Panoramic Pickleball...

I went to bed early last night leaving John to watch the footie and the intention was that I would take the opportunity to read a bit in peace but three pages in I could hardly keep my eyes open so didn't put up a fight and as a result had a really great night's sleep and woke first.

It was another beautiful morning which meant I could wash the bed linen knowing it could go out on the line and be dry in an hour or so and then straight back on the bed - not bad for 13th December!  

As the sun started to rise John grabbed the camera took a photograph of the Troodos mountains.  

You can just about see the mast and the golfball on the top - to begin with they were shrouded by a fine mist which the sun soon burned off revealing the mountains in all their glory.  They look magnificent any time of the year.

As we were going out this morning to practice Pickleball on the Tennis Court at the Akamas Spa/Latchi Panorama (ooooh posh I hear you say!!!) we let the cats out for their early morning run in the sun.  I make no apologies for filling the blog with photographs of the two of them.  As I said to John today I could take photographs of them all day - they are such characters and such nice looking cats - I know that all cat-owners probably feel the same but if they were children they would be budding brain surgeons who spoke at least six languages and were the best lookers in the world!!!

Minnie Mou has decided that the best place to get a drink in the morning is from John's shower crocs where they have collected the condensation that appears every night - it would appear that she likes to wet her whistle before doing a bit of olive tree climbing and contortionism!!  Even if she is only three months she shows no fear whatsoever and she is a born explorer.  She gets very agitated if Chivers goes off and leaves her because she thinks she is missing out on something.

Today Chivers found one of the bigger trees in the field next door - he shot up it without any trouble whatsoever but he really hasn't got the hang of coming back down with the same amount of grace!!  We are surprised he has any claws left at all after this little escapade!!  We know now that we will have to put in the cat flap sooner rather than later but we just cant quite decide which will be the best door to put it in!

Having given the cats a fair amount of time outside this morning we got ready to go down and use the court at the Akamas Spa.  We decided to go down on the bike because it needed a run (and petrol so it would appear!).

You cant really tell from the photographs taken with the bloody Blackberry but the views from the Tennis Court are stunning - in the distance you can see Chrysochou Bay bathed in sunshine.

When we play Pickleball down at the Imperial beach we play on a tennis court which has been properly marked up so today we had to improvise and John put down some strips of electrical tape so that we had some idea of the boundaries.  We also play in pairs so today was an opportunity to practice shots and get some exercise.  We certainly got some exercise as it is much more difficult to cover the court without the second player to help out.  I dont think I did too badly and I think I managed to get John to break into a bit of a sweat!

Mrs Despo (who I met at the Ladies Tea Party at Marianna's) made us very welcome.  She is very involved in the running of the health spa and was previously involved with the Ayii Anargyri (amongst other places).  She came and had a look at what we were doing and although we had only booked the court for an hour told us to take as long as we wanted - not that we had the stamina to do much more than an hour!!!  Lisa also made us welcome and asked her to join us for coffee up in the restaurant when we had finished.  John is interested in doing some running and Lisa is putting together a running club but her two regulars are currently in the UK so she and John are going out next Wednesday morning - good luck to them - Droushia is full of hills!!  The Spa is trying very hard to get people through the doors and they run a quiz on the second Thursday of every month.  Lisa was very keen for us to go along but we will have to alter the Thursday that we go down to Sid's quiz because at the moment they clash.  I quite fancy winning a flotation tank experience or a month's membership to the gym!

I felt brilliant after my exercise and the coffee and handmade biscuits!!!  On returning home sure enough the washing was dry and so tonight we have a lovely fresh bed to jump into!!  We had lunch, let the cats out again before we tucked them up indoors and went down to Polis to do some food shopping.  We decided that if she was open on the way back we would call into see Alkisti and drop off the Christmas card I had made her.

On driving back through the village we could see that they were in the process of erecting the Christmas decorations.  We have no idea what they will look like when finished but we will go and check them out!!  Fortunately Alkisti was open and her taverna looked lovely with its Christmas decorations and the lovely log fire burning in the hearth.  We felt very guilty that we had not seen her for a while as she made us coffee and brought us home made cake.  We decided that we would go down for dinner tomorrow and she is going to cook us stifado specially - I just hope she has that fire roaring and we are sat next to it!!!