VA Day

My final preparation for VA Day is to place some fresh flowers in the guest bedroom - Roses courtesy of Mum's lovely garden and I am not sure how long they will last but they will look lovely for a few days at least.

My preparations were interrupted by an unexpected visit by one of the Cypriot neighbours with the contents of her fridge as she is leaving tomorrow - this is very kind and most welcome as I never like to turn anything down.  I am mesmerised by her eyebrows which she appears to have had 'microbladed'  they remind me of two processionary caterpillars which we get in March and I have to remember to concentrate on her whole face and not these two creatures when she is talking to me!

For the uninitiated amongst us...

Microblading is a meticulous tattooing process available to anyone looking for a semi-permanent solution to sparse brows. A small blade is used to deposit ink throughout the brow area, in the upper layers of skin, resulting in a natural-looking filler that lasts anywhere from one to three years.

mmmm well I guess there must be degrees of professionalism in the microblading industry!!!

Our visitors come in on a very late flight tonight which if delayed will arrive tomorrow - such a shame as this cuts their week's holiday down by a day but heyho we will pack in as much as they want to do in the time we have together.

The house is now 'pimped' to within an inch of its life in readiness - all I need now if for John to come round wearing his white gloves doing 'rounds' a la Royal Navy inspection and it would be complete.

At long last the clematis has flowered - in fact the two clematis (or should that be clemati?) are flowering at the same time.  The original large flowering one had been eaten by something as it started to grow and struggled and I was sure that it normally flowers long before now.  I had bought a flame vine last year to provide flowers after the clematis had finished but that perished in the winter so I purchased another clematis to wind its way up with the other one.  I wanted a different colour - this I was told by the snotty woman in the London Supermarket was blue - the tag said it was blue and blow me down if it isn't a similar colour to the other one so my hopes of some contrast have gone right out of the water.  I have a third clematis which is struggling a bit by the front gate - if it ever manages to flower I would probably be fairly safe in betting my life savings on it being a shade of pink too.

During the afternoon I went down to Polis to get in some food and stock the fridges calling in on Susan and John Read en route as I had learned that John was recently hit in the eye with a shuttlecock and may be in danger of never getting the sight back properly.  He has a big appointment at the Pantheo clinic on Monday which is where Dad had his cataract done - we have everything crossed that there will be good news - they couldn't say too much the last time because of the amount of blood sitting behind the eye and the tremendous pressure this was causing.

I never normally see anyone when I go to shop but as I got to the bottom of the Readies Road I bumped into Di and Rob - not literally thank goodness but we conducted a very Cypriot two car conversation in the middle of the junction.  I then bumped into Lou and H in Paps so caught up with them too conducting a very Cypriot two trolley conversation in the middle of the aisle.

I went down to Mum and Dads early evening - we had arranged to go to the opening of the photographic exhibition into which I had submitted a photograph which had to meet the brief of My Cyprus a personal view and I had submitted a very windy day snap of Potoma Bay before the Sea You bar was erected - it was blustery and wintery but the colours were still beautiful.  Originally they only wanted one photograph, A4 sized framed in black but in true Cypriot style eventually let people submit more than one in any size and framed however they wanted or not as the case may be.  As a result my picture looked somewhat lost against others which were much larger but this was a charity event raising funds for PASYCAF (Cancer Support) which was so hugely important to Elena.

So here are Mum and Dad posing next to my little picture.  Had we not been going straight out for a meal afterwards there was quite an impressive little buffet and the wine was supplied by Tsangarides although only Dad got the benefit of sampling that!

It was exceptionally hot in the gallery so we didn't stay too long and headed off to Les Amis where we had booked for evening meal.  Mum and Dad had been there recently with Janet and Alan as it is only down the road from the Paphos Gardens where they were staying.  They had been impressed by the three-course set menu which is only €15.95 per head and I have to say there was a tremendous choice.  The restaurant was full with a steady stream of diners so they must be doing something right.  We had a lovely, leisurely meal as I had to keep myself awake in order to pick up Abi and Jordan whose flight was coming in at 11.40pm!  In the end it came in early and although there were about half a dozen flights coming in within about 15 minutes of one another they got through reasonably quickly.  We made it home, got them settled in and sat outside catching up.  They are going to be easy company and Abi is besotted by the cats which Charlie is taking full advantage of.