Just a lovely day with lovely friends...

This morning we had a bit of a rest before going down to the Spa to pick up Laura and Mark as we had planned a little cross country trip over to the Winery so that we could have a light lunch.  We are out for a mammoth Finikas meze tonight so mindful of that we knew we had to be sensible.  The Spa is looking lovely - the pool area is really attractive and overlooked by a small restaurant.  The only trouble is that it is a large development in a small village that never really took off so sadly not all the facilities seem to function and it is looking a bit weary if you look closely and you don't have to look too closely.  Initially this was to be the Jewel in Droushia's crown with the promise of Italian style water gardens running through the middle (if you look at the marketing blurb).  This never materialised and what is left is a concrete sprawl where the planting has never really softened the edges.  The indoor pool, sauna and steam room are often closed up and the luxury penthouse apartments should come with working jacuzzis but this does not seem to be the case.  Being slightly outside the village centre and on a steep hill it isn't somewhere that we would just pop into although when we first moved they held a reasonbly good quiz there on a Thursday night.  The afternoon teas were legendary but then it all went pear-shaped and it has never done anything much to encourage locals to use it - unlike the Droushia Heights which kindly gave us a discount card and always makes us feel very welcome.  

We picked up our charges and took the rough back-road to the winery where they were clearing up after a rather large christening last night.  Laura and Mark have been there before so there was no need to get them wine tasting (Laura doesn't drink wine anyway - in fact she drinks very little full stop).  John was mesmerised by some Chinese couple there who seemed to be buying up the whole winery's supply and was having bottles signed - he found it so interesting that he completely zoned-out to our conversation.  He does this all the time which I find rather irritating - he doesn't mean to but can't help himself as often this ear-wigging leads to full-on Yiannis Tour Guide mode with him speaking in the slightly amusing broken English with Greekish accent that he adopts!  God love him!  Anyway we managed to bring him back to our conversation sufficiently long enough to eat a pitta for his lunch.

We dropped off the P's so they could enjoy their pool for the afternoon and arranged to meet them at Finikas at 7.00pm.  John nipped down to Polis to get some food for the cats and I had a lazy afternoon - I am feeling very tired - the nights have been exceptionally hot and if anyone offered me air-con at the moment I might almost be tempted - but not quite.  As we left to go out we were tickled to see the ice-cream lady in our development - not coming for the Syrian children around the corner but for our Cypriot neighbours!  We saw her later on trundling through the village stopping at a junction, indicating to turn right and merrily turning left.

By the looks of the sun going down this evening we are due to have another ultra hot day tomorrow and we have planned lunch at the Last Castle and a trip down to Lara.  The last time we did that with the P's the waves were above the boys' heads and we were chased all the way home by a thunder storm.

The P's were in place ready and waiting in what Phillipos referred to as 'our' table and we sat down to enjoy a really lovely meze - we had asked for slightly less food - opting to forego the last course of chicken for a sea bream instead.  The Bobster will be pleased to know that we made a fair attempt at finishing the dishes but we were beaten and the taverna cats benefited as a result!  Two French people arrived who are staying in Sappho Manor - we had to stop John earwigging and morphing in to his tour guide mode for the second time today!

Laura had parked in the Hotel car park so we decided to go in for a night cap.  We understand that the hotel is closing in the Autumn for a refurbishment which will be interesting to see.  Already in there and dining with their friends Chris and Pat were the Bobster and Di so it was lovely to all sit round having a nightcap together before wending our ways back home.