December Starts - Admin Day...

As December dawned on us dry and bright we decided that, as we were going down to Paphos for the quiz,  we should have an admin day and get all those boring jobs out of the way for the month.  Our house and contents insurance is due at the end of December and we had looked around for some quotations but Atlantic in Paphos still seemed like the best bet so we called into the village Co-op bank where we keep an account to cover all our household bills to get the money.  

Usually Mira is behind the counter but today it was Philippos who is the bank manager come museum builder (yes really - he is building his own private museum on the outskirts of the village).  He very kindly gave me a little greek lesson in counting which I duly repeated and then immediately forgot!  John and I keep saying that we are going to sit down and go through the exercise books that Mum and Tom have given us but somehow we never seem to have the time so consequently we haven't got beyond the initial few sentences of  "Hello, how are you?  My name is Jill" or in John's case My name is John (obviously!!).

Next stop on our Admin day was to the general Post Office in Paphos to collect the parcel which John's Mum had sent us for Christmas and which needed signing for.  It is chaos in the Post Office at the best of times but at the moment it is packed to the gunnels with ex-pats trying to get their Christmas Cards in the post.  Each card needs two stamps and an airmail sticker put on it so it is quite a mammoth task.  

Mum and Dad had very kindly taken my cards on Tuesday and done all the licking and sticking for me (for which I am very grateful) and amazingly we know that by Thursday one of our cards had been received .  As I have said we are only sending one or two cards by post this year - we have decided to make a donation to charity and send an electronic card instead so please, please don't be upset if you only get the electronic one - it will be sent with the same amount of love to you as would one in the post AND if I fail in the electronic stakes I will apologise in advance.

Next stop on our Admin day was probably the most important of all - we called at Kolios the Butchers to pick up a ten litre box of red wine to make sure that we have enough for Christmas.  

We have tried all sorts of red wine over here both local and Australian imports and I think you have to go quite a long way to beat the 'carton' wine at €25!!!

Next stop was probably second most important because it was to replace our empty gas bottles for the Super Ser to make sure that we are warm - warm and piddled what more could you want for Christmas?  That will at least take people's minds off of my cooking!  It is going to be a challenge this year with an unfamiliar oven so give people enough to drink and they wont even notice!

Our Admin day included a visit to One-Stop DIY where John was checking out the cost of some sort of Triplex material for the pergola between the buildings.   Next to the DIY shop is the Euro Shop which is a must visit when we are down in Paphos.  It is a bit of a misnomer in that the majority of items are actually €2 but there are a whole load of things upstairs which are only €1 and we get our candles from there.

We arrived at Mum and Dad's to find them both sat outside having lunch enjoying the beautiful sunshine.  Their house is ideally suited for this as it is South facing and so they have plenty of hot water courtesy of their solar panels and they dont have to put the heating on anything like as early or for as long as we do - just as well because after 20 years their blood is well thinned!!

Mum, John and I went off to play pickle-ball at the Imperial Beach joined by Eric, Jeff and Jenny. It really was very pleasant down by the coast and the holidaymakers at the hotel were enjoying the sheltered gardens and were sunbathing - I had a wry smile as I thought about all those winters when we came over saying how hot it was and Mum and Dad saying we would think differently when we lived here - they are so right - by boots and fleece are my best friends at the moment!!

It was quiz night for us tonight - the mighty Spyro's Neighbours with Dot and Phil.  Unlike the last time we attended we didn't manage to win but we didn't disgrace ourselves either.  We pooled our draw tickets for the jackpot and when our number came up chose Janice to have a stab at the €150 question - unfortunately she didn't know the answer but hey who cares it is only a bit of fun after all and although we have a good old post-mortem afterwards about the answers we talked ourselves out of we do enjoy it and when we won the other week it meant that we could choose where the charity monies went and we chose MARCH which is a local charity which provides holiday homes for heroes.  They like the money to go to a local charity rather than a national one, so lets hope our €300 does some good.