A bumper day...

It was village clean up day today and the forecast was not good so we weren't surprised to have a cloudy start.  It was maybe not the best day to schedule a clean as Linda and Christine had been out celebrating St Patrick's Day at the Farmyard last night and had wimped out due to excessive river dancing and a hangover!!!!

Norma and Malcolm were away so it was just the five of us who assembled today at the Droushia Heights at 9.00am!!  Thanks Klaus for coming and thanks Diana and Rob as today was going to be a very important day in their football calendar because today the Mighty Blades host Charlton Athletic in what was going to be a pretty crucial game for both teams.

Anyway I digress, the Famous Five assembled as planned and we were cleaning the good old Mucky DVD route which takes us down the main road out of the village to the museum at the bottom.  The first time we did this route we filled many many bags with plastic bottles, cans, paper and the said mucky DVDs but today we were really surprised at how little had accumulated and we were quite pleased that there had only been the five of us otherwise we might have struggled to keep ourselves occupied!!!  Anyway a grey day turned into a glorious day (although the wind was nippy) and we were able to enjoy our walk and take in the beauty of our surroundings.  It is a good time to come and discover the wild flowers of Cyprus.

No killer breakfast for us this time as we had a date with destiny this afternoon - John was picking up Rob and Di at around 4.30pm to listen to the game and watch it if it was being streamed and follow on Twitter and any other method available to enjoy the experience so we finished our clean, took our obligatory photograph so the Mukhtar could see we had been using the blue bags he provides and then shot back home to prepare for THE MATCH.

John is so happy to have found someone local to us who enjoys his football as much as John does.  There was a huge amount of preparation taking place and attention to detail.  Villa 10b became a homage to Bramall Lane and even the SUFC flag got an airing.  John chose the replica shirt which was sponsored by Visit Malta in Di's honour as her parents are Maltese.

I was providing the after match meal and Di had kindly offered to make the pudding which is good because I don't have a great pudding repertoire - I was doing a little salad starter with rocket, pomelo, bacon bits and halloumi and then we were having bbq beef ribs, coleslaw and jacket potatoes.  John was in charge of the bar and had stocked up with some real ales as a special treat for the afternoon.

Indoors we had the BBC red button for the scores - this is Roberts preferred method of watching the information coming through so we had prepared my little notebook to deliver this service.  John had his Blades Player so he could broadcast the commentary and we had the laptop showing the game being streamed whilst Di was following on Twitter which, as it happens, is realtime and all the other methods are seconds behind so she is in the know before anyone else but has to keep schtum which is quite amusing.

There was great excitement when Charlton scored in the first three minutes - Di and I already knew but had to pretend otherwise!!!  Bobby was ecstatic and John was not!!!!  From a Blades Supporters point of view the balance was restored very shortly afterwards.

The Mighty Blades scored again and won the game 2-1 keeping a firm hold on top place of League 1 and one step closer to automatic promotion.  Rob and Di took the loss with good grace - sadly they say that this season they are getting used to it.  Game over the rivalry was forgotten as we settled down to our supper.   I have got to say that the ribs were superb and the lemon meringue pie afterwards absolutely delicious - in fact I can go so far as saying I rather regretted eating such a large slice!!!  Many many many thanks to the Veasey's for making today such fun and glad to say that we are still friends even after the result.