in between days...

We have Winter weather forecast although it hasn't got to us yet it is due at the weekend apparently.  I don't mind as we have escaped rain for most of December and to be fair the island needs rain.  Today we had a light shower to start but then as I left to go to Emba the sun started to break through and I could see blue sky beyond.

In a break from the norm I was going to play Pickleball today to make up the numbers and actually after the culinary excesses of the last few days I was rather looking forward to it.

John was staying at home, he is still nursing a dodgy knee which comes and goes - after the physio he had it seemed to be ok and then it started playing up again so in the New Year he is going to have it investigated further.

So as I traveled down towards Emba the clouds cleared and the temperatures rose - anyone hear on holiday at the moment must be feeling really fortunate particularly as the weather back in the UK has been quite cold and wintry.

I was a little early to get to pickleball so decided to take a little detour to have a look at the beach which is down past the old Queen Vic bar.  I haven't been down here for years.  It has been spruced up a bit since then but looks a little scruffy now in the winter.  As I got nearer the sea there were two holidaymakers in bikinis sunbathing!!!

It was beautiful down by the sea - in the winter the sea looks so much more blue and it was quiet.  One of the last times I was down here I came with Nicky and we took a load of sunset photographs.I Nowadays I use my phone for blog pictures because it is convenient just having it to hand all the time but I do like to get the SLRs out because you most definitely get a better shot.  In fact I may ask John for a new SLR body for my big birthday which is in a couple of years' time!!

It is fascinating to see how Cyprus has embraced Christmas when previously Easter was their big celebration but times have changed as the population has become more multi-cultural.  Even the smallest villages put up Christmas lights and decorations, in fact it appears we have had some new ones in Droushia!  During this year when Paphos is one of the European Cities of Culture they have had a boat theme around the island so where better to place Santa!

We had a good pickleball session - it makes a change to play with different players and Tina is doing really well as a newbie.  I had decided to take the tape up off of the floor as it needed replacing but where it had worn away I could see that it had left a right old black sticky mess and I reckoned Marios wasn't going to be overly impressed if we didn't get it off of his dancefloor.  I had been and purchased a load of floor cleaner and washed off what I could and then left a load on soaking in overnight as John and I planned to get there early tomorrow to clean up and relay the tape.

This evening we met with some newbies to the Village.  Clare and Les have bought an old village house behind Cristos's taverna and have been having it done up over a couple of years.  They split their time between Hong Kong (where Clare is a teacher) and Droushia.  The photo above isn't current - a lot more of work has been done since then.  John and I were fascinated to see what they had achieved because we had nosied around the house before they started work on it.  It is little but they have it done really nicely and as they said it is only the two of them!  I have to say their woodburner was working like a furnace and I was sat right next to it - after a couple of hours I just had to move - I thought I was going to melt!