The garden, mid-November

The weather is changing.  Daytimes are bright, sunny and hot out of the wind.  But dusk comes early to our valley at this time of year; the sun starts to disappear behind the hill to the west of us not long after 3pm.  The temperature falls quickly once the sun has gone but the house, with its half metre thick walls still retains the heat well.

In the garden the citrus fruits continue to ripen.  In England all our fruit came from the supermarket so it is still strange to us to see the different stages the fruits, particularly the small satsuma/clementine/tangerine goes through.  Right now we have plenty of green fruit alongside those that are both pale yellow and weak orange in hue.  We think it will be a least a couple more weeks before the first of them are fully ripen.

Meanwhile the lemons continue to ripen and plump up.  Surprisingly, it is our first full year of owning a lemon tree, we have a small second blossom and therefore some new lemons setting just as the early crop is finishing its ripening process.

Elsewhere the pomegranates are ripe to the point of splitting.  The 20 foot high yucca has decided that outward, rather than upward, expansion is the best course of action and is producing offsets at an alarming rate.  These need to be broken off and potted up for friends.   While we had our backs turned clusters of bulbs have woken up; best guess is that they are some sort of narcissi.  From last year we know that they are similar to paperwhites but rather smaller and without such a pronounced fragrance.

Finally Mands efforts earlier this year to dig up the arum lily at the base of the large pithari appear not to have been entirely successful; the lilies are back again.  The flowers, and foliage, are wonderful but their position right at the bottom of the staircase is dangerous.

Assorted photos below.  Click on any picture for an enlarged version.

Satsuma … clementine … tangerines?

Ripening fruit

Almost ripe & totally unripe side by side

Almost ripe

Pretty much there

Yellowing lemons

Just-yellow lemons

New lemon blossom

Ripe pomegranates

Yucca offsets

Lilies

A lone rose

In the supermarket carpark

 

There are words.  Surely there must be words to describe this.  But, right now, they escape us.

Do take a moment to appreciate the bald tire and the use of black marker pen to fill in the missing part on the number plate.

Naming Conventions

sub-titled: “You know where I mean, so what does it matter what we call it?”

Place names here continue to both baffle, amuse and occasionally confuse. It isn’t unusual for a town or village to have more than one name, or variation of the spelling. Putting aside the Greek/Turkish Cyprus Problem for a moment there have been occasions where bureaucrats or politicians have decided that a place should be renamed.

So, a tourist may be happily driving along looking for signs to Paphos and instead finds signs for Pafos. In that case, and in the case of Larnaca/Larnaka, the spelling difference is so minor it may not be noticed.

When Limassol turns into Lemesos it’s a little less clear … by the time we have Nicosia becoming Lefkosia you can forgive our poor tourist for being confused. Since most tourists don’t cross the border to the occupied Turkish area in the north they are unlikely to discover that Famagusta is now Ammochostos to the Greek Cypriots whilst being Gazimaguza to Turkish Cypriots.

Probably just as well really, or they’d be heading for a lie down in a darkened room with a large brandy sour to recover.

The re-naming of those five towns was a bureaucratic decision made some time ago which was meant to return the towns to Cypriot-sounding names rather than those inflicted upon them by the pesky British during their conservatorship of the island. That the no-longer-used names pre-date British control is a small niggle best not mentioned to those who made the decision.

Putting aside that bureaucracy for a moment the re-naming is a useful reminder that here in Cyprus naming conventions can be a little bit of a movable feast.  But, with true Cypriot pragmatism as long as both parties in a conversation know what, or where, is being referred to then what exactly is the problem?

Road signs are usually dual language with the place name first in Greek, in upper case, and then in English, in lower case. Many non Greek-speaking folks find the signs useful in helping to firm up their knowledge of the Greek alphabet – at least the slightly friendlier upper case rather than the rather terrifying lower case.

But, helpfulness aside, the signage often throws up some oddities which only go to reinforce this laid back Cypriot attitude that ‘as long as we both understand …‘

For example, take this motorway sign. The signage indicates that the way to Lefkosia is off to the left. The first line, the yellow uppercase, is the Greek, the second line, in white proper case in the English.

