Saturday March 16th - The Storm...

After a rather boozy evening (not for me as I was driving) which led John to sing "Sunshine, you are my Sunshine" in his sleep and caused me to retire to the sofa on the lounge for some peace and quiet I woke early to stormy skies.

Little did we know quite what a storm was brewing.

Our friends Simon and Mel and baby Jasmine were due to come up today and we had hoped to catch them for a coffee but Simon text early to say that they had been forced to change their plans in view of the bail out announcement.

Not having anticipated anything of that nature and certainly not on a Saturday we had not looked at the news but rushed to get our laptop fired up to read what was unfolding and were gobsmacked to learn that the depositor haircut that everyone had thought was unthinkable was going to go ahead and that each and every depositor in a Cyprus bank was to be affected.

To say it was a grey day was an understatement - our moods were as black as the clouds outside.  Although we do not currently hold a huge amount of money in a Cyprus bank what is there is our hard earned money and we had plans for it other than to help out the incompetents that had got the island into this mess.  The only thing that can be said is that at this stage is that it looks like everyone is going to be treated in the same painful way.

Apparently bank accounts are frozen at the moment so that people cannot transfer out their cash nor that there can be a run on the banks.

This has been cleverly done on a weekend when the following Monday is a bank holiday (Green Monday) so that it can be delivered as a fait accompli with the levy being removed from the accounts before the banks reopen for business again.  As you can imagine people are in uproar and we are going to be in for a rocky ride.  Once the island has to start selling off some of its privatised industries we are envisaging some civil unrest.  Thank god we live in the hills.

John was off to football this afternoon with Trevor and Running John.  It was the last game of the season for Ayia Marina and next season they will be playing up a division so there was quite some excitement surrounding the game.

As John waited for Trevor and Running John to arrive he sat reading the tablet watching the news unfold.  The storm clouds had begun to lift and it looked like the boys would be able to enjoy the game without getting soaked to the skin.  Even Trevor was sensible enough to wear shoes and long trousers instead of his usual shorts and flip-flops - perhaps his blood is thinning after two months over here!

The boys set off for the football and Vicki stayed behind with me and waited for me to finish my ironing (yes Mum you have read that correctly I was ironing) before we decided to go for a little walk around the village as Vicki needed to get some milk and Panicos was bound to be open.

We took the long route going out of the estate and up the new road.  As we were about to turn up the new road Galadia and George stopped to have a chat.  They are up from Nicosia for the weekend although not staying for Green Monday.  It was nice to seem them both - it seems a long time since they were all up here.

On the way round the village and just past the new Cheese factory we were greeted by four little puppies that seemed to be living under a container.  There was bedding for them so I guess someone knew about them and was looking after them - they were not entirely scared of us but would only come so far and then retreat.  We thought we should kidnap one of them as a present for Running John and Susan as they are now considering whether or not to have a dog having really really enjoyed looking after Rocky and Arni for Helen and Al.

On our return to the villa I worked on my mosaic project and gave Vicki some mosaic tiles and a piece of glass so that she could have a go.  She decided upon a plaque of three beach huts.  I have decided to mosaic the lazy Susan mum gave me.  It came with some ceramic dishes that fitted on the top for nibbles but one or two were a little chipped so I removed them and made a design up for the base which I will grout when I have finished.

We had been invited for a beer and a curry around at Running John and Susan's after the football.  It was obviously a curry weekend!!  We had a lovely lovely evening and Susan had cooked some lovely food.  I over indulged on the rice dish which was just so delicious and apparently Susan told me that Vicki couldn't sleep because she had eaten too much!