I was up early this morning to go walking with Nicky - it was a wise decision to be off by 8.00am because it turned out to be a hot day and we haven't walked for a while so it was going to be a bit tough!  Crazily I have agreed to go walking with Rachel tomorrow morning so I will be doubly knackered.  We did our regular route out of the village and down past the dump towards Arodes and then back through Inea and home.   

All along the back road which goes from Droushia to Arodes we could see that the Land Registry had been out because there were the unmistakable bits of red and white tape flapping around.   They tie it to anything that is available so there were quite a number of stems of fennel sporting what looked like college ties and a couple of bits of rebar had been hammered into the road with ties on them too.  They seemed to be quite regularly spaced so we wonder if this is for street lights which might mean that this area is going to be developed.  I hope if it is that something is done about the dump.

We encountered processionary caterpillars today - they are exactly as described caterpillars that travers the roads nose to tail - they develop in big cobwebby nests in fir trees and then fall down and process to wherever they go next.  They are extremely dangerous to animals because of their furry outer.  Best left well alone to process elsewhere.

We pass some beautiful gardens but at the moment the wild flowers and flowering trees are absolutely spectacular.  There is one just on the edge of Inea which I call the Orchid Tree - it is in full bloom at the moment and is actually called a Bauhinia Tree.   Apparently you can grow these from seed so I am going to keep an eye out for when the pods form and avail myself of a few to see if I can propagate something.  On that subject I was showing Nicky a beautiful trailing geranium which was growing in Androulla's beautiful garden.  Androulla happened to be in the garden and we had a chat and she broke me off two cutting which I really hope will come good.

We had a bit of an 'Ahhhhh' moment when we passed a mare and her foal.  I kept my distance hence the poor quality of the photograph but remember John having to make a hasty retreat once when a mare decided he had got a bit too close and he had to quickly reverse out of the field but was wearing flipflops which hampered his progress.

The remainder of the day was taken up with a job which we have been putting off for ages, tackling tidying John's big shed.  We realise that the more storage you have the more you tuck away and John's shed is a treasure trove of 'stuff'.  He has just about everything you need in there if he can find it but often he knows he has something but cannot find it.

We eventually got round to checking the state of our tent and sleeping bags which we haven't used for about 9 years - they were ok but the same could not be said for the blow up mattress which was like an old fashioned lilo and which had become one perished mass of rubber!

We did manage to sort out sufficient space that John can now walk in and around the shed and see what he has - there are still lots of things which need to be ousted from the various shelves, cupboards, drawers, bags and boxes inside but it was getting hot and by late afternoon we really had had enough.  Still it is quite cathartic and we have had a very productive couple of days - things do look better tidy that's for sure.  Just not quite sure that we are going to do with some old decompression suit John found lurking in the bowels or more to the point when he thought we might need to use it!

It was rather lovely to grab a shower and know that we had leftover pizza in the fridge for tea which I served with the refried chips and a salad which featured my homemade cheese which I love - it is a cross between cottage cheese and fetta and even John ate it so it must have been ok.