New crafts to try...

When Sheila and Klaus moved they very kindly offered me two chairs which I had often admired sitting in their lounge.  We have put them in the front garden with a little table and for the first time today we noticed that they had attracted a visitor in the shape of Boris who was having a little post-breakfast snoozette in the shade as it was too early for the sun to have got round to that area.  The table and chairs look nice there but the downside is that above are some electric cables upon which the birds sit and shit - we have tried several methods to try and deter them but actually nothing has lasted long term.

We had a call from Isabel today to ask us if we could try and help her weigh and measure Red.  We don't have human scales but we have a luggage weighing handheld scale so the idea was to put her in a harness and lift her which proved to be easier said than done!!!

Red turned out to be like a greasy pig and was actually heavier than she looked.  Eventually after multiple failed attempts which was like something out of a Carry On film I wondered whether we could entice her into a supermarket 'Bag for Life' and have the scale attached all ready.

We got her in and then I had visions that John would lift her and she would fall through the bottom of the bag leaving John just holding the handles.  We did manage to lift her, all 9 kilos of her - she wasn't overly impressed but seemed to forgive John the indignity of it all.

Tick in the box though and job done.  Isabel would never have managed on her own that's for sure and a couple of day's ago Red pulled her over and she did her back in - she has been hobbling around but said she was feeling a bit better.

We decided to treat ourselves to a little lunch out and decided to go down to the coast and to the Souli Hotel so we could sit by the sea.

Latchi reminds me of holidays I had on the Greek islands years ago when tourists were few and far between and you could sit in a taverna in splendid isolation and have the most fantastic simple meal by the sea.

We so enjoyed lunch today, calamari and chips with a tomato, feta and onion salad, olives and some toasted village bread with olive oil and oregano - washed down with a Leon shandy.  We really hope that the Souli survives these difficult times - it has been part and parcel of the Latchi landscape for many, many years.

I have been trying out a new craft which is transferring pictures onto wood.

I wanted to make some pictures for the Do-Jo and I didn't want to spend any money so I had a search on the internet and saw this technique.

It is actually very easy to do!!!  The one on the right was my test piece and is about a quarter of the size of the one on the left.

Basically I got a piece of wood from John's rubbish bin and cleaned it.  I printed out the picture I wanted onto a piece of standard white paper (not photographic) then stuck it face down onto the wood with some PVA.  I then waited for it to dry and used my finger to gently rub off the paper - this took several goes until I got it looking how I wanted and then I waited until it was dry, coated it with PVA and spray varnished.  Et Voila!!!!