It was a bright start to the day and John was keen to do a little DIY before he went off to Football and as I have my staining badge but not my drilling badge I knew what was to come!!! Having fixed Shaun's chop saw John wanted to cut and fit the bracing bits of wood he has for the pergola in the front garden. This was a reasonably quick job and with stain left over we gave the electricity and phone boxes a fresh coat. We dug some errant 'Arfs' out and took them, together with some seeds and a tree that was surplus to requirement, around to Ollie and Trish who we thought could make good use of them. The front garden is really taking shape but we will have to see what toll the ravages of winter take.
On the subject of the weather the bright day was not to last long as we had some dark clouds start to gather although we could see that down on the coast the sun was shining brightly. We weren't overly concerned as Droushia is renowned for its cloud as two different weather systems meet, one coming from the direction of Lara and the other from the direction of the Troodos and then collide overhead. We learnt last year that in autumn if we want guaranteed sunshine we are better to drive down to the coast and leave the Droushia Cloud to it! We sat under the gazebo watching the clouds racing by but still in shorts and t-shirts as the outside temperature was warm.
However before long we started to hear the rumble of thunder around and about and then the unmistakable pat pat pat of raindrops falling onto the Gazebo. Nothing too much to start off with so I casually went and got my camera and went up onto the roof to take some photographs of the changing sky and the changing light. The thunder seemed to be coming from Kathikas at first but then the weather seemed to change direction and there was the unmistakable sound of a storm raging somewhere between us and Lara - very similar to the one we had almost exactly a year ago when Laura and Mark were out with us.
Chivers doesn't like Thunder and Lightning and sought the safety of John's lap. The weather got progressively worse and we were forced to take cover indoors and then all hell let loose. The thunderstorm seemed to be almost directly over the top of our house. At one point there seemed to be a bolt of lightning that hit the house - it certainly looked like it came straight for us as we were sitting in the conservatory and may have struck the ladder or railings on the roof terrace. In the space of about half an hour my water butt went from bone dry to overflowing and the front garden began to flood. The conservatory did well apart from a couple of places on the floor where the seal has dried and shrunk but at least John knows where they are to be able to fill them when it dries out.
The weather deteriorated and I took these photographs from the safety of the kitchen through the back door - to say it was 'bouncing' would have been a pretty accurate description! We had to ring Running Susan to check that her husband John (and her dad Brian) were still venturing out to Polis to watch the football. They said that they were and at one point with the electricity going on and off every second John thought he was going to have to go smelly as without electricity there is no pump to pump the water - although on reflection he could have stood outside for 10 minutes with a bar of soap!
We had to run for our lives in monsoon conditions to get to the car so I could take John to Running Johns in time for football. I was so pleased that John has actually got round to going - he has kept talking about it and I think it is good for him to have an interest of his own. As I made my way back home I could see the weather brightening over Droushia just slightly - you could see that the weather was going to improve it was just a question of when.
I had my first afternoon home alone and I loved it. Minnie Mou was keeping me company giving the storm a stiff ignoring and I decided to start off by cooking something nice and warming for John when he came back from the terraces and then to tackle my Greek homework in readiness for Monday - the past tense of the verbs To Be and To Live proving a little tricky I must admit! In the interim I managed to get hold of Vix and Trev on Skype to catch up and to make them feel a bit better about their crap weather by showing them that we get rain too and when we do there is nowhere for it to go.
Whilst grappling with some tricky conjugations I had a phonecall from our neighbour Charalambous who was checking that I was in and then he came round with some fresh dates from their garden in Nicosia. I have never had fresh dates - I have only ever seen those Medjool boxes that appear at Christmas with that funny long knobbly pronged fork. He gave me specific instructions to freeze them for ten days and then take out the ones I want to eat. I then have to defrost them and leave them for 12 hours and remove the stalky bit and squeeze!
John came back from footie full of it - he had a brilliant time - as he keeps saying he really enjoyed it and it is a good little set up - the entry price was €6 and then he took a chance on the raffle at €5 although he says he would never have known what he was supposed to win or whether he did in fact win it! There is a home match again in two weeks time and I think William Hill has closed the book on whether or not he is going to go again. I really must thank Running John for spurring him into going and showing him the ropes and for father in law Brian not rubbing in the fact that he is a Burnley supporter - John still feels the pain of the play off final of 2009 which he witnessed first hand!
A bumper Soccer Saturday as the Mighty Sheffield United won, Sheffield Wednesday lost (HURRAH), Yeovil won, Dirty Leeds won (Trev), Leicester won (Bill), Palace won (Johno), Forest won (Greg and Brian) and the mighty ENAD Polis won thus remaining top of the league!!!! and John is just sitting down to make sure that the Gunners (Alan) stuff the dirty cheating Hammers (John's words not mine) then it will be Ciders all round.
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