Saturday and Clean Up Number 3...

Today was the day of our third village clean-up.  Apparently the scheduled coptic storm has arrived early and the weather was overcast, warm, muggy and windy with a few spots of rain!!!  We had arranged to assemble at the Droushia Heights Hotel where we could have lined our stomachs with full English if we had wanted as we were invited in to take coffee and breakfast.  As John and I appeared to look like Wombles in High-Viz jackets we decided not to darken the doors and had a quick coffee and then waited outside - John and Klaus were keen to get started and so we walked around the hotel via the holiday apartments cleaning up whilst we waited for the others to arrive.


There has been a lot of maintenance work being done to the outside of the Hotel and we were delighted to see that they have taken the needs of their disabled guests to heart by reinforcing the original parking space and creating a new one.

Let's just hope that the Hotel Guests take it equally as seriously and refrain from parking in those spots if they are not entitled to do so.  I guess it will take a while to educate people so I am not holding my breath!  Still it is a step in the right direction.

So on to the clean - once again there were seven of us although a different seven than last time as Sharon and Sean were replaced by Norma and Malcolm.  We may  have been a small band but we were enthusiastic and keen to get the approach road to the village cleaned up as we had all noticed that it was getting rather messy in places.

Generally we come across some odd things on the clean-up - a dead goat and a dead cat previously and this time the skull of a fox (or at least we think it is a fox) but even more strange a whole load of XXX rated pornographic DVDs!!!!

Our clean up ended at the bottom of the hill down where Phillipos has his little museum and we were chuffed that our Mukhtar had arranged for us to have coffee at the cafe there and had paid for it for us as well as providing us with the blue bags which were a bit sturdier than the black ones we had previously.  We all sat down and enjoyed a very welcome drink and a slice a very very nice cake which made the morning worthwhile - not to mention the bags of rubbish collected and as we drove back up the hill we could all see the difference we had made.

We then set off for Sea You Beach Bar where we were meeting Lou and H.  John and H were going to the rugby to watch Cyprus play Hungary and Lou and I were having a very welcome girlie afternoon together - which is all part of Lou's new Work Life Balance initiative!!!

The heavy cloud had lifted but been replaced by a veil of sand in the atmosphere - it was exceptionally warm and sticky down at the beach which may have been why John decided to throw the contents of his frappe all over him and his brand new first time of wearing shorts!  Thus ensued a full and frank discussion as to trying to get most of it out whilst he could otherwise the coffee would stain and I might not be able to get it out - so thanks Lou and H for sorting him out a replacement pair later in the evening and soaking and spinning the original ones which are washed once again and hanging on the line and hopefully none the worse for the experience.

When I say hot and sticky - this was the temperature on Lou's car when we were driving back through Peyia at around the Green Hills Restaurant!!!  She and I had a bit of a mooch around the Clothing Lounge and then a bit of a mooch around Swanky Wags but as most things close on a Saturday afternoon by 3.00pm there wasn't anywhere much else for us to mooch round!!

We finished our girlie afternoon by having a cup of tea in Peyia at Grao de Cafe where I feel in love with the outside chairs which the guy had picked up when they were advertised outside a house as free to a good home and is just what I would have wanted to go on the decking by the guest bedroom!!

Lou on the other hand fell in love with the man's puppy March who was about 3-4 months old and a sweetie.  However we both clocked the size of his paws and reckon that he is going to be rather a large dog when fully grown!!!

Anyway a cracking pot of tea - properly made with loose leaves and only €3.00 - bargain!!!

We rounded off our evening with a pizza at the Pizza Box in Kathikas which was not without incident when we thought some tourist woman was pushing in and asking us to eat two of our pizzas now and two later - actually it was the owner's wife who was trying to explain that the trainee chef had cooked two pizzas already instead of putting all four in at the same time - we waited for all four and had a free carafe of wine whilst we did - bargain number two!!!