Sunday, December 31/2023

 New Year’s Eve. Unlike Christmas, New Year is a major holiday here and this is a long weekend. No snow or cold, obviously, although some of the flowering shrubs seem to be going into their quiet time. Our hibiscus sporting a Christmassy blossom.

Although what is Christmassy varies, as it should, with location. Some anomalies, though, as in South Cyprus where supermarket Christmas music used to include a slightly startling refrain of “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”. But only since spending the Christmas holiday period here has it become clear how very western - and in some cases recent - Christmas imagery tends to be.  OK, the manger scene and shepherds are Middle East, as they should be. And snow not unknown in Bethlehem although not all that frequent - we’ve been in Jerusalem when it snowed. Yule logs and mistletoe both ancient signs of life after the winter solstice, dating well back into pagan and Druid traditions. The Germans seem to have been the first to bring an evergreen inside and decorate it. In fact we can thank that Anglo-German couple Victoria and Albert for popularising the Christmas tree and much of what we regard as traditional Christmas custom. Traditions which with the help of the Dutch (think Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas) crossed the Atlantic to North America. Though only in North America is Saint Nick depicted as being fat. European Saint Nicholases (origin Türkiye by the way) tend to look slim, serious and episcopal.

So a quiet Christmas here and looking like a pretty quiet New Year. May 2024 bring peace to everyone, and especially to Gaza.

Saturday, December 30/2023

 Unlike last Saturday’s spit and miss weather, today is a perfect day for market. Because it’s a long weekend, and in some cases perhaps because people have gone away for a Christmas and New Year’s break, there are fewer stalls and fewer buyers, but still cheerful and some bargains to be had. English vendors tend to be selling on behalf of charities whereas Turkish speakers appear to be entrepreneurs, selling anything from used clothes to high tack kitsch to fruit and nuts. We buy a kilo of peanuts from the fruit and nut seller, as well as half a kilo of dried apricots and a couple of heads of garlic - obviously local as much of the garlic is braided. He’s an enthusiast, throwing in an extra handful of nuts and one of fruit. Then a half dozen oranges followed by three apples. Extra smiles. Good thing we brought the backpack.

Buy a jar of honey from an old man with five jars for sale. Purports to be wild flower honey. The man, who doesn’t speak English, points to the label with picture of flowers and identification in both English and Turkish. 

Final stop at the second hand book stall. Run by Caroline (our Blue Song acquaintance) and another woman. It’s an extensive display in support of animal rescue, impressive for quality as well as volume - and we leave a half dozen books heavier.

Back home honey proves to be every bit as good as hoped. And international gold prize winner.

Friday, December 29/2023

 Down to the Blue Song for the Friday gathering. Chat with Caroline about the early history of Cyprus. She’s an archaeologist and very knowledgeable and has some suggestions for reading material. It’s a part of the world where civilization goes back before written records and so it’s not always easy to establish who the occupants of the island were and when. 

It’s impossible to live here without being struck by the lush fertility despite the water shortages. And some of the food we eat regularly has a long history here. Wheat and barley and lentils were cultivated here in the Bronze Age. Probably also rye. Figs, almonds and pistachios have a very long history as well, as do olives and grapes - and wine making. So when we have lentil soup and bread we’re taking part in a tradition that is not centuries but millennia old. 

Thursday, December 28/2023

 The day begins, like all days, with the call to prayer from the mosque. While we, and I suspect the majority of our neighbours, do not observe it for its intended purpose, it still serves to punctuate the day, and during the months we lived in Famagusta it used to remind me to start preparing dinner. It’s somewhat like the medieval ringing of church bells for the Angelus, reminding those at home or in the fields to pray. (And, strange update, there is now apparently an iPhone app for the Angelus. Who knew?) And this morning there is another phenomenon sometimes associated with the call to prayer - a number of the village dogs have joined in, adding to the muezzin’s voice.

