Happy Birthday Diana...

So it was a very very happy birthday to the lovely Mrs Veasey today.  Diana was joining a club to which both Susan Read and I belong!!!

I have been nurturing, over the past few months, a white solanum because Diana had mentioned she wanted one but I wanted to give her a standard shaped one and Mum bought the only one in the nursery and it was a leggy shrubby specimen so over the weeks I have been training and cutting and training and cutting so that it now has a sturdy stem and the top is beginning to form a lovely ball shape and then blow me if this morning for the first time it produced its first two flowers - two lovely white blooms with edges tinged with purple.  RESULT!!!

We decided to drop it off with her card on our way down to Polis to collect our car which we had left at La Plage carpark last night.  We didn't go too early as we had all had rather a late energetic night last night at the ENAD do!!!

En route we were thrilled to see that Big Foot has recently become a mum - she is in the field next to the Scrimshankers house with her foal both of whom look in good health.

The little one is a real sweetie but we wont be disturbing it any time soon as the last time John tried to give some carrots to one of Big Foot's foals Big Foot took umbridge and John had to beat a hasty retreat from the field wearing only his flip flops which is not to be recommended!!

We did our shopping in Polis and collected our car which was exactly as we had left it and had a couple of hours of peace and quiet before the eight prospective members of the Polis Marigold Hotel assembled on the beach at Latchi with our chairs and our picnics!!!

It was a beautiful afternoon and the sea was delicious - just cool enough to be refreshing but by no means cold - a little choppy so I didn't do much snorkeling but so good I kept dipping in and out to keep cool.  We brought our own food rather than detail people off to make specific things but I did take my onion tart to hand round and it seemed to go down well.

It was just a nice afternoon all together - Diana seemed to really enjoy herself from the Aphrodite's Rock Beer John had taken down for her to the Pina Colada cocktail we had once we had showered off and come away from the beach.

Sadly Susan and John couldn't join us for cocktails as their son was arriving at Paphos airport later this evening plus Susan did so well to stay up until after midnight so she was treating herself to an early night to make up for it!!!

So we ate and we swam and we sat in the sun and we chatted and we laughed and then we cleaned ourselves off and wandered down to the bars by Porto Latchi and went into The Sunset Bar for the sunset (surprise surprise) some tapas and cocktails to finish off the evening.

How lucky are we to have this on our doorstep?  With all the crap that is going on in the world and all the uncertainty and upheaval how nice just to sit down with friends and enjoy the simple things in life - the sun and the sea cost us nothing - there was no pressure to produce a Michelin star picnic and big big thanks to Rob Veasey who paid for our drinks and nibbles at the Sunset Bar.

We drove the Veaseys home and stayed for a couple of Rob's very lovely Gareth Hunt style coffees which were accompanied by the haunting voice of Elkie Brooks - Perfick

Happy Birthday Mrs V - hopefully the first of many we will share on our big adventure called Retirement xxx