Sunday - thrills and spills

Today is Sunday and we have mum coming up for a barbeque.  We had everything ready early and were sorting out where to sit and where to eat because it was exceptionally hot and we wanted to make sure there was enough shade.

This was John enjoying an early shandy before that particular chair decided to give way in the middle of our game of Rummikub.  It was all a bit of a shock as we had had what sounded and felt like a mini tornado whip through the garden and then John's chair collapsed and he fell to the ground wedged in the chair and with his hand trapped under a very large flower pot.

It was all a bit chaotic and as we rushed to help him he was a bit snappy but I think that was the surprise of it all plus he knows he isn't a lightweight to pick up and he had visions of Mum doing her back in.  Anyway I managed to get him up and we are now a chair short and he has some bruises and worse, he didn't do his poorly knee any good and he felt really awful for shouting at mum.

So that was the spills side of the day which we could have done without.

The thrills came because we managed to persuade mum to come and have a cool off in our pool and she even had a little swim around.  I still had one of her old swimming costumes in the cupboard and as the pool temperature is nearing 90 degrees there was no excuse.

We had a splash around for half an hour or so before the barbeque and it meant that the day flowed nicely (apart from the chair incident) we had a swim, we ate, we played a game and then towards late afternoon mum made her way home in the daylight.

Next week Hazel will be here and it will be the first full day of her holiday and so I have asked mum if she would like to come up again and we can all five go out for something to eat down in Latchi for a change.  Then I will do the following Sunday so I will have to have a think about what we are going to eat.  I always like to try and make sure it is something mum might fancy because I know how she struggles with her appetite when it is hot and boy is it hot at the moment even here in Droushia where the temperatures have been over 40 degrees during the day.

I hope mum enjoyed the barbeque because we kept it simple with some chicken skewers, beef burgers and sausages served with wedges and coleslaw and some of mum's homemade barbeque sauce.  John did really well with the cooking even though he was concerned about the thickness of the burgers as they were cook from frozen and as they are all meat they are about 2 inches thick and take some cooking - actually I blame the burger for the chair collapsing - if John had stuck to chicken and sausage it would have been fine.

So after lunch we had the excitement with the whirlwind thing and the chair collapsing and the struggle to get John up all of which contributed to me being arse end Charlie in the Rummikub stakes.

Mum made her way safely home and we settled down to watch the remainder of the tennis interspersed with the World Cup Final - John has found some real ales lurking in the drink's fridge which are probably nearing their best by date if they have not already passed it!  Case in point was this Christmas Ale but John said it was especially nice so we will have to keep a look out in the Winter for it again.  There have been no UK Ales in the supermarket for weeks - I reckon it is too hot to ship and store them so we are hoping they will return in the Winter.

The men's tennis final was a bit of a Djokovic whitewash as he beat Anderson in straight sets and the French hammered the Croatia team 4-2 in the football final and then Jamie Murray and his partner (but particularly Jamie) were woeful in the mixed doubles final.

There was nothing left for us to do but to head for the pool and cool down in the dark when the water temperature is just like a bath but only if you do the going in, getting out and get cold then go back in routine which we kept doing because the warm sensation when you get back in is lovely and then you can float and watch the stars which is bliss.

We had some company - a little tree frog was in the pool.  John rescued it and I put it somewhere safe because I didn't want the cats to get hold of it - that wouldn't be good for the frog or the cats.  When we first moved over we used to see them all the time but now it is quite a rare thing although we can hear them.

We hoped that like last night it might afford us a better night's sleep plus John had taken some anti-inflammatory tablets and pain killers.  All that seemed to work for John, I on the other hand was awake at 3.00am for some reason - I think it was because I could hear Charlie making a strange noise and that normally means he has got something and I wanted to make sure it wasn't Mr Frog.  As far as I could tell it wasn't which is good news.