Village Clean Up

Today was the day of our tenth monthly village clean up - eleven if you take into account that we did a clean with the village school children last month.

The weather has been changeable of late so it was difficult to know exactly what to wear as it was likely to be wet and soggy underfoot.  We opted for layers and walking boots and as we would be walking down the main road I put on my high viz top so that hopefully we wouldn't get mown down by the lunatics that go up and back to the village at about Mac 10!

We were having some newbies with us today, Lynda had so enjoyed herself at the school clean she said she would come back today and bring with her her friend Christine who had stayed over last night so really had no choice!

All comers are welcome, but to be fair the village is really much better than some and so if we have too many willing helpers there doesn't end up much for them to do and as it happened there wasn't as much rubbish on the main road as we thought there was going to be.

We started early and it was a little chilly to begin with although when the sun did break through it was warm enough bearing in mind it is the second week of December.  There were nine of us today although Klaus ducked out of the first photoshoot.  Good to be joined by Lynda and Christine who were introduced to the local smutty DVD lending library - they didn't believe us when we said we always find dodgy DVDs on this stretch of the road but we soon found some and some accompanying magazines which were educational to say the least.

We worked our way down the hill from the Droushia Heights Hotel to the Ditzimin Museum - anyone listening in would have heard a lot of laughs and banter - it really is just an excuse for a walk with breakfast waiting for us at the end and on the plus side twenty odd bags of litter got picked up making the approach road to the village look so much nicer.  In fact there are a lot of villages that could take a leaf out of our book!

So here we are at the end of our clean, Klaus, Norma, John, Rob, Christine, Lynda, Diana and Malcolm - the sun was shining and we are all happy and ready for our breakfast - at least those of us who had ordered it in advance and having taken our car down earlier to we could ferry people back we had seen that someone was at the cafe early on so we would be getting something to eat.

We actually managed to sit outside to take our breakfast - when the sun was shining it was really lovely - not so good when the sun went in.  Klaus didn't stay for breakfast so John quickly took him back up to the village, Norma and Malcolm just stayed for coffee and the remaining six of us opted for a 'Cypriot' breakfast.

Blimey what a plateful we were presented with - and it was delicious and tasted so much better because we had (a) earned it and (b) were sitting outside.  Philippos pitched up with a flagon of wine he had been nurturing over the past few years which he would use for making the local loukaniko sausages.   We all had to taste it and admire it and probably regret drinking it quite so early in the morning.

I started the Christmas decorating on our return.  We had packed away our little green tree complete with its decorations and swathed it in cling film to keep everything in place and that had obviously worked a treat as there was little for me to do save fluff it up a bit.

Mum and Dad had give us their outside tree which is full of bright lights and which looks lovely lit and not so lovely when it is not so we decided to trim it up a bit so it would look ok when it was not switched on.

That was as far as I got today because with Mum and Dad coming for lunch tomorrow I needed to get the slow cooker out and get something prepared.  We had some nice chicken thighs to cook and I thought it would be easier to have it done today so I didn't have so much to do tomorrow.

I had a phone call from Elena this afternoon telling me that it was reasonably quiet up at hers if I wanted to go up for a chat.  I have told her I am going to rename her Lazarus because today she looked and sounded so much better than yesterday and today she did not have the oxygen thing up her nose.

We had a laugh together, we always do even though to some it  might seem inappropriate or irreverent - it is never meant to be like that but sometimes black humour is the best!

Amoura was busy making brownies which we got to sample later on when John took up a copy of Papadopoulous and Sons for them to watch.

Elena's lovely mum had brought me a couple of bars of my favourite chocolate (Montezuma's lime and chilli) even though she had much better things to think about when she was preparing to come over.

A night in tonight with some rubbish TV - what bliss.  This will be followed by a lie-in tomorrow (cat permitting) as everything is in hand for lunch.