Sunday - neighbour's clear-up

We kept the cats locked out of the bedroom last night but Charlie then decided that he would scratch incessantly at the bedroom building main door instead but at least not until about 7.00am!  I got up and wandered over to the kitchen to be greeted by the most amazing sky as the sun was rising.  I thought that this cloud formation might have meant that today would not have been very warm but it has been a fabulous day.

We could hear voices on the estate and there was a car and truck we were not familiar with so we did our neighbourhood watch thing and it transpired that it was the owners of 2B who had come with workers to start clearing the property to do it up and come and stay more often.  They have started by stipping the plants and weeds from the garden area.  They will have to dig out or kill the roots of things like the oleander because as sure as eggs is eggs they will be back again and twice as vigorous after a haircut.  We had a chat and left them to it as we had wood to stack!

We have wood for the winter - brought last night by John - we shall be warm this year - but then my John makes sure we are warm every year!!  This was good seasoned hard wood and it will do us well along with the pine and the driftwood we have stashed away from previous years!

There is a recurring theme with the blog at the moment - my dining table laid for guests - today it was Mum and Dad coming up for lunch as it was my turn.  I had gone for one of Dad's favourites and something simple after all the rich food we have eaten recently - so it was a shepherd's pie with carrots and peas followed by a baked rice-pudding (lots of rice left over from Friday) with a passion fruit and kiwi coulis to counteract the sweetness of the pudding.  Rather a bit more comfort food than the temperature required - a salad would have been more appropriate!

It being such a beautiful day that having got the lunch sorted I decided to cut back one of the Gaura which was getting out of hand.

I very nearly grabbed hold of this massive grasshopper locust like creature that was buried deep inside the bush.  I managed to flick it away and fortunately it didn't fly as I really don't like them when they fly.

I should have put it in a jam jar and given it to Rob Veasey to add to his wildlife collection because he is fascinated by the bugs that we have over here!!

As there were strangers in the area the cats stayed around the house.  Charlie has moved out of the laundry basket temporarily to take up the top bunk.  Boris has been relegated to the bottom bunk.  Typical that every time we think about chucking this thing away as it has seen better days the cats stage a sit in or rather a lie in and then it gets a reprieve for a while.  I think I am going to have to get John to build something a bit more aesthetically pleasing particularly if we do go ahead and tile the conservatory which we keep talking about - then it will be a posh space which will need the appropriate pieces of furniture!!

We really could have eaten outside today but having already laid the table we left things there and decided to sit outside under the gazebo to play our regular game of cards.  It was so peaceful out there today - no sounds of hunters and no sounds of a fire somewhere nearby, periodically we could hear the 'gardeners' clearing 2B but apart from that nothing.  Looking back at the weather when I recorded it previously it would appear that we regularly get an Indian Summer around this time of the year.  It would be a great time for people to visit - just before the clocks change.  On that subject I had a lovely text from my oldest friend (in time not years lived) Hazel yesterday with a picture of her new dog Lily .  Haze has had a bit of a rough time this year which culminated in her taking retirement from her teaching job through ill health.  She is now getting used to and enjoying her retirement and the arrival of Lily is the icing on the cake.  She said that she hoped that she would be able to come and visit next year if her son will look after Lily and I am so excited that she is thinking about it and then she text to say - I MISS YOU - and those three words very nearly reduced me to tears because I miss her too we go back such a long way and have so many shared memories.  I have my fingers very firmly crossed that we can be back in one another's company real soon.

Mum is convinced that our seating arrangement this afternoon caused us to lose today's cribbage challenge big style.  Talk about not picking up a decent hand - I don't reckon that in any of the games before lunch I had a hand in double figures and the fact that we died in the hole on the first game didn't help - this means that we were one short of completing the game before John and Dad.

The people from 2B called in to let us know that they were leaving for today and we went and had a look at the progress that had been made.  It is so nice to see that the front is no longer a wilderness and somewhere to harbour snakes!  It just goes to show that with just a little effort these properties can look so much better.

The work has resulted in one of the large dinosaur-type lizard being made homeless - it was scurrying around looking very confused as to where its des-res had gone.  It was only a matter of minutes before it decided to take up residence in the electric meter!!