Still cold...

It may have been a bright start to the day but it was clear that the weather is less than settled - down on the coast you can see the white horses of a stormy sea.  It looks cold and uninviting - can't imagine swimming in there any time soon!!!  Still at least it is not raining, hailing or snowing so that is a bonus.

When we do get some sunshine it must be pretty strong because periodically the solar water feature kicks into life - I need to keep an eye on the water level because the reservoir isn't overly large and when summer does come it could easily dry out.

I really like the water feature, my only disappointment is that it doesn't make a sound and I was kind of hoping that it would give a gentle soothing tinkling sound.  Still it was such a nightmare getting it here I am not going to complain!!!

I am itching to get to work on the garden but everything was stopped in its tracks last week when it was pummeled by the hailstones that were the size of marbles.  Some of the plants look like they have come face to face with a flame-thrower - they will recover - I know that now after half a dozen years coping with the vagaries of Droushia weather and if they don't then fortunately plants are something which are not so expensive to buy over here particularly if you stick to the common stuff that you see in all the gardens in the village - I learned my lesson the first year spending loads buying all sorts of exotic plants that would have survived down in Paphos but which faltered and failed up here in Droushia.

We were down to Paphos this afternoon for an afternoon of sport, it was considerably warmer down by the coast but the sea was equally as choppy although taking a photograph out of the window as John was driving was pretty difficult so it doesn't look anything like as wild as it was!!!!

When we arrived at pickleball Marios had just taken delivery of nearly 200 terracotta jugs which were lined up in rows on the edge of the court - I could see this was going to be a recipe for disaster and that if anyone was going to fall into them it would be me so we persuaded him to let us put them away for him before we played.  To be fair it didn't take us too long and kindly he told Diana and I we could take a jug each for our trouble.

After pickleball Mum, Diana and I went to visit Sonia who is currently recuperating at the Arch-Angel St Michael hospice which is located in Mesa Chorio up the road from the international school.  I haven't had any reason to visit it before so it was a bit of a mystery as to where we went in!!  We all commented on the fact that when we did walk through the door we were amazed by how lovely it smelt - not a hint of hospitals or disinfectant!!!

Sonia seems to be making good progress and will move on Monday to Nicosia to a specialist clinic which her family has chosen for her and where hopefully they will get her back to something like normal.  Jo from the village has been doing wonders with her mobility so far so she has had a good start.  Fingers crossed it will not be too long before Sonia is back in this neck of the woods continuing with her dream to settle here - such a shame that this had to happen just as she had embarked on a new chapter in her life.  Needless to say that when she is back we will be here to help her in any way that we can.

I had left some beef ribs in the slow cooker for our return tonight - I haven't cooked these before but having left John to go wild in the aisles on Monday he had bought them.  I had decided to serve them with jacket potatoes (these had been reclining in the embers of the wood burner all day) and some coleslaw.  The ribs were delicious and there was enough left over for another day - billy bargain as they had only cost about 5 euro!!!