The morning after the day before...

I think it is fair to say that Sunday was a very quiet affair.  Kaye had to get up early to go rescue her car from the Wedding Venue so I sat in the restaurant waiting for her to return so we could have some breakfast together.  It looked like the vast majority of diners had all been together at the Wedding yesterday so there was a nice feeling about sitting down with a load of people who had become inextricably linked the day before.  It being a golf venue there were quite a few golfers in evidence including one guy dressed as a female celebrating his 60th Birthday and Jenny Eclair the comedienne who had been gigging nearby last night.

Ellie Kaye and I returned to Balsall Common for a very quiet afternoon/evening with Strictly washing over us once we had nipped over to Mike and Lillie's house to drop off a load of cards and presents which had been left at Kaye's earlier.

Monday was not quite so calm, not just because I was returning to the UK, but because there was a knock on the front door at 7.00am and Kaye was greeted by a Police woman who informed her that her neighbours Alison and Tim had had their very posh cars stolen off the drive at 1.00am this morning.  Apparently they were in and out in 4 minutes according to the CCTV and the tracker immobilised within minutes thereafter.  Seemingly the top of the range Jag SUV and top of the range Land Rover Discovery had been stolen to order.  Both were company vehicles so slightly less emotional attachment to them but strangely only recently the wing mirror of the Discovery had been pinched.  The locksmiths were there sorting out where they had gained access and anywhere else where the keys would have been on the bunches they took.  Nothing else was stolen and thankfully no other keys as neighbours tend to hold keys for neighbours.  Not nice and quite scary to think this all happened right next door.  I must say I got up and went to the loo about that time.  The loo window is to the front of the house and I could voices but didn't think anything of it as I am not familiar with the estate where Kaye lives so guessed it not unusual for people to be talking on their way home from a night out.

Kaye had to return the hat she had hired to Knowle so I went with her.  She also wanted to buy Alison a gift to cheer her up after what had happened in the night.  Kaye had told me that she was planning to treat herself to some pearls from the local jeweller who had repaired a couple of pieces for her.  I said that we could buy her some pearl earrings to go with the string for Christmas if she wanted so that is what we did.  She wont get anything else from us but at least she got something she wanted.

Kaye was going on a walking holiday today and had a very long drive up to North Yorkshire so I told her to drop me off at the airport whenever she wanted as I had my book with me and was happy to sit and read and people watch.  To be honest I prefer to just get there in plenty of time and settle myself.

Departures in Birmingham are much different to departures in Paphos.  For a start the drop off point seems to be in another county - it was a long old walk from the carpark to the building.  Then they insisted on all sorts of things being out of my hand luggage which Paphos had accepted and then although I was wearing exactly the same I kept setting the alarms off so in the end got taken to the side and had to be specially scanned and patted down which was ok as I had nothing to hide.

I got through, couldn't check into a lounge as they were fully booked so took myself off to one of the bars and got a lovely salad and water to keep me going.  Clearly things have gone up so much in Cyprus that I actually found the food in the airport reasonably priced!!!  

Time passed by reasonably quickly.  Sadly the Next that used to be in the airport has gone and there was nothing of any interest in any of the other shops save for some giant Galaxy Chocolate Bars that I bought for John and I.

Our flight was in danger of being severely delayed as we had an unruly passenger (drunk in one of the bars) that they expected to kick-off when she was told she was being off-loaded plus her luggage had to be found and taken off but actually although we set off late we made the time up and then some arriving nearly 45 minutes early!!!

I sat next to a lovely English Cypriot lad and his sister.  He kindly put my bag up in the locker and took it down for me which was great.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle finding John as there are additional measures in place because of the current Israel/Palestine situation.  I managed to be the first through (no hold luggage is such a bonus) and made my way to the new quick drop off point only to find it was cordoned off and John had had to park in the normal car park.  It didn't matter as they allocated you 20 minutes to pick up without incurring any charges.