Return of the BDITFND...

We had to be awake early this morning because we are holding the keys to the house down the road and a gardener was coming to tackle the garden which was now beginning to get really overgrown - it was more than we wanted to deal with and the weather has taken an upward turn again so in reality it is really too hot to be doing serious gardening.  John shot out of bed  at 6.30am to let the gardener in saying that he was going to come back and get another half an hour snooze in...

 

 

...that was what he was hoping to do but at 7.00am I was awoken by the sound of the BDITFND (bloody digger in the field next door).  I couldn't believe it as this happened at exactly the same time last year just before Vicky and Trevor arrived.  Deep joy - the workers are back from their holiday and are now working all day getting the pavements laid.

 

 

Not only did we have the BDITFND we also had the BCMITFND (bloody cement mixer in the field next door) not to mention the BRITFND (bloody roller in the field next door) and about twenty workers hollering and shouting to one another - the digger constantly beeping because it appears to only ever be moving in reverse - the cement mixer beeping its horn to warn the workers that a load of cement is about to shoot out and the roller going back and forth shaking the house to its foundations.  I know that development is a sad fact of life here in Cyprus - continuing even though the credit crunch is firmly biting - and that we could never guarantee our view without purchasing the field - but it is the noise rather than the development that gets me - they start at 7.00am and don't finish until about 5.00pm.  Let's hope it is only for the pavements at the moment because it looks like they might be finished within the week.

 

 

We were not unhappy to be going down to the coast for lunch and a little bit of peace and quiet.  We were having a planning meeting with Mum and Dad as we are going for one of our overnight stays to celebrate Dad and John's birthday.  Last time we went away for Mum's birthday and went to Maria's Tea Rooms in Souni and this time we are going to Vasilias Nikoklis Inn http://www.vasilias.nikoklis.com/ which is only about 15-20 minutes from where Mum and Dad live but looks lovely and we are really looking forward to it.  In fairness the planning meeting took all of about 5 minutes - who was bringing the cards and nibbles and who was bringing the wine?  We then turned our attention to having some lunch.  As you can see from the photograph above we were at Oniros and for once introducing Dad to somewhere new which is pretty hard to do!

 

 

We all enjoyed our lunch - Dad opting for the grilled chicken sandwich, John the meatball sandwich and Mum and I the slow booked belly pork - yum yum.  All very nice clean and beautifully presented and more than anything I was impressed by the toilets which are amongst the cleanest I have ever been to.

 

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John spent some of the afternoon working on the pergola.  I thought I had seen the last of the wood stain but how wrong could I be???  The plan was to get as many pieces stained as possible so that tomorrow John could crack on just cutting and putting up the wood.  Well I say 'just' making it sound simple what I meant was that he wouldn't have to keep breaking off to do staining - I know that the building part will take quite some time.

 

 

We stayed up to watch some of the big races of the paralympics - this is when the two hour time difference takes its toll as the David Weir race was not until late.  It all got a bit much for Chivers who tried very hard to stay up but just couldn't manage to keep his little eyes open.  We did though and cheered the Weir-Wolf all round the track and then cheered the girls relay keeping our fingers crossed that the final baton change was deemed to be legal (which I later found out was - brilliant).