New Years Eve

Another New Years eve rolls around and we trundled up to The Hillview restaurant to see in the New year. A lovely buffet was served and the guests danced their way into 2013.

and finally....... a Heart felt message from the Lady of the house.....

Diving at Pistol Bay

On a beautiful clear day with a flat calm sea, Rob, Steve and Alan decided to go diving at Pistol bay which is situated North of Paphos.  The recent good weather in Cyprus meant that visibility was superb. This site has a rock strewn bottom with several swim through arches.
The Sea temp was 19 degrees and we saw several fluorescent jellyfish.

Merry Christmas 2012

We would Like to wish all of our Family, friends and  Visitors to the blog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

On a Glorious Christmas Day morning  with the Temps reaching the 20's we made our way down to Pissouri Bay for our annual gathering at the beach for Bacon sandwiches, Champers and a paddle in the sea.

                                  

We then visited a couple of the local watering holes before returning with Debs and Col to Steve and Mary's house for a superb Christmas dinner.

                                              

Meanwhile back in the "Diff" the Flavs had a wild old time.

Mary's Birthday and 4D's After Eight surprise

Christmas Eve brought about Mary's Birthday and it started off with a little video to start her day with a smile.

We then went down to the Platea taverna where Mary was joined by her friends for a birthday lunch and a few celebratory drinks.

and then there was the Birthday Cake......

Of course 4D had to get in on the act, his football team (Aston Villa) had been thumped by 8 goals the day before, so we wrapped a gift for him containing a box of After Eight mints.....it took hm a while to cotton on to the joke...roll the film.....

Cyprus Diving Adventures and Punk in Pissouri.

Cyprus Dive Adventures is a New SCUBA dive centre that has just opened in Cyprus for 2013. Based here in Pissouri it is run by local resident Steve Ford.

 I can personally testify on how good a teacher Steve is as he taught me  to dive on several SCUBA dives. We wish all the team at Cyprus Diving Adventures the best of Luck with their new Enterprise.

Please Visit the Cyprus Diving Adventures website  

On Friday we made our way down to the Giraffe pub to see the debut show of "Vacant". A couple of the lads from the village have put a band together that  pays tribute to the era of punk.

Dean, the lead singer was making his debut  and did a cracking job and had a real stage presence, he also got plenty of support from his numerous friends in the audience.

The other members of the band, Rick, Brian and John gave Dean a great backing and the crowd in the Giraffe all agreed that Vacant had put on a top show.

Meanwhile down in the Mosh pit, 4D was giving it large dressed as Ernest Shackelton, a case of Polar meets Punk....as I have always said dear reader, Fashion can be a cruel mistress

Christmas Festivities Begin in Pissouri

The Christmas festivities began with the annual FOG (friend of the guides) quiz held at The Pissouriana hotel. The event was well attended and our team "Mandy's Muffins" managed a respectable second place. Certain members of our team believe that we could have won if we had known the difference between Lily Allen and Diana Ross....an easy mistake to make !

















The next day we decided to put up the Christmas, it took a while before the mistress of the house decided on the exact position.

Thankfully, Christmas in Cyprus is not as big  as it is  in the UK where your bombarded with hype and adverts from the end of September.

The weather has perked up this weekend and with the warm sunshine and temps around the 18 degree mark we could enjoy breakfast on the patio and watch the mist rise from the valley below.






The kids of Pissouri hosted their Christmas Carol event in the square, sadly we could not attend because Mandy was feeling "under the weather"

                                            

Every cloud has a silver lining and Mandy being stuck in the house meant  that she could concentrate on making her signature dish, Steak and Ale pie. We managed to get a cut of French fillet beef and then Mandy used her unique recipe to make the most wonderful pie.

Christmas Market 2012

We took a trip over to Aphrodite Hills to visit their Christmas market, since we first visited some six years ago this market has grown to a much larger event.
The first year we went they sold cups of soup, this year that had a full size kitchen with a wide variety of food from Thai to sushi.
Mrs Pete took advantage of the bakery stall to buy her Xmas cake.....I bet tell she tells everyone that she made it herself........her secret is Out !

.In the evening we trundled over to the Pine bay club to catch Chris King's tribute show to Elvis, as usual he put on a polished show indispersed with comedy, Christmas songs and playful interaction with the audience.

One particular fun part of the show was when Elvis got two of the local guys (Andy and Bob) to dance with him on top of the bar (see below.)

                                          

We were pleased to take part in an online magazine interview about the experience of moving from one Country to another. The Interview is here a Expats blog

Log fire and The Mouflons Rugby team

A the nights turn chilly in Cyprus we decided to light our log fire for the first time, we soon had a cosy fire warming the house.






We did try out the new Sawdust briquettes for the first time but we were not impressed with them, they did not burn as efficiently as regular logs.

So with the fire ablaze and nice glass of red wine we settled down to enjoy Mandy's home made Cottage pie.

On Saturday we drove over to Paphos to go to the Paphiako stadium to watch the International Rugby match between Cyprus and Slovenia. Cyprus are on a 16 winning match streak and the Mouflons continued their winning run by closing out the game 49 points to 8.

Sadly the Slovenians did not have the quality to make it a  really competitive game, but they did tackle with gusto and never gave up.

This means the winning streak  for Cyprus reaches 17, one win away from equalling the World record for continuous wins in International rugby.