Storms very nearly stop play...

There is very little I can say about the storms overnight and on and off today except that they were dreadful.  We woke at 4.00am - I think we were both concerned that, even though John had pumped the swimming pool out, it was going to overflow once again and it is so close to the house that we really cannot allow that to happen so we got up and had a very very early cup of coffee.  The cats were a little surprised but took advantage of an early breakfast calculating that they would probably get an extra meal today.

During the course of the morning we had it all bar snow.  Heavy hail storms, thunder, lighning, torrents of rain, high winds and in between a milisecond of sunshine.  One solitary clap of thunder was directly above the house - it frightened the shit out of me - in fact it was so loud it made me scream and at that point we lost the electricity albeit momentarily.  We had planned to go out with Jackie and Costas this evening down in Emba with Mum.  I really wanted to see them so we decided to ring and make sure they were still up for it and they were so we just had to hope that we weren't going to have to drive through too many floods there and back.  One minute all was peaceful and calm and we wondered why we were worried and then the heavens would open just like someone had turned on a tap and then it would stop equally as abruptly.

I grabbed the opportunity during a lull to nip down to Judi's to finally sort out the email on her new laptop.  The Microsoft Mail programme which came with it allows you to add mail accounts - it is a straightforward process UNLESS you have a Primetel account and then it is a different story!!!  Fortunately a quick work with the technical support team and we managed to resolve the issues so that Judi now has both her Primetel and Gmail coming in together and she is able to send messages.  I also managed to find some software to allow her aged all-in-one printer to scan so everything was working when I left.

John drove super carefully down to pick up Mum - there was an awful lot of debris and water on the roads with some worrying landslides along the way.   After weather like we have just had I would think that home owners who have their homes perched on top of a pimple of land are concerned by the erosion - with no drainage here to speak of water finds its way, generally retracing old routes which may well have been altered due to building but the rain doesn't take any notice of that.  You can sometimes see rainwater pouring out of places where you just wouldn't have expected it and that is because years ago that is where it always went.

We had dressed up warmly because we could remember that Thanasi didn't have a woodburner but we had forgotten how effective their reverse aircon units were - my multi layers were in danger of being removed part way through the meal as I got hotter and hotter.

I was so glad that we had made the effort to see Jackie and Costas because our lives are so entwined - we have all known one another for about 30 years.  We always have a nice evening when we get together.  Dad used to be so amused by Costas's command of the English Language - he used to think it was 'magic' to hear a Cypriot swearing in English and boy did Costas tell Dad some racy jokes in the past.  I was also very grateful to John for driving.  The trip home was not very nice - lots of standing water and more debris but we got home safe and sound, did a feline headcount and had all four in and then retired to bed.