5th July: In the first week of July our
church held a 'vacation Bible school' (what we call a 'holiday
club' in the UK!) for children aged ten and below. Both our boys
had volunteered as helpers, with Tim playing the piano each day
for the songs. On the first day there were about 45 local children
- by the end of the week, over 70! There were sessions in both
English and Greek, craft activities, and Bible stories, all held
in the church grounds since it was far too hot to use the church
hall.
Meanwhile I had made a
list of things I wanted to do before we fly to the UK, and tried
to get one major task completed each day while they were out.
I also gradually cut down on my email lists, and ensured the
house was thoroughly clean - though perhaps a bit pointless since
even with only 12 days away, it will be dusty again by the time
we get back! Daniel had a rehearsal for 'Nuts' nearly every evening,
and Tim relaxed with computer games and books.
19th July: We're now back in Cyprus after
a very busy 12 days, which feel like at least a month! We flew
on the night of July 6th/7th, arriving in London early on the
Sunday morning. I really don't do well with night flights, so
was glad that I didn't have to do any thinking once we got there!
We all travelled into London by the Underground, although Richard,
Tim and I changed to go to Euston before the drama group arrived.
We then picked up our tickets, ordered a week before online,
and waited for the train to Birmingham.
It was wonderful seeing
my parents, and my siblings and their families, although I was
so tired for the first couple of days that I wasn't able to have
much conversation. Still, it was relaxing, and nice to be out
of the heat of Cyprus for a few days. On Thursday 11th July we
travelled by train back to London, to the National Theatre to
see the performance of 'Nuts'
- which was excellent, spoiled only by a very poor Irish
'comedien' who told disgusting anecdotes entirely unsuitable
for the audience, and wasted 15 minutes before the performance
started. The group had worked very hard, not just in their rehearsals
prior to leaving Cyprus, but on the day of the performance, working
with some National Theatre staff. Daniel as 'Buddy' and the rest
of Antidote Theatre
were superb - far, far better than they were in the premiere,
and I had thought that was good!
We were less impressed
with the second play, 'Illyria' - another political drama, but
with less movement, and appalling bad language and imagery. There
were some excellent characters in it, and some very good choreography,
but two rape scenes (albeit off-stage) and the repetitious offensive
language rather spoiled it.
Afterwards Tim and I went
with Richard's mother down to Sussex to stay there for a few
days. These started with rain, but by the time we left we had
enjoyed some pleasant sunshine. Daniel and Richard joined us
late Saturday night, since most of the theatre group were returning
Sunday evening. Daniel had had a wonderful time with the group
sight-seeing in London, and had bought considerable juggling
equipment from a large toy shop. So he spent much of his time
in Sussex working with the diabolo, and his juggling rings, and
trying to teach the rest of us simple three-ball juggling.
We returned on Wednesday
17th July. We had a bit of excitement when we checked in at Heathrow,
since they asked if we could volunteer to go on the following
morning's flight, as they were somewhat overbooked, for which
we would get a free night in a hotel, plus £125 each! We
said we could do that, so they gave us a meal voucher for the
airport, and said to come back an hour later to see if they needed
us to go the following day or not. Sadly (!) the people who'd
overbooked didn't turn up, so they didn't need our seats, and
we had to go on the night-flight after all... which left an hour
late, and although we had four seats together it wasn't very
comfortable, they didn't have pillows, and none of us really
got any sleep so I was *shattered* yesterday. I'd have much preferred
a day-flight, and a night in a hotel, quite apart from the money!
Anyway, the one good thing
about a night-flight is that it wasn't too hot and sticky when
we arrived - only about 25C. It was 6am by the time we got home
and our cats were very happy to see us :-) We found 8 dead cockroaches
around the bathroom... there always seem to be more when we go
away, though I'm not sure why. We do find about one a week normally,
but 8 seemed rather excessive.
Last night I got 10 hours
sleep and feel a lot better today, although it will probably
take a week or two before I feel back to normal. We didn't bring
back many books this year - about 15 we found at charity and
second-hand shops, but not the usual 50 or 60. However I did
have the large order of ACE workbooks for the boys' NCSC home
education course which was delivered to my parents in the UK.
Taking advantage of their summer discount, and the reduction
in postage, I think I saved £50 in all, the only problem
being 9kg worth of material to bring back to Cyprus with us!!
