Ramble on

After morning 'walkies' it was a busy day indoors - cleaning, laundry and organising my craft room (good progress there) whilst the gardeners I recently hired arrived as scheduled (not always guaranteed in this country!!) and spent several hours remodeling the front area of my yard/garden. They removed an out of control gone wild rose bush in the corner that attacked anyone within about a six foot area, a prickly shrub that got you on the legs if you walked past when coming through the gate, and, sadly, an ancient grape vine that straddled the boundary fence with intermittent shriveled leaves and gnarled bark - and no grapes.  I don't know how long the villa lay empty before I bought and moved in, but clearly it's a long time since again gave any TLC to the outside space.  I now have.a pristine area with a new green shrub of some kind - very boring but apparently sheds no leaves which is good as a poolside companion, unlike the vine. In place of the gone wild rose is a wisteria, rather young and tender so it's going to be a while before any beautiful blooms. In place of the spiky thing is a flowering climber, which will one day frame the gate - long term planning here - and finally in place of a clump of dead things is a  bourgainvillea which one day may match the splendiforous specimen on the other side of the gate. The base of each plant is surrounded by white stones presumably to keep weeds at bay.  All very clean and tidy and somewhat sanitized, but it has made the