1st May - A lovely sunny day. I went out
to do some stone-moving and weeding for about an hour - it felt
quite warm, more so than recently, despite being early. About
9am drums started outside, with a sudden HUGE roll very close
that made Tessie - usually our least nervous cat - come belting
into the house with her ears back, running faster than I'd ever
seen her run before! Then all morning she was jumpy, looking
up at the least noise. It was the Mayday parade… I saw children
in red coats with large red flags marching along the main road.
It didn't last long.
I thought about making
mespila jam but we didn't have enough sugar, so I picked some
anyway and cooked them in water to freeze for future desserts.
I need to use them now, because soon they'll be ripe and then
very nice raw, but there'll be too many all at once! I also made
some moer lemon curd, remembering this time to do it in two batches.
That's about the end of our lemons - a very feeble crop this
year, really. Next year's looks as though it might be better,
so long as I keep watering. I hope that getting rid of most of
the snails might improve it too, as well as the compost of course.
It was hot later - up
to 28C apparently - the first hot day this year. Tim started
cutting the grass about 5pm when it was a little cooler, and
did the bit in the sun, then I did some more in the evening,
though not the side bits. Dan did about an hour's juggling practice
outside.
After mowing I saw hundreds
of huge red ants building nests around the biggest lemon tree.
Not sure what to do about them… I hope they won't do any
harm. A lot of them had wings, but I didn't get stung. I really
don't like the idea of pouring boiling water in the nests, which
seems abuot the only organic-friendly method of getting rid of
them.
2nd May - hotter again today, up to 30C
in the shade, and apparently hotter still in Mazatos, not far
away. I suppose it IS May, so it's only to be expected! I'm getting
horribly bitten, though I'm not sure by what. I have a couple
of bites on my shoulder despite having eaten garlic last night,
and some today. Now I have a bite on my foot, and one on my finger.
I've seen a few tiny mozzies around; perhaps it's them.
In the evening we went
to see the premiere of 'MacBeth
- the Comedy' which the Antidote people had written. It was
brilliant! They were a bit nervous at first and spoke a bit too
fast, but it was very clever, and worked so well. There were
rather a lot of 'bloody's, and 'God' mentioned in vain, but that
was all the swearing - nothing really 'bad'. The theatre was
packed.
7th May - I'm actually having a couple
of days at home on my own, for the first time in many years!
Richard is at a conference in Limassol and the boys are staying
at the same place, working hard on recorder pieces for a concert
they're doing (professionally!) in a couple of weeks. Tim is
playing guitar accompaniment. Last night as I was getting ready
for bed, something large flew right by my head and landed on
the door. A cockroach :-( The first of the year. I'd been wondering
when they would start coming in, and thought it might happen
while the family is awa! I didn't scream, just stood there frozen
for a while, wondering what it would do. It crawled up the door.
I managed to get out ot the room and pulled the door almost shut,
remember there was an electric mosquito-killer I'd just switched
on, hoping it might at least stun the roach. I thought about
sleeping in the atrium, but realised it might well get out. So
I went and slept on Tim's bed. I had to keep reminding myself
that roaches 'fly to die'. Eventually I got to sleep about midnight,
slept deeply, but then woke before 6am yet again. Found my bedroom
door was wide open - Sophia had gone inside - and no sign of
the roach on the door. Then I found a dead one near the cat litter.
I hope it was the same one...
8th May - It seems so hard to get much
done in this heat. I did more stone-moving and weeding, then
moved some of the cut couch-grass. I was thinking of moving some
of the pink 'weed' flowers to where there's compost under the
couch-grass pile at the far end of the garden, but nothing much
seems to grow there, and of course now it's so hot and sunny
I doubt if there'd be much chance of a transplant working. I
dug it in a bit, and disturbed a couple of snakes...not very
big, slender grey with blackish markings. I came in and checked
pictures online. Seems most likely to be what they call cat-snakes,
which are poisonous but not dangerously so. They don't look that
different from adders (which of course are extremely venomous)
in the photos, but the adders are described as being much fatter,
with a distinct head and tail, whereas these ones looked more
homogenous.
Mid-morning I happened
to notice there were a couple of little black bugs in the herb/spice/cereal
shelf in one of the kitchen cupboards, so I cleaned that out
and sprayed biokill. I discovered that one unopened pack of weetabix
had holes chewed in it, so threw that away. Good thing I use
the plastic cereal dispensers, in general. Then I thought I'd
check the top shelf where I mostly keep flour. All the ones in
large yoghurt pots were fine, but one rather old bag of spelt
flour in a large plastic container was crawling with black bugs.
Yuck. Still, it gave me the motivation to clean out the cupboards
completely!
The boys got back about
3.30, having caught a service (shared taxi). Apparently they
all went out to lunch so they couldn't get the 1.30 bus. They
had a good time, although they were tired.
13th May - Had the second cockroach of
the year this evening :-( I saw it as I came out of the kitchen
during the evening, running out from a bookcase. Richard managed
to kill it, thankfully. I guess we're at that season when we
can expect at least one a week. I'm not sure how it got in -
although the back door and one of the kitchen windows were open
after dark, so it could have been from there.
Also we had yet more ants
in the kitchen, this time running along behind the coffee machine
and toaster. I sprayed them, then cleaned that work-surface completely
sprayed more biokill sprayed. Then I put out roach traps in the
kitchen and bathroom, , in dark place where they might hide <shudder>.
We haven't had any of the roach poison to put in drains for over
a year now, so I hope we're not going to be overrun with the
things. I hate using poison in the septic tanks, which go in
part to water some of our trees - and the shop moved so I couldn't
find it anyway.
