Today would have been Elena's birthday and it is incredible to think that six months have gone since her passing. I shall go at some point today to have a little word with her - there is so much going on that she would have loved to have been aware of or involved in - I miss her as I know many, many people do - the village is not the same without her. Rest in peace Elena-mou, gone but never forgotten.
John and Susan have returned unexpectedly to the UK because John's mother has only been given a short time to live - this has happened on a number of occasions and she has rallied but this time seems to be the time and inspite of John's ongoing eye issue (having been hit by a shuttlecock) he was determined to get back in time. They left last night having been given the go-ahead by the eye hospital in Limassol. This means that we have Millie Mou to look after. Bless her she was there and waiting this morning looking a little disheveled as she has lost her magnificent winter coat. We had some cuddles and I gave her a brush and I fed her and then I had to leave her. I hate leaving her as although she lives most of the time outside she is used to having the company of Zak (dog) and John and Susan.
I had a text message yesterday from the main post office in Paphos saying that a package had arrived and asking me to go collect it together with the invoice, this is not good news because by asking for the invoice they are indicating they are expecting a payment of some sort. The problem is that recently I have ordered a number of things from Amazon or Ebay and I don't know which invoice they will be requiring. People ask me if there is anything I miss from the UK and to be fair there is very little because most things are available here although whether you want to pay the prices asked is a different matter. In the past batteries were really really cheap over here and we used to bring batteries back with us but now they are expensive and recently I haven't been able to find any triple A rechargables so I had ordered some from China or Hong Kong or somewhere else in the Far East.
Anyway I decided to go to the Post Office to ask them to give me some more details about the package so I could find the relevant invoice. The man at the Post Office who deals with payments is a miserable looking sod but I sat opposite him at Herby Caroline's wedding and he seems to recognise me which is a bonus.
I explained that I had received a text but hadn't brought an invoice because I didn't know which one to bring and they went out and found the package which turned out to be the batteries and then placed it and the paperwork in front of Mr Misery-Guts - great!
He asked me where my invoice was and I explained, he then asked me how much I had paid for said batteries and I said I couldn't really remember but was happy to go back and get the invoice and pick them up another day. He looked at them unimpressed and declared that they 'looked cheap' so declared that they were free from any duty - RESULT. Thank you Mr Misery-Guts!
We had a newbie at Pickleball today - it is daunting for someone to break into the 'circle of trust' particularly when you have no idea what Pickleball is all about - she will be ok I am sure as previously she was a badminton player. I think we made her welcome and I spent a lot of time with her in the other room trying to improve her hand/eye coordination as did Mum and Di. Time will tell but she said she enjoyed herself so that is good.
After pickleball Mum and I ran a few errands which included a trip to Lidl and a trip to try and find a flea comb for Fred which involved going to a petshop where I thought the parrot was stuffed (clearly not a Norwegian Blue of Monty Python fame) but which turned out to be very much alive and which scared the shit out of me when it decided to make my acquaintance from outside its cage. Actually it was a magnificent bird - not sure I approve of it being kept in the petshop but it wasn't tethered and I guess could have made a bid for freedom if it had wanted to.
Anyway I managed to get a flea-comb for Fred who will get pampered to within an inch of his life - that is if he can be coaxed away from Dad's lap where he has become a permanent fixture.
We then went to Tala to see what they have done to the newly refurbished square. If you didn't know what it looked like before then I am sure you would think this looks lovely but we felt it had just lost some of its rural charm. The bars on the opposite side from Voukani have just been obliterated. It wasn't somewhere that would make me want to go and have a drink which is a shame because I was hoping it would be another venue for Mum and Dad to go for a cuppa or a light lunch.
Voukani is still there and seems to be a very Brit orientated establishment, there is a small meze place to the left of it as you look at it and there is a Pafiakos charity shop to the right. Hardly the stuff to make visitors flock but maybe that wasn't the idea...
My visitors had a day to themselves - they wanted a bit of culture and probably got plenty of it trying to negotiate their way out of Droushia via Inea where most of the roads seem to have been dug up and blocked off. My hand written (not to scale map) on how to get to the Harbour via Peyia was stoically ignored as they turned left out of the estate instead of right. No harm done they managed to find their way to the mosaics and also to the Mall where they have purchased a new inflatable for the pool.
This needed to be tested obviously although Jordan had a bit of trouble blowing it up until he adopted his trumpet playing lip and teeth formation and then it was all systems go.
It is great to see the pool being used even late into the evening when we normally have it tucked up and ready for bed with the cover on. Tomorrow we are forecast storms which is a bit of a shame as we had a day at the beach at Pomos penciled in - we will go out anyway as the weather is likely to be better down on the coast anyway. After that we will be heading to the airport to pick up John who returns from his week away.
