Où sont mes timbres?

Mondays seem to come around even quicker and quicker and it is almost impossible to believe it is five weeks and one day until Christmas Eve and I am nowhere near ready.  The weather makes it even more difficult to get my head around the impending festive season!!!

Today was super glorious - bright. warm sunshine all day but clear skies so a cool evening followed - if it carries on like this John will be itching to get the wood-burner lit!!!  I may relent slightly and allow him to try out the new digital thermostatically controlled socket that I have bought so that we can put on a panel heater and know it will kick in and out to control the ambient temperature in a room.  The panel heaters do have thermostats but they are simply on a dial so actually could be anything!!!  We generally hold off with the wood burner until December 1st which is less than two weeks away and at the moment I just don't see it being cold enough.

I made my regular trip to the cemetery this morning.  Today I decided that I would give Dad's grave a bit of a sloosh down because for some reason the birds seem to have taken a real shine to the marble and the dust in the atmosphere had settled into the grooves of the wording.

The plants in his trough are looking better for the little haircut I gave them and I had stuck in a couple of cuttings from some other succulents and they are still alive so that is good - at least there will be some colour in there for a little while yet.

The wash and brush up left his little spot looking lovely and clean and tidy.  You can see from beautiful blue sky what a fabulous day it was.  I never mind going to the cemetery - it is always so peaceful there and the village seems to take good care of the occupants.

Happy that all was good I carried on to Sheila and Klaus's and my regular Monday morning art session.  I was greeted by three or four little kittens who were checking out the breakfast that was on offer at the Knips!!  One was a cute little ginger but Sheila didn't think it was overly well and would probably not be around much longer.  It did look a bit skinny but then that is not unusual for ferals.  Sheila and Klaus feed the colony but do not interfere with nature.

My picture of the house-leek is progressing well and I am guessing I probably have three or four more sessions left to finish it and then I will have to find my next subject matter which needs to be something similar as I plan to hand this and the next picture as a pair near the other two that I have done.

Sheila is busy working on a picture of Bee Eaters - the colours are fabulous and it is going to make a nice picture.  Sheila was quite chuffed that this week she had managed to sell a picture which she had down in That Nice Shop in Polis - it was one she had done of a Cypriot Donkey.  Framed pictures do not normally sell well to tourists because of their luggage weight limitations and second guessing what subject matter will prove popular is nigh on impossible so it is always doubly exciting when someone does buy a picture you have done.  Klaus also had some success with his gourd carving making a couple of sales recently.  He now has limited supplies of his raw materials i.e. the gourd so if anyone reading this has any they want to get rid of I am sure he will be more than happy to take them off of your hands.

I had a lovely lunch with Klaus and Sheila - our tarragon chicken 'Shepherds Pie' was not only beautifully presented but tasted delicious and the carrots that accompanied it were fabulous.  I left with a bag of lemons from their tree which will grace a gin and tonic or two over the next couple of weeks.

My plan for the afternoon had been to get some Christmas Cards written - Di and Rob are going back to the UK for a week or so and had offered to post some for me.  John's Mum had brought me a book of stamps and I had used one the other week for a letter which I had asked Wendy to post so I had the remaining ones for the few physical cards that we still send.

I don't really enjoy writing cards en masse - I really should start them earlier so I can just do a couple at a time and put in longer personal messages but with Di and Rob going in a couple of days I had left it too late.  Worse than that I could not find the book of bloody stamps and we turned the house upside down.  I was so pee'd off that I really couldn't be arsed to write many cards by the time I had admitted defeat.