May 3rd: This last weekend was Easter in
Cyprus. The schools were having a break, and many of the shops
were closed on Friday and/or Saturday, as well as yesterday.
Richard took Friday and Monday off work, but he didn't relax
... instead he was busy building boxes for the PA system he's
been putting together for use by Christian groups locally, and
ensuring everything worked in preparation for an inter-church
concert which took place at the sea-front on Monday afternoon.
Tim helped with the soldering, and on Sunday evening all the
equipment moved from the office to our house, and various of
the electronic instruments the boys own were plugged in to test
them.
The concert itself went
very well, with the PA working far better than the smaller church
system that was used last year. The youth band Narrow Gate did
three biggish sections of the program, and there were a few other
items in between although Tim - on his keyboard - was on the
stage for the full hour and a half, and very tired by the end!
Rain had been predicted, but thankfully didn't appear. It wasn't
even as windy as it often is in afternoons, and there were plenty
of people sitting listening to the whole concert. Others stopped
as they were walking by along the sea-front, and plenty of people
helped themselves to free literature about Easter in various
languages from the book table at the back.
May 7th: I thought perhaps the annual
May Day parade was cancelled this year, since Greek Easter fell
on May 1st. In fact I'd quite forgotten about it until about
10am this morning, when the most awful racket of drums and trumpets
started up. I didn't even go out to look, since I knew what it
would be. It's the only parade that actually goes down the street
next to ours, to and fro at least four times.
Cyprus is very keen on
parades, we're not entirely sure why. They have them for several
national days, and on Good Friday, and at Epiphany, as well as
flower festivals and various other events or anniversaries. Daniel
marches with the town band for some of the important ones, and
he can't really see the point either. There always seem to be
school groups, and the Scouting organisations, and sometimes
army people too, walking along the streets in uniform. Marching
is a euphemism, really, since many of them are unable to keep
time with the drums or other music, and those that do don't seem
to care much.
There are usually crowds
watching these parades, but as Dan pointed out somewhat cynically,
the majority are probably proud parents, grandparents, aunts
and uncles who turn out to see their little Andreas or Elena
marching. Of course there are always a few tourists, too, slightly
bemused but enjoying something quaintly cultural. When we first
arrived we watched a couple of parades out of interest, then
when Dan joined the band we watched a few more... these days
we don't tend to bother.
And we certainly weren't
very interested in the communist Party parade this morning, which
didn't even have real musicians - just a blaring fanfare on one
or two notes, and a load of drums going BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-BOOM
BOOM!
May 9th: I must have picked about six
kilograms of mespila/loquats today. They're at the stage where
some of them are wonderful to eat raw, but we don't get through
many that way. The stones are so large that it feels like a lot
of effort for not much fruit, and they discolour so quickly after
picking, making them looking rather unappealing.
I gave away a bagful to
a friend. Then I froze a kilo and a half in sugar syrup. Then
I made another kilo into jam. There's still a bowlful of raw
loquats on the kitchen table; only a few have been eaten, and
although they looked wonderful after I'd picked them, they now
look rather brown and unappetising. I think I'll put them in
the fridge overnight, then make some more puree tomorrow. I do
hope I can give some more away later in the week; there are still
plenty on the tree which haven't yet turned orange.
I did an hour or so's
gardening this morning too, before it got too sunny. Weeding
is never-ending. The 'lawn' (ha!) hadn't been cut for two weeks
and was beginning to look like what it is - a collection of tightly-packed
weeds with a few blades of grass here and there. There were masses
of dandelions, the small variety that evidently flower quite
quickly, so I asked Tim to start mowing this afternoon. I didn't
want them to turn into dandelion clocks and then seed even further.
He cut about half of it, by which time there was quite a bit
of shade so I did some more. There's still another hour or so
to do, but we decided to leave that till tomorrow as it's the
trickier bit around all the trees.
This evening I did my
first major watering of the season, pleased that it's early May
rather than early April that I'm starting. I'll try to remember
to do it on Saturdays in future, as far as possible. It was dark
by about 8pm - and getting chilly too - so I came in, pleased
that we seem to be having a much longer spring than usual.
May 14th: this morning as I went outside
to do some watering, I saw some tiny kittens, about two months
old I suppose, emerging from a climbing/creeping plant that grows
against our boundary wall, near the street. They looked reasonably
healthy for feral kittens, and there were seven of them, mostly
ginger or brown-and-white. That solved something that puzzled
me last night: I heard a high-pitched squeaking several times,
and thought perhaps a kitten was stuck in a tree. Or had ventured
too far from its mother and got lost. But the mewing had stopped
by the time I was going to bed, so I guessed the mother had found
the kitten again.
