2nd October: All seems to be well after our
four-week trip to the UK. It's not as hot as it was when we left
of course, but still warm and sunny. Everything went smoothly,
all our luggage arrived, our car (which friends had borrowed
while we were away) was waiting for us at the airport, and we
got home about 3am. We're all rather tired today of course but
I think we got 4 or 5 hours sleep. The cats are pleased to see
us, and Tim in particular is looking forward to getting back
into his various group activities.
3rd October: I spoke too soon. The heavens
opened, and we had a most torrential downpour and thunderstorm!
More rain than we saw during our entire month in the UK. However
it cleared up within a few hours.
8th October: It's been a busy few days! On
Saturday the Greek Evangelical Church had its annual Autumn Fair,
attracting hundreds of local children to bouncy castles and other
activities. The boys were both helping at one of the booths,
and Tim was playing keyboard with Narrow Gate, the youth band,
despite having missed all the September practices! I gather it
went fairly well.
A couple of days later,
we were privileged to meet yet more home educators from the UK,
who were on holiday in Cyprus. This time it was Wendy and family,
who run the excellent Educationsense
site. They came and spent a day with us, mostly chatting
outside as it was warm and sunny. Wendy showed Daniel how to
make 'poi' for warming up his muscles before juggling - and doing
some impressive routines as well. They used tennis balls, old
socks, and string - and after a brief demonstration, Daniel picked
up the basics without too much difficulty. He's going to do some
online research to find out more.
13th October: The weather has been very pleasant
in the past week. It's around 27-28C in the daytime, down to
a pleasantly cool 18-ish overnight. Just about ideal, really,
if only it would last! Still, it doesn't usually start to get
chilly till at least mid-November, sometimes not till mid- December.
The boys are not yet fully
back in the swing of their various activities, but seem to be
quite busy already. Daniel's decided to be in
the Antidote Theatre Christmas production - it's not a pantomime
this time, but a play for children called 'The Dancing Bear'.
He's going to be a star (twinkling variety), apparently; not
a huge part, but something like the genie in Disney's Aladdin
that was played by Robin Williams. Rehearsals have started so
that's occupying him, not as much as the 'Frog Prince' did last
year but still a fair amount of time. He's also been promoted
to playing with the 'first' clarinets in the municipal band,
after being with the 'seconds' for the past year, and the 'thirds'
for a couple of years before that. He was beginning to get a
bit bored of the band so I hope this will renew his enthusiasm.
Apparently some of the long-standing clarinet players have left,
or moved on. With his clarinet re-padded, and a new mouthpiece,
Daniel's a lot happier with it.
Richard's in Egypt until
Sunday morning, which means he misses his and Daniel's joint
birthday for the first time. He'd hoped to be able to come back
Thursday morning early, but things haven't been going too well
with the Internet radio station, and there's really no way he
can leave any earlier. So we'll probably have a celebration of
sorts on Sunday, although Richard is likely to be incredibly
tired as the flight gets in around 8am... meaning he has to check
in at Cairo around 4am, so he usually doesn't get any sleep at
all.
25th October: Life here is almost back to its
normal busy self, although Tim hasn't yet phoned to arrange his
tennis or guitar lessons, and Daniel hasn't yet arranged his
Greek lessons! But life seems to rush by full of action, and
suddenly it's the weekend again.
Richard was in Egypt for
10 days, including his birthday, but eventually the Internet
radio station was launched and he came back last Sunday, very
tired as ever, but just about caught up with sleep now. Unfortunately
his laptop computer got a nasty virus just before he left, as
he hadn't updated AVG recently
enough. He managed to heal it mostly, but a couple of important
programs refused to work
so he's had to do a major reinstall, which seems to have been
going on all week with all the various programs he runs. At least
he's got Word working again.
The weather is still fairly
warm, about 28C in the daytime, and down to 16 or so overnight,
so cool enough to need a light cover. Ideal really, even a bit
on the warm side sometimes, but no doubt it will get cooler soon
enough. There's a thunderstorm predicted for Tuesday, which is
a little worrying as our church currently has no roof! It has
needed doing for a long time, as it still had the original roof
which was put on about 100 years ago, and was leaking quite badly
by the end of last winter. I gather the whole structure needed
repairing: they couldn't just replace a few tiles, so this is
major work - and as ever, in Cyprus, it happens quite slowly.
I gather it was very dusty inside on Friday, but was being cleaned
today for the services tomorrow.
Tim's going to be busy
playing the piano tomorrow - our service at 9am, then the monthly
joint communion service at 12.30, then a
Christmas choir practice at 5pm! He's been asked officially to
play the piano in the concert this year, so at least he won't
be doing it at the last minute as he did last year.
Last night the youth group
did what we used to call a 'Tramps' Supper' , or 'Progressive
meal' - ie going to one home for a starter, another home for
the main course, and somewhere else for puds. However this one
went by the rather clever name of 'Grub crawl'! Afterwards they
went to someone's house and got back about 11pm. This evening
they had the boys' Bible study here, which finished about half
an hour ago - however they're going down to the sea-front at
nine, and will no doubt have another late night, so just as well
we get the extra hours tonight.
30th October: The weather seems to have 'broken'
here at last, after a really very pleasant October. On Tuesday
it was 'Ochi Day' ('ch' pronounced as in 'loch', meaning 'no')
which meant the band marching, and parades of all the schools,
Scouts etc. Also our church was being re-roofed and had just
had the wooden part put on, but nothing waterproof. Thunderstorms
and rain were predicted for Tuesday, but thankfully the rain
didn't happen or it would have wrecked the roof, and also would
have been a real problem for the thousands of people out marching!
However it was extremely
windy all day, and overnight the temperature dropped so that
yesterday it didn't get any warmer than about 16C, quite a shock
to the system when it had been 26-28 for the previous month!
Richard went from tee-shirt to a sweatshirt AND a fleece, as
there was quite a biting wind too. However today was a bit warmer,
and the sun came out; the forecast is for warmer weather again
in the next few days, so I suppose winter hasn't actually arrived
yet. I'm not sorry that it's a bit cooler, since it had been
really quite humid, surprisingly so for October.
times since 2nd January 2004