Thursday Orexi Clear Up ...

John and I, along with about a dozen others, had answered Orexi Elena's plea for help tidying up her garden and in return she was offering lunch and wine.  How could we refuse - we love her food!!!  As it happened the weather was beautiful and so we got kitted out in layers grabbed some of our tools and went along - not entirely sure what was going to face us.  Elena wanted to get the vines cut back, the runners on the fruit trees removed, a border dug for more planting, fig trees reduced and a general clean and tidy.

After a leisurely coffee around the kitchen table we motivated ourselves and set off in various directions.  Some concentrating on the front garden others on the back garden and some were given the task of constructing a compost bin for kitchen and garden waste.  Elena's large garden is given over to growing - everything in it needs to give something back to her kitchen so flowers are fairly conspicuous by their absence!

It got progressively warmer as the morning went on so the layers became discarded!!!  Chris took on the job of the compost bin build and having scrounged wood and pallets from various parts of the garden it began to take shape and Elena was thrilled with the end result.

In order to activate the compost bin poo from the Chickens was requested so they were let out of the hen house and it was cleaned out with the contents being mixed into the garden waste and the fallen leaves that I had been raking up.  It will take a while but at some point in the future Elena should have some brilliant compost!!

As the morning wore on the garden began to look much tidier than it had at the outset.  I must have cleared a couple of bags of toys in various stages of disrepair and John and Paul reduced the monster figs on the boundary by about two thirds and the remaining figs were gathered to be shared out if anyone wanted any.  They are just about past it but I snaffled some to make a jam with them.

When we were all too knackered to do anymore and our tummy tapeworms were requesting some food Elaine cleared the outside tables, cleaned the chairs and Elena started to serve lunch.  We had salad and rice and pasta and baked tomatoes and feta and some stuffed filo pastry parcels and Lola's favourite gigantes and bones and a meatball dish and it was all scrummy - not to mention the fact that we were able to wash it down with some very nice local wine!!

Elena's children returned from school and joined us around the table - almost the last day of November and here we were all sat outside enjoying the sun.  It was also a chance to make new friends - John has been persuaded by Irene to give badminton a go down in Polis on Monday afternoon whilst I am at Greek which should be good.  I got talking to Elaine (and Paul) from Akourdalia and hopefully Elaine might join us at our ladies lunches now and again.

Our meal was finished off with Elena's baked figs and her homemade fig icecream - not John's first choice but my idea of heaven!