Where are you going ... Nicosia or Lefkosia?

The Greek is fine, it says “Lefkosia”, the new name for Nicosia. But the English says Nicosia, a name that was abandoned years ago. The sign is clearly newer than that yet has a mix of old and new.

The sign directly after it has Lefkosia in both languages.  Have some sympathy for our poor confused tourist, particularly as they realise that sign #1 told them that the mysterious Nicosia/Lefkosia was 28km away only for sign #2, just a kilometer on, to say the distance is now 43km.

Lefkosia 43km?!

Is this a political snipe? Sloppy workmanship? Or does the average Cypriot really not care too much?

Between Larnaca and Limassol there is a small-ish village called Anglisides … or maybe it’s called Agkleisides. It really depends who you ask or which maps you refer to.

The roadsign makers have a slightly different take on the matter. The following two signs appear sequentially on the motorway. The third is in the village itself.  To the signmakers the solution to the problem is clear. Three (or maybe four) variants on the name, three signs. “Hey, lets use one spelling on each, then everyone is happy!”

Agkilisides

Agkleisides

Anglisides

 

There’s logic there Jim, but not as we know it :-)

Up on the roof

One of the unexpected perks of living here is that, for most of the year, our hot water is absolutely free.  Solar panels on the roof give us piping hot water for about ¾ of the year.  For the remainder of the time, usually between late October and early March, we need to supplement the work of the panels with an immersion heater.  Even in deepest winter, as long as it’s sunny, the panels do their best to provide hot water, and the immersion is not always needed.

Strangely Mad Alex hadn’t seen fit to install any solar panels so when we took over the property one of the first jobs was to get them, and all the assorted gubbins, in place.  From memory the entire installation cost about 2,000€ and should be good for 15 years or so.

Until about two weeks ago we’ve been enjoying unseasonably warm weather.  So much so that people were beginning to talk about the strange weather patterns, the lack of rain and the impact that might have on the water supply next year.  Then, things changed; a new weather system headed our way and the forecast showed that we were in for heavy and extended rain for a week or two.

And the forecast was spot on.  The sun disappeared, temperatures plummeted and it rained and rained and rained.  As we have no internal staircases that has made for some interesting trips to bed as we climb the outside staircase clutching umbrellas.

But, as well as providing the start of the overdue winter rains the new weather system brought overcast skies and no sunshine to work with the solar panels to bring us lovely free hot water.  But, no problem, we thought.  As well as shiny new solar panels we also have a shiny new immersion heater which, in half an hour, should give lashings of hot water.

We switched on the immersion for the first time on Friday morning.  Due in town late morning we both needed showers and after a bleak and cloudy Thursday there was no hot water.  An hour later we tested the temperature … stone cold!  A quick check of the external meter showed that, although the immersion was showing as being switched on, there was no evidence it was actually doing anything.

With time rushing on there was no choice but to boil the kettle a couple of times and make the best of a bad job … all the time cursing a brand new system that appeared to have failed on its first live trial.

As soon as we had done in town we called the electrician to see if he could throw any light on the problem.

Oh, he said.  That doesn’t sound right.  Did the electrics trip? No, John.  Hmmm, did the little light next to the power supply come on? Yes, John.  Hmmm, then we have a problem.

Since he was 20 miles away standing outside in the pouring rain, dealing with the electrical supply for a garden hot tub, we agreed he’d call back in a few minutes.

When he did it was to say that there was a second switch for the immersion.  But, it was on the tank itself.  If that hadn’t been set then it would explain the lack of hot water … but in all his years he’d never, ever forgotten to set the switch when installing so if that was the problem, and he really, really didn’t think it could be so, then in his words ‘he deserved a good kicking‘.

With no other suggestions to hand Ian decided to check the switch.  Torrential rain further along the coast ruined our plans for the day so we decided to stay home and tackle the lack of hot water before the rain reached us.  The roof, dodgy electrics and heavy rain didn’t seem and ideal combination.

So, Saturday morning saw Ian climb up the outside stairs to our upper floor ladened down with step ladders, step-ups, tool boxes, planks of wood and other assorted stuff.

