Sunday - It's like an Episode of Wildlife on One...

A glorious glorious start to the day and our thoughts had turned to Spring cleaning!!!  The target was my shed which, thought quite large, had little to no shelving and so everything in there was stacked on the floor - not best use of the space!!!  John had bought two sets of shelving from Super Home Centre to try and get it better organised.

It was with some trepidation that I began the task of taking everything out because there was evidence of poo - probably gecko poo - but the cat's interest made me think it could be mouse poo and, although I quite like mice, I didn't want an unexpected encounter!!!

Just looking at the eclectic mix of stuff which I removed it was clear that we really did need this sort out and it was something we had been planning to do for some time.

Building the shelves turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated - bloody flat-pack furniture - the instructions had obviously been translated from Mongolian!!!  But eventually we got them built to John's satisfaction and moved them into the shed and started to load our stuff back in being much more careful about what we kept and where we located it.  At the moment I know exactly what is in the shed and what shelf it is on!!!

After a great deal of debate we decided to get rid of the two z-beds we inherited with the house.  We have never used them and to be honest the mattresses looked like they had seen better days, one more so than the other as it looked like it had been an unfortunate victim of the time when a family of feral cats moved into our house when the kitchen door lock failed.  We heard Irene outside going to feed the cats and asked her if she would be able to sell them.  She thought with a bit of a clean-up she might and now doubt in a month or two's time we will regret our decision when someone wants to come to stay but with storage space at a premium for us we really can't be sentimental about things we may possibly use once in a blue moon!

As we were finishing off the shed there was a great deal of commotion coming from the field next door with the magpies going bananas.  We thought there must be a hawk or some other bird of prey in the vicinity but when we looked closer we could see that they were dive bombing one of our cats and on closer inspection we realised that Chivers was racing towards the house with a magpie in his mouth. We were gob-smacked and I wanted to take a photograph but at the same time we didn't want him bringing it through the catflap and making a mess in the house.

Chivers brought it as far as the tree just the other side of our boundary and dropped it and then worried it and played with it, sitting over it waiting for it to move and then playing with it again.  Minnie Mou became intrigued as to what was going on and jumped over sniffing along the trail where Chivers had dragged the bird.  Eventually the bird lay still and Chivers got bored and wandered off and then to our surprise the bird started to move and although it had what looked like a broken wing it managed to make its way up into the tree where it called for the other magpies who swooped about menacingly as they tried to protect it.

After some time the noise got worse and we realised that Chivers had returned to the scene of the crime and gone up the tree to get the poor bird again.  The bird kept hopping around just out of Chivers' reach keeping on the smaller branches which it must have realised would not support Chivers' weight but it was a pointless exercise because it was only a matter of time before Chivers was victorious and oblivious to the dive-bombing of the other birds and emerged at the top of the tree with the magpie firmly in his mouth.

His descent from the topmost branches of the tree down to the ground was fast and precarious but he made it and then set about playing with the bird again and again  This time, when it stopped moving, we were convinced that it was indeed dead.  At that point Chivers left it alone and we were pleased that he had only brought it as far as our boundary and not any further.  Later in the afternoon we checked where the bird had been and strangely there was no sign.  It had probably crawled away to die in peace - it could  not have survived the mauling that Chivers had subjected it to - twice!

I had some panic homework to do for Greek as I had not been for a couple of weeks and have a lesson tomorrow. 

The sun from the day had warmed the conservatory and I decided to sit there looking out over the swimming pool using the fold up chair and table that Mum had given me.  The table and chair is brilliant because it allows me to sit out and take advantage of the heat and light in the conservatory.  Not sure that the table will last too long so I am on the look out for one of those lovely wooden fold up TV tables so if anyone reading has one that I can have please let me know!

I am determined to keep up with my Greek but do find it difficult - I need to go down to Christos's taverna and take Alkisti up on her offer to help me improve - I need regular practice and I need to be learning conversational stuff which I can use on a day to day basis - I learned the word for Train today but as there are no railways here in Cyprus it is not something that is an awful lot of use to me!!  

When it got too chilly out in the conservatory it was time to move indoors and think about some tea.  I am trying to run down the fridge and also clear some space in the freezer because I am going to need the space.  I wanted to use up the second unripe papaya that Marmalade Annie had given us and had found a recipe for green papaya and prawn curry for which I had all the ingredients.  John is well impressed with unripe papaya - he said it was a great addition to the curry - to be fair it added texture and took on the flavours of the sauce so it was a good filler.  Enough left for John for lunch tomorrow when I am at Art.