Parks and picnics

Despite the fairly dire weather forecast for Larnaka, the last couple of days have been very pleasant, weather-wise. Sunday was lovely and sunny - and although (as described in this post) I was exhausted after getting very little sleep, it was lovely to have my sister and family with us at last! Tim cooked the usual roast chicken lunch with two chickens and lots of trimmings, and I'd made a couple of desserts. Nothing spectacular, but there was of course plenty of chocolate too, as tends to happen at Easter!

In the afternoon we walked to the Salt Lake Park and my nephew and niece enjoyed the play area for a short time. It's not a particularly exciting play area - quite a nice wooden slide, a couple of swings:


.. and one of those complicated constructions with several ways up, over and through. Even Tim was tempted to try it:


Then we walked along by part of the Salt Lake itself, and home by a slightly different route.

My sister and her family were all wearing shorts and tee-shirts; Richard, Tim and I were dressed in long trousers and sweatshirts or fleeces. Amazing how we've acclimatised!

On Easter Monday, the day dawned warm and sunny again. We arranged to meet some sailing friends at the Larnaka sailing club. They have a son about the same age as my nephew, so Richard took both boys out a couple of times in his Mirror dinghy.


Our friends, who have a somewhat larger Lazer dinghy, took out first my brother-in-law, and then my sister and niece for a shorter trip. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, although by about noon the wind was increasing and it was a bit chilly.


Tim and I stayed on shore, Tim armed with a Pratchett book, me with the digital camera and also our video camera.

We'd brought picnics so we walked along a little way and at them before returning to our house (all ten of us) for coffee, and to see the video I'd filmed of the two boats. Being a complete novice at video, there were times when one or other of the boats appeared to be sailing uphill...

Then, after our friends had left, my sister and family went to another local park with excellent and brightly-coloured climbing equipment, slides, swings and so on.