First phase … to climb off our steps and on to the next door neighbour’s sloping tiled roof.   The planks of wood were essential to spread his weight to save us having to find a way to rescue him from inside the neighbour’s living room and make some very expensive and painful apologies for ruining her roof.

The edge of our upstairs, next door's roof, the next neighbour's roof

Second phase … a step ladder to take him up six feet onto the roof of the neighbour beyond.  The step ladder was balanced on the wooden planks, on the previous sloping roof, on slightly tired ceramic roof tiles.  Once on the second neighbour’s roof he could finally see the tank but couldn’t quite reach it.

Enter, stage left, one Ikea mini step-up.  It, balanced on wooden planks, on the second sloping roof, gave just enough height for him to be able to reach the electrics of the tank.

From there it was child’s play (albeit two stories up and rather precarious) to remove the retaining screws on the panel, detach the panel and discover …

… that John the electrician had indeed left the main switch turned off.

The switch, under a panel on the right hand end of the silver water tank

Poor old John’s ears must have been burning on Saturday.  Had we not subsequently heard the outcome of the story of the house with the hot tub we might well have been more vocal in our comments to him.  That house now has all the electrical provisioning for the new tub … but it also has some extra, and unwanted, ventilation.

Just as John finished there the storm instensified and the house was hit by lightning, blowing  a large hole in the roof.  It seems John is still fairly shaken by the whole thing so maybe we’ll let him off lightly about the off switch.

Meanwhile, we have lashings of hot water once more :-)

Ikea gets everywhere!

Just along the donkey track from us ...

Now, step a little closer …

2010 Ikea catalogue, in Greek

Our old friends Ikea are still doing a roaring trade here!

Not a square wall in the house

This new (to us) house is somewhere in the region of 200 years old.  Despite our best efforts it hasn’t been possible to get a better indication of exactly how old, nor be sure of the original layout.  We know it has been added to several times and, best estimates suggest, it is at least quadrupled in size.  That said, since the original building was probably only two rooms it’s hardly huge.  All told it is currently about 125m², about 1350 ft².

When we first viewed the house it was clear that there were few, if any, square corners.  ”No matter” said we, “It’s an old house, if we’d wanted regular walls and corners then we’d have bought a new house.”  It wasn’t until the builder started to lay the new floor tiles that it became clear just how far off square some of the walls were.

Internal doorway from the dining room to the kitchen

That led to some re-planning of the little utility room.  The space had been measured at a little under 2 metres therefore there should be no problem fitting a 60cm wide fridge freezer, a 60cm wide washing machine and a 60cm wide cupboard.  Logic, and a little simple maths, suggested there’d be a good 20cm spare space and therefore plenty of room to open the door to the downstairs cloakroom at the end of the room.

Once the room had been tiled though it became clear that the walls were shockingly off true.  Which wouldn’t be a problem but for those planned white goods and units.  Concerned that we would try and install them and have a problem Mandy spent one Sunday morning making templates of the units out of brown paper and then taping them to the floor.

Our concerns were justified … yes, they’d fit but it would be at the expense of being able to open the door.  Far from ideal.  In the end, and after much deliberation, we sacrificed the tall larder cupboard and made do with a unit two thirds the width.  Even so the door only just opens.

As we used square tiles, of assorted sizes, throughout the house it is now possible to see just how off-square some of the walls are.  Our trusty builder, Kieran, didn’t curse us too much … at least not in our hearing :-)

Inside the upstairs door

Inside the shower room

The yellow tree is a-buzzing!

Parts of the garden are still a mystery to us.  Before he left Mad Alex gave a rudimentary overview of some of the plants but it was far from complete and, as we’ve since discovered, not entirely accurate.  Gosh, there’s a surprise.

Near the end of the garden, and overhanging the stone wall, was a fairly forlorn 15 foot high tree.  During our first attempt at pruning we cut the tree back, mainly concentrating on removing the branches on our side of the wall as they were fighting with the yucca, an unknown fruit tree and one of the lemon trees.  We left the height, took the weight off the wall, and left all of branches hanging out into the street.