However there was no sign
of any mother and when I went out again later, three of the kittens
came towards me, evidently wanting something... very unusual
for feral cats, who are usually frightened of humans. I gingerly
stroked one of them, but didn't want my scent on them, which
might potentially scare their mother. They were still there by
the time Dan got home from the theatre for lunch, and he was
very worried to see them: apparently a day or two ago he saw
a dead cat in the street, which had similar colouring to these
kittens. I wouldn't have thought they would survive very long
without their mother, and he couldn't remember exactly when it
was, but suddenly I realised we might need to do a bit more for
them.
Saturday is early closing
day in Cyprus, so we couldn't go and buy any Lactol, so I tried
giving them a tiny bowl of milk. They had no idea what to do
with it. Then we tried yogurt, and they simply walked through
it. We tried putting tiny bits on our fingers, and they sucked
it off, but still didn't get the idea of actually eating it form
the bowl. Evidently they're much too young to be without a mother.
Our neighbour over the
street, who likes cats (unusually for Cypriots) came and saw
them, and said we should move them away from the road since they
seem inclined to follow anybody they see. Not that it's a particularly
busy road, but then most people around here aren't very fond
of cats. So he brought us a big box, and we moved them further
down our driveway. I tried giving them tiny pieces of bread soaked
in milk and that was slightly more successful, but it's not exactly
ideal kitten food.
They climbed out of the
box before long and returned to their nest, so we decided we
would need to move them to our back garden - to an area I had
cleared just a few weeks ago. Daniel rang a friend who has reared
kittens, and he came over and showed me how to feed them cream
cheese from his fingers. He also lent me a kitten bottle and
said that evaporated milk was better than ordinary milk for them,
so I managed to get something into each of them. Poor little
mites. I think they're not much more than three weeks old.
May 16th: The seven tiny feral kittens
have survived two nights now, to my surprise and delight. I fed
them more evaporated milk from the bottle, and a triangle of
cream cheese first thing this morning and they went back to sleep
again. Then I went out to check our PO box. The pet shop nearby
was open by 8.30 so I went in there and asked if they had any
Lactol or other kitten milk. The owner didn't speak much English,
but clearly knew what Lactol was; however he said he didn't have
it, or any other milk for cats. He said they had stopped importing
it. However he did sell me some dry food intended for very young
kittens, between one and three months old.
I decided to try another
pet shop anyway, and to my relief I saw two containers of Lactol
almost as soon as I walked in! I don't know if this means they're
left over from before importing stopped, or whether the first
shop owner simply meant that his shop wasn't getting it any longer.
Anyway I bought some, and another little feeding bottle as it
would be easier to have two.
May 20th: This morning around 8am I heard
the most awful noise - loud car horns blaring, and traffic racing
around not far away. Perhaps, I thought, someone had got married?
Wedding parties often drive around hooting their horns, but I'd
never heard a wedding that early in the morning. An hour later
I went out to the town to check the PO box and saw the source
of the noise (which hadn't abated at all) - older teenagers driving
around on motor-bikes, most of them with holes in the exhaust
pipes, honking their horns as loudly as possible.
I'd quite forgotten about
this tradition which marks the end of school - mostly, I think,
students from Greek-speaking high schools. I'm not sure if the
ones who are leaving school end the year before the rest of their
schools or if they really have finished for the summer. I know
at least one of the private schools is continuing for another
couple of weeks, and the British Army Base school will continue
right through until mid-July, like schools in the UK.
It wasn't pleasant in
the town. There were teenagers everywhere, on and off motor-bikes,
making as much noise as they could. Some were at least wearing
helmets on the motorbikes, but most of them weren't. They wove
in and out of the cars, wobbling to and fro, often with passengers
seated behind the driver just holding on around his waist. It
was mostly boys but I saw a few girls too, one of them in a bikini
waving her tee-shirt like a flag. Quite shocking for Cyprus in
the town, although as it's only 100m from the seafront I suppose
it's no big deal.
At one point I was almost
deafened by a horrendous noise from an exhaust within a few centimetres
of where I was walking, coupled with the loudest horn I had heard.
The students (or former students, I should perhaps say!) who
were on that bike probably wouldn't have been able to hear for
the rest of the day. In one of the shops I went in, a helpful
lady with only a little English told me, 'The school has finished.
The children are happy!'
