Easter Monday

It is a glorious Easter Monday and the full lockdown restrictions are back in place so we are only allowed one outing today - not that we have anything much planned.  We had earmarked the day as being one at home doing bits and pieces - five minute jobs that see out the best part of the day!!!  Mine was gardening - the plants have gone wild and many are annuals which I like to allow to set some seed so they return next year but they get leggy and messy and drive John nuts by offloading all sorts of petals and seeds and bits into the pool.  I chose to start at Wendy and Bill corner and cut back just about everything.  We are unlikely to have any visitor for a while (the first are due to be Jordan and Abi) and so cutting back now will give everything time to recover.

John was doing a bit of cleaning of the aluminium above the patio doors.  We have secured Richard  the window cleaners services on Wednesday - strange to think that the last time he came to clean the windows he was admiring what a lovely area it is and now he owns two houses on the estate and he and his mum have moved in one whilst waiting for the second to be completed (I took round a welcome to your new home card today - but no-one was - home that is!).  Anyway we didn't want lovely clean windows and not so lovely aluminium so that was a job well done.  You will see from the pictures that we have erected a temporary extra wind break for the roof terrace.  We have had all sorts of plans for that area but are realistic that time will come when we may not be able to use the ladder so have decided not to go mad up there.

It was warm work but John will be thrilled that he now has access to the outside shower because he prefers to use that one when it is warm enough to do so.  I cleared a path and still retained sufficient poppies to be able to provide some seed.

The weather has been unbelievably hot for this time of year - in fact the pool is now at 28 degrees already and we rarely get it above 34 degrees at the best of times.  The water is now so hot in the tap that you can have as many showers as you like when you like!!!

Lots of places have remained closed today after the bank holiday weekend so we are on eating out of the freezer but with pimped up Pizza on the menu neither of us minded - it is one of our favourites - although we use much the same ingredients each time the pastourma and the chillies vary so there is always a slight difference.  We also had some potatoes left over from yesterday which were going to be an addition to our meal and John had earmarked the remainder of the trifle for his pudding.

I didn't stop at Wendy and Bill Corner as I had noticed that the osteospurmum around the kitchen garden were looking a bit past their best so decided to give them a good old short back and sides which will hopefully encourage some new growth and a late flowering.

I can never understand how the amount of garden waste looks treble the size of the original garden - how does that happen?  We can, currently, tip the green waste over into the field for the goats to enjoy so that isn't too much of a problem although if the field ever does get developed it will be a bit of a ball-ache!

I quite enjoyed the time in the garden - it is very satisfying but I always think that it looks a bit bare after it has been flowering so beautifully.  If the weather continues like this - uber-hot then there will be very little colour in the garden soon although I have been busy taking cuttings of geraniums which I know the Daily Mail reckons are old-fashioned and dated but there are so many fabulous colours and they are so forgiving.  I try and perpetuate the good ones each year and have been relatively successful - when I next go to the garden centre at Agia Marina I think I shall treat myself to a couple - I fancy some white ones dotted around in pots - always good in pots because you can pick them up and plonk them in a bald spot!

This afternoon we nipped down to reinstall the repaired and refurbished Estate Sign to which Charlie came along and gave his seal of approval.  Close up it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny but from a distance looks good and with bigger lettering is easier to read so now hopefully any delivery drivers will be in no doubt as to where we are.  We are going to add more stones at the bottom to make it look a bit like a little rockery.

Mum was absolutely thrilled to forward me this photograph and the accompanying text message from her grandson, my nephew and godson, Matthew - he and his wife Loren are expecting their first baby due in October.  I know my sister will be ecstatic.  I am not very good with these scan photographs - I think Baby Thomas looks to be smoking a pipe!!!