Slept till nearly 9 o’clock which was great.  Then got up and started unpacking our private things which we don’t put out when the house is being rented.  Whilst we were doing this, Marion came up and gave us an update on how the summer has gone along.

Very hot today, roasting… still in the 90F/.30Cs.  With just a few tiny clouds.  We got the sunbeds back under the pergola and sorted out a few more things in the garden.  There was a massive rain storm a couple of days ago and the terrace and pool terrace furniture got soaked.  It finished drying out today.  Lovely to sit out in the shade where there is a little breeze.  Everything is looking lovely.  There had been a couple of problems with the watering system which Bob sorted out in about 5 minutes.  Ditto some other diy things around the house.  Still to do: replace a window handle; replace an a/c hose joint.

Ran down to Starling supermarket and got a lead for the dog.  True to form he rocked up about 11am.  A very nice dog, friendly and actually much cleaner than I expected.  Maybe the rain storm rinsed him off!!!  So dreadful that someone has abandoned this dog – a golden retriever.  Disgusting.  He clearly likes and trusts humans.  Anyway, he came right away when I waggled the lead at him and we drove him into Girne to the new Animal shelter.  Felt absolutely terrible but honestly don’t know what else we can do.  Hopefully someone will now come along and fall for him.  He would make a nice pet once cleaned up and vaccinated etc.

Picked up 2 enormous beef rib steaks at the nice butcher inside Ileli supermarket.

Had a swim and a lie in the sun by the pool.  Then I decided I had to see what the score was with the enormous stack of pool floats in one corner,  Luckily there was still a working foot pump.  There were several children’s rings/floats that I tested and deflated and put in the pool toy cupboard in the kitchen.  Then I started work on the adult floats.  Some of them were enormous.  I mean utterly huge.  Quite a lot were punctured (honestly, chaps, if you puncture your float, just put it in the dustbin rather than leave it for someone else to have to inflate and test….. )  Ended up with a lot for the dustbin and a few to keep.

We had two umbrellas left when we went home in June.  One of them, the larger, wind up model, is in tatters.  No one has reported this, which is a bit disappointing.  So many warnings in the villa pack about not leaving the umbrellas up when you leave to go out or go to bed at night….   We will not be replacing the umbrellas.  We had the awning put in place over the pergola to replace the need for umbrellas so as these ones go……  Pity how some people spoil things for others just by being a bit thoughtless.  Ditto our underwater pool lights.  Someone has left these on and the bulbs have burnt out.  Will get them replaced in the next couple of days but…. it’s annoying….. it takes but a moment to think about turning off the pool lights and taking down the umbrellas when you turn in….  And NO ONE ever owns up to having done it.  Which means that subsequent guests have the annoyance of something not working because of the previous guests…..

Alan, our neighbour, came up for a chat this afternoon.  Hope to see more of them over the coming weeks.  Then we had a couple of nice g&ts on the terrace.  The late afternoon/early evening is such a golden time.

Lovely dinner out by the pool.  Will get the lights sorted out tomorrow or the next day so that we can enjoy night swimming for a couple more weeks.  It is still soooo hot here.  Gorgeous.