We come to the rescue...

It is a good job John has a head for heights and is pretty handy with most things DIY because he found an issue at Lakis and Argy's yesterday when he went to flush the toilets and check everything was ok prior to their anticipated arrival next week.  There was no water coming to fill the cisterns, no water coming through the taps, in fact no water at all.

He had done the same thing only a week or so ago and all was good but in the interim we have had some very very hot weather, a bit of rain and then more very hot weather and their pump is located on top of the flat roof over the downstairs bathrooms protected only by a plastic container and after some investigation he ascertained that that was where the problem lay.

Unfortunately it is major holiday time when lots of businesses and tradespeople are off so John was worried that, if it was not something he could sort himself, he would struggle to get the problem sorted in time.  He managed to locate the faulty bit on the pump and shot off down to Polis to buy a replacement.  The next issue was to fit without losing all the hot water in the system.  This was going to have to wait until he could give it proper care and attention and hopefully access to a plumber if necessary - he has everything crossed.

A couple of days' ago I had seen a post on social media about a missing dog which had run away from the Polis Camp Site (this is the ONLY campsite allowed to be open in Cyprus at the moment).

We see posts like this all the time, missing dogs, abandoned dogs, stolen dogs, so I don't normally do much about it but for some reason I decided to share the post.

Today when John and I were in the car on the back road out of Droushia heading towards Arodes just where the solar panels are on the left hand side we could see the body of a dog lying in the shade of a large tree.  My initial reaction was that the dog was dead and sadly we see a lot of this too, dead dogs on the side of the road.

As I approached slowly the dog moved and started to head off the road towards Arodes.  John looked at me and I looked at him and he said "Does that look a bit like the dog that was missing from the Camp Site?"  I said it did but couldn't be sure so we stopped, put the data on our phones and located the post.

The missing dog was a Beagle type - tick, was wearing a harness - tick, a pink scarf - tick and had a scar on its back - tick.  All good but the dog in front of us looked about ten years older than the one in the photograph.

We rang the number on the missing post and spoke to Lazaro asking her the name of the dog - John thought she said fig-leaf - she was actually saying Beaglee (which she pronounced Veaglee) but even when John shouted fig-leaf it turned its head in recognition - this was the right dog!!!  Obviously having been missing several days and gone without food and water and been in extreme heat it didn't look as fit and healthy as it would otherwise have been.

Our problem was that the dog kept just out of our reach even though we tried to tempt him with some dog treats we had lurking in the car.  We slowly followed him halfway to Arodes whilst Lazaro was getting someone to come up from the campsite to try and catch him.  Then Fig-Leaf did an about turn and started limping back towards Droushia.



Eventually Lazaro and a friend managed to find their way onto the right road - with the help of John talking them in through a village that they were not familiar with and roads that are impassable.  It was her dog and she had come armed with water to rehydrate.  She was ecstatic.

We asked her to let us know later in the day that the dog had recovered unharmed from its traumatic journey.  Apparently just prior to being at the campsite she had been to Arodes to visit as her gran had lived there as a refugee after 1974 - apparently that was where Beaglee was heading and since leaving the campsite had covered at least 20 kilometers as the crow flies so possibly a hell of a lot more.

We were just so glad that we stopped and recognised the dog and reunited him with his owner.  Sadly all too often we see dogs we think have been dumped (even with collars) and we have to take the view we cannot save them all.

Later in the day Lazaro sent us a photograph to show Beaglee snoozing in the shade back at the campsite, rehydrated and fed and looking in a much better condition than when we had first seen him.  It put a real smile on our faces.