ginfest

좋은 저녁 친구들

Apparently I have followers in South Korea - not entirely sure why but it's been noted and acknowledged - my blog is spreading to parts of the world where I never thought it would be of interest - I shall soon hit the 150,000 page views - a mere drop in the ocean by professional blogging standards but pretty impressive for what turned out to be an on-line diary for our family members who we thought would never be able to see for themselves what our lives in Cyprus were actually like.

So on to today...

It was an early start for John and I as we were shooting down to the Helios complex in Paphos to drop the tried and trusty Kenny off to Jane and John whilst they are here for an unexpected week to help celebrate John's 50th.  Not realising they had only managed to get to bed in the wee small hours due to a catalogue of events which left them severely delayed we woke them at 8.30 with the keys.  Poor things they looked absolutely whacked and even though we said they ought to go back to bed for some rest they said they were ready to face the day.  It would appear that since we were last at the Helios with Jackie and Stan it has had something of a refurb.  Although the exterior of the accommodation is a little austere (reminiscent of a juvenile correction centre) the grounds are pretty, the pool area looks nice and Jane and John had been upgraded to a one bedroomed apartment rather than a studio flat so not all bad and they are only here for a week and will be spending quite a bit of it with us. 

We returned home quickly as John had his penultimate physio session with Marios in Polis.  So far no money has exchanged hands and even though John is back in the UK next week and wont return until the following week Marios is unconcerned about payment - just as well really as our coffers are currently allocated to the birthday bash at the weekend.  Marios has told John to take it easy with sport and continue with the exercises at home.  This is good news and if he is sensible (maybe there is a chance once he has turned 50) then John can expect to be playing both badminton and pickleball soon.

Janet had an appointment of her own in Argaka which left me free for an hour or so to take a wander - not with my camera as I had them all at home with batteries being charged ready for the Do on Saturday and the Do on Sunday.  So my pictures were the best I could manage with my trusty phone.  I went on a rather circuitous route ending up at Agia Marina Plage which is a complete white elephant in my book although it had clearly been used for a Cypriot wedding recently.  I don't know how recently - I am guessing at the weekend and it is now Thursday but sadly the place was awash with litter which was right down onto the beach.  This is not a good advertisement for the place and is unpleasant for anyone wanting to use the beach for a swim.  What is it about litter?  The Cypriots have a beautiful island and are so fiercely proud of it but are gradually swamping it in tin cans and plastic bottles or worse.  This does not stop us continuing to organise a clean in our village - next one scheduled for 28th September in the evening.  Something must be better than nothing.

This venue was clearly meant for better things when it was built - I seem to recall it might have been around the time of the crisis so probably got hit by that - some of the structures have seen better days - it is a shame because this is a lovely part of the coastline and this could have been a great place for families and visitors to spend the day.  Maybe the area isn't getting the tourists it had anticipated and maybe this is why there is a call for a major free-flowing road to be built linking Paphos with Polis - who knows?  There is a bit of debate currently about the new hotel in Latchi - apparently built without the correct permissions and with four stories.  I don't think it looks that bad but it will probably pave the way for all sorts of monstrous structures all jam-packed in together reminiscent of the sea front at Paphos where you can now no longer stick a pin between hotels.

I used some of my time to partially recce a route for our Drouseian Day Out which falls on 27th September - just a gentle day in store reasonably close to home this time.  We could have just spend it on the beach but I had seen a couple of things which I thought might be of interest to the Bobster and Diana.

Once at home we went for a swim.  Charlie had spent the afternoon lying on the tiles with his tail in the shallow end - he didn't seem to be complaining so guessed it must have been ok to get in.  The weather has been unseasonably hot for the last week but the evenings cool rapidly so the pool temperature is on the way down.  Today it was a balmy 80.5F or around 27C in real money which isn't bad for the hills at this time of year and actually this evening felt lovely if you adopted the getting in and then standing up with your shoulders out of the water so they got cold and then dipping them back in again method in which case, as John said, it felt like a bath!

Our reward was a gin with mixer of choice - for me that meant ginger beer, for John it was tonic and for Janet it was bitter lemon.  Janet normally goes shopping with her friend Jacky on a Thursday and they call in to Wetherspoons for a little gin to keep them going - it seems churlish not to keep up the tradition and with a welcome boost to the gin stocks from both Carole Venner and the Robster we had no excuse not to.