A new route back from Polis to Droushia!

It is Friday - I am still concerned about Charlie's progress or lack of it but having looked up tonsillitis in cats it is pretty nasty so it is hardly surprising that he comes to eat, eats a bit and then walks away as it must be quite painful.  Unfortunately he was sick this morning but I think he had failed to chew his food sufficiently - we have decided to give him some of the Lick-E-Lix that Chivers used to love as they are smooth and hopefully will slip down nicely.

We went shopping today - we arrived just after 10.00am because we are not supposed to be allowed in before then (this is reserved for the 65+ brigade and people with special needs) and it was empty which was fabulous.   We fair skipped round the aisles getting what we wanted for the weekend.  We are taking a sausage casserole down to Mum this week and her friend Lilian is joining us.  It was a sunny day - cool but sunny and John decided to drive home via the road which he and Liselotte covered the other week when they walked down from Droushia, lost the map, went off piste and then found the route again and walked back up.  John was too busy concentrating on the map to take pictures but he wanted me to see how beautiful it was.

The recent rains have meant that the streams are running and overflowing in places and here we had a fair old river to cross!!!  We were driving parallel to the Gravity Road but inland and there wasn't a sole to be seen save for a solitary goat up on the ridge.  There is also not a single electricity pylon in view and all you could hear was birdsong.

There are several places we passed that would make for fabulous picnic spots, particularly in the summer when you could sit under the shade of a magnificent ancient olive tree.  John and I plan to do this walk when there are no time constrictions and John reckons that we should walk down this half and up the other which is the reverse of what he did with Liselotte - he thinks that the ascent going the other way is slightly less arduous (it needs to be a lot less arduous in my book!!).

It was such an unexpectedly lovely drive home a real (as Bobby and I would say) Ain't We Lucky moment.  We used to go down roads less traveled when we first moved here and we had the old moped - the only trouble with that was it had a teeny tiny fuel tank and in those days there were next to no petrol stations nearby so we were limited to the distance we could cover.  

Then we used to take a day out each month to have a Droushia Discovery Day with Di and Rob but several things, not least the Covid Restrictions have put paid to them for the time being although it would be lovely to get back into the swing of doing that again.  It is such a shame that circumstances mean we have been unable to see much of them for months - actually for the best part of a year really - I think we are all struggling with lockdown and the uncertainty that this has brought with it.

Back home we unpacked and settled down for the remainder of the day at home.  The wind was cold and although we had planned to stain the stepstools we had bought from Ikea (thanks Bobby for the Ronseal) we decided we would tackle them tomorrow after I have done my walk with Rachel - I have plotted it and from the shape of it we are calling it (sorry Mum) the Willy Walk!!!