A Matter of Choice

Our girls day out for Sam's birthday was a surprise for  her but was also a mystery road trip for me in some ways.  It has all been organised by our friend Lucy and I'd not seen her before the day to hear about any of the plans so it was great just jumping in the car and having nothing to do with the organising - not something I am used to!  You can read about the first part of the day in my earlier post - Girls Day Out. For lunch we stopped at a lovely forest picnic site in the village of Mosfiloti called the Agia Thekla Excursion Area,  it was well equipped with toilets, bbq areas, lots of benches and a play area and even wheelchair access and benches designated accessible, which is very good for Cyprus, apparently according to the website there is also photovoltaic cell systems to provide lighting at night but we weren't there that long to find out.  We didn't explore much of the area, in fact we just headed to a bench and started eating - moving once as the ...

In July I had a great day out with the girls, this time a birthday present for Sam, in fact it was a present from Lucy but Rachel and I got to tag along too so it was a bonus for us!  It was great to have a day out that I had no part in arranging at all.  I had a vague idea of one of the places we were to stop at but the rest was just as much of a mystery to me as it was to Sam.    First stop was just off the Larna ca - Limassol highway just before the village of Klavdia to see the wind turbines.  This is something that Sam has wanted to do for ages and she was absurdly excited about it.   I do admit it was pretty cool though, and not something I would have ever even considered doing so it was great.  The turbines are really difficult to get a photo of, especially to demonstrate just how big they are.  Below you can see Sam standing at the base of one.  Next stop, Panagia Stazousa ,  a medieval monastery in the village of Klavdia ...

The obligatory end of year / new year posts are in full swing so I'm looking back over the year through my photos.   I took much fewer this year than in previous years, trying to live more in the actual moment than looking at everything through a camera.  I take many photos of the boys, this year I've been hard pushed to get one of them (especially Leo) to pose for a photo without dabbing.   It became a personal mission of his to 'dab' on anything, everything and everywhere, and most video clips taken would have included 'flossing' somewhere. I've got hundreds of photos of them over the year but looking back there are few that would be worthy of printing or framing.  I'm not a great photographer (that's Aaron's department) but I love a scenic pic.   I've got lots of sea and sky shots, many of the same place as I can never resist!  So here are 12 of my favourite photos, one from each month of 2018. January  I love ...

Many years ago I saw some photos online of a small church built into the rock somewhere in Protaras, I'd often wondered exactly where it was and finding it has been on my 'to do' list for ages.  Walking has never really been our 'thing' especially with several years toddlers or pushchairs and the fact they don't mix well with exploring, but now the boys are bigger it's a lot easier to go 'adventuring'. After our successful geocaching day earlier this month, I decided to give it another go and started searching for our next geocache and was pleased to discover one very close to the church, making it very easy to find.  We ended up going with Sam and the kids, who knew where it was anyway and was surprised to find out we'd only been a very short distance from it when we went out last time! It's a fascinating little place and while it's only a few minutes drive from Protaras and Ayia Napa it feels like it is in the middl...