A new week...

There is a distinct nip in the air at night and in the early mornings up here in Droushia and over the weekend we had our first autumnal rains and today was changeable.  We have resorted to a heavy throw on the bed as a compromise because John would prefer a lightweight duvet by my internal thermometer she says NOOOOOOOO!!!!!  The cats have given the throw the once over and it has got the seal of approval although it smells different from the 'blinkie' (knitted by my sister Kaye) which is normally on our bed.  Part of me covets the additional 5-6 degrees of warmth down by the coast and part of me is secretly looking forward to the time when we can unashamedly light the wood burner and snuggle up on the sofa.  On that subject we are having the wood burner serviced tomorrow and chimney swept in readiness and anticipation of its first light which is not normally until much nearer Christmas!

The arrival of Autumn seems early - either that or we are now too acclimatised and our blood suitably thinned.  It has not stopped us in our quest to continue to use the pool as long as possible.  Our benchmark was that when we first moved over here our friends Laura and Mark came for Mark's birthday (which falls later this week) and I distinctly remember we swam when they were here, in the pool, without thinking it was cold or brave to do so.

John went in and removed the bar stool so that he could give the bottom of the pool a good clean.  Google Photos created a photograph by stitching together two others so that you cannot even see the join and so I ended up with a rather spooky photograph of two John's in the pool at the same time!  After yesterday's rain things have been left looking a bit messy but the rain has warmed up the pool water just a tad.

I went to Art today having missed it last week as we had visitors.  It isn't a problem as I am in no rush to complete this picture but I do miss it and so it was nice to get back to the job in hand.

Progress is slow - the picture on the top was where I got to today and the picture below shows where I started - who would have thought that a bit of colouring could take so long!!!

Sheila has finished her picture of the Madonna holding a lamb and now has to find a new subject matter - I am considering maybe doing a picture of a belly dancer next time and giving it to our teacher Sofi because she makes our Monday evening sessions such fun.  I am going to start looking around to see if I can find something suitable.  It is going to take me a while to get this current picture finished because once the flowers and butterfly are completed I have the glass bowl with water and pebbles to challenge me and I think the table upon which the vase sits is going to need a bit of work as I did the left hand side ages ago.

The remainder of the afternoon we didn't do too much as I was off to belly dancing with Diana and then she and Rob were coming up to eat up some of the food we had leftover from the weekend.  As they have only just returned from a soggy trip to Malta to see Di's parents I thought they might appreciate a bit of home cooking and the remains of the stifado and carrot cake from yesterday.

What was just going to be a bit of a quiet supper turned into a really nice evening as I dug out my favourite play-list on the old i-Pod and challenged the Robster to 'name that tune' or 'name the artist' which he managed to do nearly 100% of the time!