Two days ago we had some excitement when a large mechanical digger turned up at the top of the rise above us and started tearing up trees and throwing massive boulders out of the ground and down the hill. Luckily, too far to reach us….. Then the next day they came down and did the same thing to the hillside immediately above us……. hmmmm …… taking out our water main in the process. That got mended by them pdq with me standing over them but it was worrying and the men spoke little English so beyond “we cleaning land” , we couldn’t learn much about what was going on. Then on Saturday a man appeared in the plot above us and introduced himself as the owner. He wants to build a house up here but….. yikes….. he thought he had bought the plot on top of the rise which is where he wants to build….. but in fact he’s bought the plot behind us, which is too small, very problematic and difficult to build on really, or at least, the sort of house he wants. So, he’s in fact bought a plot he doesn’t want, mucked about with it quite a lot, and totally demolished a plot which he doesn’t own but someone else does….. And, I know what you’re thinking…. aren’t there land registry plans. Yes there are so it’s all inexcusable really. We saw him again yesterday and he is trying to trace the owner of the upper plot to try and buy it. Meanwhile we will now plant a line of tall pines along our upper boundary in the autumn to mask out anymore insanity. It’s been our observation over the years that give a Cypriot a bulldozer and it’s a licence for total destruction.

To cheer ourselves up, we went up to Hoots for Sunday lunch with our lovely neighbours, Alan and Lesley. It was very hot yesterday – 31C – so we sat under the terrace up there. Business was brisk. Their food is very good. I had the calamari starter, the roast pork and the warm chocolate brownie with ice cream again. All delicious and no need to eat for the rest of the day. We had a lovely leisurely lunch and a couple of ice cold sauvignon blancs relaxed us from the stress of the previous couple of days.

Sat out on our terrace last night chatting and watching the sunset and then went in and watched House of Gucci on the dvd. Very good and some excellent performances and a very intriguing – you can’t believe it’s true sort of tale. Jared Leto was unrecognisable as Paulo Gucci and Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, Al Pacino all very good.