New Friends are Silver, our Old Friends are Gold

Our visit to the hospital this morning was both good and bad - the bad was that some prat of a woman parked her big fat Chelsea Tractor right over the slope for disabled access so that I could not get Mum up and into the entrance.  Eventually I managed to get some nice guy to help me lift the wheelchair up.  Some nice old Cypriot guy was doing his nut and tore the Chelsea Tractor driver off a right old strip - she was unperturbed and simply hid behind her shades and drove off unconcerned.  Then when we returned from the dressing clinic some guy had parked his truck so close to the driver's side of Mum's car you couldn't get a fag paper down there let alone me so I had to squeeze across from the passengers side and very very carefully manouevre her car out without changing its shape.  This was not helped by an elderly Cypriot lady who thought she was being helpful seeing me back but was actually blocking my view and in danger of me running her over!

The good news was that Demitri in the dressing clinic was really really happy with Mum's progress and thought that maybe Monday might be her last visit.  She has healed unbelievably well as a result of the clinic's care and her doing what she is told.  Basically they have treated the wound with Betaisodona Cream (and antibiotics) and this cream is amazing and available over the counter.  So I got one in for Mum and one in for us along with some Arnica cream for her bruising and some aqueous cream to keep her skin supple.  Of course for Mum the downside to all this is that I wont be needing to stay every other night and I know she is going to miss the company.  We will just have to see what next week brings and I do want to be able to spend time with John's Mum, Jackie and Stan.

Lilian had kindly invited Mum to spend the day with her and her visitors Ginge and Sally.  She was conscious that not only was it John's birthday and we wanted some time together but it would have been Dad's 90th so quite significant for Mum.  I dropped Mum off at Lilian's and then made my way back home where the Bobster had come to wish John a happy birthday.  All our original plans to celebrate had gone out of the window when Mum fell so I hadn't arranged to do anything with anyone because I didn't know where I was going to be and then John was contacted by his old friend Wayne and as I wasn't due to be at home John had made arrangements to see Wayne today as he is only the island for a few days.

Wayne arrived from Akrotiri at 5.15pm and found us perfectly using my Google Maps Pin.  We have not seen him for 16 years.  He was the reason behind me buying my MGTF back in 2003 as he had come to our house with his white one with the Union Jack hard top - apparently some buggers pinched that hard top when the car was sitting on his drive in Bromsgrove.  Apparently he still has his ancient 'Mad Libyans' VW Camper but it has been done up over the years to a very high standard and is now worth a fortune!

John wanted to show Wayne a little bit of our corner of the island and we hope that when Wayne returns he will come with his wife Lisa.  We were going for a Meze in the village and walking down from our house through the village so that Wayne could experience a bit of 'tradition'.  He loved it - he thought our house was perfect for the two of us and the garden beautiful - I like Wayne!

We had a lovely meal in Finikas and although the island had had some rain this morning it was warm enough to eat outside because we went early enough not to be troubled by the condensation.  It was nice to see a couple of other diners come in and eat just as we were leaving and bless Philippos he gave John a bottle of his legendary pomegranate infused zivania as a birthday gift.  From here we called in for a couple of drinks in Mario's Bar and then sauntered across the road into the coffee shop before heading back home where I left the boys reminiscing and called it a night.  Poor Wayne has to be up early tomorrow morning to head back to Akrotiri so it was a short but sweet visit and I know John was really glad that Wayne had been in touch and come across to see him/us.