24th March 2010

In the morning I went down to see Gwen as I hadn’t seen her for ages. We had a good catch up. The amazing thing is that Gwen and her immediate neighbours now have a road to get to their houses! Progress indeed, previously it was a drive through the rocky ravine, little improved by the recent rains.

From there I went on to the Black Olive Cafe to meet Sue for lunch. It was really nice sitting in their garden. It was also good to see Sue again.

In the evening Mal and I went to the Mountain View Hotel for their 10tl monthly buffet.  We ate it, had two expensive drinks and left! I’ll say no more.

Two new pictures of Scarlet and Jack….

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23rd March 2010

Now the sun is out we decided we would have to buy new sunbeds as our plastic ones go brittle in the sun. We thought about wooden ones this time and so went to Ronnie’s to have a look. He assured us that they just need linseed oil rubbing into them each October, so we bought two to try them. The price for the two beds plus the two mattresses 600tl. Of course they will deliver and he said he would be there in an hour….and he was. Good service. Ronnie’s is also worth looking at for the rest of the furniture they have in there, also their own carpenter in a workshop at the back and I do know that they will make any furniture up for you.

We also tried to buy more membrane but the shop we went to had sold out. We will look somewhere else another day as we had to get back for the sunbed delivery.

21st March 2010

I think  Spring is here at last, good weather in the mid twenties promised all week. In the morning we went into the ravine with Rosie. She loved running through the stream. It looked as though the Beledeysi have been down there clearing the path with a digger. It also looked as though where they stopped they burst a water pipe as water was gushing out of it. We will need that in the summer!

It was so nice when we got back that we had our breakfast in the sun on the terrace.  We then started clearing the rockery and putting more mebrane and gravel down. There are some fragile succulents out there, so I had to help Mal (or he may have stepped on them!) He can be  a bit clumsy.

Lou rang later and put all the kids on the webcam, Josie is growing and Ollie was so funny.

We then watched Man U win and oh dear Chelsea LOST!!! In the middle of the two matches we had our first BBQ for a long while.

I have put the picture on to show how tiny the orchids are, so easily missed. This one is next to Mal’s finger.

20th March 2010

Another beautiful day, so we took Rosie to the mountains. It really is a lovely time of year here in Cyprus with all the wild flowers at their best.  The garden is starting to look colourful as well, if you ignore the chewed leaves courtesy of the snails. We did leave beer down for them while we were away. I think they all enjoyed it and carried on chewing.

We watched the Hammers game in the afternoon which caused a very long face for Mal. Arsenal won!

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19th March 2010

We took Rosie to the beach and she loved having a swim. The way down to the sands was a bit rough because some of the walkway had collapsed obviously during the winds and floods. We found thousands (literally) of the tiny blue flowers amongst the grass above the beach.  Back home and I gave Rosie a much needed shower after her favourite occupation of rolling in the seaweed.

We stopped at Starling on the way back to get a few bits of shopping. 16.07 tl the total and I gave her 20tl. I thought she may let me off the 7 kurus (as they normally expect the customer to go short) but no, she gave me a handful of small change leaving ME 8 kurus short…….NO!!  I told her I wanted my correct change. A week in Turkey and we always received our exact change…WHY can’t they do it here? I know it is not much but it mounts up when the shops gain every time. I won’t let them get away with it. My “getting the correct change” campaign continues.

It was a beautiful day so we had our meals outside, in between with me doing a marathon wash after being away for a week.

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18th March 2010

Our last morning at the Royal Wings. Breakfast and then we packed and our transport came to take us to the airport. The plane actually left 5 minutes early. Jill collected us from Ercan and we were surprised that there had been rain and a storm and hail stones in some areas. I looked at Google weather in the evening 11 degrees in Girne and 16 degrees in Margate!!

Mal and I went and collected Rosie who as usual went crazy running around when she got home.

We did make a start on the unpacking but didn’t get very far!