Christmas is well and truly over...

So tonight we said goodbye to Jane and John who return home tomorrow after a month's holiday here - no strangers to the island they have spent over a year in Cyprus when they count up all their various holidays over the years.  It has been good to spend the time with them and to have them here to celebrate Christmas in Droushia with Mum and Dad - we have all known each other for such a long time!

Jane is one of my blog-followers, she likes to know what we are up to and I am conscious that there are gaps over the Christmas period in my ramblings so tonight I am posting some random photos from over the last four weeks starting with a picture of Millie taken through the catflap on day when we went to feed her and it was raining and she refused to come out even for a cuddle.

She is a beautiful cat and very loving and looks so scrawny in the summer but in that photograph with her lovely winter coat she is a cracker!

Poor Jane and John have seen very little by way of sunshine over the last four weeks although thankfully the last couple of days have seen good strong sunshine and John has managed to get to wear his shorts!

This picture is of a very waterlogged Polis - I made the mistake of parking in the rough carpark and tried to walk through when I was going to Kate's for my pre-christmas back massage which was so lovely.  Since this was taken we have had considerably more rain - in fact Droushia is proud to announce that in December it had over 150% of the normal rainfall.  It has been wet but so far I don't think it has been so cold - we haven't had any frosts yet.

The next picture I took in Kate's salon - she had been given the most fabulous orchid by a happy client and it looked absolutely stunning with the Buddha head in the background.

Kate's salon is a real sanctuary - she has a fantastic eye for detail so everything goes together really well.  I like the clean lines and the decor and would strive to have our house a little more like that but it would be too austere for John who likes his comfort and to be fair our house doesn't lend itself to that style - certainly not with four cats!!

The next picture is of a rainbow that we saw from Rob and Di's house one afternoon - it looked so close that you could almost touch it and at one point you could see two rainbows side by side.

Rob and Di have the most fabulous view from their front garden and whatever the weather it is stunning even when it is pouring down.  The mountains change colour, the clouds sit down in the valley and when it rains and the sun peeks through you get rainbows.

Ain't we lucky Mr Veasey? - yes we are very, very lucky to live in such a beautiful place and so what if the rain has seemed endless this winter?  before long the spring will be here, the flowers will be blooming in the fields, the days will be longer and the sun will be shining and we will still be here enjoying every minute of it and for that I am very grateful.  Sometimes it is all to easy to take our surroundings for granted - I try hard not to do that.

This next picture is taken at Vasilikon winery which we visited with Rob and Di over the festive season.  We are all wrapped up in our winter woolies but the owner moved from the table by the fire to let us sit down and enjoy the heat.

We stayed to have some pittas and a cheese and meat platter and a bottle of wine or two!  The new Maratheftiko wine Aeon was not at that point ready - what a bugger it just meant that we would need to go back again at some point to treat ourselves to a bottle just to say that we had tried it.

The next photograph is of our guest bedroom ready for our guests Jane and John to arrive for Christmas.  We have plans for decorating this bedroom in the Spring - it is a nice room but bloody freezing because it gets no sun and is right next to the swimming pool.

We are thinking of ways to make it feel warmer and to provide us with more storage without turning it into the black hole of Calcutta.  We have some ideas which we have, unbelievably, agreed on and so once Spring arrives we will check the pennies and see what we can do.

Finally here is a picture from Christmas Eve and the success that was the table top which John made as we were able to house Mum and Dad, Jane and John, Sheila and Klaus and John and I.

The reason why the men are all wearing hats is that they were in their little gift bags which I made instead of having cheap and cheerful crackers.  To remind Jane of her 70th birthday celebrations in March I cooked the minted lamb that I served in the Yurt.