Getting our sofas cleaned...

We were up early this morning as we wanted to protect George and Pam's front garden from becoming the local cat toilet.  We had got some weed suppressing membrane which was just about big enough to cover the bare earth.  This will provide some protection for a while hopefully, although I can imagine that some sneaky bugger will lift up where there is a join and make a deposit!!!  Anyway for the time being at least it is looking clean and tidy.

We had arranged to have our sofas and lounge rug cleaned today over the years the sofas have suffered from sweaty heads and hands, a dribbly cat and more ginger fur than you can shake a big stick at.  They were so grubby that we had contemplated replacing them.  No amount of cleaning product we had purchased had made them anything like acceptable but I decided that we should give the cleaning company at least one chance to bring them back to some sort of life.  We had removed all the scatter cushions and throws save for one last night because Chivvy likes to sleep on the sofa given the chance and he was doggedly (or is that cattedly) hanging on till the last minute.

For some reason I had it in my mind that the cleaning company was located somewhere around Coral Bay but in fact they were coming from Anarita so had much further to come than I had thought and they had miscalculated how long it would take so we were expecting them at 10.30 but they actually arrived at 11.10 but had let us know they would be late so we were able to get on with a few things before they arrived which included finishing the footrest/side table which is going in my Gin Palace.

Quality Clean arrived and set about sprucing up the suite.  They worked on what they could outside because it was (a) a warm and bright day and (b) it meant that the damp cushions etc would dry quicker.  There was no way that the frame of the 3 seater (which turns into a king sized sofa bed) could be dragged outside so that and the frame of the 2 seater had to be tackled inside and so were going to take longer to dry - although John had the foresight to put the dehumidifier in with them to speed up the process.  I had to leave John as it was Ladies Lunch at Fitos today.  Quality Clean had estimated it would take them 1.5 to 2 hours - in the end it took them four because they were both so particular and there was so much bloomin' cat fur stuck in the fabric.

We were a large group for Ladies Lunch and it was such a lovely day that although we were in the shade outside it really was very pleasant sitting there.  Poor John had planned to eat a sandwich at home but because the cleaners were there and he was helping them get as much of the suite in the sunshine as possible i.e. up on the roof terrace where it could take advantage of full sunshine, he didn't get to eat so text before we left asking for a takeaway which I got for him.

Di had very kindly driven and as she pulled up to drop me off Quality Clean were just leaving - John had given them a bit extra for all their hard work and because he was amazed by the finished result - the sofas, all bar the bits at the ends of the arms which have lost some of the fabric pile and so look a bit shiny, looked brand new.  As I said the frames needed a little longer to dry as did the rug so we shut up that room with the dehumidifier on and spent the remainder of the evening in the conservatory and watched TV out there.

While I was at Ladies Lunch I was persuaded by Luscious Lynda to organise another village clean.  We haven't done one for a while for a number of reasons, not least because we have had a constant stream of visitors and I had thought that whilst the village works were underway it was a bit of a waste of time but I am thinking that if I wait for that to finish we will be knee deep in detritus.  The road from the Hotel down to the Museum is awful as is the road where, this time last year, we found all those drugs which had been thrown out of a car.  It is disappointing that locals and visitors alike are so lazy when it comes to their rubbish and the island is suffering because of it.  I am no Greta Thunberg but something needs to be done.  How can you refer to this island as 'beautiful' when around every corner and in every culvert there is crap?  Plastic bottles, wet wipes and tins make up a huge percentage of what we find and just take forever to decompose if they can and I am not sure wet wipes can.  Anyway there will be a little group of us on Saturday week doing our bit for the community.