Back to Normal...

Well is it back to normal or not today?  I keep thinking that it should be a bank holiday because New Year's Day fell on on Sunday but Mum had an appointment at the hospital about her carpal tunnel problem and Minnie Mou had an appointment at the vets for the second of her two anti-leukaemia jabs.

John decided that it might be a good idea to take Chivers down with Minnie Mou so that (a) he kept her company and (b) he got used to sharing the basket with her for that fateful day in the not too distant future when his balls get chopped off!  I wasn't so sure it was a good idea because he normally weeps and wails when he is shut in the basket but the minute that Minnie was put inside he was determined to get in there with her.

John gave a knowing smile and all was fine - Chivs whinged a bit on the way down to the vets but was as good as gold whilst we were in there but on the way back turned into a screaming banshee - it was my turn to have the knowing smile!!!

It had been our intention to call into a number of shops on the way back up the Polis Road but it would appear that apart from the consultant Mum was seeing and our vets everyone else was taking today as a bank holiday so that was a non-starter.

Minnie Mou was very quiet after her injection and ear clean and Chivers seemed to sense that she was a little under the weather so when she decided to sit in the doorway and take advantage of the sunshine he made it his business to be as close to her as possible!

And yes, you did hear me right, I said sunshine - today has been a much better day - in fact down at the vets the temperature was about 18 degrees (although of course it is much cooler here).

I even managed to sit outside for a little while today - I had decided to varnish the starfish that live in the 'downstairs toilet'  They seem to have absorbed some of the moisture that is in the air so I dried them off in the microwave and then varnished them so that hopefully they will last a bit longer.

We have had one of those bugger-it days today when a catalogue of things go wrong starting with the electric blanket which decided to give up the ghost last night just on one side and then when we tested it today it went on both sides with a rather nasty smell of burning!  John spent hours cleaning the gas fire today and then tonight it just kept turning itself off even though we have plenty of gas - as John investigated Chivers moved in to get some warmth from his body-heat!  One of the bulbs has blown in the extractor hood and we are now contemplating venting the extractor to the outside as we get an awful lot of condensation in the kitchen area - damp is certainly a problem with Cypriot buildings as we are finding out!

We have also decided that Christmas is officially over and that the decorations should be packed away for another year - Minnie was not very impressed and looked positively upset when the tree was taken down - bless her and Chivers,  they have been very good with the decorations and only once did we find the tree on the floor - we reckon it probably scared them enough to leave it alone.  Still we do provide them with plenty of other toys to keep them amused!  This was followed by moving all the furniture around so that we could move the carpet down towards the wall to see what space we have to put in a hearth for a wood burning stove.  It certainly is a way of keeping warm if nothing else!!

The one bright spot of today was that Vicki has emailed with her flight details for February.  We aren't sure what Trevor is doing as he is supposed to be working over here but they dont have details of this yet so he may well be here too.  We are soooo excited and only 40 days to go apparently!