A job well done...

The challenge for this week is 'FACES' - I haven't decided exactly what I am going to submit but I toyed with the idea of stylising a photograph using two of the cat cushions I have got.  In the end I decided against it and am still on the hunt for inspiration.  I will probably only have time to enter a couple of photographs this week unless I can do a painting on Saturday but I had that earmarked for some gardening.

Anyway it was a grey and damp start to the day - I am not sure if it rained in the night.  Strange, we had such a beautiful evening and then it all went pear-shaped.  I was off down to Emba today and the weather was unsettled there too but very very hot and sticky - John said the grey weather continued up in Droushia but fortunately no rain.



The saga of TV, or lack of it, in Mum's sun room continues.  The sun room was originally outside space and so therefore not equipped with power or internet and we have tried to cobble together supply there which periodically works but is prone to fail.  The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the wiring to the house is old and so the internet provider can only supply limited bandwidth.  Mum does have a TV and a TV box in the lounge which is plugged in direct to the router and so should provide her with the best place to watch but the lounge is so big and the ceiling so high that she struggles to hear.  Anyway I lost sleep the other night trying to find a way that we might be able to make the lounge more user-friendly and in the end I decided I would rearrange the furniture which had been in a 'U' shape looking into the room and thereby the seats were all some distance from the TV.  I decided to split the area into two so that there was a smaller seating area looking out of the front patio doors which Mum can have the air coming in through because there are fly screens which keep Freddo enclosed and a second seating area with the smaller sofa directly in front of the TV and not a million miles away.  Once we had got the sound sorted Mum agreed that it was a good place to watch.  I had seen a footstool for sale and I thought she would be even more comfy if she could put her feet up and so I arranged to go and collect that in the afternoon.

We tried out the seating area overlooking the garden when Lorna came to visit.  Lorna is a carer and I thought it would be a good idea for Mum to get to know someone who could help her if and when she has her cataract done.  The three of us were able to sit in comfort, have a cuppa and chat and for the conversation not to be lost up in the gods.  Mum and Lorna seemed to get on well and so I hope that they will meet up regularly and get to know one another and then we have someone else we know and trust who can help if Mum needs it.

Happy with the furniture placement and happy with meeting Lorna, Mum and I set off for Arabica where we were going to have a light lunch.  We plumped for the all-day breakfast on a plate with a cup of tea.  This is excellent value and the breakfast is really nice, not swimming in grease.  Mum amazed me by eating all bar one half slice of toast - I reckon the steroids which Dr Mala has given her for her insect bite have also given her an appetite - she seemed to really enjoy it which was great.

Having had lunch we then shot across the other side of Paphos to go and get the footstool I had seen advertised by my friend Yola.

It is a good large object and the coral pink colour wont go too badly with the suite.  The beauty of it is that Mum will be able to have her TV magazine on there as well (when they start selling them again).

We got it home and in position and Mum thought it was smashing so I was really really pleased with the room reorganisation even though it had left me dripping!!!

We weren't back five minutes when the man who was coming to check the cabling into the sunroom pitched up and spent and hour or so trying to find out where there was an issue.  He couldn't find anything wrong with the cable itself so thought the issue was where it terminated at the faceplate so removed that and circumnavigated it.  Strange that Mum went to bed one day and it was all working and then got up the next and it wasn't - this is so frustrating.  Anyway by the time I left we had one tv box working in the newly refurbed lounge which was fine as Mum was happy to watch it there and we had the cable working to the box in the sunroom but that had an issue which was totally separate to anything we had been doing today and was apparently easily rectified.

I went home feeling that we had had a successful and productive day - only to get a message from Mum later in the evening to say she had no internet.  The problem is that the fault could be anywhere and it is difficult to try and give her a troubleshooting list that is easy to follow.  I was so disappointed.