I had a very restless night's sleep last night. A bit of a hangover from the fright of the exploding solar heating and the fact that the island of Cyprus is beginning to hot up - even here in Droushia which is renowned for its temperate climate!!
We had to get up and off today as we were going down to Mum and Dad's to say goodbye to their neighbour George who is leaving and going back to Larnaca. George and his partner Elizabeth lived next door for a couple of years. For whatever reason Elizabeth has gone back to South Africa and George is having to move out. I know that Mum and Dad will miss him as he has been a great person for them to have next door. He took a break from his clearing out to come and see us and Dave and Rosie from the other side and say his goodbyes.
We then had to make a visit to the Bank in Kissonerga to arrange to transfer some money and get some signed bank statements for the immigration process which we have to go to next week. We had to laugh at the guy behind the counter who has dealt with all our money transactions so far. We have no idea what his name is but we call him 'Chunky Monkey' he is a 'portly' guy with a dry sense of humour for a Cypriot. We were amazed when he embarked on a story about some people in America who set up an internet sex business (at this point the female teller next door started rolling her eyes!!!) apparently they were selling vibrators for a third of the price you could get them anywhere else and took the orders accompanied by a cheque. They told purchasers that they would not get their goods until the cheques had cleared. They then wrote back about 3 months later saying the vibrators were no longer available and returned a fresh cheque made out for the right amount of money but made out to the person with the wording 'in payment for a vibrator' printed on the cheque. They banked on people being too embarrassed to cash in the cheques and they were right because they made about $3 million! What a random conversation to be having at the bank!!!
Mum and Dad came up to Droushia this afternoon to help us with some chores. John and Dad were sorting out getting the Gazebo erected and Mum and I were doing gardening stuff - firstly clearing plants where the Gazebo was going to go and then clearing up our 'glory hole' because we had been to Winters in Paphos and arranged to purchase a second shed as we are desperate for storage and we have plenty of garden space.
As you can see it was a glorious day in Droushia this afternoon and so the Gazebo will be very welcome indeed. Although there were instructions in the box in about 10 different languages not one of them was English so it took a little while to get the Gazebo erected and even then we seem to have an extra bit sticking out at the front and we are not exactly sure what it is there for!
Having got the Gazebo completed we decided that we would have our tea sat outside. We were in the middle of getting it prepared when we heard people outside. As there are very few of the properties occupied on a permanent basis John went out to investigate. We are expecting some of the Nicosian families being around this weekend as it is a Bank Holiday here celebrating Cataclisma (the Great Flood). However, this turned out to be a Droushian guy now living in London with his wife and daughter. His name was Nikos and he and his wife have been interested in buying one of the properties as a holiday home. We showed them round so that they could see what we had done and have put them in touch with Philippos as he may be able to help them. They seemed quite interested in 10A which is currently available for rent but which we think the guy may be up for selling.
I managed to cobble together a meze-style tea with all the things I could find in the fridge together with the lamb shank that Mum had brought up. So we had a village salad, watermelon and feta, houmus, tsatsiki, olives, lounza, haloumi, koupies, baked potatoes and lamb shank! This was washed down with either the 'euro a litre' rose wine or the '25 euros for 10 litres' red wine!
We then all sat round for our customary 'best of three' surrounded by candles and the sound of the frogs! I can see that we will get a lot of use out of the Gazebo and are thinking about how we can get some better lighting although the candles, solar lights and flashing dragonflies looked lovely.
We then had to make a visit to the Bank in Kissonerga to arrange to transfer some money and get some signed bank statements for the immigration process which we have to go to next week. We had to laugh at the guy behind the counter who has dealt with all our money transactions so far. We have no idea what his name is but we call him 'Chunky Monkey' he is a 'portly' guy with a dry sense of humour for a Cypriot. We were amazed when he embarked on a story about some people in America who set up an internet sex business (at this point the female teller next door started rolling her eyes!!!) apparently they were selling vibrators for a third of the price you could get them anywhere else and took the orders accompanied by a cheque. They told purchasers that they would not get their goods until the cheques had cleared. They then wrote back about 3 months later saying the vibrators were no longer available and returned a fresh cheque made out for the right amount of money but made out to the person with the wording 'in payment for a vibrator' printed on the cheque. They banked on people being too embarrassed to cash in the cheques and they were right because they made about $3 million! What a random conversation to be having at the bank!!!
We then all sat round for our customary 'best of three' surrounded by candles and the sound of the frogs! I can see that we will get a lot of use out of the Gazebo and are thinking about how we can get some better lighting although the candles, solar lights and flashing dragonflies looked lovely.
LOOKS LOVELY ..... CHEERS !
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