Monday

Monday, Monday, so good to me
Monday mornin', it was all I hoped it would be...

I love Mondays and I particularly love Mondays because I get my couple of hours at Sheila and Klaus's doing my art and then I get fed - how good is that?

John was helping out Diana and Rob who had some jobs to do before their visitors arrive next weekend so he was up early and shot off down below and I walked into the village.

It was the most glorious of mornings and it is October - it is very hot and the sky is very clear and it is beautiful and I love the village when it is like this.

What I don't like though is the aftermath of the fire we could smell yesterday afternoon - it was nearer than I had thought and one fire had taken hold just after the Australian's house and behind the school which was small and the other was right next door to where Linda and Noel live - Linda was outside and we chatted - it must have been very scary until the fire brigade came and dealt this it.  

The ground is blackened and there is a strong smell of smoke hanging around.  Linda said it will be weeks before she gets the smell out of her house and I am not surprised - this was a big fire and it was directly next door to at least six houses.

I carried on walking - almost opposite where the fire would have been raging there is a horse tethered - I hope it wasn't there at the time or it would have been terrified.

I don't recognise this horse it looks to be a newbie and may belong to the house next door.  It looks to be in pretty good condition - I didn't take a close look so I have no idea if it is a male or a female.

There was nobody much around in the village this morning except from some tourists who were having coffee at Despinas as I walked passed.  She always gives a cheery wave and invites me in and I always have to decline and say I am on my way to art and if I walk back that way afterwards then she does the same thing and I still have to decline as I am wanted to get back and make sure John has had some lunch!!

I was pretty hot by the time I arrived at Sheila's and I was glad she had the fan going!!  We settled down for our morning's work.  Sheila is starting a new picture (that is always the worst bit) and I am getting near to finishing my current picture which is for Miss Lola.  I thought I would finish it today but didn't get anywhere near and I wasn't aware that we were chatting much but clearly rose leaves take an inordinate amount of work.  So I have a bit of background left, two leaves to finish and the butterfly which based on today's progress looks like it could be two weeks' work!  Miss Lola will be beside herself because she is desperate for her picture and today when I went to see Elena I gave her a sneaky preview of the progress I had made so far - she hadn't seen it previously and was gobsmacked - I have never seen her lost for words - eventually when she stopped catching flies with her wide open mouth she looked at me and declared that it was beautiful.

After my lunch I left Klaus and Sheila and decided to walk home via the Vals' houses so I could see the extent of the fire - this turned out to be a bad move as John had decided to come and pick me up, unbeknown to me, and drove the normal way thus missing me completely!!!  My departure from the Knips' House was viewed warily by some of the ginger cats and kittens that reside there - how sweet are they?  Although Klaus and Sheila do not overly interfere with the colony they do feed them and feed them well.

The fire was a biggy that's for sure so no wonder we got the smuts falling over at our house.  So glad no-one got hurt and the houses next door were relatively unscathed.  Fires in Cyprus are, unfortunately, a regular occurrence and are normally allowed to spread through ignorance rather than malice.

I visited Elena today - it has been a couple of days since I saw her last.  She is desperate for the pot to be removed from her leg and is going to have it checked again on Wednesday so fingers crossed it will be gone and then she can start her recovery from that accident.  She was desperate for some coleslaw so before I went off to belly dancing I knocked her up a batch which she could then have with a jacket potato.

It was a hard evening at belly dancing - I would like to pass this off as being me but no chance!!!  Today we finished our session by dancing with scarves with the lights down and candles lit.  Very atmospheric but we were more likely to set the scarves on fire than make beautiful shapes!!!