Month: December 2009

We started tackling Christmas cards and crossing off the list for Christmas presents, not so easy buying via the Internet!

Later a man came to the door asking if we wanted some logs. He was an out of work carpenter who is now making his living chopping down trees and selling the wood. We have some wood but as it was a good price agreed to have his van load. Mal sorted half of it and left the rest for the following day as it was then dark.

We had a phone call from Lou and Rhys who wanted ‘to run an idea by us’. They have decided to get married in North Cyprus next summer and it is looking as though I am the wedding planner!!! The four oldest boys will be staying with us anyway, so they said it seems the easiest time. Exciting but there will be a lot to organise.

In the morning we went to Girne market. It seemed really quiet with hardly anyone there. We bought a few things and then went looking for a new vacuum cleaner as the plastic parts of mine have gone brittle with the heat and broken. We went into Arcelik and they were really nice and helpful. I really can’t be without a cleaner with all the dog hairs. It was 200tl. I hope this one will last longer than the last one.

In the evening I went to Pizza night with the girls but I think as the colder evenings come, more want to stay at home by the fire, so there were only 4 of us. We enjoyed it anyway and had a new cocktail, Bailey’s based we think!

Mal and I had dental appointments with Nural. He was excellent when I had my abscess and so we returned to him for a check up and clean. I went in first and he checked the tooth with the root filling and said it was good, checked all my other teeth and said they were fine, so I asked him to clean my teeth. He replied that they didn’t need cleaning, so that was it. Mal next and he checked his teeth and Mal mentioned his wobbly teeth. Nural told him he could sort them out a cost of £2,500 (he has 5 that are wobbly) and could start then. It seems every dentist Mal goes to has a different idea of what to do. Mal said he would just have his teeth cleaned today, to which he again replied that they didn’t need cleaning. So, outside to pay and Nural said ‘nothing, no charge’!!

In the evening we watched ‘Changing Lives’, a programme I had downloaded from UK TV. It is about a family in Wales,who don’t even recycle and they take them to an environmentally aware community to see how they get on and whether they change their attitudes. It is quite amusing, especially when they are given rabbits to skin for dinner!

We managed to walk Rosie in the mountains without getting wet. I went to Nac at the Cutting Room to have my hair cut. After Gez left the island I have had difficulty finding someone who can cut hair well, Nac can! I had directions of where to go to find the salon, driving slowly down the road, I saw the sign, indicated right and was stationary, waiting for the oncoming traffic to allow me to cross when a car slammed into the back of me, I pulled over and yes, you guessed it, the driver of the black car that had been behind me sped off. Thank you that driver, very courteous. Back to the haircut, Nac is a real professional and knows what she is doing. I was a satisfied customer but she said if it wasn’t right to go back and also when my fringe needed trimming to go and she would do it free of charge. You can’t say fairer than that. The coffee was good too! I will be going back.

In the evening we went to Bev and Gary’s for dinner. Bev had done a very nice table with place names with faces on them. The food was delicious and we had a really good evening. I think it took Jackie and George a while to acclimatize to Mal’s sense of humour. Thank you Bev and Gary, a lovely evening.
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Hunting day again so we took Rosie to the beach but the tide was right in and the waves so high, we just took her along the cliffs. Back home and log burner alight again, it keeps the house damp free as the houses here are certainly not built for all this wet weather. We had been booked on Hans’s historical walk of Girne but sadly it was cancelled because of the bad weather, a sensible decision.

Six of us went for a late Sunday lunch at the Punjab restaurant in Lapta. Bev and Gary and Christa and Robin and the two of us. Unfortunately Christa fell over as she was leaving their house, slipped on the wet marble, so wasn’t feeling too bright. We had a really good Sunday roast, two courses for 17tl. It made us all forget about the weather. We also bumped into Joan and Jeff in there. It is a very popular restaurant.

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We managed to take Rosie when it wasn’t raining but the deludge from the previous day’s rain was unbelievable. Part of Mal’s new garden by the road had been washed away and where there is no drainage channel, the water had gushed down the hill and blocked all our drain at the bottom of the drive. Walking with Rosie we put on walking boots and at one part of our walk, we both sunk into the mud and it squelched over the top of our boots. Huge boulders had been dislodged and very old walls had pieces that had fallen out of them. As soon as we got back Mal set about clearing the drain and all the stones that were over the road.

The best idea for a day like this was to light the log burner and stay in, so after some shopping we did. I bought Cyprus Today but there didn’t seem to be much news in it. We watched the footie and Mal was not too pleased at the Hammers result, of course Rhys was! AND Chelsea LOST to Man City, that was a very good game.

It was quite nice weather in the morning. It changed in the afternoon! The rain started and didn’t stop. Not just any old rain, it was torrential. We had to close all our shutters to prevent rain seeping through the windows. The swimming pool tank was not full to the top but by the evening, it was pouring out of the overflow. One of Mal’s new trees he planted was leaning heavily to one side. It wasn’t just the rain but the strong wind that came with it. We lit the log burner and snuggled up indoors. The seat cushions from under the terrace were all soaked as the wind had blown the rain so far in, so we tried to dry those out.