A Matter of Choice

This week has been a fairly normal week but I appear to be feeling more cheerful than I did last time I joined in with Michelle's Reasons to be Cheerful! 1. Due to the ongoing power cuts ( resulting from the recent explosion) Aaron will be finishing work early and be home at 6pm ish rather than 8pm.  It does mean he has to start at 8am instead of 9.30, therefore leaving at 6am but he'll get to see Leo before he goes to bed now which is great. 2. Leo is gradually getting better in the water so I'm going to make sure we get in the pool most days. (He still won't wear armbands at all which is annoying in deep water as I have to hold him constantly and scary in water he can stand in as I have to be right behind him all the time in case he slips over and can't stand himself back up.)  He has started putting his face into the water and jumping in from the side. 3. We have finally got a BBQ after nearly 2 years of living in Cyprus (Thanks, Mum & Dad!)  I love BB...

It's Friday, and that means it's time for Flashbacks! We're going back to the 80's again, to a summer holiday in Minorca which I seem to recall was mainly spent in the pool or at the beach,  1985 was the year my Dad brought the best inflatable I have ever seen, (which is quite impressive as every shop I go in at the moment has a huge array of different things!)  How's this for a cool beach toy....  THE HAND! I don't know where he brought it from and have never seen one since, it certainly made an impression on the beach!  It was the best thing ever and I remember spending hours on it during that holiday. Unlike all other inflatable things we ever had we used to carefully deflate and take it home to use again next year.  It easily fit both Dad and myself and had a clear 'viewing window' on one of the fingers! This was taken in Cala Galdana, a short drive from the resort we stayed. We liked it so much that we actually went back ...

Back in 1999 Aaron went to work in France for 6 months, he returned on my 22nd birthday with a special birthday present for me,  I had my very own personalised bottle of champagne from Reimes, the Champagne region of France. It was in a lovely gift box and came with two gorgeous champagne glasses. It was a lovely present and I put it away safely in its box only to get it out to show it off to people every now and again! I had it for several years before I even thought about drinking it, this wasn't a difficult thing to do as not only did I decide it had to be a very special occasion, I don't actually like champagne!   I will drink it at said special occasions but only if it is handed to me (well, it would be rude not to!) In 2003 Aaron and I brought our first house together, the first plan was to drink it the day we moved in, except everything was randomly packed in boxes so we ordered pizza and drank beer. We got engaged and didn't think about ...

Four years ago this month Aaron and I had our first holiday in Cyprus! It was a slightly unusual holiday as we were seeing everything through different eyes than the average tourist was, for our holiday destination was also to be our new home.  We stayed in an apartment (well 2 apartments in total as one flooded and we had to move!) in Kapparis  about 10 minutes drive from our apartment. It was a great holiday and a never to be repeated one! Along with our usual holiday activities,  sunbathing, swimming  eating lots and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, we explored and even went to Ikea! It was very strange thinking that one day (we didn't know exactly when at the time) we would be living here all the time. We had brought our laptop over so we could send back photos to my parents of the area and the apartments being built and there was one thing that will always stick in my mind... I was sitting at the pool bar checking my emails and facebook and saw a...

It's been a while (again!) since I've joined in with Michelle's Reasons to be cheerful  and although this week I've not been feeling all that cheerful I thought I'd attempt to find reasons to be cheerful where it doesn't seem like there are any! First of all the main thing is that our family and friends are safe and well and were not badly affected by Monday's  explosion at the Evangelos Florakis Naval base   which was a huge disaster for Cyprus.  We are having twice daily power cuts and will have for maybe up to a year!   We should save a fortune on our electric bill and it means I can't waste as much time on Twitter/Facebook/etc  Leo has arrived in the 'terrible two's' with a vengeance  - but just when I could cheerfully throttle him he does something amazing cute and/or clever and I am (trying) not wishing him to grow up too soon as I know it will happen before I know it really. It's HOT, HOT, HOT  ( I know, I moved to Cypru...

Way back as far as I can remember I've wanted to travel, and I've always been fascinated by 'abroad',  from family holidays to Spain to my years working in a Travel Agents I've usually wanted to be 'somewhere else' Saying that I never wanted to 'go travelling' in the shove your belongings into a backpack and buy a one way ticket. Although I don't insist on 5 star luxury (would be nice but not essential) I do like to ensure I always have  a little more than the very basics! I've been very lucky over the years to have had some great holidays in several destinations, Mexico, Antigua, Cuba, Ibiza, Egypt to name a few. (The travel agent job had some advantages!)   Of course it wasn't the travelling bit that I liked, it was the bit where you are actually somewhere else, so after buying our one way tickets to Cyprus travel was no longer the first thing on my mind. Leo and I did travel though last year - we went back to the UK for 3 week...

This morning I woke just before 6am very hot and confused as to why hubby had turned off the fan in our bedroom. It took me a while to realise we had a power cut and I lay in bed sweating in the heat (it was 31 degrees at midnight last night) and worrying about the contents of my freezer. Leo woke at 6am, an hour earlier than his usual (on good days) wake up time, he was still very sleepy but calling for me and asking for his wind on (what he calls the fan or the air-conditioning) and his juice. Getting him back to sleep was not an option as his room was like a sauna! We got up and then I remembered just how much we depend on our electricity.... what to do?  First problem.... no tea - not a good start to any day! Second problem explaining to 2 year old that we can't watch 'tubbies' and no can't watch 'Mouse' or Thomas', and it doesn't matter how many programs you name you can't watch any, and nope we can't have the music on either.  I did tr...

