Richard is called in as a Sub...

It was a glorious start to the day.  The clocks change at the weekend which generally means that the weather changes.  We are hoping not because we are looking forward to seeing Wendy and Bill for the first time in ages, years actually.  Our PV system will tell us that this October has been disappointing in terms of generation and even if it bucks its ideas up with the days that are left it is going to be probably the worst October since we had the system, that week of rain really knocked the stats.

Both John and I had early starts this morning - John had to take Mrs Kirby the Qashqai down to Agia Varvara for a service which was booked in for 8.30am and then he was selling his kidney in order to get all four tyres replaced!!!  He was having to hang around waiting for the service and for the tyres before coming home.

I had offered to help Ross from the village with the auction she helps organise for the Friends of Polis Dog Pound.  She sold it to me as a morning of photographing auction lots which was fine by me but as I found out this was not actually the case.  I went down to Polis and parked up walking down to the Bags of Fun Vintage Jewelry shop which houses the auction lots.  En route there is a magnificent Clerodendrum plant in full flower.  Mine has struggled - I think it is probably a bit too cold for it in Droushia.  It lost all its leaves and then took a long time to show any signs of life.  The one in the photograph obviously likes where it is positioned.

Anyway I can honestly say I didn't take a single photograph.  Ross needed help trying to (a) find the auction lots, (b) work out who had won them and for how much (c) write the invoice for each winner which might include multiple lots and (d) bag the lot or lots for each winner along with the corresponding invoice.  I have learned that it really helps when you know what you are looking for!!!  It took us two hours to complete the task by which time I needed to leave to go and see Mum as promised.  Anyway Ross said that having someone to help had cut down the time immeasurably for which she was very grateful.  I have promised to go and help again but not next week as hopefully we will have Wendy and Bill with us.

We had invited Mark and Nicky to come around this evening for home-made pizza.  I had got all the ingredients ready and part-cooked yesterday and had enough for 2 small pizzas each but unfortunately Nicky contacted me earlier in the day to say that Mark was poorly with some sort of bug and because they weren't sure what it was they thought it might be better to keep a low profile rather than pass anything on which was fair enough - the only trouble was I had all this stuff that needed eating so we called in our reserve Richard who was more than happy to help us out.  Sorry Nicky and Mark but we can do this again another time.  It was such a lovely evening that we actually managed to sit outside and eat which is pretty remarkable as we head towards November.

Charlie was very interested in our food.  Actually Charlie is exceptionally clingy at the moment because he has had his nose put out of joint because Jan and Derek are looking after a puppy which appeared on the estate overnight.  

We aren't entirely sure what happened.  It would appear that the puppy was first discovered by Das and Belinda as it was under their car and eventually they managed to get hold of it and took it indoors and then at some point it went out for the loo and disappeared.  It was then found next door in Gail and Pete's.  Anyway Gail contacted the dog rescue places, most of which are bursting at the seams, and until a proper foster can be found Jan and Derek were going to look after it.

Needless to say this was not part of Charlie's long term plan.  Jan says he wandered in today, took one look at the puppy and gave it a disdainful look and turned on his paws and left and has not been back.  They were lucky that Charlie didn't decide to have a go at the puppy because my money would have been on Charlie getting the upper hand.  Not sure what is going to happen as Jan and Derek are only here for a couple more weeks.