Finally back to Greece (twice)

Once again I'm back to blogging as today Halil came past to help in the garden however it's been a fun and busy few weeks so let's get on with it.

Hat on a basketball

A storm in the distance

Let's get weeds removed

A beautiful sunset

After work one evening Rosie and I went into town and met up with some people at the local basketball court and I played some ball, Rosie played with the other kids, and then played badminton with me. It was fun and hopefully we'll do it again. I've also been trying to get out into the garden regularly and get a load of weeding done to keep our flower beds looking nice. It has been such lovely weather recently also.

Getting to the beach nice and early

Out for food (I'm just out to shot)

Mike playing with Rosie

The tortoise crosses the road

We had a really lovely and busy weekend after this. I was up very early on Saturday and drove across to Greece to collect my friend and his wife who were on holiday and visiting us for the night. I spent a couple of hours on the beach, got to lay and read and swim a little before I headed to the ferry port and picked them up. I didn't get all that many pictures however we had a lovely time, including getting out for dinner to the restaurant and then a lovely long drive around to do some sightseeing before I had to take them back over to Greece to their ferry again. On the way home I stopped and waited while a tortoise crossed the road. I didn't ask it why it was going though.

Rosie with all the peas

A ladybird on a wildflower

Enjoying the weather on the patio

Put a new chair together

Loads of puppies

Snake skin scrap

There's been some harvesting going on the last few weeks and first off the peas were ready. Angela and Rosie went out with a pot and collected them all and then worked together to shell them all - a great result for a little work. We spent some lovely time sunbathing on the patio on the recliners and I put a new one up so we have one each; unfortunately Dutch then went and chewed the new chair which made me quite unhappy. It did warn us that we needed to keep him away from our new insulation tiles and the pool so we've delayed putting the pool up until we can fence it in; this fencing is now due tomorrow so hopefully soon we can finally put the pool up! Down at the farm there are more and more puppies all the time; they are very friendly and cute! I found a scrap of snake skin while watering which was pretty cool to see - Rosie was fascinated.

We set out the wooden track for fun

The strong winds took this tree down

Rosie chilling on Grandma's bench

Her first ever painted miniature

Here's a tortoise

We've mostly had absolutely glorious weather for the past few weeks however a huge storm did blast through which brought the most incredible winds before dumping a load of rain (very welcome indeed as this refilled our water collection, and soaked the ground really nicely) however the wind did break some branches on some of the tea trees and also took down the top off a walnut tree! Other than this, it's been lovely and warm and I'm gutted we don't have the pool up yet. We've seen a fair few tortoises around which is always exciting and Rosie does love seeing them just like I do. While watering I noticed one of the plum trees that gives an early crop was absolutely loaded with perfectly ready plums so I grabbed the harvesting bag and in about 30 minutes had 3kg of plums ready for preparation. I have since chopped all these and they are in the freezer. We have so much fruit this year it's going to be a bumper crop!

Early to the beach and how lovely it was

A flying fork

Mummy and Rosie burying me

I'm buried!

Sat in the waves having fun

She really does love the sea, and so do I

Panorama of the beach

Time for lunch

Yesterday we were up super early and out the door towards Greece; on the way we picked up our friend. The queues at the border were really long however they processed everyone super quickly and we were on the beach before 8am which is perfect. We had such a great day as the weather was perfect - hot but a breeze and lots of lovely shade as well. Rosie had a blast, she buried me and I got a fair amount of snorkeling done, though there was a strong current going across the beach so it wasn't as relaxing as it can be as I was swimming hard to stay still sometimes. Towards the end of the morning the swell built up and Rosie had a blast jumping in the waves and then just sitting down and letting them wash over us. It was so beautiful and a perfect day, topped off by a lovely lunch at a cafe next to the port. By the time we got home I was wiped out and slept for two hours straight!

There's an (empty) duck pond in there somewhere

Running water back into the pond

Cleaned out the dried up scum

Fixing the stairs

Trimming branches

Levering out a clump of saplings

Chopping down a dead tree

This area is looking so much better already

We have a lovely clean pond again

And so to today. I had a super busy early morning getting stuff done before Halil arrived and had just got outside to clean out the pond when he did get here. I swept out the bottom of the pond and collected all the material for the garden then started the tap to refill it. This took all of five minutes total. Inside Halil was working on fixing the one step on our spiral staircase where one of the welds had come loose. It did not take him long to repair this and then we were both outside back to the task of clearing the trees that are spreading everywhere by the driveway. We worked for about 2 hours straight and got another four or five trees removed. This time we did not use Thomas as the trees we are removing are so tangled with their roots it was crazy difficult to get them up. Halil also cut down and chopped up a dead tree we found. We've decided to leave the big trees for now and take all the sapling and spreading encroaching growth. He'll probably be back next Sunday for another session. I'm really enjoying working with him! During this time the pond refilled so now hopefully the ducks will enjoy it again.

So there it is. I may be back next Sunday with another update but I'm not sure. Let's see how it goes. Thanks for reading.