Friday

Not much to report on this Friday except to say that we are continuing with the pool - it just seems like a normal part of our waking up routine these days!!  The plus side to our rude awakening is the thought of, and then the reality of, a good old bacon sarnie to get the blood flowing - well the blood which can squeeze through our cholesterol laden arteries courtesy of the said bacon butties!  Actually I am reliably informed that submerging your body in freezing water is very good for you in all sorts of ways so it obviously negates any less healthy aspects of our lifestyle!

I had a quick trip down to the Tritonia bungalows where Di and Rob live to help out their neighbour Judy who has some questions regarding her computer.  I did what I could manage for her but she is going to have to go to the bank in Polis to sort out using her bank card for on-line bill payments.  She plans to do this later today and then I can go and finish helping her tomorrow all being well.  I tried to convince her that once it is all set up it really is an easy way for her to make payments to suppliers like the gas company who often deliver when she is not around and so she can deal with their invoice at her leisure rather than panic about having the cash in the house.  She remains unconvinced!

This afternoon after pickleball Mum and I had a trip to the old town as we wanted to go to the Marks and Sparks food outlet and the top floor houses Marks clothing sale items at good prices.  Dad is in need of a new pair of brown trousers and it would appear that this colour is most definitely NOT in fashion on the island as we cannot locate any at all.  Access to that part of the town is a nightmare as roads are still being completed and those which are open and those which are closed change on a daily basis.  We ended up going all round the houses, encountering a complete pillock in a soft-top Renault Megane who decided to squeeze past us on a single lane bit of road where our two cars passed with only a fag paper's width between us, before we managed to find a rough old bit of carpark by the Agapinor Hotel.  Poor mum had to struggle up a slope on a par with Cardiac Hill in the village and at this point we couldn't tell whether or not the shop was actually open.  You really have to feel for the businesses located in the Old Town - during all these extensive works it is a miracle that any of them have survived.  I can understand why tourists are not venturing up that way.

Anyway the shop was open but again NO BROWN TROUSERS which was a bugger.  It was nice to have a look at the food items - some of which are so extraordinarily expensive you wonder who buys them (die-hard M&S devotees obviously) and others which are reasonable to say the least.  Worth a trip if you are in the area and want a taste of something different.

Whilst we were navigating our way around the centre of Paphos John went off in search of the FEDEX office as I had ordered a new rug for the conservatory and had received a phonecall to say it had arrived.  I was a little skeptical about my order to a company in Sweden who didn't charge delivery and who had a fine selection of rugs at very reasonably prices (in their sale).  So here it is in situ - a wool Kilim in lovely Autumn shades which I think looks lovely.  So lovely that we are going to take another look at what they have to offer and try and get something for under the dining table.  We got rid of the red rug that was there - it looked ok but was horrible to try and keep clean - having a long shaggy pile when the cats brought in an offering and disemboweled it there, body parts used to get stuck in the pile or lost.  It was donated to Polis cat park - it hadn't cost us much and owed us nothing.

On the subject of internet shopping when my sister was here she noticed dad struggling a bit sometimes to read when the light was poor so she asked me to order him a reading light from Amazon.

I ordered it and it was supposed to be delivered to our home by DHL - normally we have no problem with Amazon deliveries but this time when I tracked it the webpage showed that it should have been delivered some time ago but when I punched in the DHL tracking number on the DHL site it didn't recognise it and then when I looked on the supplier website it said it hadn't been despatched.  I contacted the supplier and Amazon to cancel the order which they accepted and refunded me the money.

Several days later I got a text from the Post Office asking me to go and collect a parcel.  As I didn't expect the lamp to be arriving at the Post Office I didn't really know what I was collecting but there it was large as life and twice as ugly!

I have now had to contact Amazon to explain that it has arrived - I am guessing they will want their money back now!