I debated over what to use in this next post in my series of A to Z posts . Originally I thought 'D is for dogs', I've grown up with dogs in my life but have blogged about them before, both my own dog and those I grew up with  . It was a hen night, hence the flowers! So instead I'm going with another love of mine.... Dancing, oh and drinking as they go together oh so well. Not 'proper' dancing as in ballroom or ballet but real 'several beers later, singing your head off on the dance floor dancing' Back in the day when babysitters were not required and Aaron and I used to both go out, at the same time I was usually to be found on the dance floor while he propped up the bar. (He doesn't DO dancing  except  in fancy dress and then only once ) which was actually a great arrangement as it meant it was easy to get another drink :) I've had many many amazing nights out before Leo came along and it's probably the main thing I miss about ...

Following on from our recent playdough playtime I decided to create something else to blog about be a good mother and arrange a fun toddler activity. At a party last year the kids were provided with cornflour goo to play with, Leo was a bit young to be interested and was too busy colouring (one of his favourite things) to want to try it, but I thought now he'd have great fun with it. Looking slightly bemused! It's really easy to make, just cornflour, water and a drop of food colouring. What you end up with is a strange  gloopy thing that if you touch quickly feels like it's solid but if you stir or run your hands through slowly becomes a liquid - weird huh! I showed him what to do and he laughed as I plunged my hand in and let it run through my fingers, (whilst trying to take a photo and not drop my camera in it!) He didn't need much encouragement to get his hands in and laughed for a short while until he realised his hands were now dirty...... I forgot,...

It's two weeks since I received my Rosetta Stone Greek program   and it's going really well. I have made an effort to spend regular time working through the lessons and I'm loving every minute. Last week I started using the online features which are new to Version 4 and I even took part in an live online session with a native speaker in my first ever 'Studio session' Included with the software is 3 months subscription to the online features, which include stories and games to play with other learners as well as live online lessons. As you progress through the course more options open up to help you learn in new ways. I booked my first studio session not really knowing what to expect, and I was a little nervous! The session lasts 50 minutes and it was so much fun the time just flew by. I joined another learner and the online coach Maria and the session ran in a similar way to the standard lessons - various photos are shown on screen and you talk about what you c...

It's no secret that we love our parties, and especially the fancy dress ones... Four years ago we had what is alternately referred to as the best and worst party we have ever had  After a couple of very successful parties in a hired hall in a local hotel we decided to pull out all the stops for a birthday party for Aaron. We decided it HAD to be fancy dress and decided to give it a theme. Heaven & Hell The cake So much had been said about the previous parties amongst our crowd of friends at the time that we thought it would be huge, we hired a bigger room, got a DJ and made a ton of food.... Unfortunately along with the fact the some of our 'friends' can be a bit fickle and don't always do what they say they will, the day of the party was the day England got knocked out of the world cup. From the moment we lost the phone did not stop ringing with people telling us they were not coming as they were too depressed/drunk in a pub too far...

Last weekend was a big one in the blogging world - as a blogger you could not have missed all the excitement of Cybermummy, which for the non-bloggers amongst you is the UK's premier conference for all the Mum bloggers  out there. I would have loved to have gone but there was the slight problem of being in the wrong country! However, it would have meant that I'd have missed not only Aaron's birthday but one of our very best friends coming to stay. Martin is the only one so far who has come to see us both in Cyprus more than once, this is because he is able to stack up so many air miles he can get free flights  loves us and can't bear to not see us once a year :) Aaron booked some days of work so we all got to spend the whole weekend together, we drank, ate, drank, went to the pool, drank some more.... you kind of get the picture :)  My parents very kindly looked after Leo so we could go to the beach on our own, it was lovely but a little confusing not having to...

Considering I now live in Cyprus it was a fairly obvious choice for the letter C in my series of A to Z posts . We've now been here 18 months and it feels like I've been here forever. We took a big risk in moving, and went against all kinds of sensible advice of the type you read online about moving abroad. I don't regret anything we did (apart from maybe spending a bit too much money in the first few months!) although I'd have to revert to the same advice that I read so often to anyone else thinking of doing the same thing! Advice such as, make sure you have a job (or adequate funds to live on for a year) before you arrive. Rent for a year before buying so you are sure which area you want to live in and visit at different times of the year as winter in Cyprus is very different to summer. Although we did none of those things looking back we have been very lucky, I know of others here who did similar things but have been here a while and jobs may have been easier to c...

A couple of weeks ago for Flashback Friday  I was looking back to our days spent messing about on the canal. Although my favourite times were in the pre baby, drinking all night days we had a surprisingly good 10 days aboard with a 5 month old Leo for his very first holiday. I was a little worried about how we would get on, especially as there were usually at least 3 of us on board making it much easier to work the locks, I was concerned about reaching a lock at feed time and if would would be able to cope with just the two of us.  It turned out to be just fine, in fact it was very good for us and him as he slept through the night for the first time ( and carried on when we got home) and was left to his own devices a little more than usual where we were so busy. It was going so well... This was the first and only time we used Leo's baby carrier, aside the fact that I had a bad back and Aaron has a dodgy shoulder and Leo has always been heavy just after this photo was ...

In honour of Father's Day yesterday (and the fact that I didn't actually get my lovely Dad a present)  I thought I'd have a rummage through some old photos, as you know I love my old photos and as excuses to look at them go I figured this was a very good one! As far as I can recall, I have always got on very well with my Dad even in my teenage years! I was (in my opinion anyway) a very well behaved teenager, there were not too many rules for me to follow and I was always worried about getting into to trouble with him - so worried that I never really did so I still have no idea what the punishment would have been! I never lied but I may have 'bended the truth' on occasion, at the time I was very pleased with myself for getting away with whatever it was but now I realise he never fell for it!  At 16 he picked me up at the end of an evening and asked me if I had been drinking, I said no to which he replied 'I can smell alcohol on your breath'  Af...