Wednesday 29th January

It is taking some time to get back into the swing.  John is being very secretive as he has been charged with organising my fast-approaching big birthday celebrations.  I am trying not to get involved but as a bit of a party organising control freak that is proving to be quite difficult but I did say I did not want to organise my own birthday so John is keeping me to my word.  Worryingly today he has been muttering the words "it's all gone pear-shaped" and looking perplexed.  I dearly want to ask but have refrained.  I said to him that I wanted to do something special with Mum - maybe even something which is just hear and I for some quality time together and then something "different" with a few friends but when your birthday is in March and it could be wet and cold and lots of places are closed so his choices are limited and when I organised his 50th celebrations with the village bus and a trip to Tsangarides winery it was a beautiful day in September and was a great success so he feels he has a lot to live up to.

I left him to it because the call of some lovely sunshine proved too much and I was able to get both washing and gardening done.  On the subject of gardening I have a couple of plants in the front garden which sometimes shed all their leaves over the winter and sometimes do not depending on what sort of winter we have - this year it appears to be a 'shed their leaves' winter which means that I can go out one day and clear them all up and then we have some windy weather and I have to go and do it all again.  I brought a few things back from the UK with me for the garden which included a super cute little mouse which I have attached to one of the traditional village chairs I have in the front garden.  The paintwork has taken a battering but I actually like it looking more rustic.I saw another old chair planted up when I was at Brimsmore Garden Centre - this one was full of succulents and cacti and I really liked that - I may look at doing something similar for Marina in the village as Phillipos has told me he has some chairs at the museum that I can use for that purpose.

I also managed to bring back with me half of my birthday present from Hazel.  I had said I wanted something for the garden and I saw two things when we went to the Range together.  One was this Buddha which is actually plastic so was lightweight to bring back although took up quite a lot of my suitcase but I think looks fabulous.

The second was a metal chicken which I couldn't manage to fit in any of my bags but which Hazel says she is going to bring with her.

I know where that is going to go but I want to do something special with the Buddha.  I am thinking that the area where the day bed is might get a bit of a rejig and it can live there - we just need to get a few days of dry weather so I can get out and start in earnest.

The weather forecast isn't good for the foreseeable future so we just have to grab an hour or so when we can - the same applies to washing - only trouble here is that if we are out in the afternoon I need to get my washing dry before we leave otherwise it just gets cold and damp again.

I bought some new cushion covers for the conservatory and managed to get some nice mustard yellow throws in Asda when I was in the UK - they only cost £5 each and were easy to get in the case - I think you are getting the picture about my luggage now and why I decided to come home hands-free!!