It was not until 11am on Monday morning (21st) that the well diggers returned. The machine's corkscrew ground away at the rock below for several more hours before it penetrated and began to pull out earth again. After the initial excitement of watching the machinery the boys took things very nonchalantly and Joe just kept cool.












At 80 feet, just as the Water Diviner predicted, the earth coming out took on a damp appearance. Water had been found, hurray, Jeff heaved a sigh of relief.

A further 10ft was excavated to create a chamber for the water to collect in and the drilling was completed and the huge machine folded down ready for the road.




Then began the process of lowering the concrete lining cylinders into place. They dropped in all the cylinders that had been delivered but more were needed and as it was now 6.30pm they called it a day and the job rolled on into a 3rd day.

Tuesday, at 10am the men returned, along with a lorry carrying more cylinders. The first thing to happened was the junior member of the team being sent down the well shaft on a rope!

This was because the last cylinder placed in shaft had not seated properly and this young man not only had to hang on to the rope with one hand but pull the cylinder into alignment with the other!!



It was not long before this part of the process was completed and we were left with a very crude looking well as the drilling team drove away.


Next to arrive was a lorry load of rocks. These were to be used to dress the well and create some ethnic walls around the garden.




However, they needed to be broken down into smaller pieces before they could be used and in the heat of the day one of the men swung his pick axe and broke these rocks down. He looked as though he a member of the chain gang from the local penitentiary! Very slowly the garden is taking shape.

That evening we had invited friends and neighbours around to meet the Kelseys, so the afternoon was spent preparing salads, shade and seating areas - and once we had all this food in the fridge, the power went off. Hey, this is the TRNC! There were about 20 of us altogether and we had a lovely evening together.













So we were now at the stage where the well looks pretty, but is not functioning yet. A pump and electrics need to be put in place - which I am sure will take time......

The days are passing very happily in a sunny haze of early morning smiling faces, meals together in the garden, cuddling baby Joe, swimming in the pool and going to the beach.

Then balmy evenings under the stars when the adults can relax over a meal and a drink.


Andrew arrived with us a week ago. He had a fraught time at Heathrow, going through all the heightened check-in procedures. Despite him being at the airport 4 hours prior to his flight he only just caught the plane by running from the final check-in to the plane doors. We were so thankful that it hadn't all happened a week earlier!

The boys were delighted to have their Daddy here to show off their swimming skills to him (and learn some new tricks from him too).
The heat (38 degrees) and humidity (83%) have made the pool an even more attractive place to be. Everyone is coping with it pretty well but I am happy to tell you that today the humidity has dropped to a more manageable 60%. Debi and Joe have had the greatest struggle. Dear little Joe wants his cuddles but we are all too hot and sticky to do it for long. Debi almost melts into a puddle whenever she is feeding him through the day. He spends a lot of time under the air-conditioner and is thriving well despite it all. He is the star attraction whenever we go out - the Cypriots in particular cooing over him.

Andy has been making himself useful by helping Jeff with those jobs he had been somewhat reluctant to tackle before (fitting an outside light and drilling a hole for some cabling).
However, the big project is to create a shady area just outside our rear door, but discussions on this are on-going.




Joshua and Tom play great games together and when it comes to time to be quiet they are content to watch a DVD on my laptop. We have a rule that because of the intense heat everyone has a quiet time between 2 to 4pm. It took some persuading at first but now that we have persevered there is no trouble about them all going to bed in the afternoon and they are much better for it later on. However, Ross is all noise, action and often mischief from the moment he gets up until he goes back to bed. He's great fun that we will definitely miss when they all go home.

We've managed to get Andy and Debi out for a couple of hours in the evening (provided they take Joe with them) and we took them for a nice "grown up" meal to The Veranda restaurant last week. Friends of ours, Jo and Les agreed to babysit and Joe slept in his carrycot across 2 chairs in the restaurant. The premises are located right by the shore and we had an excellent table in the courtyard overlooking the clear sea, lit by the moonlight.

I have been taking Debi and Joe with me on a Thursday to meet with my "Ladies from church". It has been a nice for her to have a break from 75% of her boys! Jeff and Andy went to the Quiz night last week, but didn't win. We have had a few trips out in the late afternoon to cool down and benefit from the air-con in the car. One such trip was to Bellapais Abbey where the boys had a great adventure, saying it looked like Hogwarts! We also took a trip out along the coast towards the "pan-handle" and visited The Eagle's Nest for a drink.















