Village clean...

It was a dry, fine and bright start to the morning.  The sun was pouring in through the fencing outside the back door (which is in fact our front door but in such a stupid place we would never use it as such!).  This was good news because today I had organised a village clean and shamefully, in November, this was the first this year.

Initially we had been stymied by the weather as for the first few months of the year we had continuous rain and nobody wants to be picking up rubbish that is sodden.  Then we had a stream of visitors which meant finding a Saturday that was fee became quite hard so today became the day and after the rain yesterday I thought I might have to cancel which would have been sod's law.

We dusted off our gloves, dug out our litter pickers and purchased two rolls of bright blue bin bags so that if we had to deposit them somewhere where there wasn't a bin then the bin-men should find them and take them away.  I know that it can be a bit disheartening to see the amount of rubbish that is about but it we don't do it, it is only going to get worse and to be fair when we did the cleans regularly we really got on top of the problem and so hopefully seeing cleaner roads might have made people think twice before launching their water bottles/coffee cans/mucky DVD's/crisp packets/wet wipes/car parts/pill blister packs etc etc out of their car windows.

I advertised the event on various Droushia noticeboards and got all sorts of offers of help but in the end if was the same hardy bunch which pitched up save for one hardy visitor...

Currently on this island and involving himself in all sorts of good deeds whilst seeking inspiration for his latest book in the Peshwari Nans saga, is the author Stephen Haughan who I had invited rather tongue-in-cheek to help us out today and who had telephoned in the week to accept my challenge.  What a great guy he turned out to be and how very grateful were we of his help and good humour.

We took one of our cars down to the museum at the bottom of the hill so that those doing that route could get a welcome lift back up and also meant we could sweep up any 'orphaned' bags to place them in a bin and then we went to the Droushia Heights Hotel to await the masses!!!

We had to be a bit careful at the Hotel because the resident cat population thought we had come to feed them and kept following us - as we crossed the road to sit on the wall and wait they kept running back and forwards and we had to ensure that they weren't knocked down by a passing car.  If anyone is looking for a kitten (or cat for that matter) the colony there (which I know Irene and several others are feeding) are beautiful.  LisaMarie has given a home to the black kitten that lost it leg, possibly to a dog, but that still leaves three jet black kittens and one tubby smokey coloured one which was my favourite.

So here we are assembled for our group shot before we split into two as Klaus was keen that if we had enough we could manage two routes today.  Something got a bit lost in translation but anyway John and Klaus went on the circuitous route around the edge of the village from the Mukhtar's around the back our our houses, down the road to Kelly's and then back along the main road to the Hotel and the other five of us took the long road down out of the village towards the museum.

Good job we had set off relatively early (9.30am) because as the day progressed it got warmer and warmer and warmer by which time the Bobster was regretting his choice of retro Haircut One Hundred sweater and Stephen his fetching pork pie hat!

For those of us concentrating on the down hill stint our pickings today were filled with car parts for some reason - everything from brake shoes to spark plugs to a hub cap!

Interestingly this time there was no glut of mucky DVD's which is normal on this route so we had nothing to add to our collection save for one disk which had a chunk missing out of it and an empty case - maybe the youth of Droushia have moved on to more modern ways of getting their kicks!!!

We had plenty of encouragement for our labours from passers by - this is great but one week and extra pair of hands would be even better.  I am not entirely sure exactly how many bags we managed to fill - I will need to to a count of how many I have left but that wouldn't be accurate because we did try, where possible, to empty the contents in a green bin and reuse the bag.



So I know I am not normally in any of the shots, preferring to remain firmly behind the camera but here I am with the other nutters who kindly gave up their Saturday morning to make the village look better even if it is only for a few hours or hopefully even days.

Klaus and John did an equally brilliant job actually probably better as there were only two of them on their route.  Klaus counted up that they had filled 18 bags between them - some of which got too heavy to deposit at the nearest green bin so I have had to ask Marianna if our bin-men can look out for them and scoop them up.  Big thanks to Klaus who did not join us afterwards for a coffee.

So the remaining six of us enjoyed some beautiful sunshine, and even more beautiful views, out on the terrace of the Droushia Heights Hotel.  It is hard to believe that we are mid way through November.  We all agree that it is certainly better weather this year than it was this time last year.  Refreshed by coffees people went their separate ways but we had asked Stephen to join us for lunch as a thank you for his attendance.  We wanted to show him the delights of Fitos as he said he had passed it on many occasions, even been recommended it by a random lady biker who he meet at Kritou Tera waterfalls, but had yet to sample.  I do not think he was disappointed as we sat outside taking in the view and eating some really delicious Sea Bream.  Stephen doesn't know how long he will be staying on the island - he isn't far from us as he is in Stroumbi so we are hopeful that we will meet up again before he returns.  He was such an interesting and all round great guy and I am encouraging all my lovely readers to investigate his books.  Interestingly he told us that he gets no more money from purchases via Amazon for the paperback copy over the Kindle version despite the difference in price!!!

The efforts of this morning and subsequent lunch meant that our scheduled trip to Paps in Polis seemed rather unappealing and as all I really needed was some veg for tomorrow's lunch with Mum I suggested that we pop to Kathikas and I could see what the shop had on offer there.  John thought it was a brilliant idea but what would have been more brilliant was for him to sample a bottle of Old Speckled Hen whilst I was shopping.

Bless him I couldn't disagree so he was a very happy chappy and pleased to report that the Ale was as good as he had remembered it!!!

I managed to get some decent veg from the shop so I had everything I needed although I can't think why I didn't get it when I went into Tsada and bought my meat - I obviously wasn't thinking that far ahead!!!  I had, however, got up early enough this morning to put the pork joint in the slow cooker as we had decided to have pulled pork with coleslaw and wedges.  John may or may not be having lunch with us - we had offered to help Phillipos when he was olive picking, particularly as it isn't that long ago that he had his stents put in and we realise that he had started the job yesterday so John has offered to pop down for a couple of hours in the morning to lend a hand.  If the work continues on into next week I will go on Monday afternoon with John - we have done it before although about 7 or 8 years ago and enjoyed it although it was hard work!!!