A Matter of Choice

On the evening of Monday 31st October, Aaron and I sat outside until late,  it was a little chilly but nothing that a pair of socks and a fleece couldn't solve.    During the night I woke up to a distant rumble of thunder and ran outside to gather all the chair cushions.   I went straight back to sleep only to vaguely wake a little later to the sound of rain,  that rain turned into a massive storm.   I slept through it but it did cause quite a bit of chaos across the island.  However when my alarm went off I got up to this amazing sky. Since that night the weather has changed,  even though the days have been sunny there has been a noticeable temperature drop. Our duvets are out, the slippers and dressing gowns have reappeared and the boys are now insisting on long sleeves and trousers for school. The days are still lovely, if you are in the sun.  Stand in the shade and it feels quite chilly now. I know most people lov...

Several years ago I was in the park walking our dog in a little world of my own kicking through the autumn leaves, it was a nice day for the time of year, not too cold, sun shining, nothing wrong with it at all - the kind that us Brits actually get all excited about as it's not raining and nature looks beautiful.  But for no real reason I stopped in the park and it just struck me as grey, I could see the gorgeous reds, yellows, browns and greens all around me but it suddenly lost all its appeal, it just seemed as someone had thrown a sheet over me and I couldn't quite breathe properly. I feel a bit like that now, although I can actually come up with a list of reasons which may or may not make it better now!  and it's not a sheet - it's a suffocatingly hot electric blanket which won't turn down! As a rule I don't like to moan on my blog, I don't know who reads it and I've upset friends in the UK before who have felt sad for me and I feel bad enough a...

One thing we do see a lot of here at this time of year is rainbows, I think I've seen more in Cyprus than I've seen in my whole life, it might not rain that often but when it does the sun is not usually far behind so it's a quite a common occurrence at this time of year. Leo loves seeing the rainbows, and we often see fantastic ones from our balcony. He doesn't understand that they don't always appear and is disappointed when they don't, I explained that you have to have sunshine and rain, and there was no sun that day, so we made our own. We painted a plate, I'd like to say he did but as ever he did a couple of brush strokes and then wanted to watch me!  I did just about manage to get him to allow me to draw round his hand though for the 'sun's rays' - I think it would have been a bit odd with my hands!   When the plate was dry 'we' stuck the hands around the edge, the sun was going to have a smiley face but Leo informed me ...

Today (Thursday) I decided that Summer is most definitely just around the corner, we had our usual Mum's and kids meet up and spent the whole time in the garden.It's a well sheltered garden and with no breeze it got very warm indeed,  I even had to move into the shade at one point! Excited by the arrival of the hot sunny stuff I thought I'd find some related photos for this week's Flashback Friday This was taken in 1982 on a family holiday in Wales, I don't think I actually remember anything about the holiday, as my memories are the same as the photos we have but I do like this one in particular. I assume I was copying my Dad as he has always been a fan of sunbathing. I think there will be a lot more of that this year, for Dad at least - I will get my sun time whilst chasing a mad toddler around a beach! Click the button to see all the other 'flashbacks'

 This photo was taken on the last "proper holiday" that AJ and I took, before the arrival of Leo. It was taken from a cliff side restaurant at my all time favourite beach - Konnos Bay in Cyprus. Funnily enough I was there again last week, You see our last holiday was an unusual one, we had come to see the progress of our new apartment and explore what would be our new village. This was in July 2008 almost two years ago to the day. Yesterday we took Leo to meet some friends at a local pool, it is on an apartment complex but is open to non-residents. It is also where we stayed back in 2008. It's a very surreal feeling still to go back (and we regularly do - it's a lovely pool for babies!) and sit among the holiday makers and to know that we are not cramming in the sun and the cocktails in a panic before our 2 weeks are up.  (or was that just me back then!) Are we on a permanent holiday? Of course we're not... AJ works long hours and is usually knackered...

Sunny Cyprus has not been so sunny at the moment! After what looked like a change in the weather we've had some huge storms and so much rain. We were lucky with the weather for the week that Di and the boys were out, it was nice every day and we spent time at the beach and by the pool. Far too cold for most normal people to go in the pool, Tomas got over the cold and enjoyed it, James not so much! In a moment of madness I did throw myself in but not for long! The day after they left it started raining and boy did it rain! We had some drama on Thursday when my Mum came upstairs and told me there was water coming through her ceiling. It turned out the the drain holes on the balcony of the apartment between us and hers were blocked and the balcony flooded into the apartment! All is ok now though as we called the developer and they came and swept all the water out. We then had a day of sun -handy as I managed to get 3 loads of washing done - if the sun's not out it takes days for...