Thursday 27 October 2016

Celebrating with friends...


We feel extremely privileged to have made some really lovely friends here on the island.  It was a worry for me when we moved over here not to have the company of people with whom we shared some history - I knew that would take time and as happened when I was a newbie at secondary school (having been the only person from the village to have passed my 11+ exam) initially I felt a bit lonely and jumped at the opportunity to socialise.  It has taken the last 5 years to establish a settled group of friends who 'get' us and who we 'get', it may be small but it is beautifully formed as they say!!!  So on that subject we were delighted to be spending the day in celebration with Diana and Rob on their 32nd wedding anniversary.

We had a full day planned which started with us picking them up at 10.00am and presenting them with the heart we had made out of a blue painted pallet which Rob had given us some weeks previously - John almost spoiled the surprise by initially not accepting that pallet in favour for a boring old brown one!!

Di said we shouldn't have bought them anything and I was able to say quite honestly that we didn't - however this is unique and therefore priceless - I hope they like it!  Thanks to Claire and Mina for giving us the idea as they had given us a similar gift for our anniversary.


We made our way down to Paphos, making a quick stop as Diana needed to call in somewhere first and then went to the Begonia garden centre to have a look around.  There was an eclectic mix of garden ornaments on show!!!  We then made our way to the Mall and an al fresco coffee on the terrace before a mooch around and the obligatory visit to Jumbos!


For the real part of the anniversary celebration we were poshing it up and having afternoon tea at the Elysium.  Mmmmmm mmmmmm it was lovely and we have to thank my lovely God Mother Janet and her partner Alan for our voucher which they gave us for our anniversary.  We treated the Veasey's as a thank-you for them paying for our overnight stay at the Droushia Heights as part of our anniversary celebrations.  Afternoon tea was superb - lovely little sandwiches and cakes and scones with jam and cream.  How lucky are we Rob Veasey?  We must never forget how lucky we are!!

We took a walk around the grounds to take in the beautiful surroundings.

It is a wonderful hotel and it is amazing to think that over Christmas it is going to be shut for a few months for some major refurbishment - blimey it looked pretty good to us as it is!

Mum and Dad were really lucky to have spent a night there last year for Mum's 80th birthday courtesy of their lovely friends Jane and John.  Isn't it a blessing to have nice friends like that?


We had a bit of a rushed trip back as John desperately wanted to make it to the Vasilikon winery to see the sun settting - we managed to catch the final few seconds!!!  Diana and Rob hadn't been previously - we had a couple of abortive attempts and pitched up when it was closed due to a funeral or something!!  Di and Rob didn't know we were going to take them and we didn't want to rush them whilst we were out but we made it and we enjoyed a very civilised bottle of wine out on the terrace watching the last little bit of the sun sink down and the sky light up with wonderful shades of pink and orange.

It was a lovely day.

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