The Early Part of This Week...

You will know if we have a very late night because I don't get to do the blog and I didn't do it last night because we had a very late night and a very long day.

I had offered to take photographs at Jonathan and Donna's wedding which was taking place at the Coral Beach Hotel because he had come up to have a look at our gasfire.

It started with me going to the Ayii Anargyri Spa to meet up with Donna, her mum Nicky, Bridesmaid Rachel and friend Claire.  They were getting ready here and Jonathan and Donna were staying the night here after the celebrations.   The luxury Spa is built on the site of the sulphur springs and is very secluded - the bungalows are all equipped with their own private jacuzzi and this is where I found the girls.

Good old John sat outside with his trusty Tablet surfing the net whilst I spent three hours taking photographs of them getting ready.  As Donna is a hairdresser she was doing everyone's hair before getting ready herself.  This wouldnt have been too bad but the Spa is a good forty minutes or so away from the wedding venue and they were running incredibly late.  The wedding was due to start at 3.30pm and I didnt leave the Spa until 3.05!!  John drove like a bat out of hell down to Coral Bay and then we couldnt remember exactly where the hotel was so we arrived about two or three minutes late - the girls arrived a good twenty minutes late and the registrar was on the verge of leaving!

The wedding ceremony was taking place on a jetty looking out to sea.  Unfortunately it was the most scorching hot day and all the guests were sat out waiting for the remainder of the bridal party to arrive!! 

I couldnt believe it when I got there because Donna's uncle Bernie was a guy I had known since my early teens!

The ceremony eventually went without hitch although we were all wilting so after a few photographs on the jetty we escaped up to the hotel for some shade.  You will have gathered that I havent yet shown the bride and groom their photographs so I wont post them here before I deliver them tomorrow or Friday. 

There had been another wedding at the hotel earlier and John had watched their photographer take the happy couple to the pool and beach for photographs so I decided to do the same.  Whilst down there the mad couple decided that they wanted to go out on a jet-ski so after some negotiation they got kitted out for the jet-ski and a couple of us with cameras set off out to sea in a Rib so that we could get some photographs of them in action!  Donna's dress had got pretty wet and filthy in the pool and on the beach so it really didnt matter too much that she went on a jet-ski!

John and I left the wedding party for an hour and called in for a cuppa at Mum and Dad's before going to the villa where the wedding party was continuing with a Robbie Williams tribute act as entertainment.  Donna's stepfather (who runs a Taverna with Donna's Mum Nicky) was chief chef on the barbeque and provided the most fantastic steaks for the rest of us - even though he was barbeque-ing in the dark!!!

By the end of the evening most of the wedding guests had decided to jump into the villa pool to round off their day - at that point John and I decided it was time to make the journey back to Droushia and start to go through the hundreds of photographs I had taken (now whittled down to 285).

Through-out the course of today I have been working on the photographs.  John has been pool cleaning both here and next door.  We took a break this afternoon to go down into Polis for some shopping and to have lunch at the trucker's stop on the crossroads - it is cheap and cheerful and very very good value.

We decided to take the bike out for a spin hoping to find the coffee shop in Arodes open but once again we were out of luck so we took a spin around Inea (giving the local lads and their buzz-bikes a run for their money) and out to Pittikoppos.  We found a nice circular route that John plans to take Vicky on so that she can get some good photographs of the countryside.

Visitors are beginning to arrive now for Dad's 80th.  Janet and Alan arrived today and we will be seeing them on Friday at a barbeque at Mum and Dad's.  We are off down to Paphos tomorrow and planning on quizzing tomorrow night instead of next week.

Posts will be sporadic over the next few weeks as Trev and Vix arrive on Sunday and are here for two weeks and then we have a week's rest before Mark and Laura arrive - we are so excited about seeing our friends again.