My Washing Machine goes to the Washing Machine Graveyard

The jury is out on my new garden ornament - too modern?  too industrial?  too grey?  It is my sadly defunct washer/dryer which we brought with us from the UK twelve years ago.  It looks ok from the outside but it has been playing up for quite some time and we never used the dryer function except by accident - both washer and dryer had the longest cycles in history so I am guessing that my replacement will, although expensive to purchase, be much cheaper to run.  John's task today was to source a replacement.  Nothing too fancy just something with a largish capacity, quick wash and English fascia!

As I said I was going down to see Mum.  Beforehand I had some shopping I wanted to get out of the way.  It was another lovely day and I had overdressed for my trip to the big city that was for sure.  I nipped into Ikoagora for some catfood and then Lidl to go and investigate the art stuff they had on sale this week.  I had an order from Nicky and and order from Gail for items to be used at our inaugural Bitch and Stitch in a couple of weeks' time.  I was hoping that they would have some of the watercolour brush pens they were advertising, I had only been looking at trying to get some last week and these were a billy bargain.  In fact they had everything people had asked for which is unusual!  My final trip was to Jumbo which was tortuous - car park full and Jumbos heaving and very few of the items I wanted available.

Mum wanted to go to the pet shop in Chlorakas to get some special cat food for Freddo.  At the till they often have a crate which houses kittens which are looking for a home, there was only one today, a little girl with amazing markings like a dalmation dog.  She had been dumped at a mosque in Paphos and was being socialised in the shop in the hope that someone might give her a home.  There was something very endearing about her - there must have been because I am only usually interested in gingers.  I have put a post on social media hoping that these photos might encourage some kind sole to give her a loving home.  It is possibly a vain hope - there are so many needing some TLC sadly.

I returned back to Emba to help mum with her new jigsaw and to have a chat with her about how she is feeling.  She looks tired and says that she isn't sleeping well and that she realised something was awry on Christmas Day but couldn't do anything about it.  We agreed that I would speak to her GP and take it from there.  We only have her best interests at heart but it must be scary to realise that something isn't quite right.

I took a little detour on the way home - I think you can go cross country to Kathikas on a number of roads which go through Akoursos - I didn't in the end as I didn't want to get lost but I circumnavigated the roadworks in Peyia and came out up the top having gone through some beautiful countryside and having seen some amazing houses on the way.  You can see what a lovely day it was - this was around 2.30pm - anyone having been on holiday here for the last week has certainly had some glorious weather.

Just outside Kathikas there is the most enormous house that has been built - it sometimes says for sale, sometimes sold.  It has a massive drive leading to a huge marble clad house or at least it used to be marble clad.  Something is happening to the house as all the stonework on the outside has been removed and has been replaced by or has revealed the red salami like paint that we used to waterproof our outside wall before it was stone clad.  There is also a digger removing the boundary wall.  I wonder if the house has actually been sold.  Time will tell.

I returned home for a lovely quiet evening.  I was allowed to choose our viewing so my choice tonight was The Good Nurse starring Eddie Redmayne.  The true story of a serial killer called Charlie Cullen.  I won't reveal the story just in case you want to watch it.  It is a little slow to start but all in all a good film.