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

House extensions, Cyprus-style

No room to extend? No problem, we can fix that!

Seen in a village near us.

The strange thing is, this house is opposite our builders merchants and we must have been there dozens of times before we noticed this.

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 :-)

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!

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!

The Flamingos are Back

The, belated, autumn rains have finally started. We mentioned a little rain in October but apart from that it has been pretty much dry since long before the start of the summer. Reservoirs are worryingly empty and talk of water rationing is common.

Over the last week or so there has been speculation that the rain was due and in the early hours of Monday morning it finally arrived, with a vengeance!

We were woken by a lightning storm around 3am and for about 90 minutes we were treated to a fantastic display of thunder and lightning to the north and east. Part way through we popped the final flyscreen from the upstairs windows as, with the windows opening outwards, we were in danger of having a flooded room.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning we had a repeat performance – without the flooding risk – but again with a fantastic electrical storm.

Later on Tuesday we popped into town to run some errands. On the way home we were speculating how much rain had fallen and if the Salt Lakes might have moved from ‘bone dry’ to at least a little damp. In the wet months the lakes are home to up to 12 thousand greater flamingos who arrive as soon as the lakes are wet and leave as the very last moisture disappears. Quite how they know that the Larnaca salt lakes are damp and it is time to make a move from their summer home is another question entirely.

Anyway, hoping to see water but not expecting flamingos yet we drove back via the salt lakes and were amazed to see dozens of flamingos. This was less than 36 hours since the first real rains and already they were back, and looking absolutely wonderful!

The flock spot us … some stay (bottom right corner) but a group fly directly overhead

In flight and heading for the lake next to the airport

Almost, but not quite

On the road on the way to the beach we drive passed a road sign in Greek and translated into English.

Glancing at the sign, at a distance, it’s clear that there are supposed to be some traffic calming measures ahead. Actually, we’re pretty sure there aren’t any but that’s another issue.

On closer inspection though the English translation just doesn’t work!

Digging the Roads

Here in Cyprus we seem to face pretty much the same problem we did in the UK with a stream of utilities, and others, digging up any given stretch of road in a random fashion. Eventually the surface becomes such a mess of laid and relaid surface that the whole road has to be closed for a complete resurface … and then the merry-go-round starts again.

Needless to say, in Cyprus there is an added nuance – laying a new road around any existing impediments …

A very large senior school is being constructed just up the road from us. Aside from it seeming to include the removal of a zillion cubic metres of hillside and a semi-permanet dust storm it, of course, needs a brand new access road. The pre-existing road, from which the new access road to the school is now built, leads to a major Police Station and a cluster of houses. It is common practice, a bit like the US, for electricity to be supplied via overhead cables on a network of telegraph poles and mini-transformers.

So what do you do if the new road plan says “build it here“, and the local electricity system is in the way?

Well … it’s obvious isn’t it? You build the road around it …