Sunday Celebrations - Happy Birthday Lilian

It was a very different Sunday as I wasn't cooking - we had been invited to join Lilian for a small celebration for her birthday which is tomorrow- and we weren't meeting her until 1.30pm so we had the morning to ourselves then it was just a quick trip down to Peyia as she had booked a table at Phil's Grill which is straight down the road from us.

I have been trying not to throw things away so when I had some very sad looking slippery spring onions in the bottom of the fridge I shoved them in some compost and hey presto they bucked up their ideas and grew like mad.

I had more onions that I wanted to rescue, some garlic, some lemon grass and the end of some coriander loafing so I have made myself a little veggie garden in an old bucket that I had outside the backdoor doing nothing.  I have nothing to lose if they don't survive because they would have gone into the bin otherwise.

It was another really hot and sticky day and we have hummed and hah'd about getting everything out for the Do-Jo but there is still one coptic left but the long term weather forecast shows the temperatures cooling but no rain so we decided to go ahead.

We took the opportunity to remove all the cushions and covers we had stored in at George and Pam's (thanks George and Pam).  We have a marvelous big green waterproof bag which stores it all but needs a two man lift!!!  We have decided not to put the TV out just yet as there is a danger that we will have a few more damp nights before things settle down.  This year we have put the day bed on the opposite side so we don't look out onto the fence between us and next door now we are looking at our lovely stone wall.

We found the cushions for the furniture outside the kitchen so that area is all looking lovely particularly with my new hanging baskets in situ.  You can see though that the sky is not clear - no blue just a rather grubby grey colour.  We were absolutely leaking by the time we had done all the bits and pieces we wanted to do and almost needed to have a second shower before going out.

Apart from Mum and Lilian (who is on Mum's left) we didn't know any of the other people who met for lunch but Lilian had placed the only other man, Walter, next to John for some male conversation.  What a lovely gentleman he was - originally from Switzerland he learned his English by joining the UKCA Club here for some conversation.  His new wife Averil was next to him - they met here and married last year.  Next to Averil was Lilian's friend Sandy (she and Mum are taking Lilian out for afternoon tea this week for another birthday celebration and at the end of the table was Alison who is head honcho at the Peyia dog pound.

I think it is fair to say that Phil has adopted the 'pile it high and sell it cheap' attitude to food as the meals were all massive.  I had a chicken Caesar salad which was very nice but as both Mum and John had a stack of mushrooms accompanying their meals (neither of them like mushrooms) I took those on board as well so my meal was doubly massive.    It was a vey enjoyable couple of hours and we tootled home within the time allocated for our request out.  We passed the police at Pikni forest - people never think they are operational on a Sunday - how wrong are they!!!