I am writing this letter at the very
end of October as I have to be totally organised for Christmas by
the beginning of December. Why, you ask yourself? Well in
March we did something really amazing, if not downright brave, we
bought a house in Cyprus!! We had only gone out for a holiday and
had no intention of buying a house. We know that we love the island,
but thought that it was just a matter of booking hotels. However, we
do like watching all those programmes on TV which show you how to buy
abroad. Anyway we decided to go looking at some properties and
particularly in the Pissouri area, which is between Limassol and Paphos on the
south coast, which we really love and two days before we came home
we found somewhere that we fell in love with.
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| 4A Klimataria, Villa Berengaria, as viewed in March 2005 |
It is a two-bedroom
semi on a small development called Klimataria; we remember looking at the
houses being built when we lived in Cyprus in the early 1990s, so they are now nicely settled. It is a good size house
with two bedrooms, bathroom, shower room, kitchen/diner, separate sitting room,
two patios and a large balcony from the main bedroom. Anyway we are
going out to Cyprus at the beginning of December just for a week, to do some
work and tidy the garden up for the winter. We hope to be able to
meet up with friends while we are there.
Now back to the beginning of the
year. By the time we decided to get the house, I was about to start
another new job. I had decided that I could do with a change of pace
and scenery and in February a part-time post came up in the School Library
Service in Bristol, so I applied. Thankfully I got the job and
started in April 2005. The post is 21 hrs per week and entails me
visiting schools to do advice sessions, running training sessions, helping
teachers with book buying, buying books for our own stock, and providing
project collections of materials for schools. I have to say I am
really enjoying the job and the people are great. We have also
started doing some training sessions for student teachers at University of the
West of England, so that is a bit of a challenge. I am still
exhibition manager for YLG which is the children’s part of my professional
organization.
Both boys are doing really
well. Nicholas is still working for Audient and has had a very good
year. He also still does some live sound work and did the
engineering for Michael Eavis’s (of Glastonbury Pop Festival) birthday party last
month. Christopher started in a permanent post in February, it is
with a web design/management company called Appius and they are based in
Bournemouth. They seem to be very pro-active and are supporting
Chris in a range of training and other development opportunities.
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| Chris & Nick at Lemmings |
Both boys went out to Cyprus in
September, staying at the house, and had a great
time. They spent a lot of time at Lemmings, our old water sports
club and have now bought themselves Windsurfers – it is just like old
times. I think they will be spending as much time out there as they
can.
Whilst the boys were in Cyprus, Stephen
and myself were out in the USA. We had already booked a couple of
holidays before we got the house, so we carried on with our
schedule. This holiday was in the western USA and was quite
spectacular. We landed at San Francisco, then flew on to Las Vegas
where we stayed the night. We then drove to the north rim of the
Grand Canyon.
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| The Canyon Lodge (Hotel) built on the very edge of the canyon |
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| Our room was flooded so we were upgraded to this cabin! |
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| Stunning views across the canyon toward the Colerado River and the South Rim |
It is higher and much more wooded than the south rim
and there are only about 10% of the tourists. We had a lovely log
cabin and were able to go for some fantastic walks. After 3 nights
we then travelled to Zion Canyon for another 3 nights.
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| Behind us is one of the routes into Zion Canyon |
We really
love this canyon and in the evening you see turkeys, deer and other wild life
walking about. The funniest was going to breakfast and finding a
skunk was out on the balcony, having accidentally wandered into the restaurant.
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| Just one fantastic view of Yosemite National Park |
The
second part of the holiday was 3 nights at Yosemite national park followed by 3
nights in Sonoma (part of the wine region, north of San
Francisco). It was altogether an amazing holiday and we
have some fantastic film of it.
We also had a short break in Lisbon at
the end of May and it was great to go back to another of our old haunts,
however I am glad we bought in Cyprus as Portugal has become so busy and built
up.
Stephen has been planning all the
things he needs to do to the house when we go out. He is so happy
when he is doing some DIY. The house is in excellent condition, but
needs updating a bit. I have been busy with the soft furnishings,
whilst Stephen has been checking the electrics, moving pictures about, checking
the roof and doing the garden. Stephen is still flying, but has sold
his Avid and bought back into the group he used to belong to. We
decided that the house and the aircraft would be too much of burden,
but Stephen hopefully will be able to do a bit of flying in Cyprus when we go
in the spring.
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| Stephen, having won a competition at Shuttleworth, is about to be treated to a flight in a Miles Magister |
Next year we are only intending to go
to Cyprus for our holidays as there are things that we would like to
do. We are also letting the house out during the
season. This year we let it for a few weeks, so we are hoping that
it will get more business in the coming year. Luckily charter
flights to Cyprus are getting easier and we are able to fly direct from Bristol
to Paphos.
I suppose the other main event of the
year is our wedding anniversary in November, I find it difficult to believe but
we will have been married for 30 years – where has all the time
gone? I think we can safely say that the Cyprus house turned out to
be a very big present to ourselves. By the way we have called the
house Villa Berengaria, after the married quarters in Limassol; they were know
as BG and Bravo Golf (BG) is the call sign of the aircraft that
Stephen flies.
I think on that note I had better
finish this letter. I can’t believe that next year could be any more
exciting, but I have thought that before and then look what
happens!! We really don’t seem to go in for the quiet
life. Anyway we hope that next year will be a good one for all our
friends and family and we hope that we will see some of you in the next 12
months.
Have a lovely Christmas and New Year
