We get Rain...

It was to be a fairly quiet Monday for us particularly as the weather was not so good - we are bracing ourselves for a wild day tomorrow as Storm Genesis hits the island and a yellow weather warning had gone out.  We were proactive for once battening down the garden.  Our experience of the tornado the other week has made us very wary about having umbrellas in stands and loose stuff that can be flung about.  We have even taken down the gazebo cover on the Do-Jo and this has given us the opportunity to water-proof it which John has been wanting to do for a while.  Rain in June in Cyprus?  Well not so unusual as our worldy goods arrived in June and it was raining on that day.  We had to ask the guys to leave the unpacking and help John erect his shed instead.  They were a great bunch and more than happy to do whatever we needed to get settled in.  Blimey that seems like a very long time ago.

I took advantage of the much cooler weather to do some gardening.  Lots of things have suddenly put a spurt on so I wanted to do a bit of a tidy and it has been very windy and that has hammered the clematis flowers - most of which are on the floor.

We have a bit of a mystery on our hands with the hollyhock which John rescued from the field next door - it has always flowered with a pink flower as seen on the left of the photograph but this year it produced two spikes and it would appear that the right hand spike will have white flowers.  Not sure how that has happened and I can't find a satisfactory answer on the internet.  We know that this is just one plant, a wild hollyhock so maybe there has been some cross pollination going on or something anyway I shall await the final results with interest.

John was busy today overseeing the work being done at George and Pam's.  Their bathroom renovations have started with everything being stripped out before being re-tiled and the new shower, sink, toilet etc being installed.  Exciting times for them and it should all be lovely and sparkly new when they return later in the Summer.

Someone on social media has been asking about a plant for their garden which likes full sun but no care as they split their time between Cyprus and the UK so for several months are not there to care for it.  This Solanum was one of the few remaining original plants in our garden.  It used to go months without any care and attention or water and survived.  In fact it likes nothing better than a right hard pruning to get it to produce smaller leaves and lots of flowers.  This is the purple coloured one - they seem to be much hardier than the white flowering - I have one of those in the garden too but it seems to be a bit 'delicate' compared to this one.  In fact I don't water anything which is planted in the garden and established except for my kiwi fruit plant that likes loads of water, I just water the pots although I have plenty enough of them!  Anyway this Solanum was due a hair cut today which it got.

The weather forecast was right - we had some heavier showers early evening so we were glad we had packed stuff away - these cushions have been outside for years so they wont hurt.  It meant I didn't have to do any watering which was great.  It also meant that there was nothing left to do but watch day four of the test match and eat up the fabulous brisket which was left over from yesterday and then a couple of episodes of the freaky series we are currently watching - Tell Me Your Secrets...  somewhat dark and disturbing but compulsive viewing all the say and for once I have no idea how it is all going to end.