Day 20...

Dont forget you can click on a small picture to open it in a larger view.

Saturday - what have we learned?  We have learned that all the sorts of shops we wanted to visit today like the tile shop and the door shop are not open on a Saturday strangely - you would have thought it was a good day to get in the DIY-ers who normally work during the week but apparently not - we are so going to have to get used to the idiosyncratic opening times for shops and businesses!

The London Supermarket Garden Centre however was open this morning so I went in and got some tomato plants and pepper plants to keep my little cucumber plants company.  As John keeps reminding me we are not supposed to be concentrating on the planting side of the garden just yet but I cant resist something to keep me interested - they will probably all fail but what the hell...

Anyway a big thank-you to my blog follower and good friend Joani for identifying the mystery plant from yesterday, she tells me "The plant is an Aeonium.  They come in lots of colours & shapes.  Black (schwartzkopf) is gorgeous. Take a cutting, pull off the bottom few leaves and sit it on top of a sandy compost, keep moist/damp but NOT wet."  I intend to ask Alkisti if I can give one a go - she was more than happy for mum to take a cutting of one of the geraniums last week.

We were all out today for lunch as Dad had been walking down near Coral Bay.  This is the more elderly walking group that he belongs to - it includes the indomitable Suzie who is 92 this year - she walks what she can manage and she had made a beautiful fruit cake well-laced with brandy for Mum and another Maureen who has just had a birthday.

We left the walkers to go up to Droushia for more painting and clearing up as Hils and Keith are coming up tomorrow so we want it to look as good as it can under the circumstances - we are arranging for us four and eight of the other band members to have a meal tomorrow afternoon at Cristos' Taverna before they go to Argaka for their final concert.  I now appear to have a new best friend as when I rang to book with Alkisti she spoke to me like she has known me for years.

The route to Droushia is a really pretty one and there never seems to be a time when there is much traffic on the road (see above).  We were hoping that the local DIY store (pictured on the right and nothing like B&Q I can tell you) might be open - we call it the Bed Store as the guy from here was the one who bought all our old furniture, including the beds, when we cleared the villa in November.  No such luck on a Saturday afternoon - duh we should have known!

The final little track up to our villa has artichokes growing all the way up - they look stunning when they flower but as they are quite a delicacy they rarely are allowed to get to that point. 

I love this view and will appreciate it for as long as it lasts - there is a very exclusive gated retirement community due to be built further up on the left hand side but which hasnt really begun yet and you can never tell whether or not the vineyards on the right will remain as vineyards - who knows?

Anyway we had a productive afternoon with John putting a coat of paint on the 'downstairs' toilet walls and me clearing all the plants that Mum and Dad had cut down from around our parking space.  I took great care because last year John and I found a small snake in amongst the ladies fingers plant which took us by surprise, actually I dont know who was more surprised us or the unsuspecting basking snake.   No snake this time though just a largish lizard like the one in the photograph - he didnt run off just kept running into the next handful that I picked up.  Eventually he got the message when there was no more rubbish left and high-tailed it into the lemon-scented geraniums.

I planted the tomato plants and the pepper plants in the front garden - not easy when all you have is a dessert spoon!!  I dont know whether a lavendar mulch will be any good but at least the plants will remain calm and get a good night's sleep!

Off round to Mum and Dad's neighbours Ray and Janice for a drink now - I will be taking it steady as we dont want a repeat of the other week when I knocked over the red wine!