Ladies Wot Lunch - Meal Three...

Today, being the first Wednesday of the month, not only was I going to the third Droushia Ladies wot Lunch meal at Alkisti's in the village and taking Melanie (of Melanie and Simon fame) with me, but I was also going to craft at Jeanette's (now that she has finished her globe-trotting) prior to lunch.

That was the plan...

...we have in the lounge and the bedroom cordless phones which give a little farty noise if the power to them is cut and then another little farty noise when power is restored.  This morning somewhere around 5.00am I heard that ominous first fart - power had been cut on a day when I wanted to get up early and have a shower.  Everywhere is remarkable quiet when there is a powercut so there is always a danger of sleeping in.  Periodically I raised an eyelid and peered at the alarm clock - nothing.  John stirred at around something like 7.00am (cant be sure as the alarm clock was dead and without my glasses I have a cat in hell's chance of reading my watch).  I told him that we had a powercut and he grunted and turned over saying there was no point in getting up as life isn't worth living without an initial cup of coffee in his book.

At 7.30am the phone emitted its second little fart - brilliant! power restored - all good, a sunny day so there would be enough hot water when I needed a shower.  My plan was to be at Jeanette's at about 10.30am and stay for a couple of hours - perfick.

At 7.33am the phone farted again - power off.  Without power we are snookered as the water in the solar panels doesn't get circulated and our water is pumped anyway so we have no pressure.  It was clear that this was a major problem - little point phoning the electricity board only to be 100th in the queue - we just had to sit it out and wait.

I was gutted as it became clear that unless I wanted to go out looking and smelling like Worzel Gummidge craft was off.  I text Jeanette and got a reply telling me that the outage was island-wide and so therefore something major and therefore it would be some time before it was restored.  In the event it was sometime after 10.00am when it came back but by then it was too late for me to fit in craft before lunch and then our trip down to Emba as I was driving Mum, Dad and the surgeon to Limassol early the next day for dad's eye-op.  I knew it was too good to be true as I had been a good girl and got my craft project all ready the evening before.  I was going to decorate some more geckos but this will have to wait a week now.

With my plans in disarray John suggested I invite Melanie up for a cuddle with the cats as she is a cat lover and Simon is allergic (apparently!!).  Minnie and Chivs, who never seem to go very far, chose today of all day's to bugger off so we did a frantic race round trying to find them and then superglued them to the conservatory sofa so that they would be there looking angelic when Melanie arrived.  No such luck - they took one look and high-tailed as fast as their legs (little fat ones in Minnie's case) would take them.  I had by now managed to squeeze in a shower I hasten to add and was looking more Aunt Sally than Worzel!

As Melanie is a part-time Droushia-ite I thought she might like to meet some of the ladies in the village so she was coming along to the lunch - we were small but beautifully formed group of 14 today and on the left is 'Mrs B' - the lady who only ever sees me in my brown fluffy dressing gown - it must have come as quite a shock to see me fully clothed without bed-head hair!

I love the inside of Christos's taverna it is very traditional and thank goodness today there was no need for a fire which is normally roaring away in the corner (above Mrs B's head).  Our meal was simple but tasty with the usual salad and dips, garlic prawns, chicken souvla and roast potatoes, fresh fruit and wine (as much wine as you could have wanted to drink!). Marian had received good news last night about her blood test so was determined to enjoy her lunch (think she must have done because Chris her husband phoned me as I was on my way down to Paphos to see if I knew where she was - I had left her out on the terrace at the taverna some time previously!).

The lunch club gives us the opportunity to get to know one another a little better and what more could you want than to be relaxing outside in brilliant sunshine watching the world go by having shared food and wine together?  Two of the ladies kindly brought some old greetings cards for me to recycle and I have promised Di (I think her name is Di - I am getting progressively worse at remembering names) who works in the charity bookshop in Polis and Irene (cat woman) that I will make some Christmas cards and they can sell them for their respective charity/feral cat vet bills.

I had to leave quite early as John wanted to catch the men at the aluminium shop in Paphos before it closed so Mel and I bade our farewells and started to walk back.  I quickly nipped into their house to say hello to Simon, had a cup of tea and saw the work that they are having done - some rather beautiful stone walls being built in the garden to house raised flower beds.

My return home was somewhat hampered - not traffic, not roadworks but goats - the grazing up here at the moment must be at its best as they have been everyday.  It is a bit daunting having to walk past rutting males!  I kept everything close just in case they fancied a nibble. Fortunately they were more scared of me than I was of them.

We managed to get to the window people - they didn't quite have all the things we were waiting for but Panicos is coming up himself either Friday or Saturday to have a look at the little 'problemas' that have manifested themselves - and they are little except we haven't had any rain since it was completed so we don't actually know if it is waterproof!

John came back with me to Mum and Dad's as we were doing a car swap so that John could return to Droushia.  We played a best of five to all the usual shouts of 'I haven't picked up a decent hand/I haven't had a turn-up all night/you can't beat that sort of jam can you?'

John went home carrying his tea and Mum, Dad and I ate outside on the patio.  Without her partner Crib was abandoned in favour of Rummikub.  I haven't played this for years and I can't believe it was one of the games we gave away when we moved from Greenwood Road.  The set Mum and Dad bought over here is very cheap and cheerful to say the least and a replacement is truly and arm and a leg job.  I have Hils on the case and hope that when she comes over May June time she will bring a proper set with her.

Let's hope Dad gets a decent night's sleep before his busy day tomorrow.