Miscellaneous interests
God
As you might guess from the nature of Richard's work, we're all committed Christians. We started life as Anglicans, and our 'sending church' in Birmingham is Christchurch, Selly Park. Tim returned there, when he lived in Birmingham for three years, and we still visit them whenever possible when we're back in the UK. We are also thankful for connections and support from St Andrews Church, Burgess Hill.
Here in Larnaka we all used to attend services and other
activities at Larnaka
Community Church,
primarily because it had other families and excellent children's/youth
work. Daniel played clarinet in
the music group, and Tim played guitar, then took over as
pianist. When
Tim was about sixteen, he decided to move to St Helena's Anglican
church,
and a year later became their organist and choir director until he
moved away from
Cyprus to attend university. We do not currently attend any church
regularly, but have connections with many congregations around the
island.
Home Education
We started home educating in late October 1997 when we moved to Cyprus. I run a web site about home education, with information about the legalities in the UK, suggestions for getting started, resources, and further links. It's called Home education in the UK. I also wrote a chapter in a book called Free Range Education (otherwise known as FREd) which was published at the end of 2000.
You can read in detail about our early forays into home
education when we moved to Cyprus, in the home education diary pagesof
this site. Although we are now empty-nesters, we are
somewhat involved
with the Cyprus home educators. Home education is not in fact legal on
the island and while we were unaware of this at first, and never
queried, it's become more difficult for families nowadays.
Cats
Some people love dogs. We love cats. Our first, much-loved cat Toby went with us to the USA when we lived there in the early 1990s, and died there at the age of 15. We were then cat-less for a few years until we came to Cyprus. We adopted Cleo in the Summer of 1998 and then kept two of her kittens, Sophia and Jemima, who were born in February 1999. Tessie arrived on our doorstep in December 2000to complete our feline family. Sadly, Jemima vanished in November 2007, Tessie in November 2014, and Sophia in November 2015. We have no idea what happened to any of them. Their personalities are distinct, and we cannot imagine life without them.
In August 2014 we adopted two kittens, Alexander the Great and Joan
of Arc. Tim, who was living in Cyprus at the time, adopted their
litter-sister Lady Jane Grey. Joan then disappeared in December 2015;
again, we don't know what happened to her. When Tim moved back to the
UK in the summer of 2016, we adopted Lady Jane. Cleo, meanwhile,
became frailer and eventually died at the age of eighteen and a half,
in January 2017.
Books
We
are all enthusiastic readers. The boys used to get
through
several books every week, so we gradually moved our UK books here,
acquired more through second-hand shops, church stalls and charity
shops, and put books on our wishlists. We currently have over 3,000.For a lengthy list of personal recommendations,
look at my books blog where I have reviewed every book I have read since April 1998. There are over 1800 reviews there now.
Richard published his first book a few years ago, through
CreateSpace, and has helped friends publish their books too. In 2017
Sue edited and proofread her father's memoirs, and Richard helped to
publish his book. Links to the two family books are in the
sidebar. We hope to publish more in 2018.
Personality types
Years ago, we were introduced to the Myers-Briggs personality indicator. We have found this very useful in
understanding each other, and in seeing how we all learn in
different ways. Our types are: ENFP
(Richard),
INFJ
(Sue), INFP
(Daniel) and ENTJ
(Timothy). To find out
more about this system, see one of: Myers Briggs site,
the Team
Technology site, or the excellent BestFitType site.
Chocolate
Our
family all love chocolate. Our house in the UK is less than a
mile away from the Cadbury's chocolate factory in
Bournville. Those 'factory smells' of Birmingham
aren't all unpleasant! For a wonderful site dedicated to the
history and production of chocolate, look at the Cadbury's site.
Games
As a family, we've always enjoyed board games. As the boys entered the teenage years, the ones we played most often were Rummikub and Mahjong. When they left home, we made some new friends and began playing more Scrabble, and also - new to us at first - Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne.