This morning before I did anything else I made sure that our guest bedroom was cleaned and a cat-free zone as, if all goes well Wendy and Bill will be coming tomorrow for my birthday and staying overnight after we have seen the brilliant Alice Zawadski singing at the Droushia Heights Hotel.

John was tackling the black hole that is our 'downstairs' toilet - mad that because we live in a single storey dwelling so all our rooms are downstairs but we have  always referred to it as such - it is the dark little toilet which is next to the kitchen and which is cold as it gets little to no sunlight.  We have had some bits of mould appearing on the walls and where I lit candles to make it feel warmer in there they smoked terribly and made the back wall all dirty.  We felt a bit of TLC and a freshen up would do it good and in the end we decided to replace the toilet (the originally fitted one which has seen better days) and the handbasin and the light.

Today is International Women's Day and I was going down to Beauty by Kate to have a complementary make up lesson by Salome (Sally) which was all very exciting and a nice start to my birthday (tomorrow).

It was a bright and sunny start to the morning which is good news as we have a coptic storm due on 10th March which is the one which brings with it gales which are due to last about 6 days - deep joy as this causes havoc in the garden.  I parked in the rough car-park where the lovely old colonial building (which I always thought would be ripe for development by someone like our lovely friend John Boulton) is well into its refurbishment.  The hanging balcony at the back isn't currently there so I hope it is just being restored as it was a lovely feature to the original building.  Balking through the archway Polis appeared to be bustling.

Just round the corner I found Sheila manning That Nice Shop and I had hoped to join her for coffee after my make-up lesson had it not taken an hour and a half and three bags of Polyfilla!!!  If you haven't been to That Nice Shop then go and take a look - it is full of all sorts of craft items including some of Sheila's paintings and some of Klaus's gourds.

It is a daunting thing to be seen in daylight without any makeup on at all and the camera angle from a selfie is totally unflattering at the best of times but I looked and felt all of my 56 (soon to be 57) years.  Life has never been kind to my skin and it has lurched from acne to sun damage and wrinkles in the blink of an eye.  I have no idea about makeup and am not really a fan but I can see what a difference well applied slap can make.  I had an even complexion, cheekbones and eyebrows and an enthusiasm to try and recreate a little of this at home but John felt it was too much - so maybe we need to find a happy medium.

It was a lovely atmosphere in the salon and I am sure that those of us who were lucky enough to receive treatments were very grateful to the girls for giving up their time to pamper us so a big thank you to Sally, Sia and Kate and thanks to Anne Cakes for the beautiful cupcakes oh yes and I mustn't forget the lovely selection of traditional sweeties from Toot Sweets which Sally gave me as I left.  What a great way to start my birthday celebrations - I will just have to sleep sitting up so that the makeup remains untouched until tomorrow - no hope of that I am afraid so I am just going to have to borrow one of John's trowels and try for myself.

I felt guilty for having been out longer than I had anticipated but John was at a point with his DIY where he was waiting for things to dry so we had lunch together and Rob and Di called in for a chat  and the post before starting to tackle things again.  John wants to make sure that at least the toilet is usable tomorrow and there isn't stuff everywhere.

The walls have been treated and had a couple of coats of paint - John doesn't really like painting although I don't mind so I got the job of eggshelling the wooden panels at the bottom.  They look so much better but because it is cold or at least we think because it is cold it doesn't seem to be drying very quickly which is a bit of a bugger.  John still has the conundrum of the sink waste to try and sort out - the cabinet that hangs under the sink is not very big and so the waste that is currently there is too long.  Anyway we managed to get it to a point where he was happy to leave it but not before I had knocked over the bottle of white spirit.