Snakes but no ladders...

We had agreed with our neighbours that, if Bassam finished yesterday and we had cleaned up sufficiently this morning, we would be free to go to lunch with them (Lakis, Argy and Kia).  We made sure that we were and we went across to the Winery at Vassilikon to try out their new menu.  This has been in place for a while, in fact Mum had even been there and tried it before us, but we had not had the opportunity to try it as yet.

We like the Winery so it is no hardship to go and their new menu is a bit of a revelation.  Lakis chose to have lamb chops, John had a pork chop and Kia, Argy and I all plumped for the salmon.    All nicely cooked and beautifully presented my only comment would be that I would have liked more sauce with my salmon because it was absolutely delicious but that would have been being super picky and I could have just asked!



Everyone seemed to enjoy their food and the wine is always lovely and I am glad that I can now drink white wine - previously it used to give me chronic heartburn but the white here doesn't have that effect on me and went superbly with the salmon.



We had great excitement on our return to Lordos 1 - there was a baby whipsnake caught in the corner of the road which was too small or too exhausted to get up onto the footpath and then escape to safety.  Eventually John managed to give it a helping hand with his snake stick.  These are "good" snakes as they keep vermin and more dangerous snakes at bay although most Cypriots here have an inherent fear of snakes and regard them all as bad.

Friday

A memory appeared on our social media timeline today from about four years ago when Mum and Dad had come up to celebrate Father's day which we had apparently started with a bottle of wine in Finnikas.  I had totally forgotten this but the photograph jogged my memory.  Dad looks to be regaling Mum with some old tale or another!!!

When I was in the UK I met up with my "cousin" Frank (second cousin) and as we were talking about families I said I thought his Gran (my great aunt Alice) had been married to a boxer but Frank's mum Jan has put us right on this score and she has written to Mum and put down what she remembers about those family members which will be brilliant information for my sister who is trying to piece together that side of the family tree.

Lawyer Langdon and Boxer Langdon sound interesting but sadly I cannot find any information about either of them as yet.

My sister is going to need a bloody great big piece of paper at this rate because it looks like my Gran, Harriet Ivy or Ivy as Jan refers to her was one of 11 children and she herself (Harriet not Jan) went on to have 12 we think!

Pickleball was hot and sticky - we had to resort to switching on the mega fan in the corner!!!  Good games as usual and Liselotte is back next week so that will ease the rotations somewhat.  On our return to Mum's her neighbour Effie was sitting outside - we don't see her so often now - I think her back is pretty bad to her mobility isn't so good despite having had an operation to resolve the issue.  We stopped for a chat and sat outside with her to have a cold drink and a catch up.

On our return home we set about getting the front part of the garden cleaned and tidied so that we could dress the decking with the daybed that we have bought.  I have spent ages making cushion covers out of some old curtains we had knocking about.  We pressure washed the wood and put the rails back up and moved the gazebo back into place and dug out the old gazebo curtains and then dismantled the day bed from the back and brought it to the front then finally made up the day bed before testing it out with a real ale and a cat!!!



It needs a few tweaks but on the whole we are chuffed with the look, feel and comfort and Mr Boo was in full agreement.  John has even given up one of his wood storage boxes so that I can use it to store the cushions at night so they don't get damp.  We are getting there but having sat there this evening we can see a million other things that need our attention!!