Finished our read aloud Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency book but now replaced it with an excellent read. Jonathan Kennedy’s Pathogenesis, on how germs shaped human history. Sounds too worthy, but absolutely riveting. Now possible to establish the DNA of bacteria and viruses found on human remains at archaeological sites and the results both elucidate and challenge historical assumptions. Keep wanting to buy copies to give people and the paperback isn’t even out until April.

Wednesday, December 27/2023

 Rain not expected in the next week according to the Met office. Hopefully more accurate than the weather apps that are pleased to tell you with impressive precision that rain will begin in seventeen minutes - when it’s already raining. And in fact we haven’t had any since Saturday even though December is statistically the rainiest month here. That’s probably true in terms of frequency of rain but it’s still a pretty dry country and creek beds near our place are dry although the orchards and flowering shrubs seem to be flourishing. Temperatures still around twenty at midday.

Tuesday, December 26/2023

 As in the rest of the world, Christmas here gives us time for reading and walking and excellent leftovers. We’re reading a couple of books aloud as we always do in our winters away. One of the bonuses derived from J’s not having endless work to do. Here cooking the meals is pretty well all the work we have to do, and it’s something we both enjoy, especially with all the fresh produce. Technically it wouldn’t qualify as certified organic, but as synthetic fertilisers and pesticides are unaffordable and therefore not used, it is essentially organic. And we do as we do everywhere in the world - eat the locally available food that is affordable and we like and avoid the highly processed and expensive imports.

So now we are reading aloud a couple of books, but the sheer pleasure one is one of the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency books by  Scottish writer Alexander McCall Smith. They’re all set in Botswana (McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia) and a total delight. Years ago when we were in Tunisian hotel  with one of the books in hand we listened to an interview with a man who had been held hostage in a Mumbai hotel room during a terrorist attack. Asked  how he had spent his time: “I had one of the Ladies Number One Detective Agency books to read."

Then an afternoon walk around our village. Not only hillside, but roads that must have been tracks before surfaced roads were thought of. And, happily, absolutely nothing squared off or parallel. New buildings amidst very old ones. Old stone walls. We can see from our deck a Swedish flag next to a palm tree and spot it again from its south side, but not entirely clear which house it belongs to and further investigation might involve an embarrassing amount of trespassing. Other houses open directly onto a road, and some roads appear to curve Scottish fashion around a house that may have predated the road. 

Downhill there is a fenced property we remember from last spring with goats grazing, orange trees, and an old fashioned bathtub serving as a drinking trough. Goats nowhere near the tub but can be glimpsed through an arched doorway as they gather behind the trees.

And supper of first class leftovers: cabbage rolls, and coq au vin, with chicken wing starters.

Monday, December 25/2023

Christmas Day. A very quiet day in our village, although in fact our village is usually pretty quiet. Not quiet because it is Christmas, which is not a public holiday in a mainly Islamic country, but because it also happens to be a Sunday, which is not generally a work day here. Beautiful day. Sunny and warm with a  breeze across the deck. 

The chicken has been marinating overnight in a bottle of seasoned Merlot and the mushrooms and glazed onions get added to it. Basic coq au vin recipe is from the Two Fat Ladies of previous television fame. All of their recipes are good, with no silly concessions made to economy or nutritional correctness. As someone said of them: “Oh yes, take a pound of butter and a quart of cream”. 

The only real concession we make is concerning bacon. We don’t have any nor does our little supermarket. It’s an Islamic culture but not a strictly observant one. So there are no real objections to having pork in the shops and in fact our local grocery store has tinned ham, probably Danish. But people here didn’t grow up eating pork and there’s not much market for it. Larger stores would have bacon in the freezer but ours doesn’t. Too late to look elsewhere by the time we realise so we’ve substituted smoked pork fillet from the Russian shop, which we already had in the fridge. Good, but too little fat for the purpose.

The coq au vin is lovely though. Bulgur pilaf with it. Far too much for two, so good leftovers in the offing. Very peaceful in a world with far too little peace. 

