Spring has Sprung

 

After the coldest winter here for years the weather has finally begun to buck its ideas up.  Thank the lord that this had coincided with the imminent arrival of George and Pam later today.  Last week I was wearing bed socks and today I took the duvet off the bed (with John's agreement) - we will probably freeze tonight but it gave me a chance to get all the bedding washed and dried and fresh hay (albeit thin) on for tonight.  I shall now systematically go through all the throws and wash them to put them away and then the rugs.  Summer is here we just didn't have any Spring.

The tidy up of outside continues as we try and clear away the last vestiges of the Winter - there are still many plants in 'shock' or even dead which I am leaving to be able to put in an appearance later than normal.

I invested in some new wipe clean table cloth when we last went by Lemba and this has been put outside in anticipation that we will soon be able to use that space on a regular basis.

Although they had forecast dust in the atmosphere up here in the hills it was pretty clear and the bright blue skies and the blue of the swimming pool contrast nicely with the bright green pattern on the table.  It will only remain this bright for a few weeks before the sun bleaches it out!!

We had expected the water to be delivered for George and Pam's pool this morning but it did not arrive.  Bassam called in with receipts for his work and an update on the aluminium sliding doors for the pump house and the aluminium gate - these will not be ready until at least next week (tomorrow is another Bank Holiday so that adds another buggerance factor) so John decided to fashion a make-shift gate out of wood for the time being.  It wont provide much of a barrier to anyone who might want to walk it but it might make them think twice.

John was meeting up with John again this week - Liselotte will be back next week so I was having one of my regular billy-no-mates trips down to Paphos to do all the exciting stuff like banking, picking up another toilet seat and going to the butchers.  We had been a bit worried about John yesterday as my John had text him to finalise arrangements for today and got a random reply which looked to be some sort of emergency message for help.  We had gone round to the house on several occasions to find it in darkness, the car missing and the cat indoors and it was dark.  Eventually John contacted us to say he had been out golfing and for a meal and he had absolutely no idea how or why we had received the random message - needless to say we were very relieved even if he was somewhat bemused and/or amused!  Any way nothing to worry about and the two of them had a nice couple of hours having a laugh over the story in the Gin Bar with a pint or two to keep them company.

I came back cross country and stopped to pick some asparagus en route which John and I will have for breakfast at the weekend.  John and I wanted to be home for when George and Pam arrived so we could just explain everything to them.  They must have been lucky and got straight through the airport and in the car and here.

It was all very emotional - it has been four and a half years since they were last here and so much has happened in the interim.  We left them to get themselves organised - we have several weeks to catch up with them and we guess they were probably tired.  

I text Louise to let her know they had arrived safely - in all the emotion I think Pam probably forgot!