Friday update

For once, the week has not whizzed past as rapidly as expected. And that's not because Summer is here; oddly enough, it's been less hot than expected (no more than 30C in the sun) and perhaps more significantly, it hasn't become really humid yet. Somewhat sticky in evenings, but really not bad at all during the daytime. I know this will change sooner or later, but in the meantime am enjoying cool early mornings, and being able to use the kitchen in the daytime without either suffering or using the air conditioning.

On Monday, the Christian Writers' group met here in the morning, and we had a potluck lunch since it was our last meeting until September. People travel out of Cyprus during the summer, very often, and it's likely to be much too hot to do anything much - and we like eating together a couple of times per year. It was good that I had something to think about, since I was feeling a little on tenterhooks: our son Tim was flying out of the UK on Monday.

Or so we thought.

Originally he had been planning to come to Cyprus for just two and a half weeks in August. But for various reasons his plans changed, and he decided that he would like a longer break in the sun. We were able to find some very good value flights via Lufthansa, with the outgoing ones on Monday, due to arrive at 2.00am Tuesday morning.

Mid-afternoon, Tim called to say that while he was on the bus on his way to the airport, he had received a call letting him know that his flight was cancelled! However they told him to go to the airport anyway and they would sort it out for him. He wondered if they would put him on a bus to Heathrow and the Cyprus Air flight... but no. They booked him into the Airport Hotel overnight, and found three flights on the Tuesday, due to arrive at 5.00pm. Which is a much more sociable arrival time, and since he was coming for eight weeks, losing one day isn't too big a deal.

He had to be up very early (4.00am UK time!) on Tuesday, but all the flights went smoothly, arriving in time for the connections, and we were very happy to see our son at the airport when he finally arrived. He was tired, but suggested a game in the evening... at which he creamed us both:


(Anyone who plays Settlers and wants to know a little more about the game, I did write a brief post about this game on my Settlers blog which has been much neglected recently).

Yes, that's Cleo in the box lid. She has become much more sociable in the summer, and her favourite place to sleep is in the lid of any box that happens to be open. Whether or not she actually fits...

On Wednesday Tim relaxed, and slept somewhat, and chatted. At least, he tried to relax. It wasn't easy because the road works finally started in our street, and they were extremely noisy. The cats were upset and scared. Well; oddly enough Cleo, usually the most nervous cat, wasn't too worried. she did flick her ears a few times when a particularly loud machine went by, but other than that did not seem too concerned. Sophia sat on the stairs, looking extremely worried, but then she always hates loud diggers, which she seems to think are going to eat her.

Tessie surprised us the most by being truly terrified. She mewed - real mews, not her usual chattering cries - extremely loudly when I was in the bathroom, evidently telling me to get out. Then she hid under the bed. We can only assume that she thought we were having a major earthquake and was trying to keep us safe.

Thankfully the pipes seem to have been laid very quickly, and the road was back to normal again by late afternoon.

We were due to play a game with friends in the evening but they had to cancel due to illness, so Tim watched a DVD with Richard in the evening . And on Thursday decided that he'd done enough relaxing, so he went to the office to do some (voluntary) work with Richard. As he has done today.

Then friends who are shortly leaving Cyprus had dinner with us last night. So it's been quite a busy and enjoyable week.