Friday full day

Want to know what the sunrise looks like here in Drouseia?  It is almost as impressive as the sunset last night when we are driving back from Larnaca - I hadn't planned to watch the sunset but Charlie had other ideas and so to keep him quiet I was up earlier than I wanted to be feeding him.

I thought I had called his bluff by moving the wooden hearts that used to hang on the end of our bed and which he used to flick incessantly at about 5.00am to get one or other of us to get up and give him some food.   Well I say one or other of us but as nothing wakes John when he is asleep I do mean me!

I moved them to make them into curtain tie-backs and out of Charlie's reach but he managed to find something else to fiddle with which was equally annoying and which I think is the lightswitch to John's bedside light so I can't really do much about that.

Anyway I got up to feed him to find something on the kitchen floor - fortunately I had put on some flipflops because on turning on the lights I could see that one of the cats had been up on the side and knocked off the spotlight with glass back which we had taken down from the bathroom - it was in a million pieces on the floor with shards of glass everywhere - nothing bounces here so we will be finding bits of that for the next 12 months.

If it was Charlie he was completely unrepentant - he ate his food and then mooched off to the laundry basket where he was found later so sound asleep that I tucked him in and left him there and he did nothing!

I am clearly going to have to get myself another basket or try and replace that one with one of the cat baskets but you can bet your bottom dollar if I do that he will give it a stiff ignoring and to be fair I really like to know where he is.  He must go out at some point as he has lost two collars this week and Chivers has lost one.  Thank goodness Sharon brought some with her.

I was squeezing in a quick walk this morning with Diana as we were going down to Paphos later.  I had to take a different route down to her house because we think that Ron Jeremy the Stallion and Linda Lovelace the mare had slipped their tethers as John could see and hear them running amok down by Andreas's house and I didn't want to encounter them if they were running wild.

Today I thought we could do the walk that we have done with George and Pam- it takes us up to Lordos 2 and then a long sweep back into the village.  It did mean that I walked down from our house and then back up but the exercise will have been good for me.  We walked round our house up the new road so as to avoid the wild horses!

A bit of a rare sight on our travels was a field with a couple of cows in it - I couldn't get this one to look up but think it is that breed that appears to be wearing an orange wig.  This one appeared to be a little thin around the hind quarters and there didn't appear to be a huge amount for it to eat apart from dried up grass and weeds.

Both Diana and I kept saying how beautiful the weather is and what a bonus as we near the end of October when you hear that people back in the UK are experiencing frosts already.  Today was particularly lovely and the village was for once quite busy.  I think there is a flurry of late tourists - that and a handful of Jehovah's Witnesses doing the rounds!

We went into the post office to check our post - I had a couple of parcels including one which had been sent care of our address for Mum - I recognised the writing straight away as being John's mums!  Too early for Christmas so I guessed it was a little gift she had sent over on her return.  There was a parcel for Elena so I rang her and she said she would come down and join us for coffee.

We like to 'spread the wealth' so chose to have our after walk refreshment at Despina's coffee shop

It was lovely sitting there in the sun watching the world go by and the comings and goings of the villagers - I reckon I saw more people in that hour than I can do for months on end!

The sunshine has clearly brought people out - that and the fact that the water bills are due and probably the community charge so people are busy sorting them out with Marianna!

John played badminton this afternoon and mum and I played pickleball - Wendy and Bill have returned to the island and were due to play but Wendy did my trick of double booking herself so it was only Bill this time.  It was great to have him back and he ran himself ragged as usual but he said he needed to after the excesses of their recent cruise.  Hopefully Wend will be back on the scene next time - really looking forward to catching up with her soon.

Whilst I was out and about with Mum I said I needed to get a lettuce for tomorrow when we have John and Susan round for supper.  This will probably be the freshest lettuce I have ever purchased as the woman went and cut it from the field for me!

We got back and it was a bit of a mad dash to get everything ready before Lou and H arrived - at this point I was rather glad Charlie had got me up early because I had done quite a bit of preparation in the early hours so it was just a question of last minute table-laying and a few other bits and pieces.


As I said it was going to be a curry night so I had got the pickles and relishes ready earlier and the curry was in the slow cooker, the rice in the microwave pressure cooker and John and I had done the poppadoms together - failed with naan breads so had Lebanese flat breads instead - initial taste of the new recipe curry was encouraging!

Good Old Drouseia produced one of its rolling mists at about 6.30 so it was a good job that we had planned to eat indoors and the house always looks cosy when it is candle-lit anyway plus you don't get so bothered by insects!

I am almost looking forward to the winter and the woodburner and snuggling up on the sofa to watch a film.  I can't believe I am saying that and when we are forced to be inside because the rain is beating down and we have water making its way under the front door I will be desperate for the sun to shine again!

Good to catch up with Lou and H - had to take a sneaky photo through the window because Mrs Jones doesn't like having her photo taken!  Think the food went down well - there wasn't too much left!!

By the way - it's official my trusty old laptop is too poorly to repair - unviable actually - anyone got one for sale?