Wednesday March 27th...

Crafty Jane very kindly held a crafty Wednesday at her house today.  Jeannette is on a flying visit back to the UK for a check-up on her progress so we could not have gone to Neo Chorio anyway.  There were four of us at Arodes - Jane (obviously), Vicki, Pauline and me.  I was a duffer and left my camera at home so I have no shots of our group nor of Jane's house nor the lovely new water feature that she has built in the garden - there is something very relaxing about the sound of running water - unless you have a full bladder of course!

I am continuing working on my lazy susan but think I am going to run out of the plain grey tiles I am using as the background so wonder whether I might introduce a couple of bees or something to break it up.  Having got a bit bored with the tiling and having jabbed my thumb with a sharp bit of tile I decided to do something different and created a beaded gecko on a stone for something to do.  I really need to sort myself out a project I can get my teeth into but I don't know what!

I know that my friends Sharon and Sean read the blog so I thought they would be pleased to see that the tin of grow your own Lavender they gave me is beginning to sprout. 

Both John and I thought it was a tin of air freshener so were a bit surprised to open the lid and find it full of compost!

Sharon and Sean sent us a photograph of their garden in the snow this week - they must have really felt the difference in temperatures from leaving here in lovely sunshine and returning to blizzard conditions! Anyway we hope they will be able to come back soon for more sunshine - we have missed not having them up the road and the estate is very quiet again.  

We guess that there may be quite a lot up here over the Cypriot Easter which is not until May but will have to wait and see how much our Nicosian neighbours have been affected by the events of the last week hopefully they are OK.  On that subject I was very pleasantly surprised to have a phone call from Angela (3b) from London to ask if John and I were OK as she had been following the news closely.  We had thought she and her husband might have been out soon but she is still recovering from the operation on her foot.

When I got back from Craft John was keen to get our props ready for the Charity Race Night at the bowling alley tomorrow.  Apparently there is a prize for the best dressed table (or should that be stable?) and those of you who know us will know that John is a stickler for detail when it comes to fancy dress and he gets cross with me for not taking it seriously!!  I think it is because a fancy dress event was such a big deal when he was on board ship.  Anyway Wheelie Al has already been supplied with his fancy dress, John has his outfit complete, we others who are jockeys just have to wear jeans as 'colours and caps' will be provided on the night.

I had bought a piece of pork loin that I had earmarked for Sunday lunch but then Mum had kindly provided pork chops so it had been sat in the fridge and needed eating as I have NO room for anything else in the freezer thanks to Paul (Dave Coaches).  It seemed quite decadent to have pork loin on a bed of sauteed vegetables and a nice big crispy jacket potato but John wasn't complaining - this is probably one of his most favourite meals!

The evenings are getting much warmer although if we have a very bright day and clear skies the temperatures still plummet to single figures.

With quite a lot of 'free wood' that is dry and ready to burn we decided to light the wood burner for what will probably be one of the last times this spring (must remember that the clocks change this weekend!!).

We are so glad that we found the money to have the wood burner installed - it has made such a difference to the house.  Not least because it gives quite a dry heat and so we have had less issues with condensation this year and I have told John that I don't mind if a corner of the garden looks like it belongs to the Clampetts if it is full of wood for burning!