Creating Shade

So for nearly the whole part of today I have been engaged in what cannot quite be considered 'a labour of love' because, to be fair, there was very little love lost between us at certain points during the exercise!!!  We were completing the 'shade out the back' project which involved four pieces of wood, some chain and six tablecloths - and no sticky back plastic in sight anywhere!!!  God I wish that Valerie Singleton had been there to help!!!  

So the buggerance factor in this was the fact that the space we were wanting to cover was not square and the tablecloths were not a regular shape and we were trying to measure and cut them when they were attached to the wood which was swinging.  We had to put them up, properly, then mark them up for cutting and then take them down, sew them and then put them back up again.  I am not tall enough to be John's part IV and he has little to no patience at times with my inadequacies.  Not helped by the fact that I woke with one of my hormonal anxiety mornings when I have some dreadful feeling of foreboding and angst.  I try my best but sometime my best is sadly lacking in John's eyes!!!

My sewing abilities were put to the test because the bloody cotton kept breaking so I would be merrily working away only to find that I was stitching fresh air.  It was an exceptionally hot day and we were feeling it - tempers got a bit frayed but eventually we got the job finished.  Out the Back has got shade and it looks ok - not perfect but good enough for as long as the tablecloths last!!!  It provides shade but also traps the heat in underneath so that area is now very warm.  It is, quite probably, my most favourite spot in the garden.

The area is magical at night and after a couple of weeks of damp evenings this evening was warm and balmy and dry.  Last night was a Strawberry Moon - which is the last super moon of the season and we saw it when we were out looking for Minnie who had disappeared which is most unlike her.  In the end Boris went out and up and over the back wall, found her and chased her back home.  

John was out on the estate with Charlie in tow looking for her but was chatting with Charalambous about their new installation of Photovoltaic panels.  It is so nice to see our lovely Cypriot neighbours investing in their second homes because it will ensure that we continue to see them for the foreseeable future.  Charalambous was telling John that the grants available for PV systems are doubled if you are living in a mountainous region.  We did know that and sods law is that when we had our installation there were no grants available.  That is just our luck, having said that the system has more than paid for itself, never more so than this last year when the mild winter meant our bills were restricted to the standing charges only and I don't feel we skimped on usage.

We are still fighting the Winter Fuel allowance embargo on the grounds of discrimination contra to the Withdrawal Agreement - we are not expecting to win but at least we are giving it a go and have enlisted the help of Jeff from Arodes who is superb at this sort of thing!