Its hard pruning seems to have done it no harm at all as it is now in full flower.  It is covered in hundreds of most vibrant bright yellow flowers, as well as clusters of seed pods.  We still have no idea what the tree is.

Today, whilst walking down towards the gate, we heard a loud buzzing noise.

For most of April the garden is alive with the sound of bees as they come along to harvest the pollen from the fruit tree flowers, and ensure we get a good fruit crop, but hearing this so late in the year is new.

A little investigation found that the yellow tree was full of the biggest, fattest bees we’ve ever seen.  The bees were moving from flower to flower, diving into each blossom to get the very last pollen in each one.  The sound was so loud that while we were taking photos tourists stopped to look at the trees and the bees.

It turns out that photographing busy bees isn’t easy … but there’s just no other way to get across their size.  So, please excuse any slight out-of-focusness – the depth of field issues were an interesting challenge!

The yellow-flower tree

The flowers in close-up

For sizing purposes that’s a 1€ coin nestling among the flowers; it just fits inside one of the trumpet flowers.  A little research confirms that the 1€ coin is about the same size as a UK £1 coin and, for our American cousins, the size of a US quarter.

One huge bee in a pretty big flower

Preparing for entry

We still have no idea what the tree is so any insights or suggestions would be gratefully received.  In the meantime … the buzzing continues!

The garden, mid-October

The sun is shining, jobs are done for the day so before we put the kettle on for a well earned cup of tea we thought it would be useful to get some photos of the fruit trees in the garden and surroundings. The fruit is ripening day by day so it’s a good time to capture where each of the trees is in their cycle.

The small citrus tree is absolutely laden with fruit … they are tiny, but there are plenty of them.

Mandarins ... tangerines ... satsumas ... clementines?

So far we aren’t entirely sure what they are … mandarins, clementines, satsumas, tangerines?  Mad Alex allowed someone to strip all the fruit from the tree before we took possession last year.  For some time this wasn’t clear, leaving us thinking the tree produced no fruit at all, until we spotted two stray fruit lurking right in the very centre.  Clearly too hard to harvest for whoever took the rest of the fruit!  We picked the remaining two and they were lovely … not too sweet or too tart and not oversupplied with pips either.

So far it looks like we’ll get a good crop but at the moment over 95% of the fruit are still a dark green.  The occasional one or two are starting to turn to a pale green, then yellow before becoming bright orange in late November.

Just starting to ripen

The two lemon trees are also doing well.  The tree near the gate has larger, still solid green, lemons; the garage tree  has smaller but more advanced lemons which are just starting to turn yellow.

Green lemons on the gate-end tree

Ripening lemon on the garage-end tree

The pomegranate tree is presenting some problems with regard to its attractiveness to local wildlife, but that’s an issue for another day.  In the meantime the fruit that have escaped such attention are ripening fantastically well.  One of our neighbours has three trees in her courtyard.  Last year she estimated that they produced over 100 kg of fruit between them.  Far, far more that she could use or give away to friends, so she ended up bagging up the fruit and leaving them outside her house with a note offering them for free to tourists.

Near-ripe pomegranates

Just around the corner, down the donkey track, there is a derelict plot containing the remains of a partially renovated two storey house.  If anyone is looking for an adventurous renovation project then look no further!  In the absence of any care and maintenance pomegranate and particularly fig trees have been growing unchecked.  The figs are coming on well, with a mix of under-ripe and hard green fruit and delicious looking ripe purple figs.

Ripening figs

Yet more figs

Those with a keen eye may notice an interloper in the second of the fig photos.

The photographer gets no points for observation today having missed the tiny praying mantis posing on a branch just off to the left of the figs.

All being well, updates to come in due course!

Thursday’s Tried & Tested

One of our hopes in quitting work and moving here was that we would be able to live a simpler life. In financial terms we certainly needed to live more frugally, but we also wanted to shift down a gear or ten and live a quieter life.  Not so much “The Good Life” but with a healthy nod towards the mindful philosophy of the “Slow Food” movement.

With that in mind one of the things that we have enjoyed since we arrived is having the time to research and investigate and experiment some of the things that previously we could only say “Oh, that’s a great idea. I wonder if it actually works?”

