An interesting day

I felt a bit unwell again today.  I had a headache again - this time though I put it down to the high temperatures and being tired due to poor sleep.  It was a bit unfortunate because we were going out this evening so I actually took myself off to bed in the afternoon to catch up on my sleep.

Anyway prior to that we took my car down to Paphos to have the exhaust checked out.  Conscious that we are going to be lending Kenny to Stan, Jacky and John's Mum in a few weeks' time and also conscious that the island grinds to a halt in August we wanted to try and find out why Kenny splutters a bit sometimes in first.  We were down in Paphos just after 9.00am and were able to get to Kokos even though most of that road is being dug up, along with just about every other major and minor road in Paphos at the moment.  Kokos put Kenny up onto the ramp and smacked the exhaust around a bit and declared it to be fine but he reckoned that there might be an issue with an engine mount.  We thanked him and left (no charge) and decided to go straight down to Andreas in Droushia on our return.

We called into Cycleband for a few bits and pieces - they must have had a recent delivery because John was able to replenish his stocks of Old Speckled Hen and we managed to get a box of Cider in readiness for the arrival of Marky-Mark and Laura.  Laura is easy - she tells me she isn't drinking alcohol at the moment so is happy with water or a diet lemonade.

Once back to Droushia we unpacked the shopping and then went straight down to Andreas's where John was using a combination of Google Translate, Gringlish, English and frantic gesticulation to try and explain that (a) there is a spluttering in first which is nothing to do with the exhaust and (b) we want the longterm teeny oil leak (more of a seep actually) sorted at long last.  Not sure whether any of this was understood but we were told to bring Kenny back on Tuesday.  We were parked by a new tractor, not that I take an awful lot of notice of tractors but this was like something out of a children's book - really quite funky if a tractor can ever be described as such!  Anyway we will return on Tuesday and hopefully Andreas will have remembered why we are there and hopefully whatever he does will be reasonably priced.

As we were driving home we noticed that Philippos was stopped on the side of the road with the bonnet of his trusty old truck propped open in the heat of the day.  John pulled across and went to give him a hand.

It appeared that the truck was out of, or lacking, water but there didn't appear to be any leak.  Fortunately we had a bottle of water in the back of Kenny which we donated to Philippos who assured us that we would be ok to leave him as his son in law Loukas was on his way down with more water and to make sure he and the truck got home safely.  The good thing was that he was in walking distance to Andreas's garage if needed.

We got home and as I said had a quiet afternoon.  We had been invited out by Savvas the Electrician and we were going to The Farmyard.  We had dodged this on several occasions but he is such a nice guy we really didn't want to say no again but we did have to persuade him to meet at 7pm rather than 8pm because I didn't want to fall asleep in my food and I need at least 3 hours digestion time before going to bed.  Savvas was quite happy to accommodate us and we agreed that we would meet him there.  We weren't entirely sure how the evening would go but actually we need not have worried because Savvas turned out to be really interesting and entertaining company.

Savvas loves the Thai food at The Farmyard and this is praise indeed because he is a man of opinion and he isn't afraid to share his views on anything!

He very kindly paid for our meal declaring we could have anything we wanted - we didn't kick the arse out of this invitation - we stuck to what we know and love, sharing the chicken satay starter and John had the crispy chili beef and I had the honey chicken with extra chili and a boiled and an egg fried rice.  Savvas had spring rolls and then consumed a duck meal for two all on his own!

He had us in stitches regaling stories about his past, particularly when he was in the army and had gone on a sortie to steal a chicken because he and his oppos were starving.  He came back with a turkey and his side peppered with shot from a less than happy farmer. 

He also told us that after doing his national service and having to leave because he had to have his appendix out he took himself off to Holland, learned the language and took a degree in electrical engineering - who would have known!!!!

His funniest story was about when he was in the Army.  He now considers what the boys have to do as 14 months in a holiday camp.  He says that it was bleak, dangerous and tough and his parents had to sign a disclaimer saying that they appreciated he may not return home alive.  He said that as conscripts he and his friends were starving so he would sneak out in search of food.  On one particular occasion he went out to get a chicken.  He had noticed a chicken coup nearby-ish and one night he broke in and saw chicken to the right and a big old turkey on his left - realising that the turkey would provide more food he decided to take that and grabbed it by the neck at which point it started flapping about which set the chickens off clucking and they set off a poodle which was in the farmers house so chaos ensued.  As he made his bid for freedom with the turkey the farmer woke and opened the window and shot at Savvas.  Savvas said that fortunately there was a large prickly pear cactus between him and the farmer which slowed down the flight of the shot so that it did not hit him will full force.  In fact he had not realised he was shot and raced back to the camp clutching his prized Turkey.  When it was pointed out to him that he was bleeding he lifted his sodden shirt to see that his left hand side was peppered with shot and for the remainder of the evening he picked out little pieces using a match stick he had sharpened!