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description=An ex-pat in Cyprus - enjoying the sunshine in winter, estivating in summer; everyday living, and some of the quirks of the country.;

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this is cyprus friday april 24 2026 moving on from winter it s usually some time in april when we start to feel a bit warmer and as if winter has finally come to an end not that we experience real winter here there s no snow rarely any ice and the sun usually shines at some point but the houses feel cold with the high ceilings and tiled floors at the end of march i was still wearing two warm layers in the house sometimes three i wore a knitted hat and sometimes gloves when going out for a walk morning or evening we were using our microwave wheat bags every night the heating was coming on when the temperature dropped too low and we were snuggling under our double thickness duvets at night then we spent just over two weeks in the uk where it was chillier but mostly sunny the houses with carpets and better insulated walls are rather warmer than those in cyprus we had heard that cyprus had had a major dust storm and a lot of rain while we were away but when we came back it felt significantly warmer than it had at the end of march the first night back we threw off the thinner part of the duvet just using the medium one we didn t even think of using wheat bags in the morning i only wanted one warm layer and when we went out for walks i had no need of hat or gloves we had turned the heating off before we travelled we ve seen no reason to turn it on again since returning read more posted by sue at 15 50 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels blanket central heating cyprus laundry plants spring in cyprus weather thursday april 16 2026 two weeks out of cyprus earlier in the year we had talked about the possibility of flying to the uk early in april so that we could see richard s mother on her birthday she s living in a very nice care home now in sussex and they make quite a thing of birthdays we then pondered going first to carlisle to spend easter with our older son and his family we checked with them that they weren t going anywhere else and we started idly looking for flights then i spotted flights from larnaka to glasgow on march 31st at just 27 pounds per person it was with easyjet a budget airline that we have used many times and which we generally like that price doesn t include any luggage of course other than an under seat bag we tend to upgrade to what they call easy boarding which gives us an overhead carry on as well but even so the price was excellent we know from experience that prices vary all the time and can be extremely high over the easter period so we booked at once then we filled in the details a rental car accommodation when not staying with the family etc and finally booked a flight back on april 15th we were all packed and ready at least half an hour before our friend sheila came to pick us up to take us to the airport on march 31st the flight wasn t until after 9 30pm which is when i usually like to be getting ready for bed so i was delighted to realise that it was an almost empty flight this meant that once we had taken off we could have three seats each and lie down to rest i didn t get a lot of sleep but i think at least a couple of hours so when we arrived at glasgow in the early hours i wasn t as tired as i might have been read more posted by sue at 15 50 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels carlisle family flights london travelling uk walking tuesday april 07 2026 a new printer short version of this post i bought a new printer long version with historical context i thought i had probably had my last printer an hp laserjet for about twelve or thirteen years i recalled my younger son buying it or contributing to it anyway when he needed to do significant printing it was in 2013 when he came back to cyprus after five years in the uk so i thought perhaps it was bought around then although i couldn t work out what it was he needed to print read more posted by sue at 17 04 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels buying printers shopping technology tuesday march 31 2026 more random larnaka images for the end of march for anyone who thinks cyprus is all sunshine and warmth this is a screenshot from march 21st on a morning when my friend sheila and i decided that we would not be going out for our usual 5km walk according to local news reports it has been an exceptionally wet march it has certainly felt that way it s a good thing as the reservoirs are now in a much better state than they were at the start of the year although we re still told to conserve water and i believe the hosepipe ban is continuing read more posted by sue at 16 23 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels flowers larnaka march photos rain salt lake park spring in cyprus yellow sunday march 29 2026 on decluttering i see a lot of references to decluttering on social media perhaps it s the circles i m in plus of course as soon as i clicked one link on the topic i was inevitably going to see a whole lot more similar posts clutter is something of a divisive subject there are people who like collecting a lot of things and are comfortable around boxes bags and other unsorted items there are people who would like to be organised but have difficulty finding spaces for things or who don t have sufficent time and motivation to do anything about it there is also a third category of people who somehow manage to get things away and tidy without any apparent effort i aspired to be one of those as a young adult but was firmly in the second category the spirit was willing well mostly but i was working full time and then had small children it was far more important to spend time with them and they seemed to acquire a lot of stuff too mainly gifts from generous friends and family than to keep the house tidy moving to cyprus in 1997 forced us to be quite radical about our stuff we donated some things to charity shops although we had a large room and a couple of closets full of things we had stored in addition to what we brought out we also stored a lot of things in a friend s garage in subsequent years we moved more and more things here mainly books and when we sold the uk house we gave away a lot of things that we had not used for nine years and evidently didn t need read more posted by sue at 18 35 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels books cards cleaning clutter photos thrift store tidying thursday march 19 2026 random images around larnaka i m trying to post on this blog more often and on one topic or no more than two or three at a time but sometimes there are random things where there s not a lot to say so here is a small selection of my most recent collection of local photos that don t fit other subjects taken over the last month or so we were given a small papaya plant several years ago and this is the first year that it has produced flowers we have no idea whether it will eventually produce a fruit that depends on the flowers being fertilised and whether it s a male or female plant the flowers aren t spectacular but there are a lot of buds read more posted by sue at 17 01 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels construction flowers food lemons plants restaurant salt lake park saturday march 07 2026 paperwork and admin in cyprus i was beginning to feel