29th May

It is Friday - and after some glorious weather we have had some overnight rain and although the day starts brightly the wind is very keen - I would go as far as to say there is a real bite to it and it would appear that the UK has pinched our Summer once again.

It would appear that our climate here in Cyprus has changed and we seem to be getting warmer and wetter winters and unsettled Summers where the temperatures can be off the scale one day and in the doldrums the next.

We didn't have much planned for today so I actually wanted to do a bit of art for the week's challenge which is Footwear.

This is my entry - really done just to swell the numbers - and will probably score a massive nil points (a la Eurovision) but it is just for fun.  This week although the entries are fewer (Lockdown being eased all around the globe) the standard is fabulous and so nil points is just about all that I am expecting!!!  People are amazingly creative and not just with paints or pencils and it is a privilege to see the entries coming in.

I nipped out today to go and pick up some tomato plants which Di has been raising - I offered to swap with some of my pepper seedlings but she says she has enough.  Di and Rob have been working hard on their garden and the results are fabulous.  The conditions this year seem to have been perfect for certain flowers.  They have a Pelargonium in the front which is outstanding and which Rob has grown from a cutting.  He is going to do one for me which is great.  I have come to love geraniums/pelargoniums although as a youngster I couldn't stand the smell - they reminded me of incontinent old ladies for some reason!!!  I think everyone had some old dusty, woody, sad geranium lurking on a windowsill looking way past its best in a pot of dried up compost!!!

Anyway it was good to seem them both and to have a catch-up - we are going to do it properly on Tuesday as we have penciled in a long awaited trip to Fitos!

On the subject of flowers I had a message from my Aunty Joyce today with a photograph of a plant in her garden which came from a cutting she took of a Mesembryanthamum which was in our garden.  It managed to survive their mild winter and is flourishing.  I shall shall have to ask her to return with a cutting as I had to pull out my plant only yesterday - it had become woody and so top heavy that it had pulled itself out of the pot it was living in.

We were very sad that Aunty Joyce and Uncle David were not able to visit this year as planned due to the restrictions imposed by Covid-19.  After the terrible scare we had with my aunt's health when she returned to the UK after being here last year we thought she might never be well enough to contemplate returning but she recovered and gained back her strength and they were to be here for Mum's 85th birthday which was back the other week.  Such a shame but we do hope that they might just feel able to try the trip again when all this madness is over.

FINGERS FIRMLY CROSSED FOR THEM AND FOR ANY OF OUR OTHER PLANNED VISITORS.