Month: December 2010

Torin took us down to the local for a pub lunch. In the evening we sorted all the presents out. Jack and Scarlet are two in March and so not quite as excited as the rest of us! Grandad read them the story “The Night Before Christmas”  when they went to bed and then at least I think they understood about their stockings and hanging them up.

Having been used to grandsons, what a difference girl’s play is! Scarlet spent about an hour wrapping her wellie in a nappy! I think we should have wrapped them up for Christmas!

We left the Travelodge, back to the caravan to load the car up with all our Christmas things. Gloom and doom on the radio saying how busy the roads would be and how packed all the shops would be, the busiest day of the holiday period they reckoned. What rubbish, the roads were fine and we made the journey in just under two hours to Torins. Ok, there is a lot of snow in Biggleswade but the main roads are clear and we seem to have missed the thousands of shoppers we should have seen.

We arrived at Torin’s, he was not well, Karen had a chest infection and Scarlet and Jack had runny noses! I think we forget how many bugs are around in the winter here.

In the morning we went into Ramsgate as I had a hair appointment. As soon as I walked in, Marcello was really happy as he had won his case to have a 7 foot poster of his wife on the side of his salon. The council had objected and they lost! It was in the Daily Mirror and also on Meridian news. Marcello also told me that he is on ‘Come Dine with me’ in January. He is becoming quite the celebrity.

In the afternoon we went and checked into the Travelodge which was right next door to the Toby carvery where we were meeting Mal’s brother, sisters and partners.  We had a really good meal and the drinks were surprisiingly cheap (well, we did consume a few!) It was lovely to see them all and we had a good time. Thank you Deb, Dave, Shirley, Steve and Marion.

We were actually surprised at how few people were in the Carvery considering it is so near to Christmas. We were the last to leave!

For some reason we were awake at 4.00am, probably still on Cyprus time. We were going to Canterbury but because of the weather cancelled Canterbury and instead caught the train to London to visit Tris, Amanda and baby Violet, taking their Christmas presents.  We saw for oursleves the queues and queues of people waiting outside St Pancras in the freezing weather waiting for the Eurostar. It seems half the country has come to a standstill.  Well, a bonus to being old, we used our senior rail cards and our bus passes in London! We had a nice day with Tris and Amanda and of course Violet and went out to lunch together.

In the evening we had tickets to go and see the Albion Band, with the ‘adverse weather conditions’ (as the powers that be keep saying as an excuse for everything ), we made a decision to give it a miss even though we had paid for the tickets.

What can I say, things are not quite going to plan!

“`We arrived in the early hours of the morning. It was freezing, literally! We went to get our hire car only to discover that ‘due to adverse weather conditions’ we now had to get the shuttle train to the other terminal.

We collected the car and were asked if we would like some help de icing it…yes please! We sat in it shivering with all the heaters on. It told us it was minus 11 degrees.  We had a slow drive back to Margate, arrived at the caravan where the thermometer read minus 5. We put all the heat on and then discovered all the pipes had frozen and we had no water….it just gets better!

We went to bed, having had the electric blanket on as everything in the caravan seemed damp, hardly surprising! We only had a couple of hours sleep and then Mal started bucketing water from the office to the caravan.  This was dismal! From 20 degrees to this!

We later trudged through the snow and got into the car and drove to Westwood. Of course, everyone and their brothers were also shopping. I did however bump into my hairdresser Marcello, good thing I did with all the weather chaos I had forgotten I have an appointment with him on Wednesday!

Back to the caravan and as we left all the heating on, we felt sure that our frozen pipes would have thawed. We opened the door and oh yes they had, water was gushing from behind the washing machine (we had forgotten about that pipe!) and it was doing an excellent job of drenching the carpets.  We were speechless.

Mal later decided to call for a take away but couldn’t get through so we decided to drive and get one at our favourite place in Minster (all country lanes). Once outside the door we discovered that the heavens were dropping snow very heavily, so a quick drive to Tesco instead to get food from there. The car park was like a skating rink. Not one of our better days.

We had spent the last few days snow watching for the UK as we were due to leave in the evening for the UK. Heathrow was closed and Gatwick was also closed for some time. Following CTA’s demise we made a decsision then to book from Larnaca to Gatwick (we usually go Ercan to Stansted…typical!)

Packed and house sitters in place and Margaretha came to drive us to Larnaca. We checked on the board before Margaretha left and only 40 minutes delay. Off she went. Once inside Larnaca, we checked in to discover that it was a three hour delay. Seeing as Heathrow people couldn’t even get planes, we thought at least we would get back to the UK, not as bad as many others who hadn’t a clue when they were flying. We drank coffees and sat reading our books.

It looks as though the weather in the UK is not improving. Rhys sent some more pictures from this morning. It looks as though the boys are enjoying themselves anyway. Well, the sun has been out here!

Mal and I went to get Cyprus Today see link

There was a lack of footie matches and wasn’t Mal lucky because of this we had the Hammers match on TV and they drew. Well, better than losing, one point for them but they are still at the bottom.