that life in cyprus involved rather too much paperwork i ve written elsewhere about the need to renew passports every ten years or so we had a flurry of bureaucracy during covid of course with the need for checking airline regulations and taking tests with accompanying paperwork to demonstrate that we were covid free just last year i wrote about the complicated process of trying to find suitable id documents to prove that we are who we say we are also the need to prove that we are eligible for the national health system here every time we get through another round of documentation we breathe sighs of relief until the next time recently we seem to have had a lot of other paperwork to deal with none of it particularly strenuous or complicated admittedly but somehow it feels rather overwhelming when several things come at the same time but sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming a couple of weeks ago i wrote down the things we had to do fairly urgently apply for me to have a uk pension validate richard s existence for his uk pension renew our european health cards chase up my id card which i applied for in october read more posted by sue at 19 45 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels certificates health care id card immigration passport saturday february 28 2026 continuing to itemise my grocery shopping during january i uploaded photos of most of my grocery shopping and summarised at the end i wanted to know how long i could go without buying anything other than fresh fruit and vegetables and whether i could avoid anything ultra processed the reason was that there s increased awareness of the dangers of eating too many ultra processed foods and while there doesn t seem to be any absolute definition of what constitutes an ultra processed food the working definition is anything that contains ingredients that one would not normally find in a regular home kitchen i ve never bought a lot of ultra processed products in part because many added ingredients are migraine triggers for me what used to be a nuisance turns out to be a blessing if it s true that artificial nitrites are carcinogenic and that everyone should avoid additives such as msg and artificial sweeteners of course there are other problems with the western diet too much sugar for instance and too much red meat but very often they go together for instance deli meats are often from pork and contain ultra processed additives some sweets have no valuable nutrition containing nothing other than sugar and additives i continued taking photos of shopping this month for my own interest but i won t bore readers with uploads of everything suffice it to say i spent rather more since several things had to be replenished we did more entertaining in february too and i had used up most of the meals that i had prepared previously and frozen i continued mainly buying fresh fruit and vegetables but in addition during the first week of february i also bought 800g chicken mince 2 x 800g chicken breast 800g chicken thighs 1kg pangasian frozen fish 4 x 70g pots of tomato paste 1kg greek yogurt 2 4 packs of toilet paper 2kg wholegrain bread flour 1kg sugar 1kg white cake flour 500g oats on the first friday we went to lidl mainly for canned wet cat food we were fairly restrained we didn t need any more chocolate for instance and this is what we bought in addition to cat food we bought coffee washing fluid soap frozen beans large lentils frozen salmon more frozen pangasius fish as it was on offer and yes our first possibly ultra processed product of this year alaska pollock fillets in breadcrumbs i had read an article online from a reputable source though i can t now find it which said that while we should in general avoid anything highly processed or ultra processed there are some foods which are beneficial in other ways that we shouldn t boycott they included jarred pasta sauce so long as free of nitrites or colourings wholegrain bread ideally with seeds and fishfingers we re all supposed to be eating more fish after all we don t generally eat fish fingers but we do like these breadcrumb coated fillets and the ingredients list isn t too bad so they were included in our lidl shop i did not however buy any puff pastry something which is good value in lidl and i experimented with a flaky pastry recipe using hard vegan spread bought in december to make spanokopita rather more work than using ready made puff pastry but i was able to use half wholegrain flour and it turned out pretty well the following week as well as lots more fresh fruit and vegetables i bought some cartons of juice some small jars of spices to replenish ones we were running low on some cartons of passata a bag of dried red lentils frozen peas frozen broad beans and a box of twelve free range eggs in the second half of february i bought another kilogram of greek yogurt i do like on my breakfast muesli it s my one regular dairy product two 300g tubs of planton vegan yogurt a bottle of apple cider vinegar and some coconut oil we went to metro for the first time since christmas as i wanted to buy some more dry cat food once again we were mostly quite restrained and this is what we bought cat treats as well as dry brekkies food some white cleaning vinegar some malt vinegar for cooking two jars of instant coffee another thing i have to admit to liking though i know it s not considered real coffee by many pineapple chunks brown basmati rice a rather large bag of garam masala but i haven t been able to find it in smaller quantities two cans of coconut cream with minimal additives and some mayonnaise mayonnaise is processed maybe ultra processed but i haven t been successful in making it and it s a lot of hassle and we don t eat a lot of it we made another nut shop visit too and bought our standard nuts seeds dried fruit etc as described last month the following week as well as yet more fresh fruit and veg i bought another kilogram of wholewheat bread flour and one of white bread flour i also bought a bag of cornflour and another processed product a pack of digestive biscuits i use them from time to time to make various desserts and don t like to run out but i m going to look for recipes to see if i can make something equivalent to keep in the freezer so rather more extra products this month but the only ones that might be considered ultra processed are the breaded fish the mayonnaise and the digestive biscuits given that reports state that in most western countries over 50 of the food eaten is ultra processed i m not too worried posted by sue at 19 47 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels fruit groceries lidl metro nuts shopping vegetables older posts home subscribe to posts atom pages home about privacy policy disclosure policy contact form my book home education what why how a guide for beginners amazon uk link disclosure as an amazon uk associate i earn from qualifying purchases categories christmas easter greek kataklysmos lefkara salt lake air conditioners appliances autumn in cyprus banks cars central heating cost of living drains flamingoes froutaria fruit games immigration knitting mosquitoes public holidays recycling restaurants shopping spring in cyprus summer in cyprus supermarket water weather winter in cyprus my other blogs sue s book reviews red sky at night by jane aiken hodge 1 day ago sue s dvd reviews i capture the castle romola garai 1 week ago random recipes sweet chili sauce 3 months ago abstractions entitlemen...