Whoops!!!

So we are getting the garden ready for winter which means cutting things back - that is a hard lesson for me because once something has got established it is difficult to chop it back!  Over one of our arches we have a Podranea Ricasoliana - pink trumpet vine - which was planted in a pot and the roots have made their way through and into the soil.  Over the years it has got more and more established so that this year it was magnificent - covering the arch and treating us to an impressive display of pink flowers.  

When John's mum was here she wanted to buy me a plant for the garden.  She has done this every year for god knows how many and although I said to her that the garden was pretty full when we went to Marinos at Agia Marina I managed to find a climbing plant that I had earmarked to grow up and over the pump house.

That plant (I cannot remember the name) has been in a pot ever since and so we decided it was time to give it a permanent home.  John thought it might be a good idea to move the Podranea about a metre to the left so that it could grow up from that point and then put the newbie in place of the Podranea.  

To be honest I wasn't really bothered about the Podranea being moved.  There is always a danger that the roots wont like being disturbed but sometimes it is just easier to go with the flow and go with the flow is what we did because after uprooting the Podranea John started digging a hole for the newbie and in so doing managed to made a cut in one of the major pipes to the swimming pool.

You can imagine that the air was somewhat blue as we heard the sound of a pipe being breached and water being released and it was in an awkward area so as John raced down to Polis to get something to repair the problem I was left to clean out the area around the pipe so that John had good access to try and fix it.  I did my best - it probably wasn't good enough but at least by the time he returned he had space to work.  He was uncertain as to whether any repair would be good enough but he got a join for the pipe and split it and then put in the join and slapped a whole load of 'gunk' around it to make sure it was sealed as good as it could be.   Thankfully it looks like the Boy done Good.

This evening we were going out for a meal with our lovely (immediate) neighbours Gregoris and Dora.  They don't come that often but they said the last time they were here that they would come for this bank holiday weekend and it has been really lovely to see them.  We would like for them to be here more often and it sounds like retirement is coming soon-ish and so maybe they will.  Anyway they asked us where we would like to go and we know they like a traditional restaurant so we suggested Kyparissos down the road in Kathikas where we had had a really nice meal with Lakis, Argy and Kia last year.

We all decided to have a meze and I have to say it was probably one of the best and one of the most comprehensive we have had in a very long time!!!  What an array of food and it was all superb.  We had salad and dips and home made bread and halloumi and pastourma and loukanika and green eggs and souvlaki and kleftiko and macaronia al fourno and lamb chops and pork belly and chicken and sheftalia and ravioles and probably other things which I have forgotten and then after all that we had cake and then we had fresh fruit.  It was a right royal spread and we had such a laugh.  Gregoris and Dora were great company and we really hope that we will see more of them in the future.