Aliens...

Another day which did not get posted...

So the wet weather brought to our garden something which we have never seen before - it looked like a bit of dried out spaghetti except that it was moving and moving like a snake - originally John thought it was a hair or a fibre moving in a puddle outside the front door but this thing was most definitely alive and we had no idea what it was so having picked it up and chucked it away in case it was dangerous to the cats we then looked it up on Google...

Welcome to our Nematomorpha or more commonly a Horsehair Worm or Horsehair Snake!!!!  They range from 50 millimetres to 2 metres in length!!!!  Adults are free-living in water but the larvae are parasitic living on insects such as Praying Mantis and when the worm infects the host the infection acts on the insect's brain and causes it to seek out water and drown itself thus returning the parasite back to water.  Some of these worms are even able to survive the predation of their host being able to wiggle out of the predator that has just eaten the host!!!! 

Interesting but not something we wanted living in our puddle so it was ousted!

So having had a lovely lazy day yesterday with Nicky and Mark avoiding the damp and miserable weather that was thrown at us we woke to a much much better day as the photos will show - same picture taken from same spot (just about) and what a change!

We had a leisurely breakfast before they packed up and made their way back to Emba with us closely behind as we were having lunch with Mum and Dad and Jane and John.

It was a really glorious day although along the coast the sea was quite rough and salt spray was coming up and over onto the road at Banana Bay but this is one of the things which is so interesting about living on this island - the weather can change in an instant and one bad day can be so easily followed by one good day.

We had a lovely lunch at Mum and Dad's although Dad is still suffering from the after effects of his surgery.  In fact I thought that his wound looked to be a little infected although it was difficult to tell - he is due back at the hospital on Wednesday but Mum is keeping an eye on it and if it seems to get any worse will get him back as soon as possible - the only trouble is that tomorrow, Monday is a Bank Holiday here in Cyprus and one where the island seems to grind to a halt and now several weeks later we are all so wise after the event unfortunately...

On our return home we realised that is is John's Mum's birthday later this week.  Her favourite flowers are freesias and now is a good time of year to be able to send them.  I always use Bunches although I am a bit disappointed that they no longer seem to send out a box of chocolates with their flowers but their flowers have never let me down.

I chose a bouquet of white roses and purple freesias with some greenery which I hope she will like.

We ended our day by watching the last episode of Britannia which we have enjoyed and which is all lined up for another series - hope there will be one otherwise we are left hanging!

Tomorrow we plan to go fly our kites as is the tradition - that is if the weather is kind - we have never yet had decent kite flying weather for Green/Clean Monday - either flat calm or hurricane conditions!!