Clean up time...

There was a special full moon and lunar eclipse this weekend - the eclipse was in the early hours of the morning so I wasn't going to to get up and take a photograph of that but I nipped outside the back door to try and get the full moon but it was quite cloudy so I had to wait for the moon to show its face so this was the best I could get and was nowhere near as good as the professional shots which appeared on the internet thereafter...

I would so like to be able to take a shot like the one above because it is absolutely stunning but I do wonder how much retouching takes place before a shot like this is published - my guess is that the trees in the front have been added afterwards but I am happy to stand corrected.

So today we managed to carry out our village clean - we were beaten by the weather last time - it had snowed and today we were forecast rain but think it came early yesterday so although it was hazy due to dust it was warm, warmer than we anticipated looking at the layers, hats and gloves that people were wearing and then discarded!!

There were seven of us who assembled today - John and I started at Despina's coffee shop with an early morning skertos each - thick Cypriot black coffee with no sugar and a centimetre of sludge!!!  We caught up on the village gossip and were joined by Lynda and Malcolm - no Norma today as she is still recovering from a little op.  We collected Klaus at the end of his road and then were joined by Roberto and Diana.

We cleaned our way up past Lynda's house and along past the end of our estate and then at Andreas's house on the corner by the grey container we decided we should split as we were running out of green bins into which to put our bags.  John, Klaus and Malcolm took the bags we had filled so far (some of which had already been filled once or even twice and emptied en route) and walked down the hill to Kelly's house and the green bin there whilst Roberto, Diana, Lynda and I walked down the concrete road towards the Kritou Tera crossroads.

We ended up filling 20 bags - some of them more than once and were stopped and invited in for coffee, stopped and asked if we would do a second clean with the school children and stopped and asked if we could help with an incentive in the village to get people recycling.  This is all very positive - we do not expect to build Rome or even Droushia in a day - it will take time and education to get people to respect their beautiful environment and not lob their rubbish out of the window of their car!!!

It was lovely to walk today, Lynda had never been down the concrete road and in so doing discovered beautiful wild flowers like the narcissi and miniature daffodils and orchids in bud about to burst into flower.  There is a great camaraderie developing amongst our group but newcomers are more than welcome to join us.  It gives our walk a purpose and a positive outcome for the village.

Our efforts were rewarded when we decamped at the Droushia Heights Hotel for coffee and biscuits which the hotel provided free of charge in recognition.  It is such a fabulous hotel with lovely staff who make us feel so welcome even though we don't use it as often as we could.  It is such a great addition to the village and we would miss it tremendously if it were not there.

Our Saturday was completed by meeting up with Lou and H and a jolly nice meal at Fitos followed by the six nations rugby match between Wales and England - this is an old photograph but we managed to dig out the rugby tops for the occasion.  It was really good to meet up with them and we had a great evening even if England stole the match from underneath Wales.  The consolation for Lou and H is that they had the mega box of carrot cake that Fitos gave the boys to take with them which was absolutely delicious.