The Day Before the Birthdays...

As you know last night we had arranged to take George and Pam out for dinner.  Although they are still here for a couple of weeks we will be busy with Trev and Vix so thought we would do it sooner rather than later.

We decided to venture down into Latchi and eat at Faros where we have had a couple of nice meals and for some reason they always give John a hefty discount.  It is nice sometimes to get in amongst the hustle and bustle of the harbour and the tourists and it is a little warmer down there in the evening so it is still very pleasant for sitting and eating outside.

We had a lovely evening - George is a fascinating guy who left school at 12 and became an apprentice tailor to his Cypriot cousin before he came over to London in the early 60's and set up his tailor's business just off Oxford Street.  He was telling us stories of the famous people for whom he has made suits including a rather boozy night out with George Best (as a Man Utd supporter man and boy that must have been a highlight). 

It was, as anticipated, a late night because we finshed off with nightcaps of Brandy at their villa.  They have builder Tim arriving tomorrow to start their renovation works.  We hope that they will be happy with what he does as we have recommended him to them.

Today we woke early - not helped by the fact that digger and stone lorries started at 7.00 - we are hopeful that once the road is finished that will be it for a little while (at least whilst we have our visitors).  We decided to cut our losses and head off into Polis early to get some shopping in readiness for next week and to call into the bank to check that our latest deposit account had been opened. 

We got everything completed and came home to... SILENCE - it transpired that the digger had broken down - couldnt have happened to a nicer bloke!!  They eventually got it back up and working again and the road is on track again (sorry for the pun).   We are watching with interest as there seems to be a lot of road and not much room for the plots.  It would have been lovely if the field had remained a vineyard but I guess building plots are much more lucrative than vines and we have been told that many of the vines in the area are 'sick' this year.  We are adopting the standard shrug and 'what can we do?' attititude that the Cypriots often display.

Our final DIY task before visitors arrive has now been completed - the grouting of the tiles in the Kitchen - to the left you can see a before and after shot - it is all looking very good but I will be cleaning off the excess grout for weeks I should think - not helped by all the dust that is coming in off of the field at the moment.  The tiles look excellent and even though John will say that the tiling isnt the best I think it looks fantastic.

Final picture for today is to show you that we seem to be hosting some sort of Praying Mantis convention at our house today.  Having had plenty of them around when we arrived in May (remember Dave and Samantha that lived on our outside light for a while?) they havent been around for a while and now that it is cooler are back with a vengeance.  I think they are great and if they are keeping the fly population down then that is fine by me.

We have some packing to do later as we have quite a bit of stuff to take down to Emba for the birthday celebrations.  Will probably not get to update the blog for a couple of days sorry.