Another day gently working around the house and garden. This morning we had to restart the watering system again because the filter was blocked from the tank. This just needed removing and washing out after the winter rains and then it was watering again. However we have noticed that when the garden piping was replaced earlier this year, it has been done in a way that the mains will prioritise filling the garden water tank over both the house water tank and the swimming pool balancing tank. Previously the water was divided equally between all three tanks depending on pull and need. So we need to reroute that a bit, so that it works without intervention when we are not here.

Bob then set about patching up the colander style hosepipe so we can use the pressure washer again before the end of quarantine. He managed to cobble enough of it together and bind up the rest to make it work. It’s going to be a first buy when we can get out!!!! I got all of the pool lounger cushions and pressure washed them. For some reason, they had been left out all winter and they were a bit on the muddy side where some of them had blown around the garden. Got them all nice and clean again and they are out drying off. We wrap them in white cotton sheets anyway, not just for cosmetic reasons but also to keep them cooler.

In doing that I noticed that when the guys had regrouted all the pool terrace tiles this past winter they had regrouted all the “surrounding” tiles that form a lip around the bottom of our outdoor shower. This is not how it is designed to work because it is slightly tilted so that it drains from a “miss” between two tiles at the back so that the water drains out of the tray into the flower border behind. Bob will have to remove some of the grouting so this can happen again.

Bob is fitting wifi range extenders to allow the entire pool terrace to be covered by the wifi. It would cover parts of it before, but now we can walk right down to the bottom to the orchard archway with strong signal. I went round washing paintwork and checking lightbulbs. We had lunch on the terrace. It was pretty hot – over 30 today.

Some of the food out here tastes so much nicer than our food at home. Tomatoes obviously because they get more sun, but also potatoes are just extraordinarily yummy and also today I noticed how nice the eggs were – a great colour and they tasted just….. better! I guess it is because everything is local and there isn’t much of a supply chain from farm to plate. Hopefully the UK could grow to become more like that if we switched to buying local. I do wherever I can.

Our neighbour, Alan, very kindly offered to get us anything we were missing from our initial shop. There wasn’t much but we found we had forgotten to order bbq charcoal and there were a few other things. He brought them to the lower garden and we had a socially distanced chat. Tomorrow we are going to have a longer catch up by all taking chairs to the bottom of the gardens and chatting across that gap.

A certain amount of buzz that Turkey has gone on the UK red list from May 12th. We were expecting it to be honest and we have several options when the time comes to return home. Firstly, we hope that by then Turkey will have got its vaccination rollout in gear and won’t be on the red list. However, if it is, we have the option of crossing to the Republic side and flying home from Larnaca which eliminates the transit in Istanbul. Cyprus is amber so that would just give us the tests and 10 days at home which is no problem. Alternatively for £100 and £36 for health insurance, we can have temporary residency for two years and and stay as long as we like. Pretty tempting in some respects. As it is we have a 3 month visa so we can stay without problem until early August. Hopefully covid rules will have relaxed a bit everywhere by then.

Had my first swim this afternoon and an hour by the pool reading. Bliss. Ozzie, the owner of Gunray Rent a Car called up and we had a chat over the garden wall! He offered to do any errands for us or sort anything out. The locals here who work in tourism are just desperate. The government have not let them off any taxes or anything but they have no means of earning income, or not in the usual way. He’s running errands, going across the border to pick things up at LIDL, people at the airport, whatever he can do. We have our rental car coming from him later in the month when we get out of quarantine. We’ve used his services for years and I always recommend him to guests. He’s never let us or a customer down in over 10 years now. You can’t say better than that.

Bob watched the grand prix qualifying or whatever it was, live on SkyGo on his Ipad. Can’t seem to get it to throw onto the tv here.

Dinner tonight was burgers and potato lyonnaise (for Bob) by the pool. Washed down with…. well, you know…..

After sitting out as the sun went down we came in and watched Netflix with a coffee….

Really relaxed now. It’s so peaceful here. Literally no noise except for the birds.