Saturday - Armistice Day...

Mike stayed with us overnight - he has accommodation in Geroskipou but is spending more and more time up this end of the island as he visits us and he visits Elaine and Hadeel.  He is enjoying some very pleasant November weather and I jokingly said if he were to stay he had to join us in our morning madness of a swim - he was more than happy to do so - mad fool that he is.  He says it wasn't too bad!

The day was nice enough that we took our breakfast outside - we had had rain overnight and there was a terrific amount of condensation so I had to go round and dry everything off - this late in the year the table which is outside the kitchen door gets the morning sunshine and we spent a very pleasant hour or so drinking coffee and eating hot croissants - Lidl sell them and they are delicious and reasonably priced.

We had a light breakfast because we were meeting up with Dip and Karen later and having a tenner lunch in To Tavernaki at the top of the Mesoghi Avenue and we wanted to make sure we did it justice because they give you loads!

We have arranged to meet up with Mike again before he goes back on Wednesday - he fancies a dinosaur sized pork chop at Fitos and John fancies the same!

We did a little shopping along the Mesoghi Avenue - I was thrown into a state of confusion because Cycleband/Ikoagora is having a change round and I couldn't find some of the things that I wanted!

Lunch at Tavernaki was superb apart from the three exceptionally rude English people who came in from Nicosia and ordered drinks and then left them because we reckon they were in the wrong place and had sat down before they realised.

Anyway we ordered stifado (Dip) spare ribs (Karen and John) and chicken souvlaki (me) and we started with a drink, dips and salad and pickled roasted peppers and olives and potato salad and bread and beetroot and pickled herring and halloumi and king prawns!  After our meal we had cake and icecream and flambe pineapple and then a drink on the house and then coffee and our bill (because we had additional drinks as well as those that were complementary) came to €48 for the four of us!  Billy Bargain!!!

I had a laugh this evening because my sister is sorting her loft and came across some old family photographs.  I j remember this one being taken, my sister and I are dressed in the bridesmaid dresses we wore to Melvyn and Sandrea's wedding.  I loved that dress with its petticoats underneath to make the skirt stand out.  We were at Mr Rumbelow's sat on the edge of his pond and he want us all to be looking across to the left but I refused and stared straight ahead of me into the camera.  I wasn't very old here maybe about four and already wearing glasses - thank you measles!

The next two photographs are of my lovely Austrian Aunty - Margaret and her husband (my mum's late brother Gordon).  They met in Vienna and my aunt came back to England with my uncle.

We spent lots of our childhood with them - they didn't have children of their own - and twice went across to Vienna to visit my Aunt's family at a time when ordinary people just didn't travel abroad.  My Dad and my Uncle drove us across - and my dad made a small seat that straddled the handbrake so that either my sister or I could sit there for the journey - this was before compulsory seatbelts of course.  We have many anecdotes of those visits not least the one about the time when my Dad got a mega hangover wine tasting - he would probably rather forget that occasion!

 Finally Kaye sent me a couple of old school photographs.  She and I are so different, she had lovely thick dark hair and I had fine locks with a cowlick on either side of my fringe - looking at this shot I reckon mum must have got a pudding bowl out - what was she thinking???  You will, however note that several years later I am still wearing the same frames (different prescription lens no doubt) - I looked after my glasses like they were gold-dust.  I loved that dress though, that is the one saving grace from that photograph and Kaye looks like she is wearing a cardigan that she was destined to grow into but probably never did!