An Unexpectedly Lovely Day

Some days, when you haven't really got anything planned, just turn out to be really good - and today was one of them.  It was a bright and sunny start although the wind is still chilly but we were up and at 'em and had the bedding in the machine, washed, out on the line, dry and back on the bed all ready for fresh hay tonight - that is most probably one of life's greatest pleasures although the cats are fairly pissed off whilst our bed is 'naked' as they do like to settle down on there for most of the day!!

My walk today with Nicky has been postponed until Thursday so it gave us an opportunity to get some jobs done around the house this morning.  We have been a bit concerned about Boris and his breathing and last night during the night he woke me on several occasions because I thought he was choking.  We think maybe he has eaten something which may have scratched his throat - we have tried investigating as best we can but cannot see anything visible.  Anyway this morning he took himself off for a while and when he came back he ate food pretty normally and we wonder whether he had expelled whatever it was that had been causing him a problem.  He is a bird catcher and I am guessing that it was him who left us a decapitated swift the other day and I am betting the beak was a bit sharp if he ate it.

Anyway he decided to keep me company and oversee my cleaning a bucket of tiles which Bassam has given John and which we intend to use to tile the sides of the potting bench as we are having trouble finding stone suitable in size which matches the colour of the stone we have already.  This bucket of tiles looked like it had been in the Orexi garden for years but the couple he had given us previously as a sample were just the right colour and quite interesting in their design and construction.  I cleaned up around 80 tiles - they were clearly very good quality as not a single one was chipped or broken and they look like they are possibly hand made and the colour is spot on.  

It was such a lovely day that we decided we would go across to the winery and whilst there treat ourselves to a spot of lunch, either something light like a pitta or, if the temperature eating outside was ok, maybe something a bit more substantial.  As we left the estate we encountered a traffic jam as the local goatherd was allowing his herd to have a snack in the nearby fields.

It was a bit chilly out on the terrace at the winery as the wind was whipping up from the coast but the lovely staff allowed us to move a table and tuck it in a sheltered corner which meant we were warm enough to stay and have a nice meal and I had tucked a stopper in my bag so we could both have a little vino to accompany it and then take the remainder home to enjoy with some TV later this evening.  john chose a trimmed pork chop and I went for the chicken kebabs which is not something I would normally chose but they were absolutely delicious - really moist and tasty and I substituted the tzatziki for their honey and mustard sauce which was a perfect accompaniment.

We returned home to a warm and cosy conservatory and I spent a couple of hours painting a couple of entries for this weeks' challenge which is Pigs.  We had so many fabulous entries for the Cows challenge that I am hoping this may be equally as inspiring a theme.

Having had a late and filling lunch we decided that we probably wouldn't want anything for supper or could resort to cheese and biscuits if necessary.  

We had finished watching our latest series Road Kill so were trying to decide what to watch next and we toyed with the idea of Line of Duty but that is still being broadcast and we like to watch one after the other and have the attention span of a goldfish if we take too long between episodes!

As it began to cool down in the conservatory we moved inside and consulted our list of Things to Watch and I suggested something I had seen advertised which I thought John might enjoy - Ted Lasso which is a comedy about an American Football Coach who is brought in to help a struggling English Premier League side - maybe this might be the answer to the Blades prayers???  Who knows!!!!  Anyway it is highly amusing and John is loving it!