Friday February 22nd...

We both had a terrible night's sleep.  John was very poorly, one minute freezing cold, one minute boiling hot, snuffling, sneezing and snoring and this was accompanied by Chivers snoring which is quite loud so I got very little sleep and we both felt like a bag of spanners in the morning.  So what does a brave little soldier (or in this case sailor) have for breakfast when he is feeling like sh*t?  Apparently it is muesli with added cinnamon and sultanas heated in the microwave.  I think that looks like sh*t personally.

I know I have said that no two days are the same but at the moment they aren't and today was overcast and grey but fairly warm outside but no member of the Wiseman household was in a rush to get up.  We all seemed to have suffered from interrupted sleep so we were joined in bed by Minzer and Chivvy Pops who do still, on occasions, snuggle up together.  

It is shameful I know but we didn't actually surface properly until gone midday - and I know because I can see the new clock in the conservatory from our bed providing the shutters are open!

When we did get up it was surprising just how warm it was in the conservatory even though it was pretty overcast.   The temperature difference between that room and the lounge is marked and I find it hard to believe that we managed last year without it. 

We were due to be going out later today for a meal at the Wheelies - Helen had invited us round so that we could have a bit of an early birthday celebration as she and Al are off ski-ing with Crafty Jane and Mark when it is actually my birthday - so we thought a nice quiet easy day dosing John with SNIPS was the way to go because we didn't want to cancel.

John couldn't believe that he had felt so much better yesterday but I think he was a bit daft to go to footie and sit around in the cold and damp when he wasn't really 100% but then what do I know?

So as part of our quiet day we decided to put together a new 'to-do' list of jobs around the house and things we wanted to sort out and that included the bike.  John had been left in a quandary after the Marinos no show yesterday.

With the bike dead he had no way to get it down to Polis to be fixed without asking someone like Mark, who has a truck, to take it down for him.  John tried ringing Marinos but got no reply so we concluded that we had just been fobbed off and would have to decide what we were going to do.

It was a shame really as this year we were going to make a concerted effort to use the bike more as it is so much more economical than taking the car out.

Chivers seems to have dreams of becoming a biker cat by the looks of things although that helmet is a tad too big for him!!!  Bless him - his poorly back is healing well but the resulting scabs are driving him NUTS and he is constantly trying to scratch them off - NICE!  By the way we haven't been able to locate any Clearasil as yet so MM is still a spotty youth and I am going to have to chase her and try and get some iodine on her chin which will be a challenge.

Marinos redeemed himself when we got a call from him out of the blue this afternoon to say he would be in Droushia in ten minutes.  Deja Vu - surely we had had that conversation yesterday?  John was rather sceptical but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and went down to the hotel to wait.  In fairness there is a bit of a language barrier as Marinos speaks very pigeon English and John dodo Greek so things may have got lost in translation over the phone yesterday or at least that is what we were hoping so it was with some pleasure that I saw John return hotly pursued by a truck that looked like Tony the Tiger!!!  Marinos and his sidekick lifted the bike and took it off telling John it would be ready tomorrow!  John agreed that he would collect in Monday.

As the afternoon went on John started to feel a little better and having been in bed for far too long we felt in need of some fresh air so went outside to take in some air.

MM and Chivs joined John in taking up sentry duty making sure that all was good in the hood.  Personally I think they were keeping an eye on a ball of March or Processionary Caterpillars which was in the field.  Quite a phenomenon in Cyprus these are to be avoided as I think they can be toxic and appear as a huge moving black hairy mass.

The problem is that both our cats are inquisitive and hunters so they are likely to try and have a go at them if they encounter them and with our luck at the moment would come of worse than the caterpillars.

Not much real sun today so we needed the immersion to make sure that we had hot water for a shower and by 4.00pm it had begun to get really chilly outdoors and in so we whacked on the Super Ser to raise the temperature in the conservatory.  There was no point lighting the wood burner as we would be out.

It is always warm at Helen and Al's so I couldn't decide what to wear but it is nice that, for once, I didn't need to be layered up like Michelin Man!

John had offered to drive - he wasn't really in any kind of shape to have a drink anyway - so we picked up Jane and Mark and made our way to the Wheelies where we were joined by Running John and Susan.  It was, as anticipated, toasty warm - oh to have underfloor heating or rather to be able to afford underfloor heating! 

It was, as always, a lovely evening.