Pissouri, Cyprus - stricter lockdown rules

Last night the Cyprus government announced stricter social distancing measures. The new cases (I think there were 35) mostly occurred in people who were still socializing with family. Cypriots are very family orientated.
So now there is a curfew from 10pm to 6 am, we can only go out once a day, we can only go out for an hour, there can only be 3 people in a car, everyone under 65 has to use the mobile phone system to get permission to go out and the fines for not following the rules have doubled to 300 Euro.
Well the curfew doesn't really effect me but this curtails my long walks. I will have to walk faster if I want to continue exploring the area. I am going to stay in every other day (maybe just a short walk around the neighbourhood) not wanting to push my luck. I know that what I have been doing has not put me or anyone else at risk but I also know that to get control of this thing we all have to work together, following the rules.
The good news is that TuGo, my travel medical insurance provider, called and they have decided to extend my coverage until my flight at the beginning of May (with no Coronavirus exclusion!). I am really glad I pushed it and really glad that the woman I was talking to took it up her "chain of command". She said that they are unlikely to extend it any further and I said if I didn't fly out I would be asking them to. She said "you can always ask".

I didn't go out today. It was extremely windy, gusting up to 70km an hour and a lot of dust/sand to get in my eyes. So here are some photos that I have taken this week that haven't made it into the blog:

Many of the orange trees are in bloom, even though they still have fruit on them. They smell lovely. Many lemon trees produce fruit on a continual basis but oranges flower now and take 8 or more months to produce fruit.

Now that the almonds have finished flowering

other trees have been taking over.

Olive trees don't seem to flower but you can see where the fruit is going to grow.

A new addition to the "gardening from scraps" experiment, celery. I bought a huge bunch when I was last at Paps, complete with a lot of greenery on top of the stalks. I looked it up and you can use all that green leaf as if it was parsley so that has been chopped up and put in salads and chopped fine and put in dinners.

Boy, landscapes are tough! As is mixing paint to get the right colour.So I went back to flowers .

 Both of my watercolour teachers said that they had a favorite brush and tended to use it almost exclusively. I have been using one brush most of the time

the lower one, so I decided today to paint only with that small one at the top of the photo.

Gives a different effect. This was a useful exercise as it gave me a better idea of when to use this brush.

Later in the afternoon I did a trial run of Christine's trivia game. This is the third week she has hosted a trivia contest for family and friends and each time there are more joining in. The use of Zoom and Google Docs worked well last week so that is what she is using again.

Now for the guest photographers;

Mark, my sailing skipper, sent this shot of his dog, Bailey.

 Daniele, my sister-in-law, sent me this video of Rasta playing with a catnip mitten. You can see his little thumb (that always creeps Chris out).

Pissouri, Cyprus - gardening from scraps and health care

I will start with Health Care. It has been one of my major concerns since "getting stuck". On 2 levels 1) the medication that I take for acid reflux. This stops a persistent, annoying cough that disturbs my sleep and is not good for my throat and larynx. 2) Medical insurance for any number of possibilities that I don't even want to think about.

I set off this morning to the Pharmacy to look into the acid reflux medication and, as one is a prescribed pill, find out how to get that prescription filled here.

Good news - the prescription meds they just handed to me, even though it says on the package "Medicinal product subject to medical prescription ". I just got 20 tablets so I can check that it is fine.

The Pepcid, that I take once a day only came in a double dosage but my Canadian package says I can take 2. So again I will try it out and see how it is. No prescription needed and both cost me about 1/3rd of what they would have cost me at home. I may stock up.

So now to the travel medical insurance. I sent TuGo an e-mail last week and left them a phone message today. Today I got a phone call and paid for the longest extension that they will give me which is 10 days. In the mean time I will look into OHIP (Nic's suggestion) and they will look into the possibility of a policy excluding Coronavirus. Best I can do right now.

So, back to my walk down to the Pharmacy. This was at the side of the road. It looks like a melon vine though I am sure it is just a weed.

I don't have to worry about the cats in the Village Square, O'Vrakas Restaurant is obviously still feeding them.

This Mimosa is now in full bloom and smells divine.

The farmers have been out preparing fields. This vineyard, plowed in both directions, looks like a plaid, from above.

