A Matter of Choice

The boys went back to school today after the 2 week Easter holidays,  we had a good break, a few days out, lots of time at home,  playing games (board and xbox)  and seeing friends.  I thought I'd share a few highlights. In the first week we went to WOW (a soft play place in Larnaca) with Sam and the kids, which was probably the boys highlight of the holiday.   We only tend to go once a year or so as we have a similar place closer to home but they prefer WOW as it's more of a treat.  We were there for almost 5 hours and apart from a short stop for lunch they played non-stop, meaning that Sam and I had a nice chat over tea and chocolate croissants, we are loving the fact that we actually get to almost finish a conversation after all these years! After WOW we went back to their house for cookie and egg decorating and then the kids enjoyed dinner at a film together - after leaving our house at 9:30am  it was no surprise that they were exhausted b...

Today we had a brilliant, 'amaze-ing' in fact day out at CyHerbia Organic Herb Gardens in Avgorou.. I'd only recently found out about the place via facebook and today they had an Easter Egg hunt in the maze. CyHerbia has 9 themed herb gardens, woodland and Cyprus' only elevated hedge maze. It has a distillation room which although we didn't see today demonstrates the process of essential oil distillation and a tea room where you can sample the herbal teas and see the many herbs, and herbal products available for sale. Today was a special Easter event (no, they are not late with it, we celebrate Orthodox Easter here in Cyprus so Easter weekend is next week!) and for €2 per child you could take part in an egg hunt in the maze, 'I-spy' in the herb gardens as well as some sheets to complete finding other things in the maze and spotting the Easter bunnies hiding in the gardens. I think I may have been even more excited about this than Leo, not just for t...

Every year one of the highlights of the Cypriot calendar is Carnival time,  dating back to Ancient Greek times celebrations were held in honour of the God Dionysus and in Cyprus Carnival is associated with the beginning of the fasting leading up to Easter.  Celebrations  run 10 days up to the final big parades on the Sunday before 'Green Monday' - the start of lent, 40 days before Orthodox Easter. The biggest celebrations on the island are held in Limassol but our local town also has a carnival, we went last year   but Leo was still a little young to appreciate it. This year I took him again all proudly dressed as Spiderman and I had intended to find a spot just outside of the main square to watch the parade, however I changed my mind when I realised we'd be able to tag along with some friends of ours and actually walk in the parade too! Leo was a bit bemused at first as there was so many people ('Wow Mama, so many people com...

This weekend was Easter here in Cyprus as it's rarely the same time as the UK  and despite some mixed weather and potty training it's been a lovely long weekend.  On Good Friday my friend Sam had one of her always brilliant kids parties with an Egg hunt and a couple of games for the kids.  Last year was good but Leo, being a year older really enjoyed it this time. He relived the entire party on the way home in the car and was even talking in his sleep about it for half the night! The (unplanned) highlight had to be watching the kids play with a huge bowl of cornflakes and listen to their squeals and laughter.  The cornflakes had been part of a mini chocolate egg lucky dip but as much as they loved the chocolate throwing huge handfuls into the air and running about was much more fun! Weather wise Easter Sunday started of promising and was looking good for our first BBQ of the year for seven people but as the day progressed it got a bit darker and chillier and...

Cyprus celebrates Greek Orthodox Easter which this year falls this coming weekend, one week after Western or Christian Easter.  Some years, like the previous two by coincidence it falls on the same weekend but I was intrigued to find out why its not often on the same day. By the wonder of the interweb I discovered that The formula for Easter—"The first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox"—is identical for both Western and Orthodox Easters, but the churches base the dates on different calendars: Western churches use the  Gregorian calendar,  the standard calendar for much of the world, and Orthodox churches use the older,Julian calendar. Easter is the biggest religious festival in Cyprus and is celebrated more than Christmas, for most people it lasts from Good Friday until the following Tuesday.  Decorations come out a few weeks before and can be found by churches, street corners and on many roundabouts! On Easter...

Easter is the most important religious holiday in Cyprus, this is our second Easter in Cyprus and this year we came a little closer than last to seeing a bit of the Cypriot way of celebrating. There are plenty of decorations about, including some rather sinister looking Easter bunnies  on the roundabouts. On Thursday many Cypriot women bake 'Flaounes' a traditional Easter cheese bread. We were lucky enough to be given some by our neighbours. On Holy Saturday (Easter Saturday) big bonfires known as 'Lambradja' are lit on waste ground near to big churches. At 11pm the church service starts with the sermon of resurrection at midnight, we saw many people walking towards the church with their candles which all get lit, and then everyone greets each other with 'Christos anesti' (Christ has risen) to which they reply 'Alithos anesti' (Indeed he has risen) Just after midnight the loudest fireworks I have ever heard were lit - they seemed ...

On Thursday I took Leo to his first ever Easter Egg hunt, it was arranged by my good friend Sam who like myself loves a good excuse for a party - it was at her house we went to our first Halloween party too. She wisely decided not to have the kids hunt for chocolate eggs - as all of the kids with the exception of one are only 2 we thought they might not quite understand the idea and we could be just setting ourselves up for some tears and tantrums! (also we thought chocolate would melt but it turns out the UK had all the nice weather and we only just missed the rain!) Instead each child had one painted egg to find and then were given some stickers to decorate it. Cypriots dye their eggs red so we followed suit and had red ones too. (Symbolizes the blood of Christ)  It also handily meant that they were all the same colour so they all had the same :) Although they didn't hunt for chocolate eggs don't worry they didn't miss out on their sugar overload, we all took...