Like the Queen...

I shall begin to call my lovely friend Di, Lady Di from now on because today we were having the third celebration of her birthday and that is even more than the queen!!!  Anyway more of that later. 

It continues to be super hot - super super hot for this time of the year and we are wilting - John and I have been sleeping with our heads at the bottom of the bed to get maximum cooling from the fan - we don't have air conditioning and to be fair there are normally only a couple of weeks in the year when we would use it but this year things are somewhat different.  Our bedroom has been hovering around 30 degrees at night which is warm by anyone's standards - we manage to get the temperature down a couple of degrees but that is about it.  I am awaiting my super large mosquito net so that one or other of us, or even both can sleep out on the day bed without fear of being eaten alive.  I did get one but it is somewhat on the small side and I can see John garroting himself in the night if he isn't careful.

I had a little time this morning to get a birthday card made for Clare whose birthday it is on Sunday and we are going round on Friday for a 'raclette' meal with Di and Rob.

John decided he would like to go and watch the cricket this afternoon whilst I took Di for lunch and had hoped that the Bobster might have liked to have joined him and partake of a couple of real ales in the process but Bobby declined as he had things to do so in the end John decided he would go anyway Billy-no-Mates that he is.

I was taking Di to the Herb Garden in Akourdaleia which I think is a fabulous place to go for a light lunch.  It was really rather too hot to be there today as there was no air and sadly we were the only ones sampling their fine fayre but we had excellent service from Mark and couldn't fault it.

We chose a table up in the shade on the veranda and then took a little walk around and had a look in the gift shop which has some wonderful bits and pieces.  When I was there last week I had chosen something which I thought I might give to Di as a little gift for Christmas (I already had her birthday present) and when I got it home there was an issue with it so I had to surreptitiously take it back today and swap it out - I bet Di thought something very dodgy was going on!!

The food today was superb.  I opted for the same brie, pear and pomegranate salad that I had last week with Sonia only today it was served with the addition of some cherries and some freshly baked Ciabatta bread - Di had opted for the grilled vegetables with goats cheese and said that it was absolutely delicious.

It was really lovely to have some girlie time.  When I went back to England I really enjoyed the occasions when I went for coffee with Hazel just sitting and chatting.  This is something that never seems to happen here for me.

People ask if there is anything I miss about the UK and it is the friendship of people with whom you have 'history' because conversation is easy and there are all those stories and shared experiences and laughter to draw upon.  This clearly takes time.

When you move somewhere new and particularly when you move abroad sometimes the only thing you have in common with the people that you meet is that you are both living somewhere new and it takes a while to work that out so I am very grateful that we have the Bobster and Di down the road from us because I feel we have so much more in common than just living in Droushia.  We had the same feeling with Wendy and Bill so we do miss them very much now that they have returned to the UK.  Anyway it was my absolute pleasure to treat Di to some lunch today and to take a couple of hours out just to sit and chat and EAT and very nice it was too!!!  

We collected Billy-no-Mates who had had a quiet afternoon but had been a real star by rescuing someone who had come to the Kathikas bar and had drinks with his family and then had hoped to pay by card - oh no no no no noooooooo this just doesn't happen up here in the sticks - the man was an American/Israeli John thinks and had offered to leave a hundred dollar note behind the bar whilst he went off in search of an ATM but John stepped in and paid his bill for him.  I do hope the family appreciate that gesture - its typical of John - I sometimes think that people don't realise what a nice guy he is - until you upset him and that is it - Dad was exactly the same - it must be something about being born on September 16th!!!