In conversation the other day Kay said she missed being able to go to the Panorama Lounge. Well Kay, here is the view, sorry it is closed.

Looking up at where I walked 2 days ago I could just make out the goat sheds

and the chapel below. I have a better idea which track to take now.

Tree flowers

Cactus tree flowers? Lots of new, yellow growth anyway.

Fig trees are not just leafing out but also

setting fruit.

As I was 2 days away from a coffee crisis, I went to Paps as well as the pharmacy and got ground coffee (not the instant that is so popular here), ground decaf and Melita filters. Crisis averted!

Proud of myself that I was able to walk straight up to the village and home without my usual rest on the bench, half way up the hill. For the record; to Paps and back is 5,000 steps.

 After lunch I pulled weeds, next door in Cameron/Nikki's garden but now I am going to post pictures of my gardening experiments. Gardening from scraps!

3 days ago I bought a lettuce. Cut off all the leaves and washed them (lots of dirt in them) and stored them in the frig in a plastic bag. I took the base and put it in a dish of water:

2 days later it is already starting to regrow leaves. I think this info was from Carla, via Nicky. When I see roots forming I will plant it in soil.

So then I started to look on the internet (search "gardening from scraps"). Nicola suggested I look in my recycling for containers. So here, in an egg carton, I am planting green pepper seeds (from a green pepper) and snap peas.

In the old strawberry container I have planted green pepper seeds, halved cherry tomatoes and edamame (from a frozen package - well if you don't try you wont know)

My little indoor vegetable garden. I will keep you posted. Mick, I will owe you for a bag of topsoil when (and if) I plant these out.

I also planted sage and mint (that I snipped off in the Village Square - no-one there to enjoy them anyway) and zucchini seeds in a pot in Cameron/Nikki's garden. Something kept digging them up (cats?) so I covered the seeds.

These could all fail but it is an interesting experiment and, lets face it, I have time right now to experiment. I will keep you posted and would love to know if you try similar experiments.

Pissouri, Cyprus - Pine Bay walk continued

I ended yesterday's post at the point where I turned around and went back to the walk that Jimmy had suggested.

In Canada we might say that this signifies that it will be a hard winter. In Cyprus it probably signifies that it was a wet winter, good for growing pine comes.

This part of the walk was near the edge of the valley rim and very rocky.

Still impressive views

I thought I had seen every flower possible, but here was another.

A solitary wild Gladioli

I have yet to see any of the processional caterpillars, just these unruly piles.

They almost look like tulips. There is a wild Cyprus Tulip but they are rare and in the pictures I found on the internet they had pointed petals.

Jimmy's instructions had mentioned a chapel reached by going down a track to the left. There was no sign.

I started down it

but my legs were tired

and I knew that every stride down

was a climb back up, so I left the Chapel for another day.

The track now went through a meadow with Carob and Olive trees, twisted by the wind.

to a goat farm

with horses in the field beyond.

It was difficult to get good photos of them because the goats were back-deep in long grass but I did get this one, climbing to eat a Carob tree.

And this one, first eating a stick

and then using it to scratch his head.

I was now looking down at where you turn off the B6 onto the road that comes up the hill to Pissouri. I could just make out the supermarket, Papantoniou.

The track went through another meadow, with horses, before curving around below the water tower (Good! That was on Jimmy's map)

Not any old horses, beautiful, gleaming,

well cared for, horses who

did little more than look up, as I walked by, and then returned to grazing.

I kept expecting that I would have to navigate a gate, to keep the horses in, but there wasn't one. The track just lead straight out on to the road by the school.

I had been walking for about 3 hours and was stiff and sore by the time I got home. Sipping on a glass of wine while soaking in a hot bath put me to rights.

Today was a restful day. I did something that on the internet is called "gardening from scraps" and will post photos in a later blog.

This has been sitting in the living room for 2 days. I wanted to do yoga and thought I should vacuum the floor first. I don't know if I was procrastinating because I didn't want to vacuum or because I didn't want to do yoga. Then I realized that the only thing that really motivates me to clean at home is anticipating having company and with the lockdown in place there will be no company! I vacuumed and did yoga!

I am ending this post with a guest photographer; Rick, from my sailing crew, sent me this picture of swans that he took at Long Point last week.