A Right Old Mixed Bag Day...

Any of you reading this on the day it was posted (25th December) really should be doing something more exciting on Christmas Day!!!  As you know I am two days behind but what with the festive season and all that...

The day before the day before Christmas is an odd day although probably not if you are working as this year it would most likely be your last working day before breaking up for the festive season. With the weather taking a real nosedive we suggested to Nicky and Mark that they didn't turn out last night and as Mark had been poorly that was just as well so we will rearrange.  Simon and Mel hadn't been able to get off of work early so their visit today was also postponed leaving John and I to do some last minute bits and bobs before the weekend.

My first lot of mulled wine was gopping to say the least - one of the cartons of wine must have been provided by Sarsons judging by the taste and no amount of titivating made it any more drinkable so I decided to start again and with enough citrus fruit to sink a battleship I needed to do something with it.  How many pips can two satsumas hold I wonder - well a small handful if the one's I cut up today are anything to go by!!

The weather today has been awful - torrents of rain and very very very windy - I cant tell you how windy you just have to take my word for it.  My poor old water butt was unable to cope with the rain and overflowed big style - it has reminded John that we need to find some way of getting rid of the excess and somewhere where it wont do any harm!

This weather leaves everywhere in a mess - the roads have no soak-aways or drains so everything just lies around.  Where Angela's builders have been the road is strewn with debris and I guess is likely to stay that way for a long while if not permanently - the Cypriots are not know for tidying away their rubbish!

A momentary break in the clouds allowed us to empty the car and get the patio furniture out and erected - it was a bit of a nightmare as it was blowing a right old hooley so the instructions got blown away and John put the base of the table up before realising that he had to fit the top first!

I was struggling to remove all the packaging and nearly got blown away holding onto the cardboard packaging - don't be mislead by this photograph!!  You can imagine the fun we had trying to get the green patio cover over all this without it turning into the world's biggest parachute and giving us an unscheduled flight over to Polis!!

The one bonus about all this is that the cats shot outside when the sun was shining and then got really spooked by the wind - the kitchen door was shut so there was only one way in for them and that was through the cat flap - RESULT!!!!!  They have now negotiated it two or three times during the course of the day so we know that with a bit of effort they can do it.  Minnie was the first and we reckon that Chivers had his nose so far up her bottom that he managed to come in on the back of her success!!  She is far more confident than he is with the whole experience even though she is such a little tacker.  He gets very limp-wristed about the whole thing and needs some help.

The weather deteriorated further and it was like Hurricane Charlie here and John went to batten down even further - we had visions of the polythene parting company with the pergola so he has braced it with some of the wooden pallets left by the builders - as we keep telling each other this is only a temporary structure to give us an idea of the effect of joining the buildings so it doesn't have to win any beauty contests.

I am off to make some Christmas grapefruit marmalade with the fruit I have been given - we thought it would go nicely with the very very expensive crumpets we have purchased for Christmas Day.

Want to see what a miserable day in Droushia looks like?  This was taken at 3.30pm!!!