Sunday, December 24/2023

View from the salon window

 Sun on the mountain peak this morning, and shortly after eight on the bedroom wall. In fact the weather we hoped for yesterday, though just as welcome today as it would have been then. The bedroom is by far the warmest place in the flat. The salon has the sea view but a northern exposure and never any direct sun which must make it the most desirable room in summer. And not exactly freezing in this weather.

We’ve begun referring to the bedroom, depending on the time of day, of course, as the morning room. Used to read books set in posh houses featuring morning rooms. Thank you, Alice, I’ll have my coffee in the morning room. The sort of books where women who did no other work spent the morning answering letters - probably after giving instructions to the cook. Well, no cook, other than our good selves, and chronically behind responding to email.

But our bedroom does have, as well as the bed, two armchairs and a small table, so serves very well as a morning room for coffee or reading. Actually the drawback is that it can get too hot in direct sunlight, with the mercury expanding happily past the forty degree mark. That’s where the scale stops so impossible to assess beyond. Before it reaches that point, obviously, we move the chairs to a shadier corner. And by then the part of the deck in the sunlight will have reached twenty degrees. Definitely no complaints.

Had debated whether to cook the chicken today or tomorrow but when J was willing to make cabbage rolls for today we opted for chicken tomorrow.  Bird now reposing in a pot of wine and herbs awaiting the morrow.

Saturday, December 23/2023

 Knew before we came here that both deck and salon window looked down on the Mediterranean, usually deep cobalt blue but sometimes sullen grey. And knew that the bedroom and back deck looked almost straight up to the mountain peaks. But not expecting the striking panorama of the skies. Everyone has sky above so obviously we would. But on the Med side you can see for miles to the west along the north coast The radar will show the weather moving in from the west but so, more immediately, will a look to the west as the clouds move down the coast, leaving a village in or out of the sunlight. And looking to the south the skies above the mountains are vast and often dramatic as clouds change colour or turn to mist on the peaks.

So during the night there are wild flashes of lightning visible through the blinds as well as stormy winds. In the morning we try to decide whether to go to Lambousa market. A kilometre is no great distance unless you’re being rained on. We change our minds at about three minute intervals as the scudding clouds change colour and density. Finally decide that the odds of getting drenched coming back are just too high. Not as if there’s anything we actually need there. So leisurely toast and coffee and fruit and yoghurt. After which the sun comes out and the skies clear. Awesome the power we have over the weather. Too late? No, not really. If we leave right away we would be there by eleven. Not ideal, but all right.

As soon as we step outside a light rain starts with no warning. Plan B. Go as far as our little supermarket. Halloumi, blue cheese, extra old English cheese, oranges, tomatoes. And onions. There’s no such thing as too many onions. If it rains from now until after Christmas we’re good.

Friday, December 22/2023

 Wake up to rain, although it’s tapering off and soon produces a rainbow over the Mediterranean. Would like to go back to the Russian shop and nearby larger supermarket before Christmas but forecasts are slightly iffy - and, worse than that, those from different sources don’t always agree - so decide to get the indispensable groceries today and top them up later if the weather co-operates. So a chicken, more onions and mushrooms and peppers. And J scores a lovely and still warm olive baguette, obviously baked on the premises.

Christmas music not playing in the shops, this being a predominantly Muslim country, although Blue Song, and presumably a number of other restaurants do have decorations and a tree. Woman ahead of us at the supermarket checkout has two bottles of Bailey’s and we joke with her about the Christmas spirit. This is our twentieth Christmas in Cyprus, most of them in the South but a few spent with Jane and Bill at Ship Inn, down the road in Girne. 

So memories of Christmases past in Larnaca where the Franciscan church had an enthusiastic choir of Filipino women who provided  the standard Christmas carols with a slight twist. The Filipino pronunciation never quite anticipating the slurred joining of syllables - as in "th'incarnate deity" - leading to lines of music ending before all of the words had been fitted in - while a line with "Emanuel" in it had the opposite problem. Every Filipino knew that this is three syllables, pronounced Spanish style as "E-Manuel" - thus the words always finished before the melody. But it was always all heart - and pretty good melody too.

