Our Neighbours return

I don't know whether it is the medication I am on but my sleep pattern is shot.  

The other night I lay awake desperately trying to remember someone's name - for no particular reason at all and I have no idea why it had even come to mind but I was going through the alphabet desperately trying to remember...

AAA, BBB, CCC, DDD, nothing, keep going, start again - nope nothing!  

I thought I was going to have to ring my lovely friend Hazel who would have known who I meant immediately except that it was the middle of the night.  Then suddenly I got it - Winspear (not sure of the spelling) - I clearly had got bored with my AAA routine somewhere about the 'T's'.  

I know Hazel reads my blog so I bet she is having a bit of a giggle remembering that time when we paid her to wear her fluffy bootie slippers to a party along with her 80s 'V' back jumper.  Happy Days!!!

Then last night I woke up all discombobulated because I couldn't remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears - WTF????  Why on earth was that important to me?  I have no idea, but clearly it bothered me enough to wake me up although I didn't go so far as to check it out on the Internet - I did that later in the morning!!!

Today is Sunday - Mum was coming up as is our normal routine and I had our meal all sorted so had a lazy start to the day.  It was a bright start, good sunshine although the wind was pretty nippy - sadly the sunshine departed early afternoon and was replaced with grey miserable skies and then some pretty heavy rain.  However, I can report that we have had sufficient sunshine this week for this not to be the worst January with regard to electric generation since we have had our PV Panels - that award goes to 2018 which was our poorest year by far for generation, and we still have another day to go.

Although a bright and sunny morning so that the conservatory was about 19-20 degrees the main part of the house was very chilly even though we had the gas fire and the two space heaters going.  I knew that we would be ok but Mum would find it cold so had decided we would have a good old winter warmer of sausage and mash with onion gravy and peas - guaranteed to make you feel better just by looking at it!

Not my photo!

Our pudding was a traditional Cypriot Orange Filo Cake which is lovely but probably not the best thing to serve Mum when she has been told her sugar levels are up because then she panics.  We do struggle to get to the bottom of Mum's health as there seems to be a bit of a power struggle between her doctor and her cardiologist with regard to medication.  We cannot understand why Mum's blood tests are only ever produced in Greek so she doesn't understand them and why the last lot (when they told her that her sugar and cholesterol were up) were not in her records.  I have told her that at nearly 87 she is doing pretty well and shouldn't get too hung up about this as she was about to put herself in starvation mode by not eating anything - and she eats next to nothing anyway.  She is on very low dosages of medication for sugar and cholesterol so they can just up it a bit.  Anyway she wasn't overly impressed when we got her to bring up her blood monitor and she checked her blood and I checked mine and my reading was higher!  

Anyway she ate a fine portion of the sausage casserole and, because she does love a pudding although she denies it, ate a fine portion of the cake and John gave her an extra large jug of cream all to herself which she just about finished off too.  I just wish she would eat it with relish rather than with guilt.

So this evening we were being nice neighbours and venturing out in the pouring rain to go and pick Ellen and Richard (the 5's) up from Paphos Airport as they have finally managed to get back from the UK after 6 or 7 weeks away sorting out the family home.

The flight was due in originally at 9.00pm but on checking had made up at least half an hour.  I was taking them some rolls, crisps and a drink to have as they said they would be too knackered for a meal.  

With the current regulations that everyone has to have a PCR Test on arrival (even Cypriot nationals and legal residents) we didn't know how long it would take for them to get through so we parked up off airport and awaited their call.  Richard kept us up to date with their progress and in the end it wasn't too long although I bet it felt like it to them because they were desperate to get back home.

As we walked back into our house I realised that my old wooden driftwood Santa was still outside - it had started to rot and John was going to get rid of it but the weather meant he had been forgotten.  I think I just might leave him there!