Helping Isabel

The shenanigans of yesterday left me exhausted! Today was likely to be a bit the same because first thing I was taking Isabel to the vets with her dog Andro because he needed a 'Fit to Fly' certificate.  She and Andro are returning to Scotland.  Her car and her chattels have already been packed up and taken by Peter Morton so it is just the last few things which will go in her case.  She is leaving quite a bit behind in the house - she has given an inventory to the landlord so that nothing goes missing and she asked if we could take a couple of pots up to the cemetery to put on David's grave and offered me any pots which were theirs rather than leave them behind.  Not being a great dog lover and knowing that Andro doesn't go much on me I was a bit nervous about having him in the car but John prepared the boot so that he was safe and couldn't jump about and he remained quiet there and back - to be fair Isabel had him muzzled so I doubt he could have made a great deal of noise.  

We returned to Droushia, one more tick in the box regarding Isabel's return.  I went and picked up John and between us we picked up the pots and did some bits and pieces around the house for Isabel before saying goodbye - we will see her for the final time on Sunday when I will take her boarding pass and some official documents for Andro.  We will not be taking her to the airport as Iris and Andros from across the road are doing that.

Once back home I decided I needed to do a bit of tidying up in the garden before I sorted out the new pots.  In the pathway I encountered what is either a grasshopper or a locust.  It had a nice orange stripe on its legs to go with the black and white stripes on its legs - perhaps it was off to a football match!

John decided that he would temporarily put the new pots on the front of George's so that when Pam and George come out to stay they will have a bit of a 'garden' to look after.  Once they have been and gone then we will decide where their permanent home is going to be.

I think Isabel would agree that they all needed a bit of TLC so I started by cutting back any geraniums and if I could put the cuttings back into the soil in the hopes that they would grow.  

I cut off any dead growth and anything that was a bit unruly and they began to look better straight away.  Most of the plants are fairly drought tolerant being geraniums and succulents so they will be fine even if neglected.

It will be nice to have a reminder of Isabel in the garden anyway and she gave me a picture that used to hang in the hallway that I always admired.  It looks quite Indian and I think it is a piece of fabric which has been painted - quite unusual and in nice shades of red and orange.  When we have decided where it is to live I will take a photograph.

It was a hot day and I decided that I wanted to go for a swim but noticed that we had a load of water boatmen or actually water backswimmers making use of it.

They are called Backswimmers because they swim on their backs, paddling with the long hind legs and attack prey as large as tadpoles and small fish.  They can inflict a painful bite on a human being.  They are easy to spot in the pool because they seem to be surrounded by a bubble of water and upon investigation we found out that they often come into a swimming pool to lay their eggs so that the larvae can eat algae - apparently they can sense that there will be algae even if it is undetectable to the human eye so this was a flag to John to check the pool water and adjust the chemicals.  We didn't know that these things can eat fish and John had transferred two into my little pond which meant that about an hour ensued when we needed to catch the buggers and take them out as there are a few baby fish in there.

It was clearly a day for wildlife in the garden because in the afternoon I was out the front when I heard some banging on the fence between us and Gregoris - I didn't take a lot of notice because I thought he was probably doing something the otherside, either that or Charlie was hauling his bulk up and over.  In fact it was neither - what emerged was the biggest Agama lizard that I have seen in the garden.  For its own safety I wanted to encourage it out (Chivers used to catch them and try and eat them).   In the end I had to enlist John's help and the hose.  I 'flushed' it out and John encouraged it to run down the front path - hopefully to safety and not into the jaws of a local feline.

John wanted to try and get a haircut this evening but had totally forgotten it was Friday night which seems to be the most popular with the local male community before they go off 'on the pull'.  When we arrived there were already three people in the shop along with Christakis.  So John arranged to go back on Monday and we sat and had a drink at Stathmos before wandering back home via Kaponas where we stopped to have a bite to eat.  Blimey that place was busy - all bar two tables were reserved and they were carrying more and more tables out.  Friday night is Kleftiko - we didn't have it but many of the diners were.  We bumped into Savvas the Electrician and Iris and Andros whilst we were there.