Thursday, December 21/2023

This would be the winter solstice if we were in Sioux Lookout. However time zones being what they are the solstice occurs in Greenwich at 03:27 on December 22 this year and therefore in Cyprus at 05:27. The term solstice is from the Latin meaning sun standing still - usually referring to the whole day but applying literally to the moment when the sun appears, from the point of view of earth, to stand still before moving closer to the [in this case northern] hemisphere. 

Not very wintry by our standards. Temperature in high teens but quite windy. We’re looking down on a Mediterranean with fairly big whitecaps and a sky too clouded to allow us to see Türkiye on the north shore. Decide to go down to our supermarket before promised rain begins. Out of oranges and mushrooms. Suspect that the employees think we’re heavier drinkers than we are. Buy sheep’s yoghurt on every trip, and bread and onions and peppers pretty regularly, but also a bottle of Italian Merlot each time we go. It’s been on sale for 99tl  (€3.09, $4.53 CAD, £2.67) apparently as they try to reduce stock. It’s quite drinkable and the sale won’t last forever, so we’re slowly transferring the stock to our cupboard. 

Rain doesn’t start until late afternoon but is accompanied by thunder and lightning, as predicted and we have an excellent view as we listen to Polish Christmas carols courtesy of Spotify.

Wednesday, December 20/2023

The day, like all days, begins with the Adhan, the call to prayer, from a nearby mosque. Am assuming recorded, although it may be live and certainly is in some places. The first call is pre-dawn and includes the words prayer is better than sleep. Doesn’t 

succeed in getting us out of bed if we hear it. 

These days Muslims anywhere in the world can go online and check the prayer times in their locality but obviously past days required simpler methods. The noon(ish) prayer, dhur, is meant to be when the length of your shadow is equal to your height. And the afternoon prayer, Asr, when your shadow is twice the length of your height. Pretty easy for anyone to assess anywhere, and reminds me of the rule, understood by quite small children, that you need sunscreen if your shadow is shorter than you are.

So today we are sitting in the sun on the deck when the first notes of the afternoon prayer begin. Think that surely it can’t be time yet. Twenty past two. But stand up and sure enough my shadow looks to be twice my height. We’re approaching the shortest day of the year, although at our latitude, 35.3364 degrees north, the days are not all that short. Asr in Sioux Lookout today would have been at 1:51 pm, and the day - sunrise to sunset - eight hours and three minutes instead of Lapta’s nine hours and 

forty-six minutes.

Tuesday, December 19/2023

 

Just before seven the sun reaches the tip of what we have christened the marble mountain. The Pentadaktylos mountain range runs for a hundred miles along the northern coast of Cyprus and this is its highest peak, just above and very slightly to the west of us. Marble Mountain not an inappropriate name either, as the mountains are mainly hard crystalline limestone with some marble. Which may go some way toward explaining the prevalence of marble floors and countertops in this country. It will be more than an hour before the sunlight will be gracing our bedroom walls but the light illuminating the mountain peak is a happy sign of the morning to come.

Take the dolmuş to China Bazaar. It’s an inexpensive chain of general goods. Think Walmart but downscale a bit in things like small appliances. Most goods Turkish made so not always the highest quality but often not bad. Were delighted during the lockdown when we got to go to China Bazaar and pick up a couple of shirts for hot weather as we hadn’t expected to be there beyond March. On the other hand, more recently, the place where we bought the corkscrew so badly designed as to be completely unworkable - though admittedly not expensive.  But the best place to try for things like shoelaces or dish towels - or today a squeegee for the shower. Pure luck if anyone speaks English but always someone like a lovely woman today willing to try. And amazing what can be conveyed seemingly by sheer force of good will on both sides. Back about half past three by which time the main road is almost gridlocked. Happy to escape back to our village.

Monday, December 18/2023

 

Last of the oranges from our orange tree at breakfast. Not that oranges are expensive or difficult to find, though many of the ones that grow along the roadside are, as in the South, really only decorative - sour and seedy. Best bought from the grocery store although, like zucchini in Canada, often given away by those with more than they can use. Friday there was a box of oranges at the door after the meeting inviting people to help themselves.

