Monday

I woke early this morning and once the cats realise that you are awake then there is no stopping them.  Chivers' favourite method of making his hunger known is to headbutt relentlessly until one or other of us gives in and goes across to the kitchen to fill his bowl.  It was my turn this morning and as the sun rises so much later these days I managed to capture it as it came over the trees in a ball of fire - you could be mistaken for thinking this was sunset but no this is sunrise Droushia style.

The sunrise made way for a beautiful morning and as I had been up early I got my art stuff together and walked to Sheila and Klaus's -  it was so peaceful and warm it is hard to believe that we are mid November!!

In the village it looks like Marianna in the community office is being given a new modern office next to the weaving museum rather than up above it.  I could be wrong but that is what is looks like.  This will be good for her and good for us as it will be easier to see whether or not she is in residence!!

Outside Sheila and Klaus's house the dead people are really getting a tidy up as the wall is being rebuilt and in natural stone which looks fantastic.  The workers must have really pulled their fingers out as a large swathe has already been completed and to my uninitiated eye it looks like it has been done to a very high standard.  Klaus says it is a real craftsman's job and that none of the workers is Cypriot - they all appear to be Syrian or similar and are very polite, hardworking and, surprisingly, reasonably tidy!

I have finally finished my Morning Glory picture - it has taken a while granted but it is done and with a small amount of touching up to the bits which have been fading was declared complete and duly sprayed to protect it.  I will now have to take a trip down to see Fitos in Paphos to get it framed so that it matches the one I did of the Clematis.

This now means that next week I have a new project to start and I am going to try and recreate the lilies on the table mats.  No leaves on this one for me to perfect!!!

Sheila has kindly offered for Mum to come up one day over the Christmas period when Mum and Dad are staying which will be nice.  I shall get Mum to bring up some pergamano so that she can show Sheila what she does when she is creating a card.  Who knows maybe this might be something new for Sheila to get her teeth into!!!

After having the Stalkers here for a couple of days and with two days of olive picking coming up I had cancelled today's Greek lesson as I was in no way prepared so we had the afternoon to ourselves which was rather nice although we did the same thing i.e. the shopping down in Polis!  On that note Crafty Jane's husband Mark (now to be known as Olive Mark) tells us that there is a notice saying that the Orphanides supermarket in Polis is closing which is a shame but not entirely a surprise.  That means that our choices are getting smaller as Chilly's has also closed.  It seems that the crisis is really beginning to bite here.  To be fair I didn't do much shopping in Orphanides but I did like the department upstairs with the home goods and they did have a brilliant sale every now and again.

We had a picture message from the Stalkers - Wendy had obviously galvanised Bill into action immediately and our old shutters now have pride of place on their patio.  Wendy is now looking for something to go into the middle and says that they are delighted to have a little bit of Droushia with them in Pissouri.

The temperature must most definitely be getting colder at night as for the first time this year the cats cuddled up together on the sofa.  Well I say cuddled - they look more like they have reached an uneasy truce - they do still fight quite a bit and Minnie Mou is quite a scaredy cat and seems to be getting worse - we think that maybe someone recently has had a bit of a go at her as she skulks around and flattens herself when you raise your hand above her head.

We got ourselves all ready for our big adventure tomorrow - olive picking in Peristrona with Crafty Jane and Olive Mark.  We are not quite sure what we have let ourselves in for!!!