Two weeks have passed and there has been much activity from the Lloyds both in NC and UK. While waiting for my flight in Larnaca airport, I met up with a colleague from the ABF. Barrie had not enjoyed a successful holiday in NC because the villa he had rented in Ozankoy had been surrounded by ongoing building work, which made relaxing around the pool rather difficult. I had some sympathy for him and his wife but if he had let me check it out before he came over I could have warned him what it was going to be like.

There was some delay while we waited our turn in the stack at Heathrow, but visibility was good so I enjoyed excellent views over the Thames as we came in to land.

I walked to school with the boys next morning, Tom did look grown up in his uniform. Both he and Josh cycle with their friends and little Ross cannot wait to be big enough to join them on a bike. Happily, Joe is thriving now and was approaching 13lbs that week. (Debi: please send pictures for Dad.)
Debi let me use her car that day and I was able to have my hair done and do a bit of shopping in preparation for my trip the next day to Sandhurst.

Meanwhile, back in Karsiyaka, Jeff continued to supervise the garden workers.

The good top soil was distributed
onto the new flower beds.











On Wednesday evening, Jeff went along to the Quiz night at the Chiswick. He joined Rene and Brian, Sandra and Paul which immediately meant they were deducted 5 points as there should only be 4 people in a team! Despite that they managed to win a roll-over prize of 50 YTL each which covered the cost of the evening nicely.



On Thursday I travelled to Sandhurst by train, arriving about 1pm. The lawns infront of the college buildings had the stands ready for the orchestra and choir and the Royal Box was waiting for its VIP occupants.


The Music on Fire office was in the cricket pavillion, known locally as The Kaboush. The 2 girls from Central Office had set up an office in an upstairs room, next-door to the techies who were masterminding the lighting, sound, pyrotechnics etc. Downstairs was where we were fed and watered. I was quickly invited to help with some typing jobs, there was much that had to be done before the Friday show but we struggled against computers that kept crashing and printers that wouldn't print. Barrie was doing his utmost to keep the show going but we really struggled. That first day I worked through until 1am, albeit stopping for some supper served from the hotplates downstairs.

They don’t provide too many creature comforts for the young cadets at Sandhurst. My accommodation was pretty basic to say the least, up on the 3rd floor and my room had just a bed, table, chair, wardrobe and sink. To find the loos took some doing – 50 yds down a corridor through 2 fire doors and the showers were even further on! It wasn’t good to be too desperate to address nature’s call. Then the next surprise was that it was a 15 minute walk from the accommodation to the Kaboush before I could get a hot drink!

Friday morning dawned pretty wet, so it was a case of digging out the brolly and heading over for breakfast when it had eased off a bit. There was a self-service arrangement of hot plates with bacon, sausage, fried and scrambled eggs, plenty of bread and tea and coffee, so we didn’t starve. As soon as I’d eaten around 8.30am it was back to the typing – Philippa and Ruth having been at it since about 5.30am! During the course of the morning one or two people began to arrive from Central Office and it was nice to see old faces again. The rain continued all day until about 4pm when it stopped and the sun came out, but of course the ground was very wet.

We spent the afternoon having various briefings and sorting out our respective tents. I worked in partnership with John Ross, he commanding his troops in the East tent and I in the West. We were responsible for organising the cadets with the sale of programmes and raffle tickets. The raffle prize each evening was a year's supply of hampers (4 - 1 for each season), from Fortnum & Mason. I had the new ABF Director Welfare, Paul Cummings in my team. I had met him before I retired but he didn't take over until the end of May, so it was a nice experience for me to work with him. We got on well. We also had a nice Australian girl in our team, she is currently working as a Temp at the ABF.

Although the gates officially opened at 4pm, people didn't begin to arrive till around 5.30pm. The grass was still very wet but the majority had brought chairs to sit on. We had between 5,000 and 6,000 people there on the first night including the Duke and Duchess of Wessex. The parts of the show I saw were very exciting. The evening followed the theme of War and Peace, using fireworks, music and laser projected scenes onto the college facade, starting with Creation, then came the story of Noah, Romans, Barbarians, the discovery of gunpowder and the Napoleonic war.


After the interval the scenes travelled through the Crimea up to modern times with the dropping of the atomic bomb. The Red Devils Parachute Team did a very spectacular night drop into the arena and then the show took on a macarbre turn illustrating modern warfare, hell and Armageddon. Finally the atmosphere was raised again with the theme of hope and the traditional rendition of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory.



Back in Karsiyaka Jeff continued to oversee the garden project

and later that evening joined our friends for a beer at the Stumble Inn. On Saturday morning he went to Guzelyurt market to enjoy a trip out on a nice day. There are dozens of stalls selling everything from knickers to knives to nectarines.


This guy thinks he's a fruit tree!








In UK, Saturday was a beautiful day too, clear blue skies and warm sunshine. It was a morning to do the fine tuning as this evening was to be the "biggy". Although there were to be no Royalty attending that night there were to be a lot of celebrities, including such people as Dame Judy Dench, Kate Aide, Honor Blackman and Robert Hardy who had all contributed towards the commentaries that accompanied the scenes projected onto the college facade. In the event around 11,000 people attended on the Saturday night and there was a fantastic atmosphere. They started arriving quite quickly as soon as the gates were opened at 4pm and elaborate picnics appeared all over the lawns. It was obvious that this was a crowd out to enjoy themselves. During the evening Patti Boulaye gave a brilliant rendition of Amazing Grace along with other solos and Mylene Class also contributed to the evening's entertainment.



Sunday was another nice day and I had arranged to take time off over lunch and meet my grandsons. Ian & Sharon drove up from Winterslow and Debi and Andy drove down from Kent. We all met up at an Animal Centre and the boys had an opportunity to run off some energy. We had to keep on eye on Ross however, he was rather too enthusiastic when it came to stroking the animals - the goat nearly lost his beard!


We then found a nice pub in Sandhurst and had lunch together in the garden. It was especially nice as it was Sharon's 40th birthday so I was particularly lucky to be able to share that too.

Meanwhile Jeff took himself out for a meal. He went to a restaurant we have used often, The Silver Grill, but it had been out of action for a while as its previous owner, Ali had decided to sell and retire. We have been waiting for it to re-open and now it has albeit under a new name, My Place. It is now run by a young Scandinavian lady. Jeff's report was that it was very good.

I got back to my duties in the tent in time to organise the evening's programme sellers. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were among the VIP that night and while I was watching some of the comings and goings I spotted Robert Powell arriving. We were a slick team now and the audience numbers were down to 6,000 again, albeit a jolly crowd. We were all able to see more of the show and take lots of pictures. Paul had managed to take quite a number of pics on Saturday night, he had a very smart camera and tripod and he kindly downloaded some of his photographs onto a CD for me to have. After the show it was big clear-up time and while I was doing this I got a message to say Mike Regan had been hoping to say hello. I went along to the Royal Box and managed to catch up with him and Victoria, who told me they had invited Jeff around to their house for a drink before they came back to UK.
When all the work was done I went back to the Kaboush and joined a small group finishing off a hectic 3 days with a celebratory drink. Sir Evelyn and Lady Ceilia came and joined us but we didn't linger too long as everyone was exhausted - we did drink to Music on Fire 2008 though!