Goodbye New Neighbours, Hello New Neighbours!

We were up early this morning - John needed to let in the bathroom fitter to George and Pam's and we were taking Jan and Derek to the airport.  

First we unbattened down the hatches - the threat of the storm had passed without amounting to much save for a ripped gazebo cover which we did ourselves 😕😕😕  The upshot is that as we can travel back from the airport to Mum's via the Superhome Centre we will go in there and get a replacement whilst we still can get them.

In the Do-Jo this morning we had a visitor - a newly hatched cicada sunning itself.  These are pretty big - about 2-3 inches long and are the things that make the unmistakable buzzing noise at night plus when they fly their wings 'click'.  They are strange creatures - and unbelievably the cicadas that hatch this year will drop to the ground and burrow into the earth for 17 years where they will feed on the fluids in tree roots until they emerge to breed in May 2039.  There seems to be a lot more of these in evidence this year so I guess the same situation was true 17 years ago.  I haven't seen as many previously - certainly not in our garden and the other day Nicky and Mark had one emerging on their front door frame.

Our trip to the airport was not without issue.  As we got to the other side of Kathikas Jan realised she didn't have her phone so we nipped back to Droushia to retrieve it from the car.  Good job it was Jan and not me or otherwise I would never have heard the last of it.  Anyway we dropped them off in good time for their Ryan Air flight which arrived and left with them on it, unlike many other flights at the moment which are being cancelled last minute.  We even managed to get not one but two replacement gazebo covers and got to Mums in plenty of time to go to the opticians even after having got caught up in traffic jams en route to Superhome.

We got to the opticians - George at Trueyes in the Old Town.  I like him because he immediately recognised my bizarre eyesight issues (courtesy of a childhood bout of measles).  He took mum in first and was pleased to report that actually both her eyes have improved since she was there last and she has really very good eyesight for someone who is 87 years old which is good news as she still wants to be able to drive.  My eyes have both changed - I didn't ask whether they were better or worse as that was all a bit academic but I do know that recently I have been able to see the TV better without my glasses than with.  Anyway when he gives me my new prescription I will be able to see.  Both Mum and I chose new glasses.  Mum's are a very pretty shade of lilac which go well with her colouring and are a bit of a 'statement' which seems to be the fashion nowadays.  I opted for some Dierdre Barlow big thick frames in green - George was laughing because for years he tried to persuade me to move away from old-fashioned small frames,  I did so reluctantly after loosing a pair when I was asparagus picking and today I chose ones even bigger than he might have suggested.  I wear glasses, I have worn glasses now for over 58 years and I now feel ready to embrace them rather than try and hide them.  It took a while but I got there!

Our supper this evening was the barbeque which Mum turned down - I made the salad fresh and used my own 'feta' cheese which was lovely.  We have pressed this effort so that it can be cut like feta rather than make it into cottage cheese.  We had part of a BBQ pack from Shuks which included steak burgers, beer marinated chicken which are in the middle orangey coloured ones (not quite sure what beer was used to make them that colour) and some piri piri chicken ones (on the right).  It was all very delicious indeed - Mum you don't know what you missed except the piri piri would have been far too hot for you to manage.  We used the indoor electric griddle thing for the cooking - it is great!!!

As we thought new people moved into 3A this evening.  George, Ruba and Eva/Ava not sure which.  They seem very nice and speak a little English - enough to understand that we were neighbours and that we were welcoming them.  Good news is that they like cats so wont be bothered if Charlie pays them a visit.