Tidying up...

Up with the larks again this morning - an attempt to beat the heat which in Mid September seems to be even hotter than it was in August.  Fingers crossed it stays for a while longer yet as we have visitors arriving this weekend and mid-week next week. 

The reason for the early start was to tackle the front garden at George and Pam's so that Malcolm and Louise have a chance of getting in the front door.  Everything has grown out of control and we are beginning to wish we had not planted the seeds for the multi-coloured flowering plant as it is now everywhere and this without any TLC or water!!!  Our efforts were overseen by Chivers and occasionally by Charlie and we have to remember to do a headcount when we finish otherwise one or other of them can end up being shut indoors and now it is all clean and tidy we don't want them and their cat hairs all over the place.  

Things are looking a little more tidy now - and it is a shame to get rid of all the colour plus the plants give off the most fabulous smell in the evenings so when you are coming home it is a very pleasant experience - in fact as you come into the estate the Pakistani Jasmine Tree at Savvas and Persephone's fills the air with a heady scent.  

We did the headcount - all cats accounted for but poor Charlie has been confused this year not to have had his Koumbaris George spoiling him.  Lakis is a poor substitute because he is allergic to cats and whilst he doesn't mind them in the garden with him he does NOT want to touch them or be touched by them and of course they don't know that and try and wrap themselves around his legs!

John was waiting for Stephanos to come and sort out the wood burner so I popped down to Polis to do some shopping in readiness for the weekend when we have Mike coming to stay - I shall have to go down again on Saturday or Sunday morning to get the few things which Louise wants but I want to get them fresh.  Whilst I was in Paps I was tickled to see that they were selling a luxury Lamb Moussaka - from ICELAND!!!!!!  is that not coals to Newcastle???  I have decided that Wednesday afternoon is a great time to go to Paps.  The majority of the rest of the town is on half day closing so the supermarket was much less busy than I expected - quite a joy really to shoot round and get what I wanted.

When I returned home Stephanos and his worker were here and sorting out the new pipework for our fire.  I have to say they were pretty neat and tidy (save for a bit of painting that will be required on the outside where the pipe goes through.  We also purchased a load of lemon wood from Stephanos which will keep us warm in the winter - it was a good load, bone dry and big pieces.  We have some walnut left over from last year and still have wood down at John Read's so we should be fine for a while yet and now that the wood burner seems to have been positioned better away from the wall Stephanos says it will be more efficient - a win win then - so maybe it was not such a bad thing that John found the hole in the stack pipe even though we had not anticipated that bit of expenditure at this particular moment in time!

We were just beginning to get sorted when we had two lots of visitors - firstly Mike called in with Maisie although he didn't come into the garden in case Maisie and the cats didn't get on.  He had been to Latchi and taken her with him for lunch at the Souli.  We made our arrangements for the weekend and he will be with us when we return from pickleball on Friday.

We also had a visit from Lakis - it makes a change to be able to welcome him into our garden and offer him a beer rather than to go into his.

He has a couple of little jobs John is going to sort for him including fitting some lights and constructing a wine rack!!!

All in all we were pleased with the work done today - we need to go and get a smoke bomb tester from Stephanos (he didn't have any) just so we can check everything is sealed correctly but it was a neat job that they did - very much more professional than when we originally had it fitted by a different company - they seemed to go mad with silicon everywhere and not very neatly at that.