A Long Power Cut

John woke up with a start this morning - he had been dreaming that we had left all the washing up last night and that we would need to tackle that first thing and then he remembered we had done it all so prepared to relax and ease himself into the day when he had a phonecall from Costas the Aluminium Man to say he was outside the front door.  He had said he would call in today to look at the glass in the conservatory which needs replacing for one reason or another.  We have two units which have 'blown' and so normally have a bloom of condensation between the panes although one was completely clear today for some reason.  We also have a pane of glass which has cracked from top to bottom on the inside which is strange and we wonder whether when we had a series of earthquakes earlier this year that there had been a slight fault which the quakes aggravated and so in the end it cracked completely.  We will soon find out what the damage is - the added nause factor is that they will all need to have the protective film fitted again so double the expense.

We have a heatwave across the island at the moment and it is exceptionally hot so I wanted to sort out the plants which Argy and Lakis brought us last night.

The geranium is one of my favourites.  I have the same, if not similar, which I took as a cutting from my sisters years ago and which I cut back and repropagate every year and it flowers and flowers with cheeful pale pink blooms with a brighter pink pattern inside.

I had a plant which had died in a pot which is located out the front.  I had transplanted a lavender into it when we reorganised the front garden and it hadn't survived but I hadn't got round to removing it.  The pot is a lovely tall terracotta one and would be the ideal home for the geranium so that was plant number one sorted.

We also received a bougainvillea - I love them but I know that when the coloured bracts start to die off they go like tissue paper and get blown all over the place so I needed to find somewhere for it to go that would ensure that our swimming pool did not get covered.

The shape of the plant helped us to decide where it should live.  It had a long arched stem and a shorter upright one and so I thought it would be good if we could encourage it to grow and mask the guttering downpipe which is incorporated into our stone wall.  I set about digging the hole - John was off on an errand with Bassam.  It was hot and sweaty work digging the hole - not least because right where I wanted the plant to go I discovered a massive stone which I had to dig out - at one point I thought it was part of the foundation of the house!  In the end I did manage to get it out and I managed to find a bit of wire which I am going to use to mould the stems into the correct shape.  The arched stem will go along to the left and when the upright one is long enough it will be encouraged to grow up to the right.  It was a job well done and I am pleased that we have managed to find a way of hiding the brown downpipe which I have never liked.

Our last little job for the day which we thought would be a five minute one and then turned out to take a lot longer was to fit the fly screen which we got from Lidl.  I wanted something for our spare bedroom just to try and keep the worst of the bugs at bay if someone wants to sleep in there with the door open.

We chose this design because the cats should be able to push their way through one of the middle sections rather than scratch at the fabric and hitch it to bits!!!  Charlie was the first visitor - if he can haul his bulk through then anyone can!!!

We had a longish unexpected power cut this afternoon which was a bit of a bugger as we had planned to eat early and had only had some nibbles lunchtime.  On calling the fault line it appeared that it was quite major affecting Droushia and many of the surrounding villages including Kathikas.  We decided to sit it out and wait although it was not expected to return until 7.30pm!

Nicky was in the middle of cooking pork chops so we fired up our gas barbeque and she brought them over and John finished them off whilst she and I sad and had a glass of wine together.  Just as she was walking back with them done and dusted the power came back on at 7.00pm and had a little blip thereafter but we were able to heat up our leftover chili con carne and very nice it was too.