[Charithea]

χρονια πολλά Happy New Year from sunny Cyprus. Many thanks to you all for entertaining, elucidating, educating, correcting and informing me throughout the year. Charithea.

[MikeHardman]

All the best to you, too, Thea.
May 2014 spring some nice surprises on us, in the garden or otherwise.

[Alice]

New Year greetings also from rainy Athens.
May I echo Charithea's comments about the help and entertainment provided by the forum in the past year.

[John J]

Yesterday was New Year's Eve and here in Cyprus it turned out to be one of the wettest days of the winter so far. This fact did not seem to deter those in our village who were determined to see in 2018 with a bang. Quite literally as the explosions erupted at midnight terrifying our cats. However, this morning dawned bright and clear with a dazzling blue sky and we were greeted by our own fireworks display, with scarlet rockets soaring upward.
Happy New Year to all Forum contributors and readers.

[Caroline]

And a belated happy new year from the southern hemisphere.  It is so dry here that a local fireworks display was cancelled in case it set the island on fire.  Fortunately for both water supplies and gardeners - but not holiday-makers -  we had steady showers yesterday with more promised for the rest of the week.

[Charithea]

Hello to all the Forum users.  Today is the last X-mas celebration Day here in Cyprus.  The Silver Cross has been thrown into the sea and the young divers fetched it up again.  Today is also the last day for sending good wishes to friends to help them with the new year.  Tomorrow  the other Orthodox Christians, who follow the Julian calendar,  will be celebrating Christmas. Native Cypriots but also quite a lot of Russians will be celebrating together. The X-mas decorations stay on here in the village as a mark of respect towards them. So from me Καλή χρονιά  and may all your gardening endeavors be fruitful.  I am a bit more optimistic about my seedlings and young plants since we had 4 nights  of very heavy rain. A few days ago we went to pay for our Untreated Dam water and the man in the office was rather pessimistic.  It will be difficult to supply water to the villages a bit higher than from here unless we have many more rainy days but  we will be able to have some from 'pumping' until we hit saline water.  Not really a good option. So we all hope there will be lots and lots of rainy days and snow.