John is chief cook and bottlewasher

This morning John decided to start on the guest bedroom refurbishment.  We want to give the accent wall a fresh lick of paint but after John moves the wall light which has never been positioned centrally which makes my teeth ache and the electric cable for the ceiling fan (which is also not central) is run off of that light and was never chased in - it is housed in some surface mounted conduit which is a bit unsightly.  We had got some paint swatches and felt the accent wall should remain green but be a little darker.  We then remembered we had an assortment of leftover paint from various DIY projects and we decided to mix them together if they hadn't 'gone on'.  We managed to mix something reasonably similar to the colour we had chosen on the swatches which means we have saved ourselves some money.

We want to add some grey/black accents so that the bed doesn't stick out so much so John was busying himself with a can of spray paint and a shed load of knobs from the various cupboards and chests of drawers in that room.  Knobs reminded me that there used to be a shop in the bottom of town in Yeovil called Knobs and Knockers and when Mum and Dad had their house built in Chlorakas and took possession 30 years ago we bought them a house sign.  I have that house sign now in the garden here and it looks as good now 30 years later as it did when we bought it.

On the guest bedroom wall I used to have a quote from Walt Disney "If you can Dream it, you can do it" along with some butterflies.  I have it on good authority that wording on walls is now very old fashioned and naff so we decided to get rid which was easy enough as it peeled off the wall and didn't leave any sign it had been there.  I took the butterflies off and they were perfect so I couldn't bring myself to throw them out so I decided to put them on my shed for the time being.

The garden is doing ok under the current weather conditions although it would appear that I have overwatered the tomatoes which is a bit of a shame - they were a special black variety which our friend Marianne had given us the last time we went out.  I also have some chili plants which seem to be doing ok but I think I probably put them in far too late - time will tell.

There isn't much colour in the garden but under my instruction John is keeping things under control.  He is pretty smug that the yellow lantana, which he cut back so hard the other week that I shouted at him, has started to regrow but the unfortunately the blue plant (name I cant remember but think it was Felicia) has not recovered from being decimated by John Scissor-Hands which is a shame.  I shall have to see if I can replace it in the autumn.

What John lacks in gardening skills he makes up for with his cooking which is really improving.  Tonight with a little help and instruction he produced a stunning plate of fillet steak with wedges, onion rings and peas.  He would admit to having a bit of help with the steak sauce but that's fair enough!