6th Village CleanUp

Cleaning and tidying the house today even though I am being spoilt and having a cleaner come in on Monday to give the house a 'right good bottoming'  I thought I could at least do our bedrooms and our bathrooms and leave Claire to concentrate on the lounge/dining room/kitchen and conservatory.  Charlie was not impressed and took himself off to the spare bedroom and got in touch with his feminine side and plonked himself on Minnie's purrfect princess bed.  As I have said before he likes to remain around the house with us when we are here - he is never very far away from us and apart from when he is hungry or when he is tired and behaves like a petulant toddler causes us very little grief.

I got on with the job in hand and got the bedrooms sorted, fresh bedding one the guest room and our bed stripped, washed, dried and back on within an hour.  Sadly Wendy and Bill will not be coming to TD on Tuesday or staying with us overnight because for family reasons they have to return to the UK.  We will be thinking of them.

On leaving the bedrooms I was greeted with a strong smell of smoke and I could see a black plume of it rising over the roof tops - it looked close so I went to investigate and was met by Sharon doing the same - not sure where it was or whether we needed to ring the emergency services with jumped in the truck like a couple of Tornado followers and worked out that is was a bit further away than we thought somewhere near Inea.  Shortly afterwards we saw the fire spotter plane going overhead and then it looked like there was a second fire over by Pittikopos - John was down in Polis and said you couldn't see Droushia because it was engulfed in a blanket of smoke.  We soon started to get ash falling into the garden which hampered my cleaning efforts but eventually the smoke subsided as the fires were dealt with.

Before going out on the 6th Village Clean Up we had noticed that Big Foot and her foal had managed to kick over the blue water container and it was exceptionally hot and windy this afternoon so we went to top up the water mindful that Big Foot might be touchy about anyone approaching the foal.  The Foal is not tethered but Big Foot is.  They both seemed grateful for the water - not sure how long they had been without but generally the owners come around regularly to see to them.

We started this month's clean at Despinas Coffee Shop.  Our numbers were sadly depleted this month but we weren't bothered as we would go anyway even if it were just the two of us.  John had secured some more bags free of charge from the Muhktar's shop and Despina kindly gave me my can of Sprite and John's water.

To save Klaus and the Veaseys from walking up into the village unnecessarily we had our drinks and then made our way down to the main road by the Droushia Heights Hotel to catch up with the others.

John took the road down the right side of the Hotel and I took the one down the left where I was buzzed by Gareth racing down the hill on his bike before he got ready to go to the airport and back to the UK.  Honestly you think he would have wanted to come on the clean for his last day!!!  Anyway he was John and Susan's excuse for not coming this time.

We met up with the others and set off down the hill towards Ditzimin Museum which I had arranged to be open so we could have a look round and I had arranged with Andri to have chicken, potatoes and salad for our supper - at least I hope I had!!

We really got into the swing of our clean up and in the end the road didn't yield as much rubbish as we had anticipated but we did encounter a small dead dog which was horrible as the magpies looked to have started picking at it.  Then we came across the usual stash of pornographic DVD's like we found the last time and John picked up one of those chimney things they use to get the coals on a barbeque glowing.  Not all the disks were porno DVD's - Klaus found a music one - which Rob wondered was the Horn section which made us all laugh.

We had three bin stops - and the five of us cleaning each deposited a full bag at each stop so that amounted to 15 large sacks of detritus spoiling the drive to and from our village - what must tourists think when they see discarded cans and bottles and cartons and bags adorning the side of the road?

Sheila met us at the end - she is always with us in spirit and was coming to enjoy the well-earned end of clean meal.  The five of us were all spitting feathers by the end and all dreaming about a nice cold ice cold beer - we resembled that scene in Ice Cold in Alex where they reach their destination and then get the beer they have been dreaming about! Cold Keo's all round for us then!!  As John Mills would have said - Worth Waiting For

Loukas and Andri had the museum open for us as promised.  Sheila and I have been before but the others had not and I am not sure they were expecting so much of interest in what looks from the outside a tiny little building.

It is fascinating and there is much more to the museum than just this one room and there is more to the venue and more to the exhibits than when I went before.  The donkey and the sheep were not in evidence this evening but there was Phillipos, Loukas, Andri and a couple of their kids making sure we were ok.

They had laid up a table in the grounds of the museum - I thought I had said we would eat at the little cafe tables next to the museum rather than in the big establishment next door which is a bit soleless but they must have thought I wanted to eat in the grounds so that is what they had organised which was so lovely.

The food was absolutely lovely - I was ready for it and probably would have eaten a scabby donkey if it has been put in front of me (not the one from the museum obviously) but we had a lovely fresh salad with a yoghurt and mint accompaniment then barbequed chicken and oven baked potatoes which were fabulous.

I thought they had brought far too much food but we slowly and surely worked our way through it all - Rob Veasey where do you put all that food for someone so trim?????

Finishing off with some fresh fruit from the prickly pear we all declared it a very very successful evening - great venue, great food and great company thanks to everyone concerned.