Sunday - Happy Birthday Hywel

This morning we had a slow start to the day because, unusually, we were not seeing Mum and Dad today as we had been invited to share a meze with H and Lou, Lou's mum and Claire and Mina from Hounds on Holiday at Pangratios Tavern in Miliou.  The meze there is very traditional so not really mum's cup of tea!

The weather has most certainly changed this weekend - storms are forecast and the sky this morning was overcast and threatening.  The bee-eaters were assembling on the electricity wires and singing away with their very distinctive song.  I am guessing it wont be long before they are on their way again and then Summer really will be well and truly over.

Early in the morning after a bit of rain the garden looks lovely.  The column of Morning Glory is particularly stunning it is just a shame that the blooms last for only a couple of hours.  Having had a good look at them I should be able to harvest plenty of seeds for next year which is great because I am keen to grow climbers up the legs of the various gazebos we have dotted around the garden.  These were grown from a cheap packet of seeds I picked up from a visit to a garden centre with my sister on one of my visits and they are a beautiful mix of colours.  The striped ones are a particular favourite of mine so it will be great to have more of them dotted around.

As part of the ladder making John did yesterday he made a frame so that I can begin to hide my plastic shed.  I have to thank Rob and Diana for the wood and John for the idea of using the black slate tiles I had decorated with Chinese words.  We have a blue flowering periwinkle courtesy of Klaus and Sheila planted in one corner and I will encourage it to climb around the frame and hide the boring beige plastic.  This little corner is going to be my oriental corner and I have finally found a home for the various Buddha that we have collected on our travels.

As we were going to be eating a large meal later today we decided to have a bit of a brunch to tide us over.  I had been given some lovely free range eggs by Pam next door.  She and George have friends that live in Inea who must keep chickens and they had brought them a load when they came to visit a couple of days ago.  They were delicious and had absolutely brilliant yellow yolks.

The weather deteriorated rapidly and we were treated to an absolutely amazing storm - in fact there were two storms raging and the thunder never stopped - once it had clapped furiously above the house you could then hear it rumbling down the valley towards the sea.  The raindrops were massive and at one point were mixed with hail.  We were treated to an amazing show of lightning before things began to calm down.

I watched the storms from the safety of our memento corner - mindful that bits of the gazebo are metal!!!  I would have loved to have captured the lightning but everytime I clicked the shutter it was either a second too early or a second too late and as the storm continued it got everso slightly scary and I thought it would be wise to retreat indoors.  The storm moved down the hill towards Prodromi and Argaka and we were glad to see the back of it.

This afternoon John put himself through the pain of watching the mighty Sheffield United on television playing Bradford.  Oh My God I learned language I had never heard before when the Blades went 2-0 down.  John was practically apoplectic until miraculously they managed to pull both goals back and the game ended in a 2-2 draw but by this time he would have sacked the manager and taken the players to the centre circle and had them shot, to say that he is passionate is an understatement - I am sure it is one of those pleasure pain things when you support the Blades and generally much more pain than pleasure!

I kept well out of the way and decided to get one of the gourds hanging in the conservatory scraped clean ready for decoration.  I also collected a whole load of seeds from the gourd that split so that if someone wants to grow them next year they can give me a shout and I can let them have some seeds if they want them.

I really need to get my arse into gear as I have normally started making Christmas cards by now and someone has already asked me to make them some and I have done nothing - I bet Irene in the village can tell me exactly how many days there are to go as she loves Christmas

As I said earlier we were off out for H's birthday and to make an old man very happy I thought I would honour the occasion with my finest heels although probably not the bestest idea in the world as I had forgotten that the taverna is situated on a road that is cobbled and so I would probably end up looking like Dick Emery staggering down the street!

I almost never wear shoes nowadays preferring flipflops instead, in fact the last time I wore these shoes was at Helen's 50th birthday party a year ago last May!!  I did get them on and I did totter to the car and I did think I might have been sensible to have put a spare pair of flats as a contingency plan.  This was reinforced when we got to the taverna and I saw exactly how uneven the road was!

So as I said it was H's birthday - not his big one that is next year but all birthdays are worth celebrating!  We joined Lou and H and Lou's mum Pat and Mina and Claire for a meze.

Mum would have died at the last course, I think Pat very nearly did when we were served meat from a sheep's head - brain and cheek apparently!!!  That has got to rate up there with the gonads we declined the last time we had a meze at Costas in Koloni!

I leave with a photograph of Mr and Mrs Jones tripping the light fantastic to the strains of Me-e a-and Mrs Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones.. We gotta thang goin on!