And the Heavens Opened...

The weather was foul today and we were going off to Paphos to do some shopping and bits and pieces and then to see Mum.  We didn't have a lot to do, I had hoped to get a haircut but Lumi wasn't available until Friday but we went anyway because I like to see Mum midweek to break the week up a bit for her.

It was raining so hard when we planned to leave that we had to hang on for a bit.  Having to walk down the path to the car means we can get soaked to the skin before we start!

Our first stop was at the bank on the Mesoghi Avenue.  For some reason the internet banking app on my phone had stopped working and was coming up with an error even though I could log in on-line and John's phone was working.  After a quick chat with the girlie at one of the desks I had to send a screen shot of the error message to them to forward to Nicosia.  There was a known fault and by doing this my account would be reactivated.  I wasn't hopeful but true to their word I did this and then about 20 minutes later it worked again.

We called in to Shuks for our weekly meat order.  I am so pleased that I can get a regular supply of pigs liver from him for the cats and doubly pleased that he was open today as he has been having a refurb done.  He now has some very impressive display fridges and some even more impressive meat hanging inside - that slab of beef was bigger than me - apologies to all my vegetarian and vegan friends.

Mum was fine and I was pleased that I was able to get her car taxed on-line although not with her bank card so I paid it and she paid me back.  She had her car serviced today and plans to continue driving for a while longer yet.  We spent and hour or so with her and then just before the weather got really bad set off back home stopping off at Grande for a few bits and pieces.  The local cat population had it right, they were all sheltering in a cardboard box - I think the one on the left got the short straw though!

This was the colour of the sky as we headed out towards Potama Bay - you couldn't see the hills ahead of us and we knew that this meant the weather at home was going to be dire.  Mum had mentioned that she was going to go and see Lilian after we left and would have had to go this way so we warned her that the conditions were bad and getting worse.

We couldn't work out whether the rain was coming towards us or going up the hill towards Droushia but as we got to Peyia they had clearly had torrential rain as the roads were awash.  This is the trouble with an island that has no drainage system.  It was raining pretty heavily at this point and the water was quite deep - deep enough that we were glad to be in Kenny Kembara because we were less likely to get the engine flooded.

This was the view as we got up the hill just near Kathikas - this was when the storm was at its worst.  When we arrived home we had to sit for a while until it subsided enough for us to run in.  Needless to say we didn't do much else for the remainder of the day.