À chacun son goût ...

A lovely day ahead for Ann's birthday ... I have left her pottering in the garden, with her new SHARP secateurs, whilst I come into Polis to make final arrangements for this evening. We are dining at Finikas tonight and I popped into to see Yiannis to ensure the right table had been booked. As ever, it was. Then it was off to see Maria, who has made a unique present for Ann, which I shall collect when Ann is seated with a gin and tonic at the restaurant. And I must buy a bottle of champagne, hide it when I get home and not forget to put it in the fridge before we go out.

We have been together getting on thirteen years (we met on August 4th) and it struck me the other day that, if you intend to retire to Cyprus (or anywhere else for that matter), it will only work if your relationship is solid. Being together for much of every day (especially if one or both of you have been working full-time until retirement) is quite a shock to the system, and I believe that a fresh start in a new country will only paper over the cracks in a flawed relationship. I see expats all the time, sitting in restaurants and bars, and not saying a word to each other. Either they are using a mobile phone or an iPad, or reading a book, and never a word is passed between them.

À chacun son goût, as the French would say, but not our way at all. I read much about preparing for retirement before we arrived in Cyprus, and it has been more difficult for Ann as I had retired a number of years before we left the UK. As the Beatles sang:


When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
Ho!

My dearest love to my dearest love ... Happy Birthday.