Category Archives: Special Event

We’re fast approaching Easter in the UK and a week after it will be Orthodox Easter and this year I get to celebrate both, being in the UK for their Easter weekend before flying back to Cyprus for theirs.
I love Easter, for me it truly signals the end of winter and spring and the start of the countdown to the heady days of summer. Whilst for many, it’s just a time to consume tonnes of hollow chocolate objects and have an excuse for another family dinner, for the more religious it marks the most important festival in the religious calendar.
I’ve often wondered, especially since living in Cyprus, why the Cypriots don’t really do Christmas and save all the celebrations for Eastertide until I looked up a theological essay on the subject.
As far as I can see, the birth of Jesus is relatively unimportant in its significance to the development of Christianity and I can understand why Epiphany is more important as being the first time he is acknowledged as King by the wise men. But it’s Easter and its implication in the ideology of eternal life that is the main festival because it’s when Jesus shows us that it is possible to be raised from death, if only as a soul, and to take our rightful place in heaven. The whole dogma of Christianity hangs on that one event and is summed up succinctly by the Easter morning Greek greeting of ‘Χριστός Ανέστη’ and the reply ‘Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη’, Christ is risen and the reply, truly he is risen.
On a far more light-hearted note, it’s this time of year when I laugh at the friends who have decided upon a ‘bikini diet’ to prepare themselves for their summer holidays. It usually starts when the clocks go forward only to be rudely interrupted when Easter pops up and they’ve just got to gorge themselves on the chocolate eggs and accompanying individual chocolates not to mention those fondant filled eggs that shall remain nameless.
So what should we get for those people who we know desperately want to look svelte in their swimsuit and not bulgy in a bikini? Nothing fits the bill better than a bouquet of flowers and especially at Easter when spring flowers abound and if you want to go for the traditional, you can send white lilies signifying purity and new birth. As always I find the best flowers come from Cosmea Gardens.  Feel free to use coupon “savethiseaster” on checkout and save 10% with a minimum order of 50Eur excluding shipping. It expires the 16th of April. I’ve never had cause to complain about the quality and condition of the blooms they’ve delivered and their flowers last for weeks; a benefit of them using only the freshest cut flowers in their arrangements. They might be a little more expensive than some but when a gift is important for the message it sends, a couple of euros extra is well worth it for the quality. So this Easter, if you need to send a gift to a horizontally challenged friend or relative, be a thoughtful person and send them flowers that will add considerably to their impressions of you and not their waistline!

March 18th is Mother’s Day across most of the world and despite the commercialism that has taken it over along with Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day, it’s a day when we should do something that shows appreciation of our mothers.
Think of the pain they went through to bring us into the world, women often joke that if men had to endure the pain of childbirth, the human population would have died out long ago. Then there’s the sacrifices made to be there for us, bringing us up, working to feed and clothe us, going without to make sure that we didn’t.
For my mother, the pain and sacrifice was all too real with her developing a condition during pregnancy that was to affect her for the rest of her life and still does today. On many occasions she’s had to suffer painful operations, been confined to bed or a wheelchair for weeks or months and had her life limited by the restrictions placed upon her. I’m sure that if we were to delve more deeply into the lives of our parents we’d find similar, possibly less obvious sacrifices, but sacrifices all the same.
In my last post I told you about the sad event that had overtaken one of the children I teach and my heart will be going out to her this Mother’s Day when the flowers she gave her mum each Mother’s Day during her lifetime will now be placed onto a cold grave. It’s times like this that I realise I’m lucky to still have my mother and it makes me determined to show her whilst I still can, just what she means to me.
So how will your mum be celebrating Mother’s Day?
Many will be alone with sons and daughters far away, the lucky ones will receive a phone call or a gift whilst others may hear nothing and feel forgotten, unappreciated and unloved. I sincerely hope your mother isn’t going to be one of those. If you’re lucky to be spending Mother’s Day with your mum, then don’t think that just being there is enough. Take time to find her a gift she’ll really appreciate as being the way you show how much she means to you but don’t just stop there. Flowers are a wonderful gift but they’re often used as a ‘catch-all’ when the giver can’t think of anything else. On Mother’s Day, flowers should be an additional gift because they don’t last long and weeks after the event has passed, all your mum will have is the very nice memory. For the best flowers, you have got to trust Cosmea Gardens who, for decades, have been sending love and happy thoughts across the miles through the language of flowers. Last year I used them for Mother’s Day and the beautiful flowers they delivered lasted for nearly three weeks.
I’m in Cyprus this year whilst my mum’s in the UK but on the day, she’ll receive a gift that she’s worthy of as well as the customary flowers. Skype will bring us together and let me tell her just how grateful I am for all she’s done for me.

