Droushia/Drouseia Dits: Thursday - Eighteen Months Completed...

The weather today was glorious - how fantastic to have temperatures in the 30s in November and everyday it is like this is a bonus. We know that winter is on its way but it is difficult to remember those grey miserably days in January and February with endless rain, hailstorms, frosts, wind, rollings mists etc etc - how quickly we forget!

This afternoon I was going to play Pickleball with Mum and John, who is still nursing a poorly toe, was going to call in and see Mark (photographer Nicki's husband Mark) to check out the trees that they need taking down outside their house and then keep Dad company until Mum and I had finished our game.

If you look back at last Thursday's blog when we stopped to get the post on the way down to Paphos it was absolutely bucketing down and poor John got very wet running in and out of the cafe - no such problem today when we had clear blue skies, so no likelihood of pickleball being rained off either more likely that we would be moaning it was too hot like we did two weeks ago!!

We always like receiving post and in spite of our rather antiquated cafe and box arrangement post seems to come through quite effectively so today we were excited that the little solar lights I had ordered to sit on top of the posts around the decking at the front of the garden had arrived. They had taken a while to come through and did have to come from China after all but now they have arrived so that means John will have a little project tomorrow and we will have a little illumination out there so people don't trip over - well we are hoping that with ten of them they will cast some light otherwise they will have been a bit of a waste of money!

We made our way down to Emba calling into the DIY shop to get some masonry paint on the way. Poor John nearly had a coronary when small 5 litre tin came to €30 - how we could do with a B&Q over here or at least a bit more competition when it comes to the prices of paint.

Mum and Dad's garden is looking good and particularly tranquil at the moment and they have the most beautiful bougainvillea by the drive which is a double flowering one which is a mix of shocking pink and orange and when the sun shines on it you almost need sunglasses to cope. I have asked Mum to see if she can try and strike a couple of cuttings for me because I am sure that I could find somewhere in the garden to squeeze one of these in and John likes it too just so long as I don't locate it anywhere where the flowers can end up in the pool because they are a right menace.

There were only four of us at pickleball today, Mum, me, Jenny and Jeff and although it was quite warm for playing and there was no-one to step in so we got a chance to sit a game out it was fun and good natured and I enjoyed it although I was sweating buckets by the end - nice I know but truthful.

Mum was cooking for us tonight and with pickleball now finishing at 3.30pm it means that we have a good amount of time before tea to spend time together and indulge in our favourite pastime of playing cards. It is good to exercise our brains, have a drink (if I am not driving) and throw some friendly banter across the table. I only wish that I could manage to win at least one game of Noms - John always seems to win and it gets boring! Mum is coming up with her friend Eileen on Saturday for lunch - fingers crossed the weather will be kind to us and we can sit outside, then both Mum and Dad are coming up next week to cat-sit for us whilst we spend time with our favourite Stalkers who are out for three weeks. This will mean some sporadic posting over the next week or so for which I apologise. I got told off by Mum today for posting last night's late - she and Dad like to read it before they go to bed - even though they might have seen us!