28th May

So, true to his word, this morning John remade his work bench around the tool cupboard he has outside his shed.

This area is so useful for him but had become a bit messy and we had found evidence of some 'activity' going on in the wood of the old bench.  Termites are a real problem here in Droushia and we have so much wood around and about that if we think there might be an infestation we try and deal with it straight away.

So there is now a nice, new and somewhat smaller bench for John to use when he is cutting wood or making things and the whole area looks so much better.  Now all we need are the new doors for the woodstore and the potting bench and the marble for the top of the potting bench and that area will be done, for the time being at least!!!  Although we do have plans to deck or pave the area outside the pump house at some point but now that it is all clean and tidy that has been put on hold as it will probably be quite an expensive exercise.

This was all John wanted to get done today and so once he had finished we decided to go for a walk and check the post.

They seem to have resumed working on the cobbles which is good but begs the question as to why they didn't take the opportunity when we were in lockdown and there would have been much less footfall or traffic wanting to get through.

We wanted to see if Marianna was in the Community Office so that we could pay our water bill so we walked up that way but she was out so we took the pathway down the side of Kyriakos's house (where the Jinty's used to rent) and took a wander down towards the centre of the village.  We still come across houses that we have not noticed before - such magnificent buildings that seem to be abandoned - even though there is evidence that some repair and upgrading has been done.

There is a for sale sign outside this house - it would need someone with a large bank balance and a lot of foresight to take on this 'doer-upper' as the main building seems to be bereft of any roof!!  It always amazes me what beautiful stonework lurks behind the bland render that they seem to like to slap up onto these houses - you would think that if this was exposed and sealed it would look amazing.

This is the mess that is still in the centre of the village - up the small street to the side of Sappho Manor there is an earth-moving vehicle.  We aren't sure if the cobbles are going up that way but it looks like the main street up past Sappho, the City Supermarket and Christos's is about to be started.

Looking down the street to the area outside Stathmos and Marios's Bar and down past Finnikas towards the Hotel there is now concrete so this is due to be cobbled soon.  It actually makes the roads look massive and once done should look amazing - Marios Bar which is in the picture above will take pride of place so hopefully if the local business can ride out the remainder of the time it is going to take to get the cobbles finished they should reap the benefits in the future.

We stopped by to check the post and had a chat with Marina and Phillipos who were in good spirits and Phillipos hopes to open tomorrow which is great news and we will go and support them as soon as we can.  In the 'Post Office' Phillipos has been hard at work creating some of his traditional crafts including carved gourds - ready for any tourists, when and if they come.  We have seen a report in the paper that the Droushia Heights is opening up and will be involved in some sort of discount scheme for holidays - the translation was a bit rough so we think this is some sort of government scheme for Cypriot workers rather than holidaymakers in general.

We collected our post which included the new wifi extender from Amazon for the conservatory which hopefully will stop John moaning about the internet 'dropping out' when he is using his tablet in bed!!!

We took a trip to the cemetery to water the plants and were pleased to see that Isabel had been there - she had left a trough of flowers at David's grave and so we watered them as well.

After a nice day the clouds gathered and we had rain this evening.  It seems like the UK has pinched our sunshine!!!  We managed to catch up with Lakis and Argy today - they celebrated their 47 wedding anniversary yesterday - not in Cyprus as they had hoped but there is always the next time and we shall make sure that is a good one!