Sad News

It was with a very heavy heart that I learned of the passing of one of my friends in the UK.  She was an avid reader of the blog and sadly diagnosed with terminal cancer at the end of last year.  I had last seen her on my trip back to the UK in January 2020 - she and her husband always made time to come and see me and we had a great time together.  She bravely told me about her diagnosis and knew that the prognosis was poor but filled my email with gloriously irreverent tales of her medical visits.  I met her when I joined the Soroptimists.  My club was Yeovil and District hers Plymouth and we became firm friends.  A couple of weeks ago I sent her a stephanotis hoping that the fragrance of the plant, so synonymous with Cyprus, would remind her of us.  Rest in Peace dear friend.  Your struggle is over.  It was truly a privilege to have known you.

I had learned this news late in the day yesterday but it was not something I wanted to bury at the end of the post.

--OOO--

This morning we discovered that the carton of milk we had in the fridge had gone on.  This happens regularly because we no longer take milk in hot drinks so we buy it and it doesn't get used.  With the price of groceries shooting up I had looked to see what I could do with it and decided to try my hand at making cottage cheese which I love but which is very expensive over here (if you can find it).

The recipe I chose was very straightforward - to the sour milk  you needed to add lemon juice or vinegar to make it thicken and go lumpy and then season with a little salt.  This was then poured into a shallow dish and heated on full power in the microwave for five minutes so that the solids separated from the whey.  This was then strained and the whey put to one side.  Once the whey is cooled I shall refrigerate and use in the making of smoothies so that wont get wasted.

The white solid 'cheese' will be mixed with a little natural creamy Greek yoghurt before serving but I tasted it and it was fine as it was - it is more 'bitty' in texture than commercial cottage cheese but that is about all - in fact it is like the Anari they sell here which is used like ricotta in both savoury and sweet dishes.  I will certainly make it again and never through sour milk out which I have done in the past.  Who knew that this would be so easy?

John and I both had appointments to see Dr Haris the dentist in Peyia this afternoon.  We had a check-up and a clean - our free one on the GESY system and came away with glowing reports about our dental hygiene and supplies of toothpaste, mouth wash and little brushes.  Apparently my periodontal treatment was a huge success and I can confirm that I had no sensitivity or pain at all during the teeth clean which I would normally experience and best of all no blood.  Dr Haris says that whatever my cleaning routine is at home it is working which is good news because I certainly don't want to go through that again.

My sister drove up this afternoon and we went for a walk together.  I had chosen a route from Droushia through Inea and Arodes to Kathikas finishing at Fitos where John was going to join us for our evening meal.  It was warm late afternoon so we had the foresight to put a change of clothes in the car so we didn't hum in the taverna but we had booked table 1 inside so we could control the airflow!

It was a good walk - the island is still relatively green and there are still plenty of wild flowers including late flowering orchids to look at.  It gave us a chance to catch up.  On my phone it said the walk would take and hour and a half but actually we did it in just over an hour and we were bimbling rather than striding out.  

Our evening meal was lovely.  I had tsipora (sea bream) which was light and very tasty and beautifully cooked, Kaye had village chicken and John mixed kebab and we took our time and chatted and then returned to ours for teas and coffees before my sister set off back to her accommodation in Paphos.  We had not realised that the area was swathed in a rolling mist but thankfully this disappeared once she had driven past Kathikas.