Tuesday

This morning John wanted to get the steamer chair that he had started yesterday finished.  We had the morning spare before going down to Pickleball and Badminton and seeing Mum and Dad so he got on with the last remaining bit which was the arms.  It is a bit difficult completely capture on camera what a good job he has done but the original is on the right and the refurbed is on the left.  One down and one to go but I think they are going to look brilliant and it is exactly what we wanted for the decking outside the guest bedroom.

All sorts of things are springing to life in the garden now.  My grotty little cactus that I cannot bring myself to throw away and which gets seriously neglected has obviously decided to put on a bit of a show to remind me that it is there and that I should look after it.  For the first time ever it has flowered - bright cheerful orange blooms and there are quite a few more to come.  It gets a reprieve - for now at least!

I had been very worried that my clock-vine hadn't made it this year - it seemed to be so very late in putting on any signs of life but as I said a few days ago there were signs of movement and now the purply black new shoots are reaching for the sky.  It is hard to believe that by the autumn this vine will have reached up to the top of the kitchen and along the railings of the roof terrace filled out with leaves and sporting beautiful pale purple blooms.  I am so glad that it made it as it is a beautiful addition to the garden.

John and I shot down to Paphos - he needed some special plastic washers to complete the rebuild of the steamers and I wanted a quick look in the London Road garden centre place because I wanted to find a present for Jackie and Costas who we will be seeing later this week to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.  We decided upon a canna lily in pink - I forgot to take a picture of it as we have left it at mum's for safe keeping but this picture is about as near as I can find to the one which we bought.  There were all sorts of colours to chose from but the pink was really pretty.

I had to do a mercy dash for Elena after pickleball and collect some of her drugs from the cancer place in Paphos near Carrefour so took mum with me and we called into Carrefour and had a cuppa and then she wanted to look at the London Road place and get some compost for Dad so we did that and when we returned John was already back from badminton.

We had arranged to meet John and Susan at the Winery - it was Susan's Dad and Glenda's last night and they thought it would be nice to watch the sun go down with a glass of wine and a bit of cheese.  Diana and Rob decided they would like to do that too so we all set off to find that it was closed.  John had phoned at the weekend to ensure it would be open but we think they may had been at the funeral that we passed in Kathikas on our way home from Paphos.

We had to revert to Plan B and that was to sit at our favourite table in Fitos and sample a bit of Joanna's cooking!  Although not what we had intended to do it was a lovely evening and for once Diana managed to capture a picture of me the other side of the camera!!!

With building clouds bubbling up from the sea we just might have missed the sunset from the balcony at the winery so maybe we had been lucky afterall - the evening may just have been a bit chilly sitting outside and we were warm (maybe at times a little too warm) at Fitos and got the best view of the sun as it went down.