The fire

The weather in early December was poor with heavy rain, low cloud and strong whistling winds.  As the evening temperatures dropped considerably it became clear we could avoid the fireplace no longer.

When MadAlex owned the place he used the fire extensively, but it drew badly.  Our builder replaced much of the external chimney but was still unhappy about the construction of the fireplace itself.  The upper horizontal plane is entirely level rather than sloped.  As such there’s a real chance of smoke trickling back into the room.  Having spent a considerable amount of time dealing with the smoke damage from MadAlex’s tenure we were reluctant to cause similar problems.  As evening temperatures dropped we took to putting on another pair of socks, or a sweater, or both to avoid the fireplace conversation.

About a week before Christmas we gave in.  One of the reasons for buying the house was the fireplace; if we were to use it over Christmas then we needed to bite the bullet and test it.  Until that point we simply wouldn’t know if the remedial works had been enough to solve the long standing problems.

While the builders were onsite and busy inside the house we spent a huge amount of time trying to tame the garden.  It had been allowed to grow at will.  Did you know that pruning breaks the spirit of a tree?  No, us neither.  At the risk of having spirit-less trees we set to work with secaturs, loppers and even a gardening saw.

The bougainvillea grows so strongly, and had been left unchecked for so long, that it needed the most work.  One of the two external staircases was blocked by the plant.  As we chopped and cut and sawed we held back some of the larger pieces of wood intending to dry them for use on the fire.  For almost a year they remained, propped neatly in the garage, drying out in preparation for our winter fires.

So, having decided to test the fire Ian was despatched down to the garage to turn the unweildy branches into manageable logs.  That evening he tentatively prepared and lit the fire and we both watched nervously.  It caught and burnt well, with only a tiny amount of smoke dribbling into the room.  Happy that it burning well and that our fears had been foundless we carried on making dinner and the like.

However, within an hour the gentle trickle of smoke had increased and the living room was distinctly smokey.  And the smoke … it had such a pungent smell to it and it was almost possible to taste it.  Horrified at how the first open-fire situation had deteriorated Ian did his best to rake out the fire and we spent the remainder of the evening icy cold with the doors open, trying to disperse the smoke.

The following morning things were no better, in fact the smell seemed worse.  For the entire day the doors and all the windows remained open, despite the chilly weather.  We lit numerous candles, placed bowls of freshly sliced lemons in all the rooms and even resorted to placing a 50% vinegar/water solution in the middle of the fireplace to try and draw the smell out of the room.  None of these made the slightest difference; the smell just hung in the air.  In the end an old fashioned remedy came to the rescue; a pan full of vinegar kept on a low simmer for a couple of hours.  It was almost as pungent as the smoke but was surprisingly effective at leaching the smoke from the air.

It wasn’t until the next day, when we could bear to be back in the house for any length of time, that we were able to do some research.  Just why had the smoke been so pungent?  The answer took a little tracking down; it seems that the sap of the bougainvillea is toxic.  It’s most widely known as a skin irritant that causes dermatitis although there are numerous references online to people who had to seek medical treatment to deal with serious infections from embedded thorns or splinters.  There are plenty of horror stories should you wish to go in search of them.

How bougainvillea behaves when burnt doesn’t seem to merit much discussion online, but we can report that it really, really isn’t a good idea.  Now, perhaps you’ll excuse us so we can head outside and clear the garage of all that (now useless) stored wood.

Happy 2010!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Lights

Whilst it may not be entirely apparent from this night photo the lights are strung onto the main electricity poles in the village.  As such, the installer had his hands on the live wires … whilst the main village supply was still connected.  Such things are not so much of a surprise after three years here :-)

A Merry Christmas to all, from sunny Cyprus.

The house, MadAlex style

In previous posts there have been assorted references to MadAlex, the previous owner of this house.  During a recent sort through of house photos we realised that although we’d mentioned the interesting state the house was in when we bought it we’d never actually included any documentary evidence.

So, for your amusement and delight, below are images from the very first time we saw the inside of the house.  Think of these as an early holiday gift from us.

Before you peek though, remember, this is the house that MadAlex said would need “a little painting and perhaps some light replastering in one or two places“.

Of course MadAlex is an artist and it is clear that his perception of the world is very different to that of us non-artistic folk.

The living room

Open fires are lovely, especially in the cold weather we have up here in the hills.

Sadly this one didn’t draw properly so there was extensive smoke staining on the front of the fireplace … and the wall above … and the ceiling … and in the dining room … and the study.

The builder replaced the chimney to help the airflow and to prevent it setting fire to next door’s pomegranate tree – again.  That was one of the first of the stories fellow villagers rushed to tell us when we started work.  Apparently it was a talking point around these parts for quite some time.

Returning to soot for a moment.  Did you know, if you paint on walls that are sooty the paint just peels off again?  So, before you can paint, you have to scrub the walls and ceilings with a solution to neutralise the soot.  It is a filthy, tedious, unpleasant and back-breaking job.

Guess how we know?

