A cold spell - C-O-L-D!

We had sleet yesterday. And hailstones. The temperature plummeted once we got past 1100 hours as a huge purple cloud moved in from the Akrotiri. The morning, prior to then, had been bright and sunny although the skies were peppered with fluffy high cloud.

The result of all this weather here was transient: puddles in the drive and a passing carpet of hailstones on the balconies but in the higher grounds the effects are more lasting. This morning, as day broke on a snowy covering on our closest mountains, the stove that we lit last evening finally breathed its last glowy gasps. The panoramas on 3 sides of the house show snow - excepting only the sea views to the north.

Today has been bright but chill and promised enough that we were tempted out to Rethymnon to stock up on meat and vegetables, wines and beer, cakes and biscuits, (we already have logs and dog food enough for a few weeks yet and at a pinch we can tear up old newspapers for toilet paper as we did when I was a kid) in an effort to build a contingency against a possible snow-in later this week. No stocking up on toilet paper and bread for us - not your run of the mill survivalist tendencies here.

The poorer weather has forced us indoors more than we would normally like but it has allowed me to get going on some of the computer related tasks that have come with a new machine and an old web host. We've had time to download (and upload to Flickr) some recent images which, by the way, look pretty stunning on the new 20 inch screen. All Xmas cards and presents have been dispatched although some may not make it to their ultimate recipients in time for the big day. We shall see.

Here are the flowers we promised you earlier: