Escaping the power cuts

We had terrific storms overnight and woke to a powercut which put the mockers on my regular Art Monday because without power it is pretty difficult to work in detail.  As it happened the electric did come back mid morning but apparently at half power and then went off again before coming back at full strength.  As I was home I was enlisted as John's Part IV and went with him to check on the houses and pools of our neighbours.    The sun was beginning to break through and actually eventually it turned into a much better day than we had anticipated - that was until the evening when we were back to storms and powercuts.

Over at Lakis and Argy's all was good.  You can see the benefits of having a lock up and leave outside area because although the weather has been wild everything at 2b is clean and tidy - unlike our garden which is a right old mess.  With the power reduced John couldn't do any pumping out at this point so we just checked things were as ok as they could be and will have to keep an eye on the weather and the electric in case we need to reduce the water level.

My pots along the side of the carport have been decimated - they were coming along beautifully with an array of succulents which I hoped would survive in all conditions but I hadn't banked on the goats coming through the estate.

We came home the other day to find bits all over the place but it had been rather wild and windy and then we noticed the unmistakable gifts that the goats leave behind and put two and two together - maybe I should have shoveled it up and used it as fertilizer!!!

So what the weather didn't destroy the goats did but those plants are hardy little souls so they should come back in due course.  Glad though that the mystery is solved because initially we thought someone had trashed them which was hard to believe but then again Persephone did have a couple of Cypriot ladies come up once and remove a Poligala from her front garden so I guess all things are possible.  I shoved back some of the plants which had been pulled out and will just hope they survive.

With no or limited power at home we decided to go down to Polis and get a bit of shopping done and then go and have a quite spot of lunch together.  John had checked that the part I had ordered from Malaysia was the correct part so we were able to take Kenny down to Andreas to be fixed.  John driving carefully and me following behind to make sure all was ok.

We went off down to the Souli where the sun was shining and we found a table in a sheltered spot so that we were able to sit outside and have our favourite 'light' lunch of a starter portion of chips, salad, calamari and olives - this is more than enough for the two of us and was delicious.  It was really nice to have an unexpected 'date' lunch - just the two of us sat enjoying the winter sunshine and eating some nice food without anything needing our immediate attention.

On our return we decided we should put up some decorations in readiness for Christmas particularly as we have Nicky and Mark coming to stay for the weekend.

It was rather sad that the white tree we had inherited from Mum and Dad had met its maker whilst up in our loft - it was one of those bright white outside ones but it was looking rather sad and rusty and a whole segment of the lights no longer worked.  It normally sits in the conservatory but this year our little tree will just have to make do - I love Christmas normally but this year is going to be very strange and so I have mixed feelings - I just want it to be as nice as we can make it for Mum.

We have not gone overboard but hopefully it will look festive - we always burn a lot of candles anyway which was just as well because we had just sat down and eaten our bit of supper (remainder of yesterday's lunch) when the electricity went again and we were thrust into darkness.  We weren't overly bothered as the house was reasonably warm although we didn't have the woodburner lit and the candles were casting a romantic light.

The power outage wasn't too long so we were able to watch an episode of Escape to the Chateau which we love and a couple more episodes of Masterchef before going to bed.  More power outages in the night - I shall leave it until about February before I set the clock on the microwave again!