sun was still shining, it was quite a hot day but because it’s just off the ocean there was a breeze which was nice, we have been wanting to go there for ages, but it’s not something you can do in the summer months, so now the real heat has gone it has been lovely having different days out and finally doing some more exploring, so Sunday we decided to go, it has some lovely ocean views as we were wandering around, the grounds are huge but not pretty with flowers or anything, but lots of pathways and some tree’s, and even though we were there for a few hours we still didn’t see all of it, it’s mainly four or five really huge houses, or palaces, but they were built at around 100 years after Jesus died so they are just over 2,000 years old, it’s mainly all really ruins but the bases of the huge houses or palaces are still there so you can see where all the rooms were in each one, what its most famous for really is the mosaics on the floor, the floors were just really amazing and I can’t imagine the time it must have taken to have put them together, it was pretty mind blowing the beauty of them and the pictures themselves that were in the mosaics on the floor, and also to think they were that old and were still so beautiful, there was also an old castle on the grounds as well which was built in the 12th century, so not as old as the ruins but still really interesting, but after walking for quite a few hours we had to leave as we were tired which was a shame, but I am glad we finally went to see the floors and the ruins as it was pretty impressive for being that old, and it’s another thing ticked off our list of places to see.
With having some cloud this week it has been quite nice really as when the sun is shining we always go out, so having some days at home has been nice, I have learned more Greek, I made homemade soup and yesterday after our walk we came home and made mince pie’s as we saw some jars of mincemeat in the supermarket so we had to buy some, we both made a batch each and I have to say mine were nicer as Nick overworked his pastry lol and my pastry was beautiful and light which I did enjoy telling him about lol, thankfully the sunshine comes back again on Monday and it is going to be quite warm again so after some days at home it is nice knowing it is coming back, but I have enjoyed some cloudy days this week as it makes you do other things, and this week we have had a few days of walking around the village which has also been nice, well after writing about the clouds the sun has just come out and the sky is going back to being blue again so I think the weather forecast got it wrong and it seems we don’t have to wait until Monday lol.
19th December 2019
Well what a beautiful week it has been here this week it has been full sun and blue skies every day and it has felt like summer, I think it has felt more like an English summer as it is perfect and its possible still to go out for walks, I said to Nick a few days ago that no wonder the people over here are so happy I think it’s because of all the sunshine that they get lol, our house is still chilly but if we have the front door open it helps to warm it up a little bit, it is such a shame we don’t have the sun coming in through the windows as then it would be perfect.
We had a nice afternoon at the harbour on Sunday with Tracy and Brian and we found a lovely place to have lunch that overlooked the ocean so it was a good afternoon, I do enjoy walking down by the harbour, it’s a really nice place to have a walk, I think at the moment it’s our favourite place, but hopefully over this winter we will have discovered other places as well.
While we are out driving we pass all of the banana groves and orange orchards and they are really lovely to see, I think all of the banana’s and oranges are ready this month and next month, and all the trees are looking beautiful with all the oranges hanging off them, when we met up with Tracy and Brian this week they bought me some of their dates from their tree and we had brought them a bag of oranges off our tree which made us both laugh.
One of the days this week we went to Geroskipou for a walk, we took my broken iPad with us as we found somewhere to get it fixed in Geroskipou and they said it would only take a few hours, so we spent the afternoon at the seafront down there and had a really long walk, thankfully there was a beach café as we needed it after walking for a while, it was all really pretty and the beach café was lovely, and they had ducks which was cute, the beach is full of stones so not sandy but it was a nice afternoon out, and my iPad thankfully is back to normal which I am pleased about, the guy did such a good job that it looks like new again.
Today we didn’t go out but spent the afternoon walking around the village and we stopped off at the taverna to sit in the sun so it was a another nice day, our sun sets at 18 minutes to five at the moment and by the end of December it doesn’t set until ten to five so we are starting to have more daylight bit by bit.
On our way home we bumped into a British guy who is renting an apartment in the village for three weeks to see if he likes it over here, I think he said he had only been here for a few days and already is in love with the place, so we have arranged to meet him for a drink on Saturday afternoon as he wants to know lots of different things about Cyprus, so that should be an interesting afternoon, I do love chatting to people.
31st December 2019
Nick came down with a germ a few days ago and is also feeling a bit rough so I started my Vitamin C and Echinacea and so far I am still healthy, it seems a lot of people are sick at the moment, Nicola got sick over the holiday and she is still poorly and filled with cold, normally she knocks germs on the head within a few days so it must be a nasty germ going around I think.
Last week was so nice and relaxing though before Nick got sick as we had some lovely walks around the village, stopping at the taverna now and again, we also met up with that new guy David who is over here for 3 weeks and is thinking of moving over, so we spent an afternoon with him which was nice,
We did have to do lots of cooking last week as it was our cooking week again, we just made the usual things but it’s nice when the freezers get full again, so we cooked over a few afternoons which kept us busy, we were supposed to have a bean cooking day but we forgot so that is something on our list for this week, I bought a new bean which we haven’t had before called cranberry beans which have nothing to do with cranberries at all lol, I think it’s to do with the colour of the bean, but I do like to try different things, we both have to come up with new recipe’s in the next couple of weeks as I am feeling adventurous again and want to try some new foods that we haven’t had before, over the last couple of months we have fallen in love with eggplant, courgettes and also avocado, it its odd really as we both thought we didn’t like any of them, so I think it has given me courage to try even more new things that we haven’t tried before.
On our sunniest day we went to the harbour, we keep telling ourselves that we have to go off exploring but for some reason we always seem to land up down there lol, so we have both made each other a promise that on our next afternoon out we have to go somewhere different, it was a lovely afternoon though and we walked to lighthouse beach and back again and stopped for a drink, even though it was sunny and warm the waves were really crashing around so it was fun to sit and watch them, we have had quite a few cloudy days over the last week and also some overnight rain and some hail which was so heavy that it shredded my poor geraniums which were still in bloom, I have moved them under the porch now in case the hail comes back, but its good in a way as all the reservoirs need filling up as they really don’t get any rain during the summer months, when it rains over here though it is torrential, I tried to take a video of it last week late at night but I forgot to press play on the video lol, some of the lightning storms we have had have been spectacular though.
Well here we are, the end of another year, I have to say even though it has been a busy year it has also been an amazing year, and I hope next year is going to be just as good…..onwards we go into 2020.
Moving to Cyprus 