Varieties of tortoiseshell

28 - 31 May 2020

We cycled into Nidri on Friday to get the last paperwork and payment to a colleague of Constantine's, and on the way back we met a tortoise.  I was very keen to bring it back to ours for an improved quality of life and lots of melons, but the tortoise was not so keen.

 After a couple of failed attempts to persuade her to accompany us, she took off into the undergrowth.

 Friday morning - having run out of fruit for breakfast, I collected mulberries before the magpies could eat them.

 While Dave was watering the garden we noticed that a lot of the irrigation water floods out of the stone-edged bed and makes a muddy puddle just below.  We think it is seeping through the stones, and is therefore hard to fix.  The answer, we decided, was to build a little extra log garden, on the weeded mud, with a couple of shovelfuls of manure and some potting compost.  And it gave us a much-needed place for our last seedlings - two watermelon plants.

 Saturday - on our fourth visit to the chicken shop, they finally had some in.  Not just the usual russet ones, either, but a medley of colours, so we mixed-and-matched.  Here they are, newly tipped out of their cardboard boxes, adjusting to the new establishment.

 Having got carried away by chicken-watching, and then going for a walk between showers to visit Robbie and Sue's new patch of land, we suddenly remembered we were supposed to be in Lefkas for the Lefkogaia AGM.  I sent a 'sorry-delayed' message, and we shot off to town, arriving only 20 minutes late - and we were the first to arrive.  We had a very responsible 'socially-distanced' meeting on a patch of land opposite Thomas' house.  The warehouse has been given up because we couldn't make the rent during lockdown.

 On Sunday morning, the chickens didn't emerge from the chicken house until we chased them out, but then they found the food and water and got settled in.  Here they demonstrate that birds of a feather DO flock together!  From left: Dapple, Ginger, Snowy, Inky (black smudges on neck and tail), Speckles and Blackie.  Such unoriginal, but mostly memorable, names!

 Ah!  The joy of a dust-bath.  

Probably the first ever, if they've been brought up in concrete sheds.

 Speckles and Blackie enjoying one too.

 Dave puts up the tent, to cut a piece of pond-liner offcut as an extra groundsheet, and pegs it all out.  Then calls me and we time the deconstruction - 7 minutes - much better than expected.  One minute later, the heavens open and we have our first real heavy thunderstorm in months.  Filled the pond and all the water barrels to the top in about an hour.  Glad we got the tent in first!

 Meanwhile, I've been painting a picture of my favourite garden flowers: the wild gladioli and some borage.  A pressie for my Mum.

Sunday evening - the cat eyeing up the new arrivals, which are also tortoiseshell, when you think about it.