A nice quiet Monday...

Quite a nice quiet normal Monday today which started with art with Sheila.  My picture for Lola is progressing well although I looked at what I had managed to complete this morning and couldn't see it had changed much - the leaves need a lot of blending so this part of the picture will take time to complete and just to ring the changes I do a little of the butterfly now and again just to pick up some different colours!  On the original picture the butterfly is rather a vivid blue - it looks a bit unnatural and doesn't seem to blend with the lovely muted colours of the roses so I am planning to tone it down a bit.  Every time I see Lola she asks me how it is going and how long it will be before it is ready - time goes so slowly when you are a child!  I reckon it will be another two sessions and then I need to find a nice frame - I will be looking for a square one this time so I hope Jumbos or somewhere similar will oblige!

My walk home through the village is generally quite uneventful - it is rare to see anybody - there are a couple of weeks at the height of the season when there will be a few people milling about but now that the majority of the visiting Droushians have returned from whence they came it is back to being quiet.  My walk takes me past the lovely old family house of Georgia Agyropoulous - we have become friends through the internet and she follows news of her family home Droushia with relish when she is back in South Africa.  I am so glad that we actually got to meet a couple of weeks ago when she and her family ate at Orexi garden.

Georgia's plan is to return to the village at some point in the future and live in this house.   She says she wants to cook and paint and keep a goat - apparently it will have a dual purpose - one to keep the grass down (she should call it Flymo in that case) and two to headbutt any intruders!

We were very chuffed when Georgia complimented us on our village clean-up efforts the other Saturday - she had wanted to join us but family commitments dragged her away but she said the road looked fabulous and she then went from Droushia to Kathikas and was horrified by the amount of litter she encountered there.

On the subject of the clean-up I am sure we are slowly making an impact as we have been invited by the Mukhtar to have breakfast at his coffee shop when we complete the next one.  We must remember that we are not going to change attitudes and actions over-night and even though we have driven down the same road we cleaned tonight and seen some rubbish it wouldn't even fill one bag.

The weather today has been glorious - clear blue skies and warm temperatures - it is hard to believe that this is our autumn - the giveaway is over-ripe fruit on the trees and the road as I walk home - in places I traverse a sea of purple figs which have loosened their grip on their branches and slipped to the floor. It is getting harder and harder for George to reach these prized fruits so my regular morning delivery is getting more sporadic!

There are also pomegranates that have burst their banks - these look to be the 'sour' ones which have the bright red jewelled fruit inside and the dark red skins - they aren't sour - they are just tarter than the other ones which have pale skins and pale fruit and which people are never sure whether they are ripe or not.  Mum' neighbour keeps me well stocked with pomegranates and I do try and make sure I use them or give them away.  She also keeps me stocked with the massive marrow/pumpkin things which are more like a butternut squash when you get inside.  The only problem is that the ones she produces are massive - they would feed a small army and unless I want to make a gallon of soup I struggle to use them up.  They are growing black eyed beans in the field next to Mum and Dad - now there is something that we never mind receiving - I make a really mean curry with them even if I do say so myself.

We have a day on a boat tomorrow to celebrate H's 60th birthday - poor Louise has been trying to organise this for months and it has been a nightmare and then the weather forecast looked like it was going to scupper things - we have put together a box of goodies for him to enjoy when he gets some free time from dogging - hope he enjoys his goody box!

It was a particularly hot and sticky night at belly dancing tonight and we are struggling to fit the routine to the music and we did bar work without even a sniff of a gin and tonic - that can't be right surely?