Daniel did his clarinet
grade 5 exam this morning and said it didn't go very well :-(
Today was hot but not as bad as yesterday when it was about 35
in the shade during the afternoon, and very humid. We had the
a/c on yesterday and some of today, although thankfully it was
cooler in the evening. It cooled down before it got dark, so
I did have the windows open until about 7pm - I wish we could
keep them open longer but the insect problem gets very bad after
dark. The mozzie nettings over the shutters do help with keeping
insects out, but don't let in as much cold air as the wide-open
ones, obviously.
This morning I did some
weeding in the front garden, but by 9am it was too hot to be
outside. Richard put the sprinkler on the front half of the 'lawn'
last night for about an hour, and it did look less brown today.
I hope he can do that about once a week and we'll see if it makes
a difference. I'm thinking about trying to cut the grass on Saturday
mornings, since that's the coolest time of day - maybe 8am wouldn't
be too unsociable. It should be mostly shady.
16th May - Not so hot today, though still
feeling like summer. In the afternoon it clouded over and looked
as if it would rain - but there were only a few drops, unfortunately.
It' was cooler again this evening, though I had to shut the shutters
etc to keep bugs out. I'm a bit itchy with bites around my ankles
- that's what comes of wearing shorts, I suppose.
17th May - the boys are in Limassol again,
practiding for the recorder consort, then playing in it tomorrow
night. So Richard and I have had a weekend to ourselves. We cut
the 'grass', then he put the sprinkler on after we'd fniished
moved it all evening so I hope it'll look a little greener. It
was beginning to look rather brown.
Unfortunately, we've discovered
smelly water on the bottom step down to the basement again :-(
The bit of tank from the sink in teh bathroom had stopped leaking,
so I wonder if it found its way to the old bit of tank that was
supposed to have been closed off. Sigh. We may talk to the local
plumber and see if he has any ideas.
18th May - We decided to go to the Sunday
market for a look around after church - for the first time in
ages! It was rather hot and there seemed to be mostly clothes
stalls.. but just as we were leaving we saw a rattan stall with
laundry baskets, so bought one at £13 to replace the old
ali-baba one which was falling to pieces more and more each day.
We then went out to lunch at the Monte Carlo restaurant - very
nice place, not too pricey - but unfortunately very little choice
for me while not eating meat or sea-food. I had the one vegetarian
option - which was actually very nice, a bit of pasta with loads
of vegetables, although I was nearly ill when a waiter carried
past a whole dressed lobster for another table. It looked like
a giant upside-down cockroach :-( We were amused to see that
the restaurant seemed to be segregated - Cypriots by the windows
looking over the sea, mostly eating mese of some sort and drinking
a lot of wine; while the tourists were nearer the door, overlooking
the road!
We went out for a short
walk along the seafront about 9pm. It was rather too crowded
for me, though, so we didn't stay long. The flower festival was
earlier but we didn't go to that as we'd seen it a couple of
times before.
19th May - Today I decided to lift the
freesias, as the foliage had mostly died. I did that, then trimmed
the dead bits off all the porch plants. Also I did a little weeding
and sweeping in the front, and some weeding at the side, outside
the study window. The boys got back about 1pm, really tired.
I think they had a good time, although the concert was a bit
disappointing - with almost no audience feedback, as they were
just eating. By the end apparently the smoke was almost making
them choke :-(
21st May - About 7am I started the sprinkler
in the back garden, and took the wheelbarrow to the front so
I could do some serious weeding! Got all the dead lily leaves
onto the compost heap, and cut down lots of other stuff that
was getting straggly - till about 9am. I only got about half
the relevant bit of grass watered in that time, since the sun
came out over the rest, so I watered the trees with the spray
attachment. I'm a little concerned that once again there are
hardly any tiny oranges on the orange tree… very odd, since
there was no hailstorm this year, and loads of blossom a month
or two back. Maybe we should have watered even more?
The bougainvillea is stunning
at the moment - deep pink flowers everywhere. The bedding plants
are still surviving too; it'll be interesting to know how long
they go on, so long as I keep remembering to water them. The
patio ones look less healthy than the ones in the beds, oddly
enough. The climbing plant has started up our wall outside the
study, and no doubt will soon cover it. I wish it would grow
on the back wall! The pomegranetes look terrific with their scarlet
flowers. Having had such a snail-rremoving policy, and also having
given them compost, cleared them of weeds, and watered them more
regularly, there are far more flowers than usual, which may mean
even MORE pomegranates!! I hope we can give some away as it seems
a pity to waste so many - although they really are attractive
plants.
25th May - friends from the UK arrived
in the night, out for 'half-term' week. They didn't get up to
come to church with us, but there was a joint communion later
on, followed by potluck lunch, so they came to that - the last
one until September as it will be too hot in the summer months.
Thankfully the heatwave earlier in the month seems to have died
away, and it's now really quite pleasant, probably 28C during
the daytime, down to 18 or 19 overnight. The boys had a music
practice in the afternoon so Richard took our friends to McKenzy
beach - and to our surprise it clouded over, and there were even
a few spots of rain!
29th May - just back from a sailing trip
which our friends treated us to, Two nights on a yacht, and daytime
sailing - we left from Limassol and got as far as Pisouri. I'd
not been sailing before, so it was a new experience... I didn't
feel seasick at all, thankfully. Richard had a wonderful time
and I think the boys enjoyed it too. One of the yachting staff
had to come with us as 'skipper' since our friends didn't have
quite the required amount of experience, but this wasn't too
much of a problem, other than his smoking. There was some quite
rough water at one point, and although we'd hoped to get as far
as Paphos we decided it was better to have a more leisurely sail
than to push on rapidly and then struggle to get back in time
for the last 'service' home.
times since 30th June 2003