John and Susan have returned unexpectedly to the UK because John's mother has only been given a short time to live - this has happened on a number of occasions and she has rallied but this time seems to be the time and inspite of John's ongoing eye issue (having been hit by a shuttlecock) he was determined to get back in time. They left last night having been given the go-ahead by the eye hospital in Limassol. This means that we have Millie Mou to look after. Bless her she was there and waiting this morning looking a little disheveled as she has lost her magnificent winter coat. We had some cuddles and I gave her a brush and I fed her and then I had to leave her. I hate leaving her as although she lives most of the time outside she is used to having the company of Zak (dog) and John and Susan.I had a text message yesterday from the main post office in Paphos saying that a package had arrived and asking me to go collect it together with the invoice, this is not good news because by asking for the invoice they are indicating they are expecting a payment of some sort. The problem is that recently I have ordered a number of things from Amazon or Ebay and I don't know which invoice they will be requiring. People ask me if there is anything I miss from the UK and to be fair there is very little because most things are available here although whether you want to pay the prices asked is a different matter. In the past batteries were really really cheap over here and we used to bring batteries back with us but now they are expensive and recently I haven't been able to find any triple A rechargables so I had ordered some from China or Hong Kong or somewhere else in the Far East.
Anyway I decided to go to the Post Office to ask them to give me some more details about the package so I could find the relevant invoice. The man at the Post Office who deals with payments is a miserable looking sod but I sat opposite him at Herby Caroline's wedding and he seems to recognise me which is a bonus.
I explained that I had received a text but hadn't brought an invoice because I didn't know which one to bring and they went out and found the package which turned out to be the batteries and then placed it and the paperwork in front of Mr Misery-Guts - great!
He asked me where my invoice was and I explained, he then asked me how much I had paid for said batteries and I said I couldn't really remember but was happy to go back and get the invoice and pick them up another day. He looked at them unimpressed and declared that they 'looked cheap' so declared that they were free from any duty - RESULT. Thank you Mr Misery-Guts!
We had a newbie at Pickleball today - it is daunting for someone to break into the 'circle of trust' particularly when you have no idea what Pickleball is all about - she will be ok I am sure as previously she was a badminton player. I think we made her welcome and I spent a lot of time with her in the other room trying to improve her hand/eye coordination as did Mum and Di. Time will tell but she said she enjoyed herself so that is good.
After pickleball Mum and I ran a few errands which included a trip to Lidl and a trip to try and find a flea comb for Fred which involved going to a petshop where I thought the parrot was stuffed (clearly not a Norwegian Blue of Monty Python fame) but which turned out to be very much alive and which scared the shit out of me when it decided to make my acquaintance from outside its cage. Actually it was a magnificent bird - not sure I approve of it being kept in the petshop but it wasn't tethered and I guess could have made a bid for freedom if it had wanted to.
Anyway I managed to get a flea-comb for Fred who will get pampered to within an inch of his life - that is if he can be coaxed away from Dad's lap where he has become a permanent fixture.
We then went to Tala to see what they have done to the newly refurbished square. If you didn't know what it looked like before then I am sure you would think this looks lovely but we felt it had just lost some of its rural charm. The bars on the opposite side from Voukani have just been obliterated. It wasn't somewhere that would make me want to go and have a drink which is a shame because I was hoping it would be another venue for Mum and Dad to go for a cuppa or a light lunch.
Voukani is still there and seems to be a very Brit orientated establishment, there is a small meze place to the left of it as you look at it and there is a Pafiakos charity shop to the right. Hardly the stuff to make visitors flock but maybe that wasn't the idea...
My visitors had a day to themselves - they wanted a bit of culture and probably got plenty of it trying to negotiate their way out of Droushia via Inea where most of the roads seem to have been dug up and blocked off. My hand written (not to scale map) on how to get to the Harbour via Peyia was stoically ignored as they turned left out of the estate instead of right. No harm done they managed to find their way to the mosaics and also to the Mall where they have purchased a new inflatable for the pool.This needed to be tested obviously although Jordan had a bit of trouble blowing it up until he adopted his trumpet playing lip and teeth formation and then it was all systems go.
It is great to see the pool being used even late into the evening when we normally have it tucked up and ready for bed with the cover on. Tomorrow we are forecast storms which is a bit of a shame as we had a day at the beach at Pomos penciled in - we will go out anyway as the weather is likely to be better down on the coast anyway. After that we will be heading to the airport to pick up John who returns from his week away.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.