Thursday - Major Problems...

The weather continues to be atrocious and the lake next door is growing.  We have been pumping out our swimming pool and our neighbour's swimming pool as the levels get dangerously high.  I have had a look at Paul's next door which also looks like it is about to overflow and have asked John what happens - hopefully it wont but if it does I don't know exactly where the water is going to go - it could be interesting.  The mechanism for emptying the water butt has proved reasonably successful and the new guttering has had several tests and again that has helped - the sheer volume of water that accumulates in the front garden has to go somewhere so inevitably some will find its way under the front door but it does seem to be less now with all the work John has done.

I was off down to Paphos today as we were going to be playing Pickleball at our new venue which is indoors.  I have played indoors before and it is a very different game but we had not anticipated the room being quite so small, in fact too small for our court and we were constantly trying to avoid the walls and the mirror plus the ceiling is very low so there was no chance of lobbing.  We made the best of it and Mum and I seemed to adjust better than the men so we had quite a giggle but at the end of the day we all agreed that for the price we were paying it just wasn't good enough.  Tom has agreed to check out a couple of the badminton venues in and around Emba as this would be ideal.  Being so close to Christmas I don't expect he will be able to do anything much until the New Year.

After pickleball Dad and I went up to visit Frank in Tala as I had put some films and series onto a hard drive for him to keep him occupied over Christmas.  He had a peculiar set up with his laptop, stereo and TV and I struggled to get the films to play other than in a very very wide-screen format.  Apparently it transpired that 'everything had changed' on his PC since last night so I had to do a restore and then recopy the files which meant I was longer than anticipated!!  The weather was dreadful and I had to go to the Outlet Store to get the replacement fridge door for our chiller fridge.  The moulded shelf on the inside of the door which was designed to take bottles was just not man enough to take bottles and had ripped itself away from the door with the weight of a bottle.  Fortunately the Outlet Store were brilliant when it came to sorting it and provided us with a replacement door without question.

I made my way back home carefully with the glass fronted door wrapped up in the boot - our track record with fridges not being very good at the moment.  At the bottom of the concrete road that goes up past the Egyptian's house there was a small waterfall forming and the road was awash.  There is a partially built house next door to this field - rumour has it that a Doctor started to have it built but in all the time that we have been living up the road we have never seen anyone there - I would guess that after all the rain of last winter and all the rain of this so far that the half built house is very damp indeed and it is a shame.

Apparently the reservoir at Argaka has already overflowed along with Asprokremmos and the Evretou is 95% full already!!  It is a really big thing when Asprokremmos overflows - they have burger wagons and all sorts up there waiting for the moment!!!  If you don't believe me check out this video which was taken in January when it overflowed last: ASPROKREMMOS OVERFLOWING  

I got home with the door safe and sound and John fitted it so we have a complete fridge again which is good.  We decided to have a quiet afternoon as we were going out this evening with Wheelie Helen, Alistair and Helen's Mum who is over from Malta.  Helen had kindly offered to feed us before we went out and in return I said that I would drive us all.  We were going to the Fly Again in Argaka to see the Zilla Project and another blues band from Greece called Blues Wire.

With time on our hands we decided to settle down and watch a film and decided upon Prometheus which was a Sci-Fi Aliens type movie directed by Ridley Scott so we thought it ought to be reasonable - the synopsis was "A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race" We had just got ourselves settled into it when the storm raging outside caused a massive power outage.  When we eventually managed to get through to the fault reporting line the recorded message told us that it was major and far reaching - brilliant - no way to shower, wash hair or see what we were changing into.  Our gas fire requires electric for the safety cut-out and there was no point lighting the wood burner.  Helen did offer for us to shower down at theirs but we muddled through got changed and arrived early for tea!!!

It was lovely and warm at Helen's - they generate their own electricity so were unaffected by the cut and we could see that down on the coast, and therefore at Argaka, there was electricity so our gig would still be on.  We had a lovely meal of Helen's take on Jamie Oliver's 'Boys Pasta' followed by rice pudding - all good comfort food!!!

We made it to the Fly but unfortunately Helen's mum took a tumble walking into the venue.  She said she was ok and seemed to be ok so we managed to find a table (albeit right next to the bands) and settled down.  Outside the storm was raging and we were treated to spectacular displays of lightning - intermittent electric and sometimes complete darkness!!  One poor chap sat at our table got a phone call shortly after arriving from friend who lives in Kritou Tera and who was on her way to the airport to say that she had hit snow and ended up in a ditch and so he had to shoot off to rescue her and go to the airport to pick up her husband.  Kritou Tera is across the road from Droushia so we knew the weather was bad up our way.

We put all thoughts of the weather behind us and decided that if the world was going to end tomorrow we were going to have one hell of a night tonight!!!  We really have to thank Helen for introducing us to the Zilla Project as I doubt we would ever had gone to listen to them otherwise - we didn't know that we liked blues/rock!!!  They were only on for a short while and were missing their keyboard player but still managed a decent few songs.  The Fly was packed and with lots of familiar faces so it was a great atmosphere.

The main event was a band called Blues Wire who are apparently 'the best Blues Rock Band in Europe' and
we would agree - they are a four piece which includes a woman drummer and a little guy who sings and plays a mean old harmonica.  They were brilliant and even though we were sat almost on top of them not too loud.  Their rendition of Ain't no Sunshine was epic and we were sorry when they finished.

The drive home was hairy with lots of free standing water and an accompanying thunderstorm.  We dropped off the Wheelies and got back home to electric, no internet and carnage - report to come...