Monday - my picture is complete...

I realised this morning that I was hugely insensitive yesterday when I asked Elena to pick me up a pork pie from the Farmer's Market in Akourdaleia and then get Bassam to transport it in his car!!!!  How did it not occur to me that Bassam and Pork do not go together!

John is a lover of a good pork pie so I was getting this one in as a taster now that our previous supplier has left the island - such a shame as they made such a good pork pie we thought we had it cracked.  Still this one does look quite nice...

...the official verdict is that, for us, it needed just a little more seasoning than it had but I do reiterate that this was our opinion according to our tastebuds because we like out savouries to have more than a hint of black pepper which is why, when dad is making pasties, we say you can never seem to get enough black pepper into them.   Back to the pork pie in question - good pastry but maybe not enough jelly for us but again not everyone likes the jelly so we could live with that!  Overall not a bad pork-pie as pork-pies go!

I left John working in the garden to go to art this morning.  Poor John's fingers have been worked to the bone, literally, as he has cavernous splits on all but his pinkies and is suffering with them dreadfully.  He says that he cannot work with gloves on but this would clearly help.

Anyway I digress - back at the Knips' and after a hard morning of colouring Sheila and I took a turn around the garden before lunch.

Sheila and Klaus have a very pretty established garden and their jasmine plant is absolutely outstanding - the smell is so heady and strong it is a shame we dont have the ability to include the scent along with this blog.

Sheila has a mystery plant which is currently flowering in amongst their hedge.  It looks a little like a loose lilac flower but has no scent but has pretty heart shaped leaves.  Does anyone recognise this?  It has clearly been there for some time as the stem is a good centimetre thick.  I shall have to get my sleuth head on and see if I can find it somewhere on tintyweb!

Sheila and Klaus have two dogs Benji and Charlie, Benji generally ignores me but Charlie always wants to come and greet me when I arrive. Whislt we were out in the garden they had obviously spied something we couldn't see as their attention was drawn to the area above the car - Sheila and I couldn't see anything but guess there must have been a cat or something up there.

It was a lovely lovely day - almost warm enough to consider eating outside!!!  What a difference to have real warmth in the sun and no cold wind.  This weather has really spurred us on into getting the garden completed and John is doing a really good job - I know that he is never really satisfied unless he does a job himself but we don't always have the time or the expertise but at least if he does a job and cocks it up he only has himself to blame which is why it has been so difficult to watch 'professionals' make a real cock-up on the last two projects we have undertaken.

Anyway enough of that - I had a great morning and have finally finished the picture of the little boy on the beach and I am very pleased with how it has turned out.  The only problem now is that I have to find the subject for my next picture and although a couple of people have asked if I can do something for them nothing concrete has come of it so far.

I shall search through my photographs and the free images on the internet and see what I can come up with.

This afternoon I was going down to Polis to C&A Apartments before going to Belly Dancing.  Unbelievably the temperature in the car in Droushia when I left just before 4.00pm was 28 degrees!

I had been asked to go to the Apartments by Nitsa because she wants me to make some garden signs for her mum and for the holidaymakers to enjoy.  I am more than happy to help them out.  Nitsa has been very poorly of late and without her and her family and the apartments we know that John's Mum and Stepdad couldn't and wouldn't be able to come over and visit us.  I now have a list of signs and will have to get my act together for them!!!