Tuesday 5th February...

Poor Dad was really struggling this morning when he got up and so we persuaded him to see if he could get in to see his doctor.  This was at about 9.00am this morning and can you believe it they gave him an appointment for 11.00am!  I know that he has to pay for this consultation but can you imagine getting in that quickly in the UK?  It meant that we had to have a quick turn-round to get ourselves down to Paphos in time but we did with a couple of minutes to spare.

John and I left him in the waiting room and we wandered down the road to go and have a nose around the Yellow Store - a store which sells 'stuff' ornaments, rugs, cushion covers that sort of thing and they come in all colours not just yellow!

We had a good old look around and John spotted a large glass bottle in just the right colour red to go with our new suite and it was relatively cheap - even cheaper after I had used my charms on the man behind the till and managed to negotiate a bit of a discount so we wandered back to the surgery with a big red bottle tucked under John's arm - more of that later.

In the doctor's surgery there was a picture of traditional Cyprus - showing terraced vineyards and a headscarved lady on a donkey.  I said to John that I am guessing that shortly this will very much be a scene of the past or as he pointed out maybe if they stop living beyond their means and go back to traditional values it may become more common - who knows? 

We have certainly begun to see a few more vineyards being planted and there is one just down the road from us which we have seen dug from scratch and was planted up last week and now we await to see how the spindly little vine cuttings will fare having been shoved into the ground which appeared to be 90% shingle and 10% poor poor soil!  We probably worry too much and suffocate our vines with kindness!!!

Anyway Dad appeared from the surgery and it was confirmed that the problem he has is muscular and required Nurofen so at least we hadn't dosed him up with the wrong stuff.  Dad said that the doctor gave his leg a right old pull and push for which he was to suffer later on today.

As we started to drive back to Emba so Dad could pick up his shaving kit which he had forgotten yesterday we witnessed some of that good old idiosyncratic Cypriot behaviour that we have come to know and love when we turned into a street and were held up by a man cycling down the road with an ironing board balanced on the back sticking out in both directions!  Don't you just love it??? 

As we were down in Paphos we decided to go out for lunch and Dad decided he wanted to go to Tiffilly's in Chloraka.  Amazingly the people who run this establishment come from Taunton!

They provide good simple fare which is a cheap as chips and sometimes a Kebab just doesn't cut it so Dad had a full English Breakfast with extra black pudding, toast and marmalade, tea and fruit juice followed by a second pot of tea, I had a bacon, egg and mushroom bap with coffee, John had a home-made burger with hand cut chips and salad with a diet coke and then a pot of tea because Dad said that it was a champion Cuppa!!  This all came to €18!  Lord knows how they make a living!

It was good old comfort food - guilty pleasure food - but I didn't feel quite so bad about it as we were having a pasta dish with salad for tea which would be fairly light.  Anyway thanks to Dad who paid for our lunch - what with that and the cost of the doctors and the prescription he needed it was turning into an expensive pulled muscle for him!  In fact it was going to be an expensive day for Dad and Mum as Mum was taking out the Keinton Mandeville contingents to the Red Lion at Babcary this evening as her stay there was coming to an end and she travels up to my sisters in Balsall Common tomorrow.

We decided to take the scenic route home and take the Akoursos Road from Banana Bay to Kathikas.  We haven't done it before because up until recently it was nothing more than a dirt track but it has now been tarmacked and provides for a very pretty route which takes you past the Mavrokolympos Dam and reservoir.  Although we had a lot of rain before Christmas and several of the reservoirs overflowed this one was looking quite low.

The views as you wind you way up from the coast to Kathikas are stunning and at the moment everything looks so lovely and lush and green.  

There are some pretty big houses being built up this way which is probably the reason why the track has been upgraded.  We said it would be our preferred route down to the coast if we had visitors and it would avoid the speed trap at the Pickni Forest and at Stroumbi where the speed camera was out again today.

We called in to the Vasilikon winery to show Dad the new building, pick up some wine for Thursday (when we are having steak) and to ask when the new facility will be opening.  'Soon' was the answer!!!  It has been 'soon' for months but apparently the furniture has now arrived so it is 'sooner' than previously.  John dropped my name into the conversation to say that I organised lunches and wanted to bring a group of ladies to the winery when food was available.  The guy said that he knew who I was as he had been in Fitos collection a takeaway the day that 20 of us descended there for lunch!

On returning home we set about turning our giant red bottle into a lamp by adding some Christmas lights inside which are surplus to requirement. It isn't quite right - particularly as we noticed four or five of the bulbs have blown and they are a special shape and size but the overall effect was pretty good and it provides a nice warm red glow in the corner.  The cats weren't too sure about it to begin with and both gave it a good old sniffing - I think they expected it to be hot.

Dad's leg began to object to all the pushing and pulling it had been subjected to by Dr Marengos and he struggled to get comfortable - the sofas in the conservatory are too soft so we sat at the small table and played a game of cards before having a bouncing hot shower and something to eat.

The evening was topped off by an episode of Mr Selfridge (sorry Mum you will just have to catch up on your return) and a documentary on the Queen of Cakes Mary Berry.  The forecast for tomorrow isn't good which is a shame as we had planned for tea and cake at Tina's Art Cafe as she had text me to tell me it was opening after her winter closure.