But we didn't take all that much with us so it wasn't a problem.
The garden is very overgrown.
It always amazes me each year (though I should be used to it
by now!) just how much will grow, and how fast, despite the lack
of rain. There are some seeds which sprout into small trees with
great rapity, and if not pulled or cut down, will reach three
or four metres in height within a few months. I shall have to
do some weeding and pruning, but not yet!
Today we went to see some
friends in the afternoon, as they had some people Richard knew
staying with them, and in the evening went to our favourite cheap
restaurant as it's our 22nd wedding anniversary - we didn't really
feel awake enough for a nice meal out, or anything special. We're
hoping to have some days out during the summer to see some of
the better beaches (ie not the ones covered in tourists!) but
don't have any other plans... it's around 33C in the shade during
the daytime so we won't be walking anywhere. We'll inevitably
spend most of our time in our air conditioned living room. I
have a load of jigsaws to do on our huge dining room table, Daniel
has various web-site projects to do, and Tim seems to find lots
to read and games to play. I hope they won't get bored.
28th July: It seems hard to believe we've
only been back ten days, so have only just finished the first
full week of the 'summer break' where there are no music lessons
etc. The first thing I was reminded of was that the boys really
don't need activity all day every day. Just one thing to focus
on is usually sufficient, then they use the rest of the time
reading, or online, or playing games etc. It's only when there's
no change at all, and nothing in particular to look forward to
that they sometimes start to get bored or ask for things to do.
On Sunday a week ago the
Antidote Theatre directors phoned to ask if Daniel would be interested
in doing the lighting for a production they and two members of
the group were doing at a hotel in the next town on Thursday.
Daniel isn't actually all that interested in lighting, but Tim
(who doesn't belong to the drama group) loves anything technical,
and has been asking for ages to learn about lighting desks. So
as Richard has some expertise in this, he said he'd help them
sort out the lighting, which was in a bit of a muddle after a
recent move anyway, with Tim helping, and that he'd start to
teach Tim about lighting in general.
So on Monday they went
along to a rehearsal of the production, as did Daniel (to be
the audience). On Tuesday Richard and Tim spent a couple of hours
fixing various problems in the lights and wiring etc, and Tim
came home *thrilled* at having had such a wonderful time. On
Thursday all three of them went to the next town - Richard supervised,
Tim did the lights (not actually very complicated), and Daniel
helped backstage. Yesterday Tim and Richard spent an hour or
two trying to learn some more things about the lighting system,
partly using the Internet for info. There are going to be two
more productions of the same play at the same hotel at fortnightly
intervals, apparently, so this will be ongoing - then in the
Autumn when the drama group starts work on new productions, Tim
will probably get more involved in the technical side. I think
they like having home educated teens involved as of course our
timetable is a lot more flexible than that of teens in schools!
Meanwhile earlier in the
week Tim was asked if he would play the organ at the Anglican
church (which we don't belong to!) for this evening's service,
as the organist is away, and he's played there before, so he
had to spend some extra time practising the hymns they wanted
- in fact he's there at present. This morning he was asked to
play piano for our service next Sunday morning so that too will
mean extra practice this week.
Daniel has been sleeping
very long hours every morning, often not getting up till 12.30
or so - I hope he's not having yet another growth spurt as he's
6 foot tall already! - and doing some games programming. Yesterday
he sat down with Richard for a couple of hours to sort out an
algorithm problem he was having. I think they fixed it! He has
various web-sites he's planning to update this week, and a commercial
one he needs to work on, as well as producing the Autumn publicity
material for the drama group, which they need in the next week
or so.
We've also played some
family games of Rummikub, sat and chatted, and I've been reading
quite a bit to the boys. I've started a very difficult jigsaw
that someone gave us at Christmas (the main problem being a white
border of about three pieces all around, and all the pieces much
the same shape!) and of course we've all been keeping up on our
email, reading, and finishing tidying up from our trip away.
Cooking has so far been
very easy, since I remembered to label and freeze single or double
portion leftovers of meals we had eaten in the three or four
months previously. This took up two entire shelves of our freezer,
but meant that preparing an evening meal was as simple as thawing
and reheating, plus cooking some frozen vegetables or making
a salad. If I hadn't done that, I've no idea what we would have
eaten for our first week back when my mind was definitely not
focussed enough to think about cooking.
times since 13th August 2002