2015 Briefly Reviewed

Very little of 2015 remains now. 

 It brought with it some sadness: we lost our brother-in-law, Petros, in April; more recently in November we learned that a dear friend, Kenny, from Edinburgh had passed on. Kenny was a former colleague at Forrester High School who sadly had not enjoyed the best of health of late. It is so sad to think these vibrant life forces are no longer with us – they are greatly missed.

Politically and financially Greece was in the …. mire …  and Varoufakis turned out definitely not the horse to back! Capital controls affected each one of us, but dealt vicious blows to swathes of the private sector – small businesses saw production and revenues decline dramatically.

Now I don’t know whether the Sheffield graffiti artist in question below was referring to politicians or bankers as the bad dudes, but I loved the moral and poetic nature of the accompanying legend:

I’d rather eat crumbs with bums                    than eat steaks with snakes.

                                                 

And of course there were pleasurable events during the year.

During our September trip to Sheffield, we met up with an old mate of mine: Colin from Edinburgh, who was a fellow-British Council employee in Yemen. Now living in Sale, he was kind enough to offer us an excellent dinner in his beautiful home. Here he is providing post-prandial entertainment as well!       

                                 

 

  Another trip, another meet-up, this time with Noufris in Larnaka. We shared several years together with him and his Danish wife, Birgit, in Kuwait. Here he is with two of his delightful daughters: Alexandra on the left and Marianna, our god-daughter, on the right. We made a little tourist trip up into the mountain foothills, finding a great watering-hole with excellent food in Lefkara.

                                 

 

So what were all these trips we made to Sheffield and to Cyprus for? 

 Well, the really exciting event of 2015 was that Angeliki and I incorporated our very own Sheffield–based business in September. Here we are both wearing Macphail tartan stoles - mine is Dress and hers is Hunting -  celebrating the founding of our new company. The tartan is important as it’s in the logo and the company name which expresses the Scottish and Greek elements of the directorship!

 

 

   What’s it all about? Watch this space!! All will be revealed fairly soon.

 In the meantime, we wish you a Happy New Year.  Sweet sixteen is on its way!