Local grocery store has mandarins at 22.99 Turkish lira a kilo ($1.05 CAD, €0.72, £0.63). Interestingly our instinctive mental conversion is not to dollars or sterling but to euros as we assess the value of an item. And equally interestingly, the local tendency is to quote a sterling price as an alternative to lira,  presumably because Cyprus does have a history as a British colony but the euro came into being in 1999, well after the partition of Cyprus. And in fact the euro has only been in use in the South since January 1, 2008. We were there at the time and turned in our Cyprus pounds (not the same as pounds sterling) in exchange for brand new euros. 

Lemons here even more abundant than oranges. Have occasionally made lemon curd in Canada, where the cost of lemons is a significant factor. Here the lemons are free, or nearly so, at this time of year. Only the butter is expensive. As always when making it am struck by the fact that the bright yellow « lemon » colour comes not from the lemon juice or the butter but from the egg yolks - here the free range ones deeply coloured. Nectar of the gods.

Sunday, December 17/2023

 Another warm day. Don’t really want to find that we’re celebrating global warming, but twenty is actually a bit above average December highs here and we’re not complaining. Walk down to Blue Song in the late afternoon. One of our favourite restaurants and about a mile from us. Possible to eat either inside or out and with sliding glass doors not really much difference. J has chicken curry, which he’s had before here and I order giant prawns in garlic butter, which is a first. Messier than anticipated but a pleasure to eat. 

Saturday, December 16/2023

 Saturday is Lambousa market day. Lambousa really an ancient name for Lapta. It was a community founded on the north coast of Cyprus, about three kilometres northeast of where we are now. There is archaeological evidence of people living there by three thousand BCE and historical references going back to at least 1000 BCE. Arab raids were frequent in the seventh century CE and forced the inhabitants of Lambousa to move uphill into the present Lapta village area and away from the harassment along the coast.

So the weekly market has taken the ancient name. About a kilometre from our place and a warm day, temperature just over 20. The market’s a cheerful affair with dozens of booths selling everything from dried fruit and nuts to second hand clothes and books, to Christmas baking and decorations to new silver jewellery to charity shop overflow. A man is pressing wine coloured juice from fresh pomegranates and there are bottles of local olive oil for sale. A couple of large and very friendly dogs enjoying all the activity and garnering the occasional treat as well. We do buy a generously measured kilo of shelled peanuts and a couple of books. Most prices not bad and some of the second hand things a real bargain.

Friday, December 15/2023

 

J makes lemon jam. I’m sceptical, having made marmalade in Cyprus with only a pen knife to work with. Results were good but process pretty laborious. Agree that there should be sufficient pectin in the lemons and only mildly disturbed by the lack of scales and measuring cups. Haven’t used them for lemon marmalade or lemon curd, both of which were fine, but am dubious about his certainty that a few minutes in the microwave will do it, having made other jams all of which involved rolling boil, cold saucer from the freezer and significant time. Happily, I’m wrong and he is gloriously right. Lovely glass of lemon jam in minutes - and lemons dropping off neighbouring trees by the dozens.

Walk down to the Blue Song for the pre-Christmas gathering. Forgo the mulled wine in favour of a couple of glasses of draft, but there are cakes and mince pies that people have baked and a pretty festive atmosphere. Tables outside and in and whoever was slated to wear the Santa suit must be pretty warm as the temperature is about twenty.

Thursday, December 14/2023

Sun-drying olives on the sunny end of the bed

 Still exploring our neighbourhood. This time uphill heading east. As always, knowing that if it’s uphill going it will be downhill coming home. May only be me, but somehow reality on the ground never quite matches the maps. Do have to say that streets here usually have signs, though not at every corner. Sometimes a little the worse for wear, as with one we see that is so worn I initially take the lettering for Arabic. One street most of the way but the street has several sharp changes of direction. And streets here do sometimes change name London style even when there is no change of direction. Presumably for the same reason as in London - the road once passed through different villages which later merged. 