The kitchen

Fitted kitchens are just so last season, no?  Really who needs more than strong coffee and food cooked in a toaster oven anyway?

On the right of the picture are industrial machine tools for cutting and stamping metal.  In the kitchen.

Once the existing kitchen units were removed the room was re-wired and re-plumbed, re-floored and re-plastered.  One doorway was blocked up and the windows were replaced.  The sink was re-located out to the garden.

And, the hole in the wall through from the kitchen to the bathroom to allow the washing machine to drain into the basin was blocked up.  Really, why bother with expensive plumbers when you could just use a hammer to knock a hole in a convenient spot and route pipework that way?

Speaking of which … behold the downstairs bathroom.  To be clear, at the point at which this photo was taken this was the only working bathroom in the house.

The bathroom

Aren’t those tiles lovely?  Sadly many of them fell off the wall when one of the builders sneezed so they all had to be replaced – such a shame.

The bathroom, just off the kitchen, was eventually split into a utility room and a downstairs cloakroom (a half bath to our north American readers).  The ceiling was replaced, as was the window.  The floor was dug up to allow new pipework to be laid as part of the re-plumbing.  The room was re-wired and re-plastered.

It’s interesting how time tends to dull the memory.

The garden, mid-December

With a little rain, and some respite from searing summer temperatures, many of the garden plants are growing like crazy.  After weeks and weeks of poor weather we’ve finally had a change; yesterday the sun shone once more.  The air was sweet and mild and it was a pleasure to potter in the garden and then sit quietly in the sun with a cup of coffee.

On the citrus trees – lemon, orange and what we think are clementines – we have a healthy cross of ripe fruit  and a good supply of still ripening to follow.  At least one of the lemon trees has a second crop coming.  To us it is still strange to see the fruit in all of its stages on one tree; ripe, unripe , immature and blossom.

Bucket loads of fruit

... with plenty more to come

Meanwhile the lilies are determined.  Now is their chance to flourish and that’s exactly what they intend to do, whether in the ground, or in pots or even in a bucket, waiting to be planted.  Clearly they should have been in soil some time ago.  The ones that were missed during the removal process are also growing quickly.

Determined Alum or Calla lilies

Yet more lilies

Finally, with a little spare time, some of the yucca offsets were re-homed.  These six were the smallest on the tree, and the only ones that could be easily removed.  Soon we’ll need to use some force to separate the larger ones, perhaps even sawing them from the main trunk.

When we moved into our Aradippou rental home a friend gifted us three offsets about twice the size of these.  Within three years they had grown to over 5 feet tall and were producing numerous offsets of their own.  We, in turn, removed those and gifted them to a friend in Oroklini.  She had no room in her garden but is happily cultivating the open ground beyond the boudaries of the property in the hope of improving her view and providing a screen of mature plants should the land eventually be developed.

Yucca offsets

Party nibbles

Well, pre-Christmas/psuedo house warming drinks are done and dusted.  The rain stopped for an hour or more and the garage roof didn’t collapse further.  Going on the turnout and the food and drink consumption it’s probably fair to say that people enjoyed themselves.

All told our 50+ guests devoured 663 canapes.  663!  That would be exactly 100% of the number of canapes produced.

In case anyone is looking for some inspiration for their own party, and to capture our thoughts for future events, below are notes on what was served.  The intention was to take photos as things were finished but it all got just a little busy towards the end of the prep time.

As we’re in Cyprus some things that are readily available in the UK just aren’t available to buy here. Similarly some things are available but are expensive; smoked salmon, processed stuff such as pastry. The flip side is that other things are absurdly cheap in comparison; herbs and spices for example. Comments below about costs therefore relate to the prices paid, which may be significantly different to those in the UK.

Roquefort shortbread

From this recipe in the Times.  Half topped with walnut halves, half with cream cheese. Going on the comments of the guests it was one of the favourites. It was also the one for which we had the most recipe requests. The dough/pastry is tricky to work with but once it starts to behave it is fine to roll and handle. The shortbread was one of the cheapest things to produce.

Rare roast beef bruschetta with caramelised onions

These worked really well in the test batch but were a little disappointing on the day. That said, they were all eaten. Toasted slices of ciabatta topped with wholegrain mustard, slivers of rare beef and onions. The beef was (uninspiring, it’s about all we get here) lean steak which was seasoned, seared in a griddle pan, allowed to cool and then cut finely across the grain. The most expensive item in terms of ingredients.

Smoked turkey, tomato and pepper vol au vents

Store bought frozen vol au vents filled with finely chopped smoked turkey mixed with tomato and roasted pepper relish. These went down surprisingly well, so much so that we didn’t get a chance to try one. Easy to prepare, moderately expensive due to the cost of the imported vol au vent cases.

Miniature roasted potatoes with chive yoghurt dip

Easy as anything. Prepped the day before so they just needed throwing in the oven on the day. They were eaten at a furious rate; next time they’ll be twice, if not three times as many. Absurdly cheap and pretty effortless.

