Vile weather

After several days of really quite nice weather today was, to put it mildly, VILE.

It was cold, wet and windy overnight and once again we were woken early by the unmistakable sound of cats squaring up to one another - in this instance it was Charlie and the boss-eyed ginger from up the road.  There was a lot of posturing but let's face it Charlie with his heckles puffed up is the size of a baby hippo so boss-eyed was probably thinking better of any real attack.

This was at 5.00 am and we didn't expect to be able to get back to sleep but we did manage it although periodically when the rain lashed against the metal shutters it did disturb me.

The forecast for the next few days doesn't make good reading so we may have to make contingency plans for Sunday and take the mountain to Mohammed instead of the other way round.

I got an early text from Trevor who was going to play pickleball today to say he was unwell so wouldn't be playing and as the morning progressed and the weather got worse we began to wonder whether it was sensible playing in that cold room anyway particularly as I still have a problem with my chest.  We contacted Di who was, understandably worried about the driving conditions as we now had thick fog.  We decided that we would go down to spend some time with Mum and have a spot of lunch with her but cancel the pickleball game.

So this was the temperature when we left Droushia this morning - just 9 degrees and as we made our way down to Mum's it dropped to 8 degrees in Kathikas and then stayed around 9 degrees until we got to the top of the Mesoghi Avenue where it was a heady 11!!!

This bit of video will give you some idea of what the driving conditions were like - this was taken at Tsada just before you drop down to the Mesoghi Avenue - fortunately people were being sensible and driving slowly as visibility was very poor - you will note though that there are still several nutters driving without their headlights on and you can see that the temperature is showing 9 degrees.

We don't normally come this way - we prefer to go down to Coral Bay and along the coast road but I had arranged to go and pick up some metal birds which I am hoping to put in the garden.  Hazel bought me a metal bird when I was over which she is going to bring with her.  That one has lovely light reflecting beads and is a dark colour so is earmarked to have a home in the front garden next to the traditional chairs.

These are off white and I have plans to redo the bit of garden which is outside the kitchen window and when I do they are going to go there.  I know they are likely to rust but I really don't mind.  They were a bit of a bargain because on-line they didn't look as big as they are (they are pretty much life-size!!).

Anyway we had a lovely few hours with Mum - we were cosy and warm in her house which made our decision not to spend 2 hours in a very chilly dance room playing pickleball a good one and Mum didn't seem too bothered - to be fair she has only just recovered from a cold herself.  It gave us the opportunity to get a few things done for her including unravelling the mystery of her new automatic tin opener although no-one wanted to eat the rice pudding which was in the tin Mum had bought so that we could try the opener out!!!

The weather continued to deteriorate at Mum's and so we left mid afternoon and actually seemed to drive away from the worst of it because when we got home we had a glimpse of some weak sunshine for a very brief period although the house was really chilly when we got in and then the rain returned with a vengeance.  We were more than happy then to go out and eat at Fitos with Di and Rob for the first time since it has reopened after it's rather lengthy Winter break.  We haven't been out with Di and Rob for ages so it was really lovely to do so last night, a good choice of venue as it was super warm with the heaters, good food and good company - what more could you want on a really miserable evening!!