Every once in a while something happens that makes one stop to consider what is really important in life.
Just that happened to my wife and me this last week. We teach a small group of children from home and they are a great bunch of kids, bright and keen to learn. They have parents who are very supportive of them and of the efforts that we make to give them a good education.
Like many countries around the world at this time of year, Cyprus has a bit of a winter cold or flu epidemic going on and all of the children, my wife and myself have succumbed to it to varying extents. What we didn’t know was that one of the mums had a serious illness that was made worse by catching a cold which turned into a chest infection. Initially we received the news that she was in hospital where she was receiving intensive care treatment then, shockingly, were told that she may not pull through and then, disbelievingly, we were told that she had died. After sitting there in total shock for what seemed like an eternity it dawned on us that a little girl of eleven was now left without a mother and her father was without the partner he had shared life with for sixteen years.
We informed the other parents from our little group and all sympathized, offering help in the difficult aftermath of the mum’s death. We and another family have spent the last few days trying to sort out the fallout from the situation and help the family on the road back to some kind of normality.
It has been a difficult journey, not just for the family but also for those that have offered help for, despite all you do, the terrible loss is still there and nothing will change it. What people don’t realize when something like this happens are the other ramifications of the death of a parent. The little girl was very close to and relied on her mum for ‘girlie chats’ and now has no one to take her place. The father is lost in his grief too and can offer little comfort. By far the greatest difficulty they face and I’m sure many others in the same position face is the financial uncertainty. In looking after the mum and paying for medicines, the family have no money. The weather has meant that the father has been unable to work, even if he had felt like it and the family fridge contained just half a liter of milk whilst the freezer had half a bag of oven chips and nothing else.
Thankfully friends have rallied round to offer help and the family are just about surviving.
It’s the funeral tomorrow and we’re sending flowers from CosmeaGardens.com.  Some might say that money is needed by the family, not flowers that will wither and die so we’ve also given an equal amount to help support the family.
A funeral is a celebration of a life as well as saying goodbye and flowers represent the joy of the person’s life and the happiness they gave to others so they are not wasted.
I’m not sure what the future holds for the family, but with the support of friends they will get over the tragedy and maybe a little way down the line when perhaps they’re feeling sad and lonely, flowers from Cosmea Gardens will cheer them up and remind them that they and their troubles are still in the hearts and thoughts of friends.

Although the weather is noticeably cooler, I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas, so it’s time for some tips on how to make your home look effortlessly festive.

I love poinsettia plants and although there’s a myriad of colours to choose from these days, I still love the ones with the red bracts. You can spice them up by putting them in a festive looking container or simply get a terracotta pot, paint it green and then when dry, daub some wood glue in patterns such as bells, snowflakes or Christmas trees around it and press on some contrasting glitter. Don’t forget to bung up the drainage hole before putting the plant in it or you’ll have a soggy mess on your table!

If you want to keep the pot plain, then a quick squirt of spray-on glue over the leaves, followed by a dusting of silver glitter gives an instant effect.

If you can get hold of any evergreen foliage, it doesn’t have to be holly or ivy, make up a wreath by intertwining the stems and tie in red or gold ribbon in bows, add small Christmas decorations or small sprayed pine cones – there are hundreds in Cyprus at the moment – then hang it on your door or over a fireplace.

Finally, if you can’t afford one of the really expensive real Christmas trees this year which, to be honest, won’t survive long in the Cypriot climate, buy an Araucaria, otherwise known as a Norfolk Island Pine, which looks exotically similar and which will grace your garden afterwards. A 1.2 metre specimen in a pot can be bought for around 20 euros, less than half the equivalent for a Norwegian Spruce. Check out Cosmea Gardens for their range of festive plants and have a Plant-astic Christmas this year.

This last weekend saw the horrific killing in Norway of nearly a hundred people, many of them young, whose lives, full of potential, have now been extinguished.

After initial media images of the terrible carnage, we now have the tender photographs of relatives and loved ones laying floral tributes to those who were killed. But, as with all major incidents these days, the tributes have been supplanted with many times more from the public expressing their shock at the event and their empathy as well as sympathy with the families of the victims.

The advertising slogan used to go something like ‘Say it with flowers’ and often, when words can’t quite express what we want to say on occasions such as this, flowers do convey our compassionate thoughts and are there as a semi-permanent reminder both at the scene and in photographs.

Flowers can say so much at happy times too so if you’ve got something you want to say but don’t know how to say it, try flowers from Cosmea Gardens.