Honey mustard sausages

What’s not to love? They were as popular as the potatoes, particularly with the male guests. Cocktail sausages aren’t widely available here so chipolatas were used instead. Baked the day before, allowed to cool, cut on the diagonal into three or four pieces and then tossed back into their roasting tin. Re-cooked on the day and then glazed with a glaze of equal parts of honey and whole grain mustard.

Pastry olives

A suggestion from a professional caterer.  Whole pitted black olives rolled in puff pastry and dipped in cumin.  Baked until the pastry was golden.  Since there’s no indication what’s inside the pastry parcel folks needed to be told they contained olives. The most commonly made comment was that people didn’t like olives but that these were lovely.

Oven dried tomato & goat’s cheese bites

Squares of very thin puff pastry topped with oven dried tomatoes and goat’s cheese. Not worth the effort to dry the tomatoes, might as well have just use thinly sliced fresh cherry toms. The goat’s cheese didn’t melt as much as hoped so back to a regular cheese for those.

Smoked salmon bites

Smoked salmon mousse on thinly sliced brown bread, topped with gravlax. These went down a storm, as popular as the shortbread but for significantly less effort. They looked fantastic, were easy to prep and were mid-range price wise.

To finish, and to accompany cups of coffee, there was a batch of thin rocky-road type chocolate affair. Unfortunately it didn’t get to be eaten with the coffee ‘cos it didn’t make it out of the kitchen. The very same folks who claimed they couldn’t possibly eat another bite, and who were camped out in the kitchen, devoured the entire plateful. Next time it’ll need to be a double batch.

All told we had about 50 people through the house over a four hour period.  They are folks with healthy appetites :-) Most of the componants were made over a two day period (whilst sorting out essential finishing touches on the house) and then assembled on the day. Average cost per item worked out at about 11¢.

Sorry … what?

Oxygen is the answer!

Excuse me?  ”The Oxygen answer for a healthier” what exactly?

Slightly worryingly, this flyer was put into a bag with some purchases at our local pharmacy.  The advert seems to be for concentrated oxygen tablets.

Builders at work

Sorting through some photos we came across a series taken by the builders while we disappeared off the island for four weeks during the renovations.

Note to people undertaking similar projects … its best not to wait until the morning before you leave to have vital conversations with workmen about things such as positioning of walls.  In our defence we hadn’t appreciated they’d get to that point in the project until we got back.  In their defence they had thought that they’d be able to call us if they had any essential queries.  We’d met the builders through a friend in a neighbouring village; they’d worked on his property, a lovely old village house, during which point the owner was either in residence or working on contracts in obscure locations.

Their logic was that if they were able to contact him in Angola, with the sound of gunfire in the background as they discussed paint colours, then we would be equally contactable.  What they failed to factor into the equation was that we were due to spend two weeks sailing across the Atlantic on the world’s largest sailing ship and for much of that time would be beyond all normal communication channels.

What, no window?

The misunderstanding, and the positioning of walls and the like, was dealt with quickly.  As a result the builders were able to get on with building out the upper floor and replacing the doors and windows while we were gone.

The photo above shows one of the builder contemplating the work needed to tidy up the window opening before the new window was fitted.  The new front door had recently been fitted.  Looking closely at the top right of the photo you can see some of the smoke damage from the fireplace … more of that later no doubt.

Ex-president’s corpse stolen

The BBC are reporting that the body of the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, has been stolen from the grave just before the first anniversary of his death.  If this is, in any way, political then resolution of the Cyprus Problem has been made much, much more difficult.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8407552.stm

Grave robbers steal former Cyprus president’s corpse

Thieves have stolen the corpse of Tassos Papadopoulos, the former president of the Republic of Cyprus, police say.  Mr Papadopoulos’ body was removed after his grave in Nicosia was broken into overnight, officials said.  Marios Garoyan, leader of the former premier’s centre-right Diko party, condemned the act as a “heinous and terrible crime”, AFP reported.

4am…

… is not a fun time to have to go downstairs, in the pouring rain, to try and reset the house electrics.  It’s even less fun when, having got downstairs, you discover it’s not the house that is without power but the entire valley.

Large quantities of strong coffee seem to be the order of the day.  Then we may be able to start building our Ark.

Presumably they come with broadband connections these days?

101 …

… is both the number of blog posts to date and the population of our village once we moved in.

We have been told that moving from double to triple digits changes the status of the village in some bureaucratic sense bringing more money or kudos (and probably paperwork) or something. This may explain why the village mukhtar was so happy to see us, stopping his car in the middle of the road outside the house and welcoming us to his village.

Mukhtar, for those with enquiring minds, is the term given to the head of the village.

Here it is an elected position, and one which brings great pride. Our mukhtar lightly dropped into the conversation one day that his father had held the position many years ago. So far we haven’t established if the current incumbent has a son who might hope to hold the position in turn. In our travels so far we haven’t come across any references to a female mukhtar.

The word itself is Arabic, yet another reminder of what a melting pot this island is, in part due to its position as such an important meeting point for three continents.