Victorious Thursday...

Today started warm and clear and Chivs and Min went straight to their favourite new sunbathing spot which is the top of the pumphouse which gets the early morning sun.

You wouldn't think that we provide Min with nice clean drinking water the way she always heads for the condensation or a mucky old puddle.  As you can see Chivs has very big paws so it is hell when he gets them soaking wet and then comes to sit on your lap!

Talking of condensation - I cant emphasise enough how much we get up here.  Everything is soaking in the morning - just look at the table.  

John had been very artistic with his coffee cup recreating the olympic circles and the audi badge!!  It is no wonder that some plants grow so well with very little help but those that do, need to like very cold temperature at night, lots and lots of condensation, torrential rain and baking sun in the summer - that seems to narrow it down quite a bit - geraniums it is then!

The cats are coming on in leaps and bounds now that they have mastered the cat flap - although Chivs is a bit of a bugger and keeps losing his collar with that essential magnet.  Anyway as a result we no longer have to have cat litter indoors which is brilliant and we have started to see them both digging in the garden so we are hoping to get rid of the boxes outside too.  

The favourite spot is around the Solanum's so we have cordoned off this section and probably created the biggest area of cat toilet in Cyprus!!  Still if it is limited to just there that would be good because with our garden essentially all shingle they could go anywhere.

John has also made the wood stump for what we call the 'turps' tree into a big old plaything for the cats - this is probably only temporary as we think we should get the stump out as it continues to grow rapidly and we can see the ground around its base rising rapidly and it is very close to the house.  In the interim the cats have it to play with which they did immediately.  They are such a waste of time in that they are so entertaining that we spend ages just watching their antics rather than getting on with jobs that we should be doing!

It was beautiful in Droushia when we set off for Paphos and our regular game of pickleball.  Mum wasn't playing today as she is recuperating from her operation so there was only four of us, Jeff, Tom, John and I.  Playing for and hour and a half when there is only four is quite hard going as you don't get an opportunity to sit out - still it was very pleasant down on the court and we had some really good games so the time started to fly by.  We then realised that the skies were darkening and we started to hear some rumbles of thunder in the distance and we were lucky to just finish our session before the weather took a drastic turn for the worse.

We hadn't realised that tomorrow (6th) is Epiphany and a big public holiday in Cyprus when nothing is open so the supermarkets were packed to the gunnels which took us by surprise - we managed to get the few bits we needed for the meal we are cooking tomorrow for Mel and Simon - just as well we called in as we would have gone all the way to Polis tomorrow like numpties and found everything closed!

Mum is doing quite well with her hand although she said it wasn't a very nice experience.  Dad is having to play nursemaid and so far is doing ok - like Mum says you don't realise what you cant do when you only have use of one hand, knickers and bra were a problem!  We stayed for a game and supper before John and I headed off to the quiz.  Dad had decided to stay behind and keep Mum company - we were concerned about how we were going to cope with the cryptic round as Dad always concentrates on this.

The weather was appalling but fortunately inside Sid's Taverna it was warm and welcoming.  It was just Ray and Janice and John and I making up Spyro's Neighbours this week so we had no great expectations about how we would do.  We were right to worry about the cryptic round it was a bit of a stinker and we had two answers we just couldn't get until John and I both had one of those lightbulb moments where the answers came to us.

As the quiz progressed we bumped along in about third place - we always have a stinker round when we just do rubbish and this week was no exception except that all the other teams did rubbish too - our rubbish was just that bit better and we managed to win that round (one bottle of drain cleaner as a prize - cheap red wine really!!)  As we came to the last round which is the picture and cryptic quiz we were in third place a good 5 or 6 points behind the leaders so felt we hadn't done too badly as we were two team members down.

We managed 18 out of 20 for the picture round and kicked ourselves that we could have had 19 if we had listened to John who identified one that we got wrong as Patsy Cline and we put Alma Cogan (it is a tad worrying that John would know what Patsy Cline looks like!).  We managed to get a full house with the cryptic quiz so for that we earned a bottle of fizz.  We agreed with Ray and Janice that we would have the fizz and they could have the drain cleaner.    Several other teams got a full house with the cryptic questions so we really didn't think too much about it until Alan gave the final result and we had come first by one point and we were absolutely stunned.  Two more bottles of fizz - yip yip.  It made the drive home in the driving rain much more pleasant knowing that we had won!!!  

On returning to Droushia we found both the kitties out in the conservatory area although it was clear that they had been running round in the lounge for quite a while if the throws and cushions were anything to go by.  They seem to like going out in the rain although Min hates her feet to be cold or wet!  Eventually they settled down and curled up together for a snuggle and a sleep.