The Hills are Alive!!!

So this was to be rather a different Thursday for me because I was walking with Rachel but not until this afternoon.

My morning was spent doing housework and ironing accompanied by the woeful England cricket team who had won the toss in India and chosen to bat and had obviously not heeded the advice of the 7p's (proper prior preparation prevents piss poor performance) because they put in a piss poor performance even though it was quite exciting from an Indian or neutrals' point of view.

John spent most of the morning trying to sort out our gas fire - I am sure he would rather have been watching the cricket but I kept him informed of our progress - or lack of it.

After having uttered the immortal words "I don't like to say so but that fire is really behaving itself nowadays" the other day the fire decided to start playing up and then not working at all.  John had it in bits yesterday when I was at Mum's and found a component that was faulty and he didn't have any idea as to whether or not he would be able to fix it.  We know that we bought that fire way before we moved over and it was stored at the shop and then at Mum and Dads and then when we had it fitted it was a right old nightmare (a very long story which you can find somewhere in the early posts of this blog) - since then John has replaced just about every part of it but now we don't think parts are still available and getting them from the UK would cost us an arm and a leg so if it had died we decided we would have to go and find a replacement when restrictions are eased enough for us to want to go down to Paphos to look.  I have to say the boy done good because he managed to repair it and it will last a little longer - at least it gives us some breathing space to find a replacement.

I felt quite happy to go out walking knowing that I wasn't leaving John with a nasty and possibly expensive job on his hands and the weather was fabulous - so much so that I had to find some shorts and a vest because I could see it was going to be pretty warm.

I met Rachel at the Farmyard and we walked down towards Akourdaleia and then turned right and went across country to Theletra.

Most of this walk was new and unknown territory.  Normally at Theletra we turn right and walk back towards the main Stroumbi/Kathikas road but today we were turning left onto some very minor tracks which took us through some lush and beautiful countryside.  We headed across towards the top of Akourdaleia.

This was a tough walk.  We scrambled down some very steep paths which were basically constructed of shale so had to be careful not to trip and fall - particularly as there was a ravine to our right.  Then we came out onto a better road which we could see disappearing away in front of us going up, up. up - Rachel christened this our 'Labrynth' walk as we couldn't quite see the route we would be taking.  I didn't want to worry her but part way through the walk Mrs Narky Nora gave up the ghost for some reason so our route was down to my map reading!!!

We walked until we met the main Kathikas/Akourdaleia main road and then turned left to come up the main road for a short way before we turned right and went across country to make our way back to the Farmyard - it is always interesting to walk with Rachel because she can often tell me who lives in which house or a bit of local social history and in return I hope she gets a wow moment (in a good way) as she takes in the scenery.

She did incredibly well today because we had several long and very steep hills to negotiate and one of the worst was right at the end of the walk when we were both feeling pretty knackered.  She just got on with it and actually power walked up the last bit with me trotting on behind as she has a much longer stride than I do!!!

We managed the 10km just within our allotted time and although a bit hot and bothered both agreed that it had been another lovely walk.  I don't know if she will be able to come out on Saturday - it will be work and home life permitting - if not I am going to drag John out instead.

Fortunately we had lasagne left over from last night so supper was just a reheat and we had fresh salad and garlic bread with it.  It felt so much like a Saturday that I will be at sixes and sevens all day tomorrow!!!

The forecast looks fair for the next week so not sure what we will do tomorrow - I really need to get out into the garden now that we have had some rain - everything has started to sprout again and there are still things that need to be cut back having been ravaged by the storms.