The highlight of last week was the start of the well-drilling. Permission had been obtained from the relevant Government Department and on Wednesday Torgaug arrived with a team of men and removed part of our garden wall to make access for the drilling machinery.

There was no progress on the well on Thursday and on Friday we took the children to Sunset Beach Club which has swimming pools and other things to amuse them. On the way back, we called to see Torgaug to ask when drilling was to start, to be told it had been going on for some hours.

When we got home, a huge drilling machine was there (along with our neighbours who had come over to watch the proceedings).

The noisy drilling went on all afternoon yet the children still managed to have their afternoon nap. Mid afternoon another vehicle arrived carrying the concrete liner sections.

These were unloaded and stacked in the front garden.

By evening a hole 70ft deep and 3ft wide had been drilled, but no water yet as they had struck rock!


The whole proceedings had been observed by the Water Diviner, who sat looking very confident throughout. Although Jeff frequently went to talk to him for assurance that the water was definitely there.

According to the Diviner, they need to drill through 10ft of rock and there will be a plentiful supply of water underneath. We will see.

The proceedings came to a standstill at 7pm and everyone knocked off for the weekend.

During the weekend we were a source of interest for many passers by. Several of the locals enquiring whether we had obtained permission to sink the well. This rather dumbfounded me, as if we could hope to secretly employ a huge machine like this with all the accompanying noise without being noticed.

Monday, 7th August
We knew it was going to be tough and it was! An early start from Kent at 5.30am and once Andy had dropped us off at Terminal 1 we met the first hurdle. Getting 4 tiny tots into the airport with 6 pieces of luggage and a buggy was pretty stressful. We quickly found where we could get rid of the luggage and there was a relatively small queue, however we had a problem with the buggy. Debi had hoped to hang onto it up to the aircraft doors, thereby being able to contain the youngest two. Unfortunately, because of it's size and the type of luggage shoots used at Heathrow, we had to check it in. Debi has a special container for it and once it was packed up we had to take it to a separate area to be checked in as special luggage. We decided to go through to Departures straight away and the boys quite enjoyed the formalities of ex-ray machines etc as they had there own little back packs containing their toys. A drink and a little breakfast later and it was time to go to the Boarding Lounge where we learnt the flight was delayed! The boys were very good, although confining Ross was impossible, so we did a lot of wandering around the lounge.

We had good seats on the plane but not the promised Sky Cot. We had 3 seats in the centre and one across the aisle. I apologised in advance to the young man in the seat next to me and warned him it might not be a very restful flight for him. Tom and Josh were extremely good throughout the flight, getting very excited when the plane eventually took off and when they got there own meals (lots of little containers to open). Ross was a different story. As soon as it was time to confined him in a seat belt on Debi's lap he screamed and screamed and screamed! This seemed to coincide with the time little Joe needed a feed and he screamed too! Bet we were popular with the surrounding passengers. The BA staff were extremely kind and considerate, once Joe had been fed he went off to sleep in a little carry cot Debi had brought with us, albeit on the floor. Ross on the other hand was like a slippery eel and would not stay still, introducing himself to the surrounding passengers. It seemed a long 4 and a half hours but our luggage arrived quickly at the other end and Jeff was there to meet us with cold drinks and take us to Karsiyaka.

The boys hadn't been indoors for many minutes before they wanted to strip off and get into the pool.

That was to be the start of many hours of fun and a feeling of "glad to be home" for me.

The following days were spent playing with the boys and shopping with Debi and getting little Joe acclimatised along with everyone else.

I know I have said before that the time goes by so quickly here, well since the family arrived the days are positively whizzing by. I have eventually found a few minutes where I can catch up with our news.

Thursday 3 Aug
I was still in UK and as I had an eye check-up at the Ultralase Clinic in Tottenham Court Road, I spent the afternoon and evening up in London. I had lunch with two of my friends from the ABF, catching up on their news. Later in the afternoon I went across to Tottenham Court Road, took one look at Oxford Street and decided that wasn't for me, so I spent some time in the British Museum before going on to my appointment. All was well with my eyes, the optician was pleased with the healing process and I was soon on my way to Victoria to meet my friend HB from SSAFA Central Office. We decided to wander into St James's Park as it was such a lovely evening. We went into an open-air restaurant/bar in the park and spent a pleasant evening sinking a couple of bottles of Rose wine, watching the ducks on the lake and catching up with each other's news.

