Forgive me Father for I have Sinned...

As the title says - I have sinned - twice - first of all I forgot that today was Father's Day and secondly I washed the bedding, put it out on the line and then back on the bed without ironing it.  In fact I have a pile of ironing that would give the Himalayas a run for its money but my excuse is that it really has been far too hot to iron.

We had been invited for supper down at Mum and Dad's so I had to pull my finger out and make Dad a card and my sister text to ask me to get him a bottle of his favourite wine so deicded we would make that two.  I am normally so much more organised than this but hadn't seen Father's Day advertised anywhere.

Before going down to Paphos John and I were going to go out to the Herb Garden for Tea and Cake but got halfway to Kathikas on the bike and realised that John's wallet was still at home.  We turned round and decided to give it a miss and so I went out for a walk with the camera instead.  It has now become quite parched and dry, in two weeks the landscape has changed considerably.

There is still some colour to be found when you are out and about as the artichokes have just come into flower with their huge purple blooms and the prickly pears are also flowering but with a more delicate yellow flower.  Both are edible which reinforces what we have been told about being able to forage enough to live on up here in the hills.  I hope that we never have to put that to the test!  Still I am not averse to a bit of scrumping every now and then particularly a bit later in the year when all the fig trees are laden with fruit and by the looks of things this year could herald a bumper crop.

I was going to send the picture opposite to Debra to tell her that these are her washing facilities whilst she is staying with us!  They are not of course but they are the washing facilities for the man who lives in the shack down the road from us.  We refer to him as the Egyptian although we have no idea whether he is or not!  Basically he lives in a shack made from sheets of corrugated metal with a toilet at the end of the garden with outside sink.  It may be a shack but it has a solar panel and a satellite dish attached to it and he is obviously very clean as there is always a line of washing out in the garden.  We never see him so if he does his washing in the outside sink he must do it at night!!  We can only assume that life for him in his shack with outside facilities must be preferable to whatever life he would have elsewhere, in the Summer it isn't so bad but in the Winter it doesn't bare thinking about.

We packed up and went down to Emba calling in to pick up the bottles of Agios Onoufrios in Stroumbi which gave me the opportunity to practice my little bit of Greek - do you have wine, how much is it etc etc.

So this is a picture of my Dad and me.  I think he must be smiling - it can't be indigestion because we hadn't eaten at this stage.  The wonders of modern technology meant that we were joined by Kaye via Skype.  She did not have a jumper on today but said that when they returned to the UK it was b****y freezing and that she and Richard were so cheesed off they have been to the travel agents already to look for their next holiday which is oging to be a safari of some sort either in South Africa or Tanzania - lucky them - I would have made it to South Africa a couple of years ago if John's ship's programme hadn't been altered.

We had a lovely meal all together - Mum had put on a lovely roast even in this heat so hats off to her.  The meal was followed by a good natured but competitive game of nomination whist where I took up my normal position of drag arse Charlie!!