Make do and mend...

At the end of the day, after our supper, we sit down to watch some TV and we are somewhat obsessed with two programmes at the moment - one follows the other and they are New Life in the Sun and Escape to the Chateau DIY.  I think the fascination with New Life in the Sun is seeing who has chosen to live abroad and why they moved and the challenges they are facing, not least with the random build of European properties.  It makes us feel a little bit better about our little house in Droushia which is not without its issues but is much better than some.  We particularly like seeing what the rather stoic Northern Family with two adopted children are going to do next.  They have a fabulous 'roll up your sleeves and get on with it" attitude and, without wanting to sound judgemental, did not look like the sort of people who would contemplate a 'foreign' lifestyle but bless them they have embraced whatever is thrown at them and are coming out on top unlike some who embark on the 'adventure' with no money, no idea and no hope of succeeding.

John slightly shudders when we watch Escape to the Chateau DIY because he thinks it gives me ideas about decorating which of course it does!!!  I like watching this because we have lovely friend John and Sue who bought not one but two old properties in a beautiful medieval town in the Limousin and the carefully restored one and reluctantly sold the other when Sue's health began to really deteriorate.  They are the equivalent to Dick and Angel Strawbridge!

Angel is a nutter but full of fabulous ideas and she can rock a headscarf - unfortunately the same cannot be said for me but today it was the lesser of two evils as normally on a bad hair day we get Rob and Di up delivering post leaving me feeling less than glamorous!!!  John calls it my Land Girls look but it seemed a good idea as we were up and out working around the the house and garden so showers and sprucing ourselves up was going to have to wait until later in the day when the sun had provided us with some good hot water.

The other thing about Angel is that she isn't seen doing the dirty heavy DIY jobs she is the one that tackles the 'pretty' jobs involving frou-frou, lace and flowers!!!  This week she was showing someone how to upholster an ancient and beautiful antique sofa.  I now want to get our old birthing chair reupholstered and the two tub chairs!!

I guess that all good crafts people have to start small but far from upholstering a classic piece of furniture today I was reduced to repairing John's trusty swimming pool skimming net!!!!  This is thriftiness to the extreme but apparently trying to get a net with the right sized holes is difficult and John likes this one - I think it may last two or three more goes that's all!!!

Anyway I did the job I was given and then channelled my inner Angel and did a frou-frou job which was making a birthday card for Mum to give to her friend Sue next week.  I have got rid of a lot of my crafting stuff so I struggled a bit for inspiration with what I had to use.

John decided to go and prune the 'mock' pear which is in the field next door - it is getting quite tall and is quite old and when it is extremely windy (coming from the direction of Turkey) we sometimes worry that it might blow over and if it came in the wrong direction it would come crashing down onto our wall and fence.  Charlie was supervising from a distance!!!  He doesn't venture very far now preferring the safety of the garden which is fine by us.

Whilst John was outside he had a phone call from Stephanos to inform us that he had now had a delivery of Oak which we have been waiting for and he was planning to bring it this afternoon which meant making room in the woodstore and that scuppered my plans for us to go out for a ride this afternoon because John then had to take Stephanos across to Arodes to deliver a load over there.

Whilst he was doing that I set to with the wheel barrow to move the delivery from the front of the house to the back and I managed to get more than half of it done before John returned - unfortunately I whacked my finger good and proper in the process and ended up with a knuckle twice the size as it should have been - that would never have happened to Angel - she would have been busy planning what to make with the logs - not shifting them!!

We had a fabulous day weather wise - such a shame it hadn't been like that yesterday for Jane's birthday - after all the bad weather and the resulting detritus that accumulates in the pool John has worked hard to get it looking clean and sparkly - quite inviting really but I didn't brave the cold weather to check the thermometer which is underneath Duck.  It seems like it will be a long time before I am back in there again!!!

After some leftover Stifado for supper - with some leftover Cypriot Orange Pie which John says is the Dogs Doodahs we settled down for our two favourite programmes - bliss.