The Return of ...

Well I’m stunned ... our oven has been repaired and is being returned this afternoon. It’s only been five weeks. We have become masters of the gas hob, the slow cooker and the microwave. I just hope we haven’t forgotten how to use an electric oven.

What a palaver! Ann and I almost said “Sod it” and went off to buy a replacement oven. This oven is about fifteen years old and parts were almost impossible to come by but Andreas, the man who apparently can repair anything electrical, has eventually found the parts. It will certainly make cooking easier - scouring recipe books to find things to cook in a slow cooker was fun to begin with and then just a bit of a bind.

The weather is grey and dull at the moment, although not as cold as last week. We cheer ourselves up with the guarantee of months of blue skies and sunshine (when no doubt we shall find it too hot), but we wouldn’t be British if we didn’t talk about the weather.

We have been back and forwards to Paphos recently (hospital trips and shopping for things we cannot find in Polis). I suppose it is a good thing that we have a large shopping centre forty-five minutes away but I’m a country boy at heart and would hate to live there. Kamikaze drivers are lurking around every corner (and they are not all Cypriots by any means) and it is marvellous to be driving out of town and heading for home.

We are both in rude good health, thank heaven, and long may that continue. The dry, warm weather for most of the year must help. In 2008 I was in hospital for a serious operation, and the cretinous nurse “looking after” me forgot to lock the bed. I sat down, the bed skated away and I hurt my knee badly. There was a bit of a fuss and doctors appeared mysteriously from all sorts of places. Scans and X-rays were ordered and then a very senior doctor came to tell me that the pain in my knee was not the result of my accident but early-onset arthritis. What a load of utter bollocks. I suppose they were terrified that I would reach for my lawyer.

Twelve years on there is no sign of the alleged arthritis. And this was at the hospital where I developed MRSA and spent a month there, not being aware how close to death I was. The NHS is lauded all over the place but not by me. To be fair the plumbing they did (coronary triple bypass) has worked brilliantly. But when I was returned to the coronary ward I was surrounded by familiar faces - all of whom had picked up an infection of one sort or another.

And Boris wants to shovel untold millions into the bottomless pit ...

Single figure temperatures ...

Well I suppose it had to happen ... the weather, which has been very wet, is drying up and the forecast is for evening temperatures to be in single figures. In fact on Friday of this week the temperature will fall to 2°C. It is reported that snow in the Troodos is 79 cm deep. Brrr!

I saw a lovely “meme” on Facebook which said that Christmas was now over and I’m ready for summer. Well it’s not quite the same for us. Of course we get fed up when it rains and the temperature drops, but know that months and months of blue skies and sunshine is only a few weeks away. But we wouldn’t be British if we didn’t talk about the weather.

I’ve been watching the South Africa v England test matches on television and it is a perverse pleasure watching cricket under blue skies whilst we have the log burner on. And to make matters even more confusing the Six Nations’ Rugby Championship starts in February. We have often commented that it is not always clear what day of the week it is (and that isn’t the early stages of dementia) but that it really doesn’t matter what day it is, unless you want to go to the bank (which we don’t).

We are still without an oven (and that is a long, long story) but hope that it will return in full working order this week. We have become expert in creating food in the slow cooker, aided by a number of cookery books we have acquired recently. Ann, in particular, has produced some marvellous dishes with the help of Jamie Oliver’s “Veg” cookbook. If you want to cut down on eating meat (which I suspect everyone does from time to time) then this book is highly recommended. We were initially put off as Amazon wanted to charge us as much for shipping as the cost of the book itself. But a kind member of our expat forum ordered it to be delivered free to his address in the UK (as he was going back there) and then brought it back to Cyprus with him. We had a clandestine meeting outside of Lidl in Paphos where the goods were exchanged for cash. The goods were, as you might expect, in a plain brown paper bag.

As promised ...

2020 is here and we embrace the future with relish in this golden land. This our eighth New Year in Cyprus and, although there have been some hiccups in the last eighteen months, we survived and intend to prosper.

With the political turmoil in the UK seemingly arrested for the moment I would imagine all British citizens living in the EU will be considering their options. Do we trust Boris Johnson to protect our interests? Not at all. Like health in Cyprus, you must ensure you take responsibility. Don’t expect the all-embracing care of the NHS. Will the U.K. abandon its citizens and no longer take responsibility for expat healthcare? Nobody knows and I suspect nobody trusts the government to honour its obligations.

To counter this, we applied for and received “permanent residence” here with the MEU3 form. The Cyprus government makes this available to EU citizens after five years of residence. It cost us some money to get it all sorted but worth every cent. We are also registered with GESY, which is the new health system here. At the moment the U.K. government pays for that (via the S1) but, if not, we can still remain in the system if we pay 2.7% of our income - which is considerably cheaper than private health insurance.

Of course it may all turn out as hoped but we are prepared for the worst. Tory, Labour, Lib Dem - they are all equally untrustworthy and we go ahead on that premise.

Onwards and upwards.