It’s under a week now until Father’s Day and I’d like to thank my father for all he’s done for me: 47 years of care, advice, understanding and some chiding, but above all, love. I’ve yet to become a father so I don’t know the sacrifices that are to be made to give the unconditional love that father’s give but I see in my father all that I hope one day to see in me. You often hear the cliche, ‘If I was half the man….I’d have done well’ and I could easily apply that to my father.

He’d be happy on Father’s Day to see me and to hear the words from me but I’m in Cyprus and he’s in England so the only way I can express my feelings are with a card – already posted, and, remembering the fondness he had for growing flowers in his greenhouse, a floral arrangement. It may not appear too masculine to receive flowers but I know that by sending an arrangement of the flowers he used to grow, he’ll know that I remember the times we shared. I always choose Cosmea Gardens for my flowers and for Father’s Day they have a special offer. You can save 7% off bouquets and arrangements over 50 euros, just quote WELOVEYOUDAD at the checkout. The offer ends on the 20th June so you can even get the discount if you don’t quite make it for the day! Go on, tell him how much he means to you.

For most of the world the celebrations of Christmas and New Year have passed and we now look forward to taking down the decorations on twelfth night and get on with 2011.

Not so for Cyprus for at the end of next week we have St Basil’s Day and Epiphany, major celebrations on our beautiful island.

Mothers and wives across the island will be digging out their recipes for Vasilopita and children will be looking forward to extra presents and two days off school as the island celebrates a key event in the Christian calendar forgotten, or at least overlooked by most of the world.

St Basil is the Greek Orthodox santa and is looked forward to greatly by Greek children. Epiphany was the day when the Wise Men arrived at the stable bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus.

If you are visiting friends or family for the bank holiday weekend be wise and take your own gift. The host may well love a gift of gold, may not be quite so keen on frankincense or myrrh though. take your own gift of gold with a bouquet in gold from Cosmea Gardens and your host will treat you like a king!

You know when you long for a kiss from a special person but you aren’t forward enough to ask for one directly? Well it’s that time of year where good natured Christmas cheer and some help from handily placed mistletoe could be your salvation!

Mistletoe is a semi parasitic plant that takes root in the sap of a host tree where, left unchecked, it can eventually kill it.

It is an attractive plant with lime green smooth leaves and pearlescent white berries.

In pagan times it was seen to represent male fertility and was linked with romance. Since the 18th century, the romantic aspect has come to the fore and now mistletoe is commonly used as a Christmas decoration. According to custom, the mistletoe must not touch the ground between its cutting and its removal as the last of Christmas greens at Candlemas; it may remain hanging through the year, often to preserve the house from lightning or fire, until it was replaced the following Christmas Eve.

According to Christmas custom, any two people who meet under a hanging of mistletoe are obliged to kiss.

The writer, Washington Irving noted, “The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases.”

Mistletoe is found in many florists this Christmas but to be sure to get your Christmas kiss check out Cosmea Gardens

Before I begin, don’t forget we’re in the last week of the special offer on flower bouquets and arrangements from the Cyprus Online Flowershop. See the last two posts for further details on how you can save 15% off flower orders.

OK, we’ll have a small interruption from what my class think of flowers and talk about my time at the Duckpond Market on Sunday. I love the chance to pick up a book or two so I headed straight to a stall selling second hand books and rooted through the stock they had. Now I’m a big fan of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia, I had a very tatty set when I was a child, passed down from my father, and so I was delighted to see a near pristine set for sale at 20 euros – a bargain! I wanted to familiarise myself with the content before purchasing them and so flicked randomly through volume 5 when suddenly a wafer thin sliver of tissue paper fell out from between the pages together with a small handwritten card. The tissue paper enclosed the delicatest of sweet peas and although completely dry now, it still preserved the beautiful lilac colour it proudly displayed when it was growing. I carefully replaced it in the tissue paper and picked up the card which read. ‘To my dearest Laura, may our love never die, yours truly, Wilf.
No slushy pet names or loads of kisses, just a simple message that conveyed a man’s love for his wife or girlfriend. Eager to discover more I asked the stall holder if they knew who the couple were and I was amazed to find out that it was her grandparents and that she was selling the set of books after clearing the house following her grandmother’s death. She became so emotional staring at my discovery and was so grateful she gave me the set as long as I promised to return any further discoveries to her.

Later that day I found yet more flowers sandwiched between the covers of the heavy books and called her. When I visioted to drop off my finds I discovered that she’d framed the card with the flower and it now took pride of place on a bookshelf in her home.

Leaving later I pondered on how a flower that would normally wither and decay days after, had survived over half a century and returned to bring back memories