Friday, 4 August was a lovely day as Debi, Andrew and the boys all returned from their break at Centre Park. They were all pleased to see me as I was to see them and they spent most of the afternoon telling me what they had done with their cousins. They had been swimming, bouncing, cycling and much more. They gave me a lovely gift of a wind chime made with a blue humming bird on the top. Come evening I met up with some of my girlfriends at The Ship and Traders; Roni Brill, Angie and Stella joined Debi and me (and Joe came too). It was good to see them all again and hear of Roni's family, Angie's potential house purchase and Stella's week with her family.

Saturday, 5 August I spent sending myself a parcel (wonder how long it will take to reach me?) and doing some last minute shopping and packing. Late afternoon I went to see Roni and Mike who had just returned from a holiday in Canada. They had spent 3 weeks there and had a wonderful time. Roni's brother and wife are staying at their house for a few weeks, and it was good to see them also.

On Sunday it was time to do some serious suitcase packing ready for our flight on Monday morning. I knew I would be over my baggage allowance but I hoped that with so many children travelling with me and their allowance being fairly generous, I would get away with it. I also spoke to Aunty Betty about her trip out to us in September. She was thrilled with all the arrangements. I also told her about this Blog in the hope that she might be able to see some of it, either at Kath's or Dereth's house. We all had a reasonably early night as we were to be up at 5.30am. We knew it was going to be a fairly stressful day but could not believe just how stressful it turned out to be.

We had an uneventful run over the border and down to Larnaca airport on Saturday and as Jeff wanted to call into one of the large stores in south Nicosia he didn't hang around to see me off.
The airport was extremely busy, not only with holidaymakers but refugees from Lebanon. The first evidence of this was the sight of British soldiers outside the airport building, helping people who had arrived by coach, to collect their luggage and then usher them through a special entrance for their onward journeys. Inside the building were numerous Red Cross stands offering water and a packed lunch for these travellers and Aid workers were rushing about shepherding people to and fro.
As I was fairly early and had already checked in On-line at home, as soon as I'd got rid of my case I escaped the melee and went upstairs for a cold drink. Eventually I went through to the Departure lounge, did a little shopping and awaited the call to board the plane. I have never seen so many planes on the apron as there were that afternoon. Planes from a variety of countries, I suppose there to collect their unfortunate citizens escaping from Lebanon.
Our departure was delayed for half an hour but I found myself sitting next to an elderly Scottish lady who was travelling alone. Her home was near Paphos and she had lived in Cyprus for about 15 years, sadly her husband had died a few months previously but she was content to carry on living there. She'd had a very interesting life, her husband had been a chartered accountant and had worked a lot in the Middle East, Far East and Carribean, she and their children accompanying him. Our conversation certainly made it an interesting flight.

Lovely to see Andrew at Heathrow and eventually Debi when we got to Chatham. The boys were all in bed, though I did get to have a little cuddle with Joe when he woke for a feed later on. He's delightful and has a great deal of brown hair.

On Sunday morning I was woken by Joshua and Tom leaping on the bed to give me big hugs. That was definitely worth coming all this way for! It was lovely spending time with them and to see how Ross had changed, he's losing his baby fat but not his baby curls. He has masses of them and the cheekiest grin you could imagine.

Of course I had lots more cuddles with Joe too.

In the afternoon we all went to the park, the boys on their bikes, including Daddy and Ross, while we "girls" pushed the Buggy. Tom can ride his two-wheeler very well, but insists on the stabilsers being left on. While in the park he was persuaded to have a go on Josh's bike that doesn't have the stabilisers and you will see from the picture how well he does - however, he is not convinced.

















Monday morning I went off to have my hair cut and coloured and would you believe it, just as I was about to leave the hairdressers the heavens opened and the rain stair-rodded down. So much for the UK heatwave! At lunchtime, Debi and Andy loaded the car with luggage, got the boys on board and went off to Centre Parks for a few days to join Andy's mum, brother and sister and their families, so now I have the house to myself.

I started doing some sorting out and packing of the things we'd left behind. It was quite pleasant pottering and discovering things that I had forgotten. We don't have a TV yet in Cyprus and although I havn't missed it I did indulge myself this evening by watching all the Soaps!

Tuesday was another cloudy, blustery day. Just before lunch Debi's neighbour, Cara, gave me a lift to Hempstead Valley shopping centre where I enjoyed a few hours browsing around the shops. Then back to Debi's for a bit more sorting.

Wednesday was a really grey, cloudy day today, which was rather a shame as I had been invited down to Canterbury cricket ground to watch Kent V Hampshire while eating a rather splendid lunch as a guest of the Buffs Association. I don't know the first thing about cricket but I did meet some very nice people.