Monday and it didn't rain!!

Diana Veasey if you are reading this hope all is well xxx

For the first time in six weeks on a Monday it didn't rain today although it threatened to do so and it was chilly when the sun went in so my washing nearly dried but I can see another Chinese Laundry evening ahead of us!

I walked down to Art this morning with my trusty camera.  Those of you who read the blog regularly will have realised by now that, except for when we have visitors, our weekly routine is pretty much set in stone and doesn't alter so unless something extraordinary has happened I can struggle to find something to write about and so the photographs help to jog my memory or give me something to witter on about!

Anyway as I said I walked down to Sheila's for art - the sun was shining and it didn't occur to me that the weather might deteriorate.  The horse is  back, when she first appeared we were worried about her as she has one rather huge front hoof, much bigger than the other and she was brought to graze when the weather was awful and I mean really awful and she seemed to have little shelter.

As it happens she seems to be reasonably well looked after and apparently the huge hoof is as a result of an old injury.  She is moved regularly from field to field and is left with water and generally is in a field somewhere where there is some shelter.  In terms of Cyprus Animal Welfare this is about as good as it gets!

I continued walking down through the village - it is so quiet on a Monday morning at about 10.30am!  If the children are out in the school playground then you can hear them but apart from that the village is normally deserted.  Today I passed four or five people walking - I am guessing they are staying at the Hotel because they are currently doing a promotion in conjunction with Alpha Mega so you get a voucher if you spend a certain amount at Alpha Mega and that entitles you to a super cheap overnight stay at the Hotel.

As well as the village visitors my path was crossed by Savvas the tyre-man's guinea fowl who had been across the road near the school until the children came out to play and so they scuttled back across the road to the sanctity of their coup or whatever you call a guinea fowl's home.

As I passed by Linda and Noel's house I get to the lemon tree that John covets.  Our lemon tree is struggling to establish itself even though it has now been in for five years.

This lemon tree gets the severest of a prune every year to the point where you cannot believe it will survive and then every year it is covered by a mass of fruit which sadly no-one eats or uses because the tree grows in the garden of one of the houses where no-one lives.

Just past the lemon tree and one of the cheese factories is a really old building which is falling down and I think is  used as a store room for the cheese factory.  I am fascinated by the two stones wedged in the window which appear to be mill stones.

Moving on down into the village proper and the church you can see how deserted the village is.  I saw no-one to speak to and even Marianna's office door was shut so couldn't shout hello to her either.

I am currently working on a picture of a small boy playing in the sea - I am enjoying this picture although the skin tones and the limbs have been causing me some angst!  And now I look at it from a distance I can see I need to do a bit of work on the shorts as the poor lad doesn't seem to have a bottom inside!!  It was, as usual, a lovely morning with Sheila and Klaus.  Sheila is nearing completion of her picture of the old man and it is amazing.

My walk back home was cool to say the least - the sun had disappeared behind quite a bank of cloud but I shoved my hands in my pockets put my head down and didn't hang about.

I was going to visit Elena this afternoon - she hasn't been feeling too well of yet - she has had aching legs amongst other things and she hates being inactive so I went for a cuppa and a catch up and we are planning when she is going to start her cookery book.  She says that most of her recipes are just reproduced intuitively so she needs to record exactly the ingredients and the method and she needs someone to ensure that she doesn't miss something out so that someone is going to be me!

She will not be joining us for belly dancing tonight which is sensible but we are being joined by two newbies from Ladies Lunch - Norma who lives in the village and Geraldine who lives in Drimou.

As always Belly Dancing was fab - I love it and this week we were working hard with our scarves - it seems so simple and easy but you just know that you are working bits of you that never ever normally get worked!  On my return home John had the house toasty warm - we had obviously heated lots of water in the kettles that sit on top of the wood burner as Chivers was taking advantage of a hottie wattie bottie!