Fluttering by

28 June 2019

Because the strimmer developed an electrical fault and has been returned for service, our land is more than usually overgrown, and has become a magnet for 'Painted Lady' butterflies.  According to google, these migrate thousands of km from Africa across the Sahara - and stop off in our garden!  There are hundreds!  As you walk up to the top path they rise around you in a cloud.  Fabulous.  Spent rather too long in the sun trying to get a shot of one with its wings open to make a proper identification.

A jolly little boat

25/26 June 2019

After my return from the UK we were in the middle of a sweltering heatwave, so not much was done.  Until we had a call from a courier, saying he had two large packages to deliver in 10 mins time.

After our yacht sank, I had considered cancelling the little folding wooden dinghy we had ordered only a week previously, but in the end, decided not to.  Now it was here, so we had a go at setting it up.  It is a 'Seahopper' and opens and closes like a dream.  It will just fit in the car, so we can take it exploring.

In the living room (too hot outside) our jolly little boat, looking a lot bigger than expected.  With the electric outboard (that survived the yacht sinking by mostly not being on board) we can potter round the coast and do a little snorkelling.

Gone away

12 - 23 June 2019

I had long been booked to escort Mum home and stay a week with her, but my Dad had been ill, so I bought another flight and arranged to go north at the end of the week to visit Dad and then go on to stay with my son.  All this left Dave enjoying solitary splendour in the finished house. 

There was some chance of work being done on the kitchen terrace while I was away, but now the tourist season is fully underway, everyone is doing three jobs at once, and we weren't too bothered to make ours a priority. 

So while I toured the UK, Dave sent these updates:

With the guest bedroom packed away and the music room reinstated, Dave finally got to set up his guitar corner the way he wanted it.

 Work starts on the decking.  Old lumps of lime plaster from around the mixer were dug out and used as filler for this block outside the kitchen door, topped with fresh gravel.  I was worried that if we left it as an empty space it would become attractive to hornets and paper wasps for nest sites.

 The water tank site was dug out and filled with sand so they could be bedded in, ready for the deck to be built over them.

 Where the mixer was, showing a great clear-up job of the debris washed out during cleaning.

 Levelling the top with the kitchen floor

 Decking planks in place, so we can get in and out easily if the work stops here for a few weeks/months

Meanwhile, in the UK - I'm playing happy families.

Around the house

6 - 10 June 2019

In all the excitement of finishing the house only minutes before leaving for the airport to pick up Mum, I didn't get any photos of our 'show home' moment.  Dave took a photo on his phone, and it isn't high res, but I'm posting it anyway.

 Here it is - the downstairs gleaming with its new floor, curtains, dining table and chairs, wall unit with books to the left, and a glimpse of rug in the seating area.  How very posh we are!  

 Outside, some days later, early evening.  The Ikea six garden chairs, table and parasol all constructed - but still surrounded by clutter.

 Also early evening - the delivery of wood for the decking terrace - just at the point in the day when you want to sit down with a glass of Dave's home brewed ginger beer - and not lug lots of timber around!

 I made a little cushion to fit the rattan chairs.  Two more to go.  Amazingly I had this tapestry fabric from some aborted project a few years ago, and it is exactly right for this job.

And now the weather has finally hotted up, we took the glass window panels out of the solarium and stored them under that blue and cream rug.  We won't be needing any extra hot air for a few months.

Moringa Miracle!

4 June 2019

Hoping against hope, I've been checking the dead Moringa trunks from time to time - those of you who follow this blog will know that we are attempting to grow (and keep through the winter) some tropical trees full of nutrients called Moringa Oleifera.  Last year's trees grew over 10ft in only a few months, but the cold this winter wiped them out.  But not entirely!  Two of them (the most sheltered) have put out tiny new shoots from the base of the trunk.

Salad garden

4 - 6 June 2019

Dave and I had a sudden urge to do something about the terribly overgrown little raised salad bed outside the kitchen door.  The bed is falling apart, and full of gone-to-seed herbs, but it didn't take much to quickly weed and compost mulch it.  While returning from dropping my brother at the airport we'd stopped at a garden centre and bought four flower pots to turn into 'olla' pots.  Basically, you stick two pots together at the wide end, block up one hole, bury them in the soil, and fill with water.  The idea is that the water gradually seeps out through the terracotta and is delivered to plant roots in a gentle, continuous drip.  We made two and set them up surrounded by tomato seedlings.  We may not have used the right sticky-stuff, though, because they don't seem to be working too well.

 Mum watching the work, in our junkyard of old furniture, with one Ikea reclining chair built for her comfort.

 The rapidly fixed up garden, with olla pots poking through the soil, and a few new plantings of coriander, tomato and squash.

Creative outlets

Early June 2019

Surprisingly, Mum's visit coincided with a few creative outlets, which don't normally all come together. So she was bombarded with cultural outings:

 Our choir giving an impromptu 'flash mob' performance in a square in Lefkas town

 My first painting in a real exhibition!  Also in Lefkas town, one work from as many participating artists on the island as possible.  This came about following our involvement in the Choir Festival a few weeks ago.  Lucy and Paris also contributed.

 Dave, Mum and I made a visit to the street installation of 'fibre-bombing' by our friend Malin and group.  Lots of knitting and crochet on lamp-posts, a bicycle (just visible in the window above), bunting, and big flower dots outside a cafe (with Mum just visible in the window below!)

Then relaxing - Mum finally makes it into the water as the weather warms up towards the end of her visit.

Cleaning the panels

1 June 2019

The panels are filthy, covered in dusty rain marks.  We recently bought a brush that you attach to the end of a hose, so Dave went aloft again, to scrub the panels clean.

On holiday

30 May 2019

Now that Mum has arrived, and Jonathan for the weekend, we are on holiday, so all the stress and long hours of getting ready can be put aside, and we can chill out with our guests.  The house is finished.  Hurrah!

Finishing the tiles

25 - 28 May 2019

Again, it was well before I thought possible that the grouting started on the kitchen tiles.  Using a complex arrangement of planks to span between the solid points of wood floor, older kitchen tiles and firebrick plinth under the stove, Zed was able to reach every corner and lash in the lime-grout. 

 Watching the grouting.

 Whenever Rowan comes to the house he says, 'where's my broom?' and starts sweeping up.  He is rightly very proud of our floor.

 Three days later, we risk walking on the tiles to start the scrubbing clean.  Mum arrives tomorrow.  

A visitor inspects the works

 I had assumed we would be totally finished with the show-home arranging by the end of Tuesday, so I asked Rowan and Paris to come for a 'casual supper' (meaning no time had been expended on planning or making fancy food!).  With the way things worked out - and how long it took to scrub the tiles clean - Dave was painting the first coat of preservative on the tiles as I was lighting the candles for supper.

The next morning we painted the second coat, in between hanging curtains and moving furniture into place, before leaving for the airport.  Phew, just in time!