4th October: The weather has stayed hot -
more so than usual for this time of year, up to about 30-32 most
days in September, although thankfully a bit cooler overnight.
We've even had to use the air conditioning a few times recently,
something I don't ever remember doing in October. My father was
out with us for the past fortnight and flew back early yesterday
morning, but Richard was pretty busy at work and it was really
too hot to do anything much. He did go out for a walk most mornings
before the temperatures got too high, but as he's seen most of
the interesting things in Cyprus before he was quite happy to
spend most of his time here reading, or sitting in the sun, or
playing games or watching DVDs with the boys.
Daniel's now working at
the theatre group with rehearsals most mornings for their next
production, and various things in afternoons and evenings. Richard
has been helping with installing lighting and sound in the new
theatre, and ensuring that they meet European safety regulations.
Cypriots tend to be very 'relaxed' about rules and regulations,
which isn't a bad thing in some circumstances, but where safety
is concerned Richard is pretty inflexible.
Tim's already started
working on Christmas music; the inter-church choir who sing annually
at a public concert had their first rehearsal yesterday, which
I gather went quite well. Tim will be accompanying them as pianist
again, so he had the music to work on about a week ago, but says
it's extremely difficult. The boys' other activities are slowly
starting up again after the summer, and we keep hoping for the
first rain - I don't think we've had any at all here since March,
although last winter was extremely wet, and the Salt Lake has
not dried out completely even without any rain recently. Richard
is enjoying the long summer but I begin to feel the need for
some Autumn!
17th October: It's been a busy weekend! Daniel
celebrated his 18th birthday yesterday, and although he hasn't
wanted a party for the last few years, we thought it would be
a good idea to have one this year, particularly as it fell on
a Saturday. Unlike teenage parties of my own memories, he definitely
wanted Richard and me to be about, and my mother who is staying
with us. He invited about forty people in all, and I suppose
thirty or more turned up, which was good. One or two who were
expected did not arrive, but apparently that's quite normal in
Cyprus.
Again unlike parties from
my teenage years, they spent most of their time sitting around
chatting with a pencil-and-paper game at the beginning to help
people get to know each other. I'd produced a large amount of
buffet food: far too much, as ever, so we'll be eating pasta
salad and peanuts all week, if not longer. We did buy some wine
and beer but very little of those were taken; we also had large
quantities of fruit juice and fizzy drinks, and of course many
teenagers here only drink water. All in all it was very pleasant.
It officially started at 5pm, but instead of going on until past
11pm as expected, everyone has gone by nine o'clock. Just as
well really as we were all exhausted but I think everyone enjoyed
it.
Daniel's main birthday
present - a special one for his 18th, bought with money from
Richhrd's mother as well as from us, is a drum kit. He's continued
teaching himself drumming via the Internet on the church's electronic
kit, and occasionally practising on the munipal music school
kit, so it did seem like a good idea for him to have a proper
one. After a great deal of discussion, and trying out several
in the shop, he chose one that's blue which goes well in his
bedroom. He's going to arrange some drum lessons soon as we've
heard of a good teacher locally.
I've very much neglected
the garden in the past few weeks other than continuing to water
all the plants on Saturday evenings - I really feel as if I've
had enough of using that hose for this year! Most of it's still
very dried out, but one pleasant surprise is that the bougainvillea
planted against a sunny wall at the end of the back garden in
the spring has flourished amazingly and is now producing gorgeous
deep pink bracts while almost everything else looks dry and sad.
31th October: We're having another very busy
weekend, dominated by yesterday's Grand Opening of the new Antidote
Theatre and premiere of the new play, 'The Little Man's Best
Friend'. All week in every spare moment Richard was getting the
lighting system organised - including getting a full script and
rehearsing with them. It went extremely well! It's an unusual
play about a lonely man, adapted from a children's book. They're
advertising it as being a children's play, but I think it may
be rather over the heads of some small Cypriot children who are
used to fast action and humour. The audience were mostly adults
including some local VIPs, and it was filmed by the Cyprus television
company. The play is mainly music-driven with very few lines;
it was done in Greek but English friends who are staying with
us had no problem understanding, since most of the drama is in
the acting.
This morning here was
a youth service at church with Tim helping to organise and mostly
lead the music, then our housegroup had a potluck lunch at someone
else's house. I the evening we were hosting nearly 50 people
for a friend's 65th birthday! We're having to reorganise the
house somewhat as they have arranged for various 'cultural items',
mostly musical, and want everyone to be able to sit down with
as many as possible in the living room! We moved our big table
out to the central 'atrium' room, and just about every chair
we possess into the living/dining room, plus cleaning up all
the white plastic garden chairs (we have 14 of those) and bringing
those in. Tim will be exhausted by the end of the day as he's
taking part in two of the musical items; just to add to his busy
day he had to play the guitar between church and the potluck
for a sea-baptism - and he's playing piano for the inter-church
choir practice before the evening party.
Still, at least we got
an extra hour's sleep with the clock change for daylight savings
time, meaning we were all up bright and early. The dark evenings
will be a bit depressing, but it's nice to see it almost light
at 6am again.
There was about half an
hour of heavy rain on Friday night, really the first since March.
Richard was still up and at the theatre, so he noticed it; however
it wasnt' loud enough to wake me, and by the morning it had all
dried up again. The weather doesn't seem to be noticeably cooler
either, although at least it's less humid than it was at the
start of the month. There are Autumnal leaves falling all over
our garden, but it still feels like the end of Summer.
times since 9th November 2004