The Island is in the grip of Storm Lydia and it is vile. The gale force winds, rain and hail are lashing our little home and then we get thunder and lightning and power outages. It is fierce and at times it is frightening.
Yesterday Simon showed us video footage of the sea at Paphos which has caused all sorts of damage a week or so ago and we can only imagine what more damage has been wreaked in the last couple of days. There have been landslides and slippages and roads collapsing - this is nothing compared to disasters occurring around the globe but when you are in the midst of it, it feels like the end of the world! Stan I would invite you to come and experience this any time you like!!! We have never been so grateful for our Cypriot winter fuel allowance than we do now because we have a choice of wood, gas or electric for heating and John resolutely refuses to allow us to be cold. I have taken a quick look out at the garden and my heart sinks at it is waterlogged and the hail has decimated some of the plants and the gazebos are a bit of a lost cause.
Today is Monday and I am hosting Sheila for art because in all this bad weather she and Klaus have had an issue with their central heating and have struggled without heat and hot water.
The light would have been better in the conservatory but we no longer have a table that we can put up in there so we were doing the best we could around the dining table. Not having had art for several weeks I was sure that Sheila and I would have quite a bit of catching up to do and the art would take a back seat.
Sheila arrived when the rain was at its absolute worst and she had to sit in the car for about 15 minutes before she was able to venture out and run down the path to our house. We relieved her of her soaking coat and footwear, provided her with some slippers and sat her near the fire.
We had not been there long when Sheila got a phone call from Klaus to say that one of the trees in the cemetery had taken down an electricity cable which stretched across to their house and it was skipping around on the road in a shower of sparks and in the process had pulled the electric pole attached to their house so it was no longer perpendicular but more at a 45 degree angle. It was dangerous and he advised us that we couldn't get to him until the electricity board declared it safe. As you can imagine on a day like today the electricity board were working flat out but they came as soon as they could and did get it sorted but not before John had managed to get to Klaus to help him with baling out some water which is normally dealt with by an electric pump. All this resulted in a power outage for some of the village but happily not for us so Sheila could remain here safe and warm.
We did some art and we did some chatting and we did some worrying before we had some homemade soup and waited to hear that it was ok for Sheila to return home. I had offered to make up the spare room for her and Klaus if they were to be without electricity on top of everything else but fortunately this was not necessary.
To make matters worse Sheila and Klaus were due to have a second viewing on their property tomorrow but fortunately the prospective buyers decided to wait for the bad weather to pass and will return next week - thankfully they haven't been phased by a Cypriot Winter and what it can throw at you and as we said to Sheila if you can love a house when the central heating is playing up and it is pi**ing down, grey, cold and miserable then you will be head over heels when you see it under better circumstances.
When the coast was clear of any risk of being electrocuted Sheila returned home, John had come back to say that disaster had been averted and Klaus was less stressed bless him.
The weather continued to rage around us for the remainder of the day and throughout the night. We decided to go to bed early as it was becoming pretty obvious from the flickering lights that our electricity would go at any minute and we were right - at around 9.00pm it all went off and when it returned in the early hours it was only as if one phase had been restored. Around 2.00am I was alerted to the fact that the power was back by the beep beep of the phone but when I put my beside light on it was like we had a 5 watt bulb in it. Fortunately full power was restored very shortly afterwards otherwise we were going to have to switch off the sockets because running items with a motor on reduced power is a recipe for disaster as we learned to our cost once before. This was not to be the final outage during the night but then next time it went off we were so exhausted we slept through it.
Yesterday Simon showed us video footage of the sea at Paphos which has caused all sorts of damage a week or so ago and we can only imagine what more damage has been wreaked in the last couple of days. There have been landslides and slippages and roads collapsing - this is nothing compared to disasters occurring around the globe but when you are in the midst of it, it feels like the end of the world! Stan I would invite you to come and experience this any time you like!!! We have never been so grateful for our Cypriot winter fuel allowance than we do now because we have a choice of wood, gas or electric for heating and John resolutely refuses to allow us to be cold. I have taken a quick look out at the garden and my heart sinks at it is waterlogged and the hail has decimated some of the plants and the gazebos are a bit of a lost cause.
Today is Monday and I am hosting Sheila for art because in all this bad weather she and Klaus have had an issue with their central heating and have struggled without heat and hot water.The light would have been better in the conservatory but we no longer have a table that we can put up in there so we were doing the best we could around the dining table. Not having had art for several weeks I was sure that Sheila and I would have quite a bit of catching up to do and the art would take a back seat.
Sheila arrived when the rain was at its absolute worst and she had to sit in the car for about 15 minutes before she was able to venture out and run down the path to our house. We relieved her of her soaking coat and footwear, provided her with some slippers and sat her near the fire.
We had not been there long when Sheila got a phone call from Klaus to say that one of the trees in the cemetery had taken down an electricity cable which stretched across to their house and it was skipping around on the road in a shower of sparks and in the process had pulled the electric pole attached to their house so it was no longer perpendicular but more at a 45 degree angle. It was dangerous and he advised us that we couldn't get to him until the electricity board declared it safe. As you can imagine on a day like today the electricity board were working flat out but they came as soon as they could and did get it sorted but not before John had managed to get to Klaus to help him with baling out some water which is normally dealt with by an electric pump. All this resulted in a power outage for some of the village but happily not for us so Sheila could remain here safe and warm.We did some art and we did some chatting and we did some worrying before we had some homemade soup and waited to hear that it was ok for Sheila to return home. I had offered to make up the spare room for her and Klaus if they were to be without electricity on top of everything else but fortunately this was not necessary.
To make matters worse Sheila and Klaus were due to have a second viewing on their property tomorrow but fortunately the prospective buyers decided to wait for the bad weather to pass and will return next week - thankfully they haven't been phased by a Cypriot Winter and what it can throw at you and as we said to Sheila if you can love a house when the central heating is playing up and it is pi**ing down, grey, cold and miserable then you will be head over heels when you see it under better circumstances.
When the coast was clear of any risk of being electrocuted Sheila returned home, John had come back to say that disaster had been averted and Klaus was less stressed bless him.
The weather continued to rage around us for the remainder of the day and throughout the night. We decided to go to bed early as it was becoming pretty obvious from the flickering lights that our electricity would go at any minute and we were right - at around 9.00pm it all went off and when it returned in the early hours it was only as if one phase had been restored. Around 2.00am I was alerted to the fact that the power was back by the beep beep of the phone but when I put my beside light on it was like we had a 5 watt bulb in it. Fortunately full power was restored very shortly afterwards otherwise we were going to have to switch off the sockets because running items with a motor on reduced power is a recipe for disaster as we learned to our cost once before. This was not to be the final outage during the night but then next time it went off we were so exhausted we slept through it.
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