19th April

This photograph came up on Social Media because it is one of my schoolfriend's 60th Birthday today.  I am the short arse on the left of the very back row for terminal short arses of which there were apparently only two in our sixth form.  Clare is on the front row four in from the right - by my standards she was positively Amazonian.  Clare is a Harbour Master in Antigua and Barbuda and I certainly don't remember that being an option when we had any careers advice.   She was Clare Evans when I knew her at school so guess she must have married or changed her name for some other reason.

It is Easter Sunday here and definitely much much quieter than we normally experience, certainly as there was no bonfire nor fireworks overnight.  Having said that there was the unmistakable sound of fire-crackers later on today but away in the distance.  We were having roast chicken for our meal today - I got everything prepared whilst John got out early before the sun rose too high to continue working on the space outside the kitchen.

He wanted to get the two sides in place which he managed to do.  The next stage will be to stone clad the sides, when the stone place has reopened, get aluminium doors on the front, when the aluminium place has reopened and a marble slab for the top, when the marble place reopens - you get the picture?  Actually we assume they are all closed.  If we lived in Paphos it might be easier to find out if they were functioning and did delivery but we aren't so it will have to wait.

I busied myself in the garden when I wasn't being a Part IV.  I have been repotting some of my plants or top-dressing where that isn't possible.  I am so thrilled that the two hostas I got last year have survived and are positively thriving.  I would like to get some more but once again this will have to wait.  There were a couple of offcuts from the blocks John has been using - they were too nice to discard so I found a place for them outside the kitchen - I thought they had a sort of oriental look to them and this area is one which I want to try and turn into a Japanese garden to keep my Buddha from Hazel company.

The weather this Easter Weekend has been really fabulous.  I am sure it is much hotter this year than last and it is lovely to be able to fling the patio doors right back and enjoy the fresh air.  There was not a cloud in the sky today and now that John has sorted the hot water system we now have almost too much and it is near boiling point.

John worked really hard today - he said he was aching and even though he had put up some shade had caught the sun, as had I.  We decided, once we had had the chicken, that we would have an early night - sadly the cats did not get the brief!!

What The Ration Book says about shortages...
...Trust the British to make a joke of it:  one of the most popular hits of the war years was Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again', and in no time at all the ration-weary public had changed the words to reflect their sorry plight.
Yes, for them it was 'Whale Meat Again' although you get the impression that nobody hapily tucked into it more than once!