Next week is Christmas Week with Mum coming to us on Monday and being returned on Friday. I guess I am reasonably organised - my plan was to go and get the majority of the veg today at the lovely fruit and veg Market in Tsada on our way down to Emba where John and I were cleaning the floor of our court markings. We had planned to soak the floor as the tape leaves a sticky residue behind, have lunch with Mum then return and clean off the sticky and then go home but the day didn't pan out quite as planned.
First of all the veg shop didn't have any parsnips. Now I can quite happily do without Brussels or Calabrese on Christmas Day but Parsnips are a must even if they do have an unfortunate after effect on most people. It was ok because we did get some in Mum's Paps and they were on offer so crisis averted. The plan was to keep the veg cool in a bucket in the pump house but we hadn't banked on an unwelcome guest who had been helping itself to the veg already in there. It all had to go and the veg is being kept indoors until we catch the bugger. I don't like trapping mice but I don't want one in the pump house eating our food.
We got down to the Court and as we were pulling into the carpark I realised I had left the key at home and this sort of thing winds John up a treat. Fortunately I was lucky that Tom was at home and he is the only other key holder and he lives pretty close to where we play so I was able to go and borrow his. So we put the cleaning stuff down on the floor and John scraped at it carefully with his scraping tool and once it had been well and truly soaked it began to lift off pretty easily so we didn't have to wait and return which was good - it meant that we could just go straight to Mum's when we had finished.
We were just having a laugh and a bit of banter when I received a really sad and shocking text message. Our lovely friend Simon Poole - seen here with me and his son and daughter about 8 years ago had been knocked down and killed on Monday. His wife Louise had been so kind as to take the time to let us know. We always tried to get together when they came to Cyprus and had seen the two older children grow and blossom and then there was the surprise arrival of their daughter Betsy. We cannot begin to imagine what the family are going through. Simon was ex-Navy and we became friends when he supplied telecomms solutions to Porter Dodson. John and he hit it off immediately and after I left we remained in touch and got together when we could. I know he will be greatly missed and John and I are stunned by this sad sad news.
Our lunch with Mum was overshadowed by the events of the day. I know she will have understood and we are meeting up with her tomorrow to have a long overdue lunch with Jackie and Costas.
The one positive thing to come out of the day was that Mark was home from hospital with his new stent and we quickly called in to wish him well. He really looked a million percent better than the last time we had seen him.
I have to send a big big thank-you to Nicky for her bucket of home-made goodies which was fabulous and was such a lovely thing to do particularly as it transpires that Mark has been unwell for some time.
I did say to him that there were easier ways of getting out of coming on our jingle but they were both gutted particularly as Nicky had fashioned some pretty impressive Christmas Jumpers for them to wear. As I pointed out there is always next year as we wont be going anywhere.
We said goodbye to them, happy that Mark had been sorted out, quickly and successfully.
We had a quiet evening - I think we were both a bit shell shocked by the day's events - in fact we ate up the leftover soup from earlier in the week and then went to bed.
First of all the veg shop didn't have any parsnips. Now I can quite happily do without Brussels or Calabrese on Christmas Day but Parsnips are a must even if they do have an unfortunate after effect on most people. It was ok because we did get some in Mum's Paps and they were on offer so crisis averted. The plan was to keep the veg cool in a bucket in the pump house but we hadn't banked on an unwelcome guest who had been helping itself to the veg already in there. It all had to go and the veg is being kept indoors until we catch the bugger. I don't like trapping mice but I don't want one in the pump house eating our food.
We got down to the Court and as we were pulling into the carpark I realised I had left the key at home and this sort of thing winds John up a treat. Fortunately I was lucky that Tom was at home and he is the only other key holder and he lives pretty close to where we play so I was able to go and borrow his. So we put the cleaning stuff down on the floor and John scraped at it carefully with his scraping tool and once it had been well and truly soaked it began to lift off pretty easily so we didn't have to wait and return which was good - it meant that we could just go straight to Mum's when we had finished.
We were just having a laugh and a bit of banter when I received a really sad and shocking text message. Our lovely friend Simon Poole - seen here with me and his son and daughter about 8 years ago had been knocked down and killed on Monday. His wife Louise had been so kind as to take the time to let us know. We always tried to get together when they came to Cyprus and had seen the two older children grow and blossom and then there was the surprise arrival of their daughter Betsy. We cannot begin to imagine what the family are going through. Simon was ex-Navy and we became friends when he supplied telecomms solutions to Porter Dodson. John and he hit it off immediately and after I left we remained in touch and got together when we could. I know he will be greatly missed and John and I are stunned by this sad sad news.
Our lunch with Mum was overshadowed by the events of the day. I know she will have understood and we are meeting up with her tomorrow to have a long overdue lunch with Jackie and Costas.
The one positive thing to come out of the day was that Mark was home from hospital with his new stent and we quickly called in to wish him well. He really looked a million percent better than the last time we had seen him.I have to send a big big thank-you to Nicky for her bucket of home-made goodies which was fabulous and was such a lovely thing to do particularly as it transpires that Mark has been unwell for some time.
I did say to him that there were easier ways of getting out of coming on our jingle but they were both gutted particularly as Nicky had fashioned some pretty impressive Christmas Jumpers for them to wear. As I pointed out there is always next year as we wont be going anywhere.
We said goodbye to them, happy that Mark had been sorted out, quickly and successfully.
We had a quiet evening - I think we were both a bit shell shocked by the day's events - in fact we ate up the leftover soup from earlier in the week and then went to bed.
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