15th February

We had such a lovely evening but that, combined with pickleball, has taken its toll on my energy levels, suddenly I am feeling my age (and some) which is a bit of a wake-up call.  We did not rush to get up this morning.  The mighty Blades do not have a game today so I don't have to work meals around football kick-offs although John has said he wants to keep up-to-date with what Charlton are doing.

I wanted to go and do a bit of shopping in readiness for Mum coming for lunch tomorrow and it was such a beautiful day that we headed off via the village to check the post.  This is how the main arterial road in the village looks at the moment.  You cannot drive through so we have to go down and find somewhere to park up so that we can check the post.  It is like a ghost town and if I didn't know what it has been like previously I would say it wouldn't inspire me to want to live here.  Let's hope that the cobbling comes round to this side soon so that we can begin to see the improvement that hopefully it will bring.

There was no post for us or the Veaseys but we did have a pomelo to drop off so went down to their house.  They do have the most fabulous view from their garden and on a day like today you can absolutely see why they chose to live where they do.  People pay thousands for a couple of weeks' holiday admiring that view and when the sun is shining they can admire it every day.  We left them to their breakfast and carried on with our errands.

We wanted to stop off at the Droushia Heights Hotel to drop off some magazines - the latest copies of the Cyprus In Style magazine as we had been given a bundle to distribute up our end of the island which we were happy to do.  Whilst we were there we took the opportunity to have a look at the new Spa area which is being built - not finished yet and with quite a bit of work left to do it is looking rather nice with a couple of treatment rooms and a steam room and they have managed to retain the Gym.  Irene tells us that they will be employing someone full time for the Spa at the beginning of March which is interesting - if the treatments are reasonably priced.

Having completed our shopping we called in on Stephen and Tracy who are currently refurbishing the old Karithea Taverna on the road from Droushia to Polis - it is now called the Gravity Diner and will open in May.

They have discovered a nice fireplace in what was previously indoor space but due to the fact someone has removed the glass doors is now currently outside space - the only trouble is that they have found that the chimney is blocked so John went down with his rods hoping that he would be able to shift whatever it is that is causing the blockage.

It cannot be much as the rods passed through but without a hook he couldn't removed whatever it was.  Stephen said he would have a look into it but he is returning to the UK in the middle of next week for a while so that might have to wait.

Anyway it was all hands on the deck when we were there as they work tirelessly to bring the taverna back to life after having been closed for such a long time.  We can't wait to see how it turns out and wish them all the very best.

One of the things that Stephen would like to do is get his hands on an old village bus like the one above.  This is not my photograph - we seem to think that this bus was still in Droushia when we first came - in fact there were several dotted around the village - one of which used to house sunbeds and was up by the mast.  Stephen would like to refurbish one so it could be used as overnight accommodation which would be fantastic - it is such a shame to see them rotting away which is what I am guessing happened to the ones which we used to see.



A lazy day and a bit of an early night for us today - Mum is with us for lunch tomorrow and I feel guilty as I wasn't able to cook for her last weekend as I felt so awful.