Three years in we’ve been able to do some of that so we thought we’d share some of the things that have worked well. Some are money saving tips, some are time saving, some are using resources differently, some crafty, and so on.

To kick off, a foodie Tried & Tested.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

From time to time (ok, a couple of times a month) we end up with a small bowl of sad and tired tomatoes languishing in the cupboard. Grocery shopping is approaching, it’d be a shame to waste the tomatoes but they’re, well, a little past their best.

And yet, it’s possible to not just refresh them but make them into something that can be used in any of half a dozen dishes. Their flavour concentrates, their texture changes entirely.  When Ian sees these being prepared he smiles. A suspicious soul would suggest that he over-buys tomatoes to make sure this happens regularly :-)

So;

• Cut the tomatoes in half, or quarters if they are absolutely huge
• Place them cut-side up in an oven proof dish (in this case, the lid of a pyrex dish bought for Mands by her grandmother as a housewarming present many year ago. Pyrex goes on forever!)
• Drizzle over a little olive oil, sprinkle a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Add some herbs if there are any hanging about … in this case some thyme straight from the freezer
• Put the dish in the oven on a very low heat for an hour, or two or even three, and allow the tomatoes to dry out
• Once they are cooked put them in a tupperware, cover them completely with oil and pop them in the fridge, or even the freezer. They’ll keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks, though they tend not to last that long in this house.

Slightly tired tomatoes, pre-cooking

To use them;

• Toss them through pasta or add them to an existing pasta sauce
• Add them to salads, using some of the oil to make the salad dressing
• Stand at the fridge door and eat them direct from the tupperware, remembering to mop up the telltale oil dribbles before anyone notices
• Drain them and pile them, with some parmesan or olives or herbs, onto lightly toasted bread to make bruschetta
• Add them to homemade pizzas, or to shop-bought to make them a little more interesting

Things worth noting;

• When the tomatoes are all gone the oil is great for adding a tomatoey flavour to other dishes
• If the oven temperature is low enough they can be cooking along with something else. If the oven is on but the temperature is a little high they’ll probably be ok but do keep a close eye on them
• They can be made in huge batches which is useful when the summer tomato glut comes
• They cook really well in a halogen oven, particularly if there are round containers to hand
• They are fairly robust in terms of the flavours they’ll accept. Thyme, oregano, garlic, chilli, balsamic vinegar (but skip the drizzle of oil) all work well
• They are a great fridge standy-by for when folks drop by unexpectedly … a little like biscotti

Post-cooking

Bruschetta with oven-dried tomatoes, smoked turkey & parmesan

Happy cooking!

Plumbing delays

The kitchen is back on hold :-(

The countertops are cut, holes are jigsawed for the sink, the taps and the hob,  the lengthy project to seal the wood has started.  Today the plumber was due to make permanent connections for all the pipe work, install the pesky tap and deal with the gas connections.  Having moved in to what was effectively a building site back in mid-July we were really looking forward to being able to cook properly.

Ready and waiting

We have a microwave, but it rarely gets used.  We have a halogen oven that gets a huge amount of usage.  We have the BBQ that we brought with us when we left England.  With the three of them we’ve managed over the past 10 weeks or so but it’s getting tiresome, particularly with the added challenge of there being no running water at all in the kitchen.

Having finally found a tap that had a deep enough fixings to work with the countertop Ian pushed on last week getting the final cuts made and the counters pinned in place.  In a room where not a single corner is square fitting the units and then the counters has been a challenge.  But this weekend the last main one was done and the oiling process started in preparation for the plumber’s visit today.

In preparation we stripped the kitchen, again, removing things like the small appliances and the contents of the relevant cupboards out to the dining room table and any other space we could shoehorn them into.

Evicted from the kitchen in preparation

Sadly, the plumber’s wife has contracted some sort of stomach bug and is unwell.  ”Since she keeps passing out I think I probably shouldn’t leave her for now” he said.  Well, yes!

As much as we’d like a working kitchen we had to agree, so everything is now on hold until Friday at the earliest.  It’s only another few days but the disappointment is heavy.