Monday 21st January...

Fortunately it was fine and dry when we woke this morning as our new furniture was due to be delivered but we weren't exactly sure what time and knowing that access to our house is difficult and limited John had spent a fairly sleepless night trying to work out the angles!!!

He had a plan A which involved manoeuvring the sofas through the narrow gateway - if possible - and then straight in the house so he had gone out and stapled sheets to the gateway to try and protect the sofas if they were going to be passed through.

Plan B was to go through Paul's next door and lift the sofas up and over the wall/fence and Plan C would mean going through the field and lifting over the fence that way neither of which were ideal but we may not have had much choice!

When the delivery guys arrived they were none to impressed by the gap through the gateway but even less impressed by the thought of having to lift a very heavy king-sized sofa bed up and over any walls - John was convinced though that they could get through the gateway - he does after all have an engineers eye he tells me!!!

The men needed a bit of direction to get the pieces the right way round so that they could be jiggled round the gate and eventually the smaller one went through without too much problem.  This was, of course, the easier piece, smaller and lighter.  The sofa bed was much much more awkward - not least because it was bigger, heavier and had a cantilever mechanism that needed to be controlled as the unit was tipped up.  Still they did not have to go through next door or a field and up and over a fence!

Once inside the sofa bed also had to be lifted up and over the work surface in the kitchen.  Not a job for the faint hearted but fortunately the two delivery guys were strapping 'Jocks' who huffed and puffed a bit but got everything in place quicker than we had thought they would.  In fact at one point last night we wondered whether it would fit inside at all!

We offered the guys a cup of tea whilst they got their breath back but they declined!  But as John said - there is nothing like a good old work out to get you going first thing on a Monday morning!!!

So this is a picture of the smaller of the two sofas before we covered it up before the cats realised that they had two new scratching posts installed!!!  This is a serious sofa - the cushions have removable covers which are zipped and clipped in and the upholstery is scotch guarded micro fibre and apparently a bit of white spirit will remove the sticky mark that we found on the back.  It is very supportive and when I sit on it my feet do not touch the floor!!!!  Now we wish we hadn't got rid of the footstools we used to have - bugger!  We are also going to have to find a new coffee table.

We got everything in place in time for me to get down to Sheila and Klaus's for my Monday Morning Art Fix.

Do you know I really though I would have got further with this picture today than I did - blending blending blending takes forever - you cannot believe how many different colours go to make up the flowers which look ostensibly white.  At this rate I am not sure that I am going to get it finished for at least a couple of weeks by which time the first flower I did is going to need some major touching up!!! 

Anyway Sheila and Klaus are fine - Sheila is doing a fantastic job of the picture of her daughter's late boxer dog and after a conversation last week has given me rather a lovely Buddha to go with the ones I have at home.  I mustn't forget to rub his tummy and, if what my old college mate Hilary told me was correct, place him above the height of my head for good luck!!!

Lunch was schnitzel - I love schnitzel and they remind me so much of my late Aunty Margaret - along with Jaffa Cakes, Tinned Cherries and the Sound of Music - particularly Edelweiss.

John was picking me up and dropping me off at Greek as he had several errands he needed to do when down in Polis and there was no badminton today.  I walked down to the end of the road and took a look at the refurbishment of the Droushia Heights Hotel.  There are a lot of resources being thrown at it but I can't see that it will be open for April as we have been told!  

Today was my penultimate Greek lesson and I asked Sam to give me a bit of tuition on the future tense and the genitive case so that I will be able to say things like: I will go to the Garage on Monday (Θα πάω στο γκαράζ τη Δευτέρα) or I like my Mother's shoes (Μου αρέσουν τα παπούτσια μου μητέρες).  All good stuff!