Month: September 2009

Rosie and I were up early, before it was light as the days have started getting a bit shorter already. It was lovely in the mountains. It now gets dark about 7.30 in the evening.

In the evening I went out to our girlie Pizza night.

Rosie and I left the injured in bed and went for an early morning walk in the mountains. I was collecting pine cones for the BBQ. As I walked past the most remote house where the swimming pool is next to the path, a door opened and there was a nude man, obviously going for an early morning skinny dip, he saw me and the door closed very quickly. I had to giggle, poor soul probably never imagined that anyone else would be up that early!

The patient reported the leg was improving, so I guess amputation is off the agenda now.

We also heard from Robin who is now back in Germany, having fallen ill his last day here in Cyprus. He has emailed us from his hospital bed in Germany…get well soon Robin!

As the morning progressed it became cloudier and cloudier. By the afternoon we had thunder and lightning but no rain.

Mal’s leg was still painful and so hopped around the house on one leg when he had to move. Unfortunately he can’t manage the steps on the pool, so is unable to go swimming, much to his annoyance.

I managed to get a bit of the gardening done in between administering to the lame.

Mal usually makes breakfast on Sundays but of course was unable to stand, so that and everything else during the day was down to me. He did decide that a good idea would be to use the office chair (on wheels) to scoot around the place but Rosie hated it and kept barking, so he is now hopping!  So, I continued being Florence and administering pain killers and words of sympathy!

We spoke to the boys in the evening. Tariq is in the last year at primary and is a prefect this year. Sol has had two days at secondary and wouldn’t stop talking about it, so obviously is enjoying it. River plays for Canton Rangers (footie of course!) and they won 11-5. So all good news on the Cardiff front.  River has decided he wants to be a dentist. It will be interesting to see whether he achieves it or of course he may change his mind before then.

Rosie has been busy chasing wasps, whatever we say she totally ignores us and is on a mission. Not a good mission as one stung her in the mouth. I was prepared to rush to the vets but she didn’t have an allergic reaction and it certainly didn’t stop her eating. Silly girl. I did refer to my Bruce Fogle book ‘Caring for your dog’!

We checked our visa statement and sure enough the money had been deducted for the two new kids tickets but no refund on the other two….so now we have paid for 7 tickets instead of 5!! What a way to run a business. I did however contact Ender in the accounts department who asked why on earth they couldn’t just refund the difference…I didn’t have an answer to this. I don’t work for CTA BUT I have to say again Ender seems the only one within the 600 CTA staff who apologises and is as helpful as CTA allow him to be…well done Ender. He then went on to explain that it takes 7 -10 days to get the refund. He also said not to hesitate to contact him if there was a delay. I assured him that I would.  A very sincere thank you Ender.

Perhaps foolishly (??) we then booked for a holiday in Turkey for March, flight with CTA!

Mal decided to chop some of the logs we had accumulated. Everything was going fine until I heard a yell and he came in leg dripping with blood. A piece of the wood had flown off and stuck in his leg. He had managed to pull it out and I checked there was none left in (why can you never find your glasses when you need them?!)   I administered medical aid, the hole not being very big but quite deep. The problem then was every time he used that leg the blood started oozing again. Nothing else for it but to sit with his leg still (or amputation!). He used this to his advantage whilst I played Florence! Men!

We did watch the England footie game in the evening, nothing spectacular there although we did win.

A big day out. Eight of us (girlies) went off across the border to visit Ikea and Carrefour. We had a really nice day out thanks to Margaretha, our driver, who when we got to the (Greek) crossing insisted that we were all Swedish and they just let us through.  Amongst other things I managed to bring lots of pork chops back and also Bonios for Rosie (a fraction of the price they are here).

Whilst we were away, Mal had the water tanker up again and Rosie had her fun playing with the water.

We rang Sol in the evening (number 2 grandchild) who had his first day at secondary school. It sounded as though he enjoyed it and he told us all about it and exactly where his classroom was and what lessons he had. Bless him! It’s all a bit daunting going from primary to the ‘big school’. He was impressed they have their own swimming pool as he is a good swimmer (plenty of practice in our pool.)