January 16th

John went out on a Bike ride this morning whilst there was a small window of opportunity - out too early and it was bloody cold, out too late and it was bloody wet!

Whilst he was out I managed to get a little time out in the garden.  I wanted to clear away some of the leaves which have fallen - they make things a bit slippy out on the decking (not that we are using it at the moment).

I have some wonderful cyclamen out in flower - these white ones are the wild endemic ones which appeared out of nowhere a couple of years ago.  Around them there are a variety of ones which I had indoors last year but which I moved outside and which have survived and are beginning to put in an appearance, they will be red, pink and a deep purple colour.

I am pleased to report that the passion fruit plant which was newly installed this year and which I have fleeced to protect from the winter weather is putting on new growth and doesn't seem to have been affected by the cold but the two bleeding heart vines either side (one pink and one red and white) have also been fleeced but have both lost all their leaves.  The pink one is in its second year, it took some time to show some life after its first winter up here - hopefully it will be ok again this year.  The red and white one is new this year - fingers crossed it will survive.

Whilst outside I did one of John's jobs - skimming the crap out of the swimming pool - mainly leaves but also an impressive collection of 40 footers (millipedes) and some rather disgusting looking bugs with many legs which you wouldn't want to swim with.

John returned from his ride with seconds to spare before the heavens opened.  He is not normally so lucky!

Even though it is Winter the garden is looking quite green and alive.  It may be early but some of the annual plants are well advanced and although John finds them messy I love the fact that they ore so resilient and put in an appearance year upon year.  The mounds of green are either Californian Poppies, Love in the Mist or Larkspur.  They will flower, set seed and then get pulled out so that the shingle goes back to looking tidy and white.  My Bird of Paradise plant that took years before it graced us with a flower is in flower with four or five blooms - it seems to do this about three times a year.  In the left of the picture is our lemon tree - it has been in years and only graced us with one lemon in all that time but this year so far seems to be looking much more healthy than previously.  In the middle of the photograph by the terracotta pots is the clementine - it has also put on a good amount of green but it has never provided us with a single fruit!

We needed to go shopping today and it was the day earmarked to take Lakis's Jooooooook out for a run.  Whilst it is nice to be tucked away down the path so people can rarely find us it does mean we have to run the gauntlet of rain in order to get to the car and the alley way is too narrow to have an umbrella open.

John shot off to go and get the car and reverse it back to the end of the path so that I could run down and try and avoid getting wet.  The only trouble was that the path was a bit slippy so I didn't really run!

Mondays are generally a quiet day for shopping and we reckoned that with the rain it was probably going to be even more so.  Had it not been raining we had planned to go have a little walk along the coastal path as we have been doing but we could see from up here that Polis looked to be experiencing similar weather conditions.

We managed to get our glass recycling done even though the parking area was awash.  There aren't so many places we can do recyling in Polis nowadays as they have adopted some special recycling scheme - which is ok if you live in Polis but those of us from the outlying areas have nowhere else to go unless we go to the official centre at Chrysochou which we can but it just isn't so convenient.

As we emerged from Paps there was a burst of welcome sunshine which resulted in a lovely rainbow stretching out in front of us.  We hadn't wanted too much and as we had anticipated it was nice and quiet in the shop.  We were having the remains of the chicken stir fry for supper so everything was in hand for a nice relaxing evening.  More Succession was penciled in but the weather nearly put paid to that as we always seem to have an issue with our internet when we have had heavy rain - we think that is because the lines are submerged in rainwater - we have taken off the manhole cover and seen it for ourselves.

And finally, today was the birthday of my a lovely lovely long term friend Hazel who I last saw for her special birthday in 2020 and then covid struck (these events were not necessarily connected in any way).  She was due to visit in 2020 but that was cancelled and now we await her hugely postponed visit which will be this summer .  We anticpate great times and great laughs which we always have when we get together.  Happy Birthday Hazel - we will celebrate in style when you are here xxx