Wednesday 21 October 2015

Everything is against me

All our trusty technology is beginning to fail and my beloved Blackberry has died - it is the battery I think as it ran out of charge yesterday and will not charge up again.  I love that phone and I have fingers that simply will not work with a touch screen so now I am stuck and it feels like my right arm has been cut off - the only spare handset I have got is a touchscreen and that has been lobbed across the kitchen a couple of times now already.  I am in despair...


Today we can be sure that Autumn is well and truly upon us as the pickleball season will commence this afternoon.  John is going to badminton and then we are going to meet up with our old friends Costas and Jacky (owners of Tea for Two) with mum and dad at a taverna in Emba.  It was going to be a late night so we decided to have a bit of time relaxing this morning.


Boris is the most cuddly of cats and this morning he was sound asleep stretched right out on John's legs and in this comatose state did a complete forward roll before snoozing with his head wedged between John's feet - nutter! (Boris not John).  The cats are a constant source of angst or amusement and I know which one I prefer.


John is gradually falling apart much like our technology and if he isn't suffering with a dodgy elbow it is his ankles that are letting him down.  We bought that self sticky bandaging for Chivers when he managed to take a sliver of skin off of his back a couple of years ago and it wouldn't heal without being covered.  The bandaging was useless so we had to resort to making him a jumper out of one of John's socks!


At pickleball we had to re-lay the white lines marking out the court before we could play and because of the limitations of the size of the room we have to compromise on the size of the court but then we are all playing under the same conditions so it really doesn't matter.  The summer recess had done nothing for my game and it took me quite a while to get used to the ball, the bat and the court - that is my excuse anyway and I am sticking to it.  Mum is continuing to play keeping an eye on how she feels as she knows she is nursing a leaky heart valve.  Anyway today felt like the longest hour and a half on record and I bet I will suffer tomorrow!


What is it with cats and feet?  When we got back to Mum and Dad's their adopted stray Fred was very firmly settled in between Dad's - he is going to have one or other of them over in the future I can see it coming but they love him to bits and he has turned into a really lovely, if not a little chunky, companion for them.  He certainly knew what he was doing when he started hanging around their house - he will be killed by kindness if he isn't careful!

Mum and Dad have struggled to get some sort of garden established - they are up against it because it gets so very hot where they are living but they have persevered and with the help of their gardener Graham have managed to create a lovely space to the front and down the side of the bungalow.

They have still had some casualties over the summer - plants which you would have thought would have thrived but sadly not, but the solanums and ornamental grasses are looking stunning and have added some shape and structure to the garden.


Dad has been tying to grow some Jerusalem Artichokes for me and he read that they could be harvested after they have flowered.  The original tubers have really struggled but those which grew have now flowered - sadly the crop from the first one harvested was very uninspiring - I have suggested that Dad uses them as his next year's seed tubers.

As I said we were meeting up with Costas and Jacky this evening at the taverna in Emba which is by the church and which is now called To Steki tou Thanasi and which used to be called Amazing Emba and that was where I inadvertently we'ed on my old Blackberry mobile when it fell out of my pocket and down the toilet pan without me noticing until I came to flush (it did survive but was never really the same afterwards).

Mum and Dad had tried the taverna previously with Aunty Joyce and Uncle David and had really liked it.  Costas and Jacky were really impressed with the meze which contained lots of different dishes rather than the standard fayre.  John and I made the mistake of having a large starter and then struggling to eat our main courses.

It was a lovely evening - lots of laughs and lots of food - and a promise that we will try and get together as a group a little more often than we have managed this year.

Finally I am so pleased to report that it was good news for Elena at oncology - clearly the homeopathic gunk she is drinking every day is having a positive effect.

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