Elizabeth's birthday

Elizabeth turned five during April. It wasn't much of a birthday for her as it was during the school holiday but she had the obligatory cake and Sean and I "sang" to her.

I had come armed with a present from the UK for her from Nana and Grandad and she got a few cards in the post as well as a present from my friend Hannah. We weren't around when the postlady came so had to collect it. It took a while to work out where to go. In Parekklisia, as I expect in other villages, the postlady herself retains undelivered mail and we had to go to her house.

For some gifts from us I had success in the Early Learning Centre (home from home!) and Jumbo which is a cross between Toys r Us and The Range. Elizabeth's "main" present was a wonderfully cheap doll which came with a bath and shower (which works) and a small rubber duck, sponge (now ripped to shreds), pretend soap and soap dish and a couple of fake bottles for bubble-bath and shampoo.

I had a rather complicated brief for decorating her cake. It had to have a pond, a flower and a butterfly on it. Hmm. We found some icing and decorating paraphenalia although not such a wide selection as in UK supermarkets. The first snag was that I'd made a chocolate cake and I thought stark white icing would look a bit odd so I attempted a pale blue which could double as sky and pond, but as I spread it the top of the cake crumbled into the icing so it ended up a rather attractive, but unpractical, marbled blue and brown. I soldiered on and made a somewhat unconvincing pond and a not too bad flower, butterfly and sun. See for yourself ...

As some of you may know, Elizabeth has been diagnosed with an allergy to egg white. At her last hospital appointment and skin prick test this was downgraded to "borderline" so as she was keen to try her own cake we thought we'd risk it. Unfortunately the poor girl was sick on her own birthday. Still, she soon recovered and ate ice cream instead!

Sparrows

If you've ever wondered about the sparrow population, which has declined markedly in the UK over recent years, we're not the only ex-pats in Cyprus. There is a large community in our garden, many currently nesting in the tiles of the verandah roof. Unfortunately the odd fledgling falls out of its nest. We tried to keep one alive but it succumbed last night. At least it had a peaceful, dignified death in an empty ice cream container. Another older one blundered into the pool. I fished it out but it didn't make it.

According to the RSBP the UK house sparrow population peaked during the 1970s at 12 million but declined dramatically during the '90s with a 62% reduction over 25 years.

The worst thing about the sparrows is the mess, particulary around the pool area and on the fence. And the incessant twittering depending on your opinion. For me, I'm reliving the sound of my childhood.

All this talk of small birds unfortunately reminds me of the story I heard reported on The Today Programme about a week after Sean was offered the job here - that Cypriots are catching and eating as a delicacy British songbirds such as the robin. See here for the full gruesome story.