Christmas countdown...

Christmas is fast approaching - a week today and it will all be over and we will be on our Boxing Day walk in Latchi followed by mulled wine and pasties!

We had an early night last night so John was up at just after 6.00am - so what does early morning on 19th December look like in Droushia?  It looks pretty damn fine compared to yesterday as we have clear skies and bright sunshine and it feels warm even this early on the morning.

This is Droushia at about 6.30am just as the bloody builders at Angela's have started - don't they have alarm clocks or nice warm beds in Timi I ask myself and I hope to God that they celebrate Christmas or it isn't going to be very calming and restful here!

Our electronic Christmas Card (which we created using a website called JibJab) has obviously started a craze as we had one as a reply from our friends the Allans a couple of days ago and we spotted this one from the Elliotts on Facebook.  

If you don't know anything about JibJab check it out now - you can create some really wicked animated cards using your own photographs and I think the first one is free!

The cat-flap causes much confusion and the kitties will only go through with some encouragement from either John or I and a shove up the jacksy!!  They get so close and then back away at the last minute which is soooo frustrating!!  Still it is early days!  I keep getting a bollocking from John because I open the door and let them in when they are looking plaintively up at me!! 

It really has been the most beautiful day today and once again I managed to get washing out on the line and dried within an hour or so.  

With such beautiful weather we are still busy thinking about how best to use our outside space.  We have decided that out the front where my washing line is we will put more paving slabs down so that we can have a table and chairs there - it is the best place to eat breakfast or lunch this time of year.

We have also been looking at whether or not we will put tiles on the roof of the pergola between the buildings.  We have put some material up to take a look but we think it will cast too much shade over the swimming pool if we do that.

C & M are loving the new outside room we have created as they are both sun worshippers so they both wait patiently for me to bring out the cushions (we have to take them in at night because of the heavy condensation we get up here) before getting comfortable!

We decided that we would leave them outside today because if they were bright enough they could use their magnets to get indoors and if they weren't then we had left them with a scratching post, litter tray and water.

We decided to go down to Emba so that we could make a more permanent arrangement for the heater in Mum and Dad's bathroom so that Dad doesn't go breakdancing in the en-suite again.  We went down into Paphos and visited the Super Home Centre and purchased a full sized outside patio heater as they were on offer.  We also looked at some more garden furniture because if we are going to put more slabs down outside we really could do with some better furniture.

We called in and sorted out the heater at Mum and Dad's - it smelled absolutely fantastic in their house as they had made the pasties for Boxing Day and they looked absolutely yummy.

On returning to Droushia we found that our duffer cats hadn't worked out how to get back into the house so were waiting for us to return.  

Minnie had a traumatic experience as Domino the un-neutered feral cat from up the road had her pinned down in next door's garden - Chivers had run in and left her to it - great help he is!!!  

We managed to get her back indoors hopefully unscathed - she must have been traumatised because unusually both she and Chivs came to sit on my lap - I don't know quite what Minnie is doing to Chivs but whatever it is he is obviously liking it!!  And, as you can see, we are furthering their education by teaching them how to text!!!

We have had some lovely emails, texts and cards from friends and family wishing us well for Christmas - it is nice to know that even though we don't see them as often as we used to we have not been forgotten.