I thought it was a bit
sad that they feel such a need to celebrate, as if they're getting
out of prison. But perhaps it feels like that to them. When I
left school (in the UK) I was terribly sad about it. What's more,
the boys here - who were the noisiest - all have to go into compulsory
army service within the next few weeks, so they've only exchannged
one form of control for another.
May 30th: We've had some visitors for a
long weekend, which has been great. They're friends we've known
for years, who go to our church in the UK. Their two sons are
a little younger than ours, but the four of them seem to get
on quite well. Our friends' younger son was captivated by the
feral kittens and spent many hours outside playing with them.
They were only with us for the weekend, plus this morning, because
the only reasonable flights they could find were to Paphos rather
than Larnaka - and inclusive of a hotel apartment. So they arrived
in Paphos on Thursday and rented a car to drive here Saturday
morning. Mostly we just talked... it's so good to catch up on
news.
The weather has been incredibly
cool for the end of May. Today it's only about 25C. There have
been grey clouds overhead since lunchtime, and there were even
a few drops of rain about an hour ago. Our friends said they
drove through a thunderstorm and quite a bit of rain on Saturday,
when they were near Limassol. Amazing! Usually there's no rain
after the end of April, and we're starting to use the air conditioning
by the end of May. But other than about three days earlier in
the month when the temps got to 30 or more, it's been extremely
pleasant. Long may it last!
May 31st: This morning dawned bright and
sunny as usual for the time of year. After lunch it did cloud
over a bit, as it has done for the last few days, but although
I thought we might have a few drops of rain - as yesterday -
I was more interested in the way the sky looked. There were a
few rumbles of thunder evidently getting closer....
Suddenly it started raining,
but not just spotting - it was proper rain and sounded quite
heavy. My first thought was for the feral kittens - their only
shelter was a cardboard box but that would turn soggy very quickly.
It was under some trees, but not enough to stop rain pouring
through. So I grabbed a kagoule and rushed out, to find some
very wet-looking kittens! One of them managed to find a dry place
so I moved some of the others there, but then the rain got so
heavy that even that place was getting drips. So they all climbed
on my lap and I sheltered them for a bit, assuming it would be
five minutes of rain at most.
After about ten minutes
my legs were getting cramped and my jeans were soaking, and I
realised I had only six of the kittens on me. I managed to gather
them all up in my arms and move to the steps outside the kitchen,
which is pretty well sheltered. I found the seventh kitten already
there, mewing rather pitifully, looking as cold and sodden as
the others. Daniel brought me an old towel so I was able to try
them one at a time, while the rest sat in a huddle on my lap,
gradually warming up. There was thunder echoing all around which
slightly worried them, but they were more concerned about being
warm and dry; once they were dried they started washing each
other and purring.
I stayed where I was for
about half an hour, with Tim chatting to me sitting on his windowsill
which overlooks the steps. We were amazed at the quantity of
rain that was falling - heavier than we've seen for many months.
There were several leaks in Tim's ceiling, so he found buckets
and cool boxes to catch what he could. He also found a slight
leak in the dining room so covered all the computers with plastic
sheeting. Of course he had switched their computer off at the
first sign of a thunderstorm, and I hadn't turned mine on yet
- but we still didn't want them getting wet.
The patio was soon flooded,
and it looked as if our entire back garden was turning into a
mini-lake. I suppose that's because the ground was so hard, the
water just sat on top. Eventually it soaked in. Of course it's
very good for the garden - maybe our grass will even turn green
again - and I won't have to do the watering I had planned either
tonight or tomorrow! In fact I might not even water on Saturday
as it's been so thoroughly drenched today.
After about forty-five
minutes the kittens were getting hungry so Tim passed some food
out of his window for them, and I decided to go inside. So I
folded the towel and left it on the steps, and they curled up
to sleep there once they had finished eating. The rain continued
heavily for another hour or so, and then it rained lightly for
a while - it was over two hours worth of rain in all. Rain at
all is almost unheard-of this time of year, rain like this was
just incredible. Dan said the roads were flooded several inches
deep.
By about 6pm the sun was
poking through the clouds, the rain had stopped, and the floods
had abated. So Richard found a couple of other cardboard boxes
for the kittens, I found them a replacement old plastic tablecloth
to put their food on since the original one was so muddy and
dirty it was unrecoverable, and I found another one to put over
the top of the cardboard boxes just in case it rains in the night.
At least it should protect them somewhat.
(For even more detail,
general rambling and some other photos - with the most recent
at the top - see the May
pages of my Cyprus blog)
times since 5th June 2005