Realise that J and I have completely different styles of navigating. He goes by landmarks and a global sense of location. I study the maps and memorise directions and names. J says add in mountaineering. In theory methods should be complementary - and occasionally this is the case. 

Tentative destination is Altınbaşak, a small informal family restaurant with Turkish food that we have visited before. And are pleased to find it through a mixture of navigation methods and instinct. Possibly also a bit of luck, but we could find it again. Neighbourhood has a nice village-y feeling. Too old to have been dismantled for apartment construction, although some of that is happening further downhill.

Girl’s English more than our Turkish, but not hugely more. However humour and goodwill on both sides and everything communicated, including horrified amusement when I begin to present a fifty euro note instead of a 50 lira one. They are the same colour but the euro worth about 30 times as much as the lira.

Wednesday, December 13/2023

 Walk down to Bestmar - all North Cypriot supermarkets seem to have names ending in mar. It’s on the main western road - Çakmak or Karaoğlanoğlu depending on how far west you go. It’s a little under two kilometres, and happily not uphill. Really not uphill returning either except for the last couple of blocks. Pass plenty of fruit trees - mainly orange and lemon as well as some fig. One orange tree in a field of mixed sheep and goats.

More variety at Bestmar than at our local store. Some prices better, but definitely not all. We do find the blood orange gin that we discovered last spring. Still an astonishing bargain at approximately €3 ($4.40 CAD, £2.59) for a 70 cl bottle. And lovely delicate taste.

Tuesday, December 12/2023

 Walk over to Lapta municipal office (belediyesi in Turkish, although in Turkish the final vowel almost disappears, against all the instincts of an English speaker. Home via The Legend of Troy, the little bar underneath the place we rented in the spring. It was being renovated then by a young Russian man who was leasing it and was just about to reopen when we left. He’s left a note on the door to say he’s in the garden but sees us arrive and abandons his gardening role to come down and play bartender. Lovely and cosy inside but it’s warm in the sunshine and we’d rather sit outside.

And we’re greeted by an old friend. Marmalade, one of the two - arguably three - cats that we considered ours when we lived here. (The third we christened NOC, short for Not Our Cat - but he had other ideas). Marmalade clearly remembers us and is happy to rub against J’s legs and enjoy being petted. No sign of Yowl, though. My favourite, but sadly short on survival skills. Continually showing up after fights he’d clearly lost but unable to stay away if he heard a brawl in the distance. We understand that a German woman rented the house after us and would be interested in meeting her but no sign that she’s home. Another time.

Then down to “our” supermarket. Hoping to stock up on a few basics. Have become used to buying much smaller quantities of fruit and vegetables. Did we really plan to eat more than three tomatoes today? They’ll be there again tomorrow. And if we buy more aubergines than we plan to cook in the next day they won’t be as nice by the time we get round to them. We do have a large fridge, but so many things do better unrefrigerated. Tomatoes lose not only taste when refrigerated but also nutritional content. Growing season here much longer. Surprisingly, flour and sugar only available in smaller quantities than we’d usually consider. A kilo and a half of sugar probably more than we’ll need, despite the irresistible urge to make lemon curd with the free, fresh lemons. But flour almost entirely in one kilo bags - only one of which contains whole wheat flour, which is all we normally use. Does raise the question, though - do people here ever bake?

Monday, December 11/2023

 J puts up the Christmas tree. We’ve had it so long neither of us has a clear memory of acquiring it. Think it must have come from one of the gatherings they used to have at St Helena’s in Larnaca in conjunction with the Nine Lessons and Carols. Not quite able to compete musically with the annual Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, but followed by a warm, friendly time upstairs with mulled wine and mince pies and Christmassy things for sale.

.

Fortunately J less of a purist than I re Christmas decorations. I actually think the tree should go up Christmas Eve - after Advent. Sort of like not handing out Easter eggs all the way through Lent. Has the added advantage of not being tired of listening to Christmas songs and sweeping up dried out pine needles before New Year’s. But have to admit it’s a cheerful look. And our tree needleless.