We have been pretty lazy the last few days, just enjoying being around the house and pool. The weather has been quite changeable. Staying warm throughout – 26c – but with mixed cloud and sunny spells plus the odd shower of rain and strong winds especially overnight. A storm front has been moving east across the Med. and its almost past us now. From tomorrow we are back to full sun and up to 28C.

I have managed to get onto a pool lounger you’ll be glad to hear! And a lot of reading has taken place and I am readying some arts and crafts work, making tealight holders out of glass yoghurt pots. Or rather updating those I made a few years ago which need some repair now.

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Habibi and his men came on Sunday and worked all day on the upper drive, getting it ready for the paviers. They have relocated the gravel down to the lower garden and dug out/flattened the slope up from the road. It is looking better already. They needed to be careful because our water main crosses the drive down near the slope. Water mains are soft plastic pipes here so quite easy to put a pickaxe through. They are coming back on Saturday to work through the weekend. At the same time they are digging out the raised area behind the end of our pool to make it a gradual slope and relocate some of the earth to the bottom of the orchard so that it is an easy flat surface that joins to the lower garden. I offered to get a small digger in but they reckon they will do it by hand in a few hours!!!!! Labour here is cheap and they are glad to have the extra work on top of their day jobs and be paid in sterling. We are always delighted with the workmanship.

Yesterday we went for an explore around some of the side roads in our area to see if anything had changed. It is noticeable now that seafront plots are being made available and houses being built. When we purchased in 2006, it was not possible to buy a plot that directly edged the coast. We were offered plots that were one plot back but that left the possibility of something enormous being put in front of us, so we decided to buy a house on the mountainside where – inshallah and fingers crossed – our views could not be blocked. Now however, there are quite a few houses built and in construction down along the coast line in Alsancak, so something must have changed.

Last night we had dinner with our friends Deborah and David. They are having a massive amount of work done to their rear garden – new pool tiles, pool edging, relaid terrace, outdoor kitchen and bar and some new walls. We admired their mosaic pool tiles – like the inside of a mussell shell, or a mermaid’s tail in colours. It will all look amazing.

We had dinner at Tervetuloa, one of our favourites. A lovely greeting from the owner and staff. We admired all her new gourd lamps. She has made quite a few since July and there is a vast stock of gourds from the vines ready for conversion. Some of her newest ones are Christmas themed and so lovely. I mustn’t buy any more though….. Dinner was very good. The meze starters – about 13 small plates – then I had lamb chops for main course and then a fruit plate, coffee and brandy. It was £9 per head. Incredible value.

Today I read by the pool again and we had two massive deliveries of sand to the upper drive ready for work to start again on Friday.