Day 47...

How glad were we that the pool man, Kyriakos had been summoned to go to the Army and wasn't actually pitching up at 7.00am today!!!  Mind you we have an awful feeling he may pitch up at 7.00am on Monday now!!

I got up this morning and stained the wooden work-bench that Ray had given John and whilst I was doing that John started to sort out the pool cover frame that Mum and Dad had given us and then we erected our old gazebo as a temporary carport for the car.  It may not last too long but it was given a good test this afternoon when the wind got up quite strong.  At least the car will be cooler and will be protected from the olive tree!

We then had a mass tidy as Mum was coming up with Shirley.  Poor Shirley is suffering with her back and has had a number of operations including having rods put in.   Spooky old thing but when we lived in Glenthorne Avenue we had a lovely guy that did building work for us called Roger - it was like having your Dad come into the house and he did loads of work for us until he had to call it a day because of a bad heart.  What we didnt know at the time was that this was Shirley's brother (not having met Shirley at that point!!).  Roger went on to have a heart transplant and is doing really well several years later.  Any of you reading this in Cyprus should go and visit Shirley's daughter's taverna in Tala if you haven't already done so - it is called the Voukani (I think) and her food is excellent and the puds are second to none and usually made by Shirley despite her back problems.  Anyway we introduced Shirley to the delights of Skyping (contacting Dad in Emba) and I guess she may well embrace this in the future for keeping in contact with her family back in England.

We had a lovely lunch - just salad and the home-made keftedes I had made yesterday (meatballs to the uninitiated!!!).  I served my home-made lemonade which was delicious (now I am beginning to sound like Enid Blyton!!) and my home-stewed apricots with icecream.  How Nigella am I???

The house and garden are really coming together and I will take great pleasure in spending the garden centre voucher which Shirley very kindly gave John and I as a moving in present.  This little corner is almost finished - we call it the Vicki and Trev corner as those are the chairs which they gave us and which very very nearly didnt get packed to come across with us although I had always envisaged that they would sit in that corner and look really good.  Even John has to admit that I was right.

Once Mum and Shirley had left for some reason we decided that we ought to give the pavements a bit of a clear - as quite a number of the properties are unoccupied the gardens are getting rather overgrown and make the place look untidy.  We did all along our side as you can see.  Whilst we were out the lady from 2A arrived - her name is Galadia and she tells me her husband is called Charalambous.  They are from Nicosia and she had come early to tidy the garden and her husband and daughter were coming later.  She was lovely and shot off to Polis and came back with icecreams for John and I as we were working so hard.  No doubt we will get to meet the rest of the family tomorrow!

We had been expecting our new garden furniture to arrive on Monday but this afternoon we had a call to say that it was on its way!!!  Good job we were in.  Anyway it arrived safe and sound and John has put it together and we think it looks very nice - it is more reliable than the old dining room table and chairs we had out there - all their joints were getting dry and the chairs kept collapsing!!

As it is Friday we treated ourselves to a turn around the village - we had missed the post office so called into Stathmos for a large Keo each.  On walking back home we met three locals that recognise us and spoke to us so progress is being made!!!

I am making a curry tonight and we are aiming to try and stay up until 10.00!!