The Heatwave Cometh...

Sorry people in the UK - I know that you have yet to experience Summer (although maybe that freakish hot spell in March was it) but we are having a heatwave this weekend and it started today with a vengeance.  I was going down to Paphos to sort out Dad's wifi issue and although I left relatively early the temperature in the car soared and the humidity levels rose as I got nearer. 

This time it was a successful trip in terms of IT as we went off to computer SOS to get something that would increase the signal on the laptop near the TV.  The router is in the 'den' and has to broadcast its signals through two very thick walls so it is reduced to nearly half by the time it gets to that laptop.  The repeater fiasco of earlier this week was a dim and distant memory as we returned clutching a USB plug-in device that we had been told was 'marvellous' and 'easy to install'.  Marvellous it may be but easy to install it was not - why is it in this day and age of plug and play that the CD did not autorun and files had to be copied to the desktop and unzipped and then the warning that the new device had not installed properly ignored before I manually installed the drivers?  How do manufacturers expect people with limited knowledge of PCs to know what they are supposed to do?  The manual was for Windows XP (Dad has Windows 7) and the install video was of such poor quality that I couldn't see what I was supposed to do!!  Anyway we got there in the end - a steady 5 bars on the laptop and uninterrupted streaming Hallelujah!!

I couldn't stay long in Emba as I needed to return to get a Stifado on the go for our visitors Wendy and Bill who are coming tomorrow but I did want to make time to go to my favourite nursery Kissos in Kissonerga to spend the remainder of the money that Deb had left (having already spent most of it on a new pot) and to get a little thank-you for Sheila and Klaus for all the art lessons and free food.  Knowing that over the winter Klaus and Sheila had lost a couple of their bougainvilleas I decided to get them a new one and plumped for one of the miniature shrubby types rather than those that become rampant in a short space of time.  I chose something that looked like a bronzy purple phormium although the girl at Kissos called it something different.  Having got it home John was very unconvinced about it and about where it will go in the garden but I think we have reached a compromise and when it is less hot I will give it a new home.

Chivers may have got a new friend up the road but his heart is clearly given over to Minnie Mou.  She spends all day flopping round the house trying to find a cool spot and then is missing all night - god knows where but wherever it is you should find two or three quick release collars complete with Staywell mouse shaped magnets.  Chivers disappears all day (usually under the barbeque of the house next door) and appears at night to sleep on our bed.  The weather and the fact that they are growing up mean that they are not racing around like mad things up and over the furniture - just as well with Chivers and his hyperventilating and panting.  On the rare occasions that they are in together though they still like to have a kiss and cuddle (with each other!).

On a bit of a whim we had decided to eat out this evening at Fitos Kiosk on the junction to Kathikas and Wheely Helen and husband Alastair were joining us - in fact better than that they had offered to drive as they practically had to go past ours to get to it.  John and I had seen Fitos Kiosk being built and long before it was apparent that it was going to be a kiosk we speculated as to what it was going to be.  Rumour had it that the guy had applied for it to be a petrol filling station but had been declined although looking at the location of the kiosk which is set well back from the road there is enough frontage for a set of pumps if the situation ever changes.  Anyway the kiosk started as a tiny little building which has grown and grown with the addition of a covered seating area inside and a posh new covered seating area outside.  Although directly on the roadside it has stunning views towards the Troodos to the back! 

When we arrived there were only two other punters there - one local old guy puffing on his fag and clutching a bottle of Carlsberg and a young guy who left shortly afterwards on his bike.  The proprietor Fitos and his wife Joanna were busying themselves in the kitchen with yia-yia and their young sons were running around laying tables.  It is early days for the kiosk, its sign has yet to be erected so there is nothing much to tell you that food is available there so we were expecting a quiet night - how wrong could we be - something, probably word of mouth, meant that by about 9.00 the place was buzzing and I mean buzzing and mainly with locals which is always a good sign.

We started out with a beer each and ordered Kleftiko (slow roast lamb/goat).  We were brought a fresh salad with tahini, tzatziki, olives, pickled caper leaves, celery and peppers and fresh bread.  Huge chunks of Kleftiko came wrapped in tin foil alongside which one of those fantastic oven baked roast potatoes nestled - then came stuffed marrow flowers (delicious) and boiled marrow (not quite so delicious!) - washed down with a bottle of our favourite red wine and then finished off with fresh plums, cypriot coffee and a brandy - NOSTIMO!!  This all came in at a very reasonable price of €15 per person.

After a nightcap and debrief at ours we said goodbye to the Wheely Smeatons until the next time!