Tuesday 30th October

Well, I finally finished pruning the rambling rose today, and cutting the honeysuckle out of it. John gave me a hand this afternoon so that it didn't spread over into another day. The garden looks so much larger now that the honeysuckle has been cut back. I'll be interested to see how it all looks tomorrow, as I have cut off lots of the vine bits so I guess the tops will die back. That should make them easier to remove.
John repaired the old trailer we brought from England many years ago. The wood in the sides at the bottom had rotted, so he used bits from our old wooden shutters to fill them in. Another big achievement today was getting rid of the fibreglass shell of the boat which has been sitting at the side of the garden for several years, and the inflatable and the seagull engine. John took them round to Roger's house as he said he would like to try and get one or both of them on the sea. We found the fibreglass shell cast up on the beach at Aetos several years ago, after a strong southerly gale. John said it looked as if it had been under water for quite a long time, everything had gone, there was just the shell left. We were walking along the beach with Aliki, our dog, and found it cast up on the high tide mark. We dragged it clear of the waves and left it for a while to make sure no-one claimed it, although John was sure that it had been lost many years before, and who knows where. After a couple of weeks, when it remained untouched, Roger helped John to put it on top of the car and we brought it home. It was going to be a project John did, one day, one year, sometime in the future, but he never got round to it. Maybe Roger will.
We only acquired the inflatable last year, when SEEP moved their home to a new house. It had been in the bottom of the house for years and no-one wanted it. John mended it and got the little outboard working, and last summer we took it down to the beach and after several attempts got everything working. We had a lovely trip around the bay, nearly out as far as the island of Pelagia. However getting in and out was very awkward, and John thinks it was this which precipitated the dislocation of his hip joint. So maybe we won't repeat it. I hope Roger gets it up and running.