Friday - the Luck of the Irish!!!

Ok so this will be a short-ish blog because today I spent all day and the early hours of the next (if you get my meaning) helping my lovely friends Elena and Bassam of Orexi who were catering for a wedding which was taking place at a luxury villa at Aphrodite Hills.  Aphrodite Hills is a gated development located around a golf course with some truly out of this world villas - Elena says that in some ways its perfectly manicured exterior reminds her of the Truman Show and I can see what she means you could have a fabulously fabulous home but everything in the community is man-made with no history and you might struggle to realise that you were actually in Cyprus.  Still it is jolly nice to see how the other half lives every now and again!!!

We started out early and our day began with a rendez-vous on the roadside where a man emerged from a white van and handed over his gear and Elena handed over some money - if you had been passing by you would have been forgiven for thinking that some drug deal was taking place but actually Elena was meeting up with the baker!!!

It was exceptionally hot when we got to the resort and started to wend our way along the tree lined roads to the villa,   As Elena said all the roads branching off look exactly the same and we were in danger of security apprehending us as we slowed down at each corner looking like we were casing the joint!!

We found the villa in the end and were faced with a scene of feverish activity as all suppliers to the wedding had pitched up at much the same time.  Lighting, catering, bouncy castle, florists, hairdressers etc etc etc.  Elena simply adopted true Cypriot mentality and abandoned the car as near to the front door as possible as we had a lot of really heavy stuff to carry in.

At this point I was so very pleased to see Louise Rance of Ooh La La Vintage Tea Parties pitch up - she was going to be my partner in crime for most of the day - helping Elena today as opposed to providing one of her lovely afternoon teas!  She is great fun and our paths have crossed on a number of occasions and we have always got on well - we were going to be bar bunnies together and as we both enjoy a bit of people watching I could see we were going to have a few laughs during the course of the day - then when we learned that we were to be joined by Mary and Philippa later on it was clear that we would be Helping Hands Extraordinaire!

Bassam was being helped by his nephew Ali who added a certain je ne sais quoi to the day - particularly when he decided to change into his polo shirt whilst in the kitchen and revealed that he is certainly not the one who ate all the pies!!!  It made a room full of ladies of a certain age very happy indeed and at the end of the evening when he was sat at the end of the bar with Bassam waiting for proceedings to wrap up he had a constant stream of females swooning over him including one rather robust individual whose very obvious flirting included the classic line that she spent the day testing urine!!!  Not sure if she was offering or trying to impress!

I am not going to say too much about the wedding - confidentiality and all that plus I always think that the bride and groom should be the first to see their photographs not any old Tom, Dick or Harry on the internet.  Suffice to say that as the contingent was Irish they could certainly drink so those of us behind the bar had our work cut out!

I did everything from laying up the tables (now I know categorically which way the knife should point - thank you Elena!!!) serving canapes and wine and making more vodka tonics than I care to remember - not to mention the copious amounts of Baileys that was consumed and by the men!!!

Watching in impromptu 'Riverdance' when the DJ played a particular record was probably the highlight of the evening as we watched the dancers reveling in their Irish heritage.

Yes it was a long day and yes my feet ached beyond belief after
walking up and down concrete paths for about 14 hours but I did enjoy it, we had some laughs and I wouldn't do it for anyone else so it's not like I have to do it every week - in fact I really marvel at Elena and her capacity to remain enthusiastic about catering what with her work schedule, her family, her health and everything else to contend with but she has been a good friend to me since we moved to the village and for that I am very grateful.  I hope I didn't scare her too much driving her home in her own car - but the roads were lovely and quiet at 3.00am!!!