Chish and Fips

We had a little local difficulty here last night as our front gate decided to lock us in.

I had mentioned to John earlier in the week that I had had trouble shutting the gate and a screw had fallen out near the lock - anyway last night John shut the gate and locked it and the 'snick' of the lock refused to move inwards when we wanted to go out.

This is a bit of an issue obviously but our garden is walled and so, for me, there are very few places, if any, where I can scale the wall and get out.  John managed to get over via next door but couldn't get the snick loose.

In the end he had to dismantle all the panels of the gate and take them out to see if that would give him access but unfortunately that was a big fat NO.  We didn't know what we were going to do but eventually with some brute force and key wiggling eventually we managed to get the snick to move and we were released from captivity.

John did a temporary fix and then shot down to Glykkis this morning to get some bits and pieces for a number of jobs which included trying to ensure this would not happen again - fingers crossed!!

We had further excitement provided by Chivers who came bounding into the garden with what I thought was a rat in his mouth only to find he had an Agama lizard (like the one in the photograph) which he dropped.  Poor thing looked to have been pregnant.  Anyway it played dead for a while and John picked it up and put it on the top of our boundary wall and then it jumped off and escaped into the field to live another day.

I was on house cleaning today as Mum and coming with Lilian on Sunday and my floors are disgusting.  It was hot work but I gave the house a good 'bottoming' and felt quite chuffed even though it will only remain clean for an hour or so if the cats have anything to do with it.

I have been trying out a new craft technique which is transferring a printed photograph onto wood as I wanted some artwork for the DoJo and I had chosen two different pictures of Buddhas and although initially I wasn't overly happy with the bottom one by the time I had 'aged' it I didn't think it looked too bad at all.

I wanted them to look a bit like the old icons you see over here - sort of faded and incomplete and I think I managed that.  John is quite impressed so is looking out for some more wood so that I can do a couple more for the opposite wall.

I am super happy with what he has done to this space which was nice before but is even nicer now and we do tend to use it more than we did because it gives us a nice bit of shade without being stuffy.

We were going out with Di and Rob this evening and it was going to be a test as to whether or not I would be able to manage my newly cut hair.

I had decided to try a bob rather than go completely short and Lumi did say it would take a couple of cuts to get it perfect as I still had a variety of layers in my hair.

I am very pleased with the cut and the fact that I can manage it and I am even more pleased with the colour which is actually all my own work - natural!!!  After all this time (two years I think) there cannot be any colour left that was artificial.

It was rather cool this evening - so a bit difficult to decide what to wear as we were going to the gin bar and as both ends of the seating area would be open sometimes you can get a bit of a chilly breeze coming through.  This is an occupational hazard if you live on this part of the island but actually I don't mind too much as I have an impressive array of scarves and wraps that I can use.

We had a lovely evening with Di and Rob.  The Gin Bar was putting on a fish and chip supper with mushy peas and tartar sauce for €7.50 and had various drinks on offer.

A good old traditional gin and tonic was a massive €2.50 and as I wasn't driving I managed to have a couple of them.

It was good to see the event was well attended even with the social distancing rules as Rachel and Savvas have had a really hard time of it this year so far and it is going to take a long time before they get themselves properly back on their feet.

The fish and chips was great, massive portions of fish and really nicely cooked chips - neither John nor I are particularly fond of mushy peas but what we had was nice.

All in all a successful evening - and I was glad of my wrap because there certainly was a chill in the air this evening when we came to leave.  It wasn't a late night and I think we were all happy about that.