Droushia Ladies Day...

It was a very different start to the day today, dry and bright and it remained that way all day - and we all know that dry bright days mean cold clear nights so it is probably a good thing that we are off down to Emba for Ray and Janice's Christmas Party so we can take advantage of their heating!

I got up first this morning giving John the chance to have a little lie-in as he is usually the one that gets up and sorts out the cats as they will be waiting to (a) be fed and (b) poo in nice clean cat litter!!

Although I took a coffee over to John he didn't stay in bed and so we were all up nice and early and on a Saturday to boot!!!

It is impossible to keep the cats in now - Minnie Mou loves the olive tree and her little head can be seen popping out of the top - she is still very much a kitten and can be entertained very easily (hence the shower scrub hanging from the tree).  Chivers looks on with a kind of grown up disdain but will join in now and again.  He is very much more interested in escaping over into the field which fills John and I with such dread.  The only trouble is that if Minnie Mou cannot find Chivers she wails and wails for him.  He has been on his wanders several times today and has returned safely much to our relief.  

Minnie is due down at the vets on Monday for the second part of her vaccination - we are going to ask the Vet how soon she can be neutered as Chivers is taking great interest in her if you know what I mean!!

We were surprised to have a ring on the door at 9.00am this morning and even more surprised that is was Charalambous from Nicosia delivering my Blackberry case which I had dropped in Marks and Spencer - apparently he had to go to Limassol for something and so carried on up to Droushia - how kind was that?

I really could do with some time in the garden as it is a right old mess but as I was attending the Droushia Ex-Pat Ladies Tea at Marianna's this afternoon didn't have time.  I had a quick look round and am very pleased to see that the geranium cuttings which I took from Kaye's in August are just about to flower.  I am hoping that they survive as the one at the back was most unusual with spiky leaves and equally spiky orange flowers.

We keep our olive tree cut back, and it gets quite a battering from the cats as they use it for a play thing and a scratching post but nevertheless it has still valiantly produced some fruit and quite large fruit at that - not enough to do anything with though!!!

The lovely sunshine meant that the water got heated with only a little top-up required from the immersion heater and we tried out our new eco-heat panel which we have put in the bathroom.  It seems to work quite well - you could certainly feel the heat coming from it and it wasn't quite such a shock to the system when you emerged from the shower!

I took myself off to Marianna's and found her house without a problem and there is a garage there - not a filling station but a car repairs and apparently it has a good reputation so we may well take our car there at some point in the future.

It is a very large house with the living accommodation on the first floor and Marianna had it all beautifully trimmed up ready for Christmas - at each turn of the stairs there were festive decorations.  I don't know what there was in the lift - apparently there was a lift up to the first floor!!).

Inside the house was beautiful with one very large 'L' shaped room which was kitchen/lounge/diner.  I surreptitiously took a quick snap on the bloody Blackberry (now safely reunited with its case).

There must have been about 25 or so ex-pat ladies there - I only really knew Irene (who returned back from the UK yesterday) but soon got talking to some others and met Despo who runs the Akamas Spa - she was quite interested in the fact that I did photography so I am dropping my details off with her when John and I go down on Tuesday to use the tennis court.

The ladies want to start an informal lunch club and hope to meet up once a month and eat in some of the local places - it is a good way of meeting people and so if I am around I will be happy to go along.

Off down to Emba for the party so will post a report on that tomorrow.