We have booked to fly from Doha to Cyprus for the week 19-25th September as it is the Eid-Al-Fitr holiday in Doha (celebration at the end of the Holy month of Ramadan).
Whilst we will be staying at a small hotel in Larnaca our agenda will be:
a) Meeting with Quality Group to finalise fittings etc for the home.
b) Investigate having a 'hot tub' for the garden - a bit of luxury for us and of course visitors
c) Investigate furniture purchases etc
d) Get to know the island more
e) Visit friends Wendy and Martin from Dubai who have already made Cyprus their home
f) Relax!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
But it is only 5 minutes to the Beach!
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It really is only a five minute walk to the beach. Although not sandy it will do nicely for brisk morning walks! These pictures were taken by Lillian in February 2009 when she visited Pervolia to 'seal the deal'.
Going for it!
Having mulled it over, we decided that it would be fantastic to have a house that was big enough to be our permanent home in Cyprus.We'd seen on the Quality Group website another development at Pervolia, which was a little village we'd really liked on our visit to the island. So Lillian went to Cyprus in February to see if the small develpoment of 15 houses just outside the village of Pervolia and only a short walk to the coast would fit the bill - it seemed so "on paper" - we just had to check out the reality.
House 5 at Tersephanou (which can be seen in the picture above) was just as we'd imagined and now that it was half built Lillian could see that we had chosen a great little house, but House 15 (seen left) at Pervolia could be a home, big enough for the friends and family and truly was only a 5 minute walk to the coast. 
Sadly there was no sea view but we could live with that! Instead the house is right next door to the small communal pool and gym and has the second biggest plot in the complex.
There's an aditional room downstairs - either a 4th bedroom or study/rec room; we haven't yet decided. But what we did decide was that House 15 at Pervolia would be ours!And here it is - the last on the left handside of the row you can see. The small 'shelter' looking construction will be the gym and next to that the swimming pool.
A change of mind
As time went on with life in Dubai, it became apparent to us that rather than have a small holiday home we should consider making the Cyprus sunshine a base for the future. A place for us to be happy but also be attractive to visitors not least Andrew, Steve and Emily for years to come.
Completely unexpected and 'Out of the Blue' Chris was invited to apply for a post with a new company which was operating out of Doha, Qatar. Two meetings later a deal had been agreed that was too good to refuse and so our life that we had so enjoyed in Dubai was scheduled to come to a very sudden and unexpected end. After serving one month's notice Chris was off to Kuwait for four months (new company HQ) and then we packed up our Dubai home (well Lillian did) and relocated to Doha!
However with the new job came increased salary which allowed 'new ideas' and thoughts. Could we afford to upgrade? Could Cyprus really become the base for the future? It was clear that we would never be able to afford the lovely places we had seen right on the coast that Quality Group had shown when we had visited Cyprus. But what were the alternatives?
Completely unexpected and 'Out of the Blue' Chris was invited to apply for a post with a new company which was operating out of Doha, Qatar. Two meetings later a deal had been agreed that was too good to refuse and so our life that we had so enjoyed in Dubai was scheduled to come to a very sudden and unexpected end. After serving one month's notice Chris was off to Kuwait for four months (new company HQ) and then we packed up our Dubai home (well Lillian did) and relocated to Doha!
However with the new job came increased salary which allowed 'new ideas' and thoughts. Could we afford to upgrade? Could Cyprus really become the base for the future? It was clear that we would never be able to afford the lovely places we had seen right on the coast that Quality Group had shown when we had visited Cyprus. But what were the alternatives?
Setting the scene
Let us start at the very beginning. In January 2007 we chanced to see an advert in the Gulf News in Dubai for a property show for new properties in Cyprus. Having missed out on the 'boom' and profits people were making / had made in Dubai we decided to go and have a look as we were not doing much on a Saturday afternoon.
The show was in the Grand Hyatt Hotel and organised by a company McKenzie McMillan who were acting as agents for a property developer known as Quality Group Developments who had a number of projects on the go in Cyprus. We were impressed with the company and the examples they showed of their other developments....and so to our own surprise we signed up there and then to a 2 bedroomed house on a complex adjacent to a yet to be built golf course about 10 miles from Larnaca. It was to be in a small village called Teresephanou.
We had never even been to Cyprus but trusted the judgment of friends and family who have travelled the world and still say Cyprus is one of the nicest places they've visited; not necessarily the prettiest, but friendly, easy, diverse and warm!! Just what we wanted.
We chose House 5 as the best remaining - a view across to the swimming pool and the hills beyond. We hoped it would meet our dreams of a holiday home in Cyprus to enjoy in retirement whenever the UK weather proved too dull, cold and wet for us to bear, having become "softies" as a result of Dubai sunshine and warmth!!
The deposit was paid and then in March we made the first of our staged payments for the house.
It wasn't until the October that we actually went to Cyprus to see the plot for our future holiday home. Quality Group met us at the aiport and showed us around. This is the site where our 'holiday home' was to be built. It was hard to imagine but we explored a bit of the island, and knew we'd made a great decision!
The only downside was that we saw an absolutely wonderful development that Quality Group were building along the coast - large individual houses with fantastic views out to sea; sadly we didn't have the kind of money needed to have a place like that, but we toyed with the idea of putting down a deposit on their next project further along the coast.
The show was in the Grand Hyatt Hotel and organised by a company McKenzie McMillan who were acting as agents for a property developer known as Quality Group Developments who had a number of projects on the go in Cyprus. We were impressed with the company and the examples they showed of their other developments....and so to our own surprise we signed up there and then to a 2 bedroomed house on a complex adjacent to a yet to be built golf course about 10 miles from Larnaca. It was to be in a small village called Teresephanou.
We had never even been to Cyprus but trusted the judgment of friends and family who have travelled the world and still say Cyprus is one of the nicest places they've visited; not necessarily the prettiest, but friendly, easy, diverse and warm!! Just what we wanted.
We chose House 5 as the best remaining - a view across to the swimming pool and the hills beyond. We hoped it would meet our dreams of a holiday home in Cyprus to enjoy in retirement whenever the UK weather proved too dull, cold and wet for us to bear, having become "softies" as a result of Dubai sunshine and warmth!!The deposit was paid and then in March we made the first of our staged payments for the house.
It wasn't until the October that we actually went to Cyprus to see the plot for our future holiday home. Quality Group met us at the aiport and showed us around. This is the site where our 'holiday home' was to be built. It was hard to imagine but we explored a bit of the island, and knew we'd made a great decision!
The only downside was that we saw an absolutely wonderful development that Quality Group were building along the coast - large individual houses with fantastic views out to sea; sadly we didn't have the kind of money needed to have a place like that, but we toyed with the idea of putting down a deposit on their next project further along the coast.
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