Wednesday - Ladies Lunch

On this day two years ago...
Sunday 7th October
Bright start to the day but it descended into carnage as we had flash flooding and thunder and lightning - realised that the drain on the flat roof was blocked and the roof was about eight inches deep in standing water - deep joy!

Well we had a damp start to the day after last night's thunder storms but to be fair it soon brightened up and actually turned into rather a nice day!

Anyway it was Ladies Lunch day and Sheila, Mum, Joyce, Sharon, her daughter and Sean's daughter were all partaking of the food at Finikas in the village and the menfolk were contributing to the profits at Fitos down the road.

We had the morning to ourselves so John took the opportunity to cut his hair as he was beginning to look like Catweasel!   I can assure you that he is wearing shorts although a quick glance might make you think he is naked.  John, ever the Yorkshireman, is loathe to spend money on a haircut particularly when you haven't got much in the first place and after years of on-board DIY haircuts he is happy to wave the clippers over his pate!  I get the neck and ears job - this never goes without some disagreement between ourselves as to whether I have been too rough or have only just missed cutting him to shreds - he is such a drama queen!  Anyway today he only winced once during the whole procedure so I must be improving!

I reckon it will snow tomorrow because independently we took the colour swatches we picked up from the DIY shop yesterday and chose the colours we liked for the accent walls and managed to agree on the same shades - this must be some sort of record.  Now that we have agreed we are keen to get going before we change our minds.

Now that we have more or less finished with visitors for this year (save to catch up with Hils and Keith but they wont be staying with us) we can clear the guest bedroom and get that one sorted - it isn't a big room so we ought to be able to get that one done reasonably quickly then we can move into that one and get ours done - ours will take a little longer as I am hoping to have some white-washed wood paneling round the walls and want to try and create a sort of beachy feel if I can - the paneling will hide the badly plastered walls and provide a bit of insulation hopefully - well that is the plan anyway!

John is now the proud owner of a designer tie-dye shirt!  Only people of a certain age will remember the joys of stones and string and a tin of Dylon and cold water and salt and an old tin saucepan which was a strange multi-colour from various dying experiments!

He had a really nice shirt which had become the victim of a red-wine incident and no amount of soaking and stain remover would get rid of the evidence so I offered to dye it - he wasn't convinced but had nothing to lose so I went for it using two different shades which had been in the cupboard for ages - not entirely sure what I was planning to do with them but remember I had picked them up for the grand sum of 50p when I was in England last year so the shirt has been saved even if it only gets worn as a work shirt - I hope not because I rather like the finished article!

We had surprise visitors today - Simon called in with his younger daughter Frances.  Last time we saw her she had a full head of quite dark hair and now after a summer she is blonder than a blond thing and walking and talking. She is in love with cats but Charlie was keen to make his escape when she arrived!

Blimey she has turned into a real cutie and now looks so much more like her older sister Jasmine.  We are really hoping that the whole family will be up in Droushia soon as we haven't seen them for ages.  I have even offered to go and cut back their garden before they come so that there will be one less job for them to do.  John and Simon have also been planning a long bike ride together with Melanie, the girls and I in the car as back-up and they probably need to do it sooner rather than later or else the weather may put them off.

Anyway Melanie sorry if Frances was hyper this afternoon but we couldn't stop her tucking into the biscuits!  So blame me and don't blame Simon!!!

So as I said lunch was at Finikas in the village today and for once we were almost outnumbered by the Cypriot contingent!  It would be so nice to get more local ladies to join us - at least Kelly and Marianna are doing there bit.

Unfortunately it had rained overnight so we had been allocated a table indoors which was probably sensible but it was a shame that we weren't able to enjoy the little courtyard outside.  Still after the rain we would probably have been plagued by flies.

There were about 17 of us assembled today and as I said there were a fair few Cypriot ladies who joined us - one of whom was celebrating her birthday so Marianna had been and got a special cake which we all shared.  Whilst we were sat there those of us who have applied to take part in some government funded craft lessons one by one all got our call to ask whether we wanted mornings or afternoons - all of us except Kelly who had translated and submitted all the forms - let's hope she got her call at some point because she is our translator and I can imagine that the basket weaving we have selected could be pretty complicated without someone to explain the procedure in English!  I can't remember exactly when we did the Gourd Decorating course last year but I seem to think it was the beginning of December.

Finally it looks like I may collaborate with a London-based Drouseian to produce some information about the village and make it available to visitors or (John's suggestion) produce some nicely annotated photographs to go in the new Mukhtar's building.

I have been posting photographs of some of the older houses in Drouseia onto the local facebook page and Christ Messis-Pefkaros Semillides-Pavilides has been annotating them with his memories of the village.  This information is invaluable and it would be tragic if it were lost so we have agreed that I will go round the village a few houses at a time and he will tell me what he knows so that we can record this for posterity.