Sunday Sunday ...

I was woken unceremoniously this morning by gunshots!!!!  It is Sunday and the macho Cypriot men are taking advantage of the November/December shooting season which is every Wednesday and Sunday and allows them to legally hunt Thrushes, Woodpigeon, Chukar Partridge, Black Francolin, Quail and Woodcock.  They were a way over the fields but it sounded like someone was taking pot shots at the house! Consequently I was up at just after 7.00am and on a Sunday how mad is that!!!

Autumn/Winter here is bringing with it its own set of wildlife.  All around the outside lights we find these beautiful pale pinky/apricot moths in large numbers.  Now I don't usually like moths but these are very pretty.  We also get a raft of strange insects meeting their maker in the swimming pool as it is uncovered all the time whilst it is being over-wintered.  This leggy creature was one of the lucky ones as we managed to remove it with the net and place it in the sun so it could dry out and live to see another day (or get caught and eaten by Chivers which is more likely).

Talking of the sun, today was really a very beautiful day and as you can see at 8:39 the temperature was showing 19.1 degrees and rising!  Although the days are short and our nights are extremely cold the bright sunshine during the day is very welcome indeed particularly as our house faces north looking towards the sea - I think I will have to get John to rustle up a south facing conservatory at some point!

Everything looks so much better when the sun shines - including where we live even though at the moment there is only John and I and Ollie and Trish living here permanently - even Angela's builders have been absent for the last week - probably realised it was going to be very wet!!  We know it wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea but we like the solitude and the quiet (that is when they aren't shooting or building!).  

The colours at this time of year seem so vibrant and yes those are still the same old geraniums flowering which we bought back in July for our wedding anniversary.  

In fact all the geraniums in the garden seem to be going for a second flowering at the moment so they must like the conditions.  I think it will be quite interesting to see what survives up here with the extreme heat  and lack of rain in the summer and the very cold nights or torrential rain we have in the winter - probably non of the things I have planted and nurtured!

Our build up to Christmas continues as this afternoon Mum and Dad, Ray and Janice, John and I were off to Steni for an open air Christmas Market.  Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera as they had made quite an effort and as it began to get dark and you could hear the Carols and smell the Mulled Wine we all began to realise that there is only about five weeks to go until Christmas Day!

We all returned to Droushia to warm up, have a drink and play Mexican Trains (dominoes).  Chivers wanted to help as we unpacked the double-twelves!!  I haven't played this for ages and started off really well but ended up as drag-as Charlie!!!

We took the opportunity to ask Ray if he would come up later in the week to help John begin to build the pergola between the two buildings.  In fact Mum and Janice are going to come up and we are going to do some crafting (I must go and find some more fir cones) and Dad will come to supervise the building works as he is probably having Site Forman withdrawal symptoms failing that he can always do a sudoku!!