Pay and Display …

… in an olive grove? Sometimes things here make no sense ;-)

Just to be clear, the nearest village is about 5 miles away!

Breakfast and Supper

We recently had one of the now and again spells of unpleasant weather coming to us from North Africa. From time to time the wind picks up a load of sand particles. This can lead to a fall of incredibly dirty rain, or as recently a very unpleasant haze. Last weekend we had several days where the familiar horizon simply disappeared, and the sun was either totally lost or just a splodge of brighter yellow in an otherwise grey/orange sky.

However, the murky sky led to one very odd event. Over the last few weeks the non-resident swallows have been coming back to the island from their winter quarters further south. Some remain and breed, others pause for a refuel and then head further north.

About half an hour before sunset we were outside looking at the hazy sky, looking for a break in the murk.

We paused to watch the swallows doing a wonderful demonstration of their abilities in feeding on the local flying insects – we like swallows!! Suddenly we noticed an intruder. One of the local bats was competing with the swallows. We regularly see bats over the summer when we tend to eat outside after dark – there are a fair number that silently swoosh up and down around us. We like the bats too of course – especially with their massive appetite for eating mosquitoes.

It was fascinating to watch two entirely different flying styles – the swallows a very graceful ballet, the bat looking more like an aerial breakdancer – twitching and doing endless 90 degree turns. It was a real treat to see the bat in daylight at all – normally we only see them little as dusk falls.

Meanwhile the murky skies have gone, and we are back to more of the normal blue.

Ripping vinyl

Before we moved out here we spent time decluttering and thinning our possessions. There’s nothing quite like the thought of paying hundreds of pounds to ship things a few thousand miles to focus the mind!

One of the things we decided to ship was our combined vinyl collection. Most of our music collection is on CD and we’re slowly but steadily moving to digitising things and storing the entire collection on one of the macs. However, the vinyl presented a problem … long ago we threw away our last remaining record deck when we got a new stereo system. Rather than make any difficult decisions about the old vinyl collection we simply gathered it together, put it in a box and ignored it. And when it came to packing time we pointed the packers at the box, told them it was fragile and left them to it.

Now, almost two years later, we have a solution. Someone has lent us a record player and it is hooked up to one of the macs. A tweak or two with a handy piece of recording software and we finally have a way of hearing music that’s been stashed away for at least five years.

The house (and possibly the garden and maybe even the street) has been rocking to a wider range of music to usual.

What must the locals of Aradippou make of us? And is the village really ready for early Rolling Stones (so early it’s in mono!) a hefty helping of the Levellers and a smattering of Howard Jones?

They haven’t asked us to leave yet …

Ledra Street crossing re-opens

Is this finally progress? Has the new guard broken the deadlock?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7327866.stm

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have reopened a major crossing in the divided Cypriot capital of Nicosia. Ledra Street, which had come to symbolise the partition of the island, was declared open by local officials. It was split in 1964, during an outbreak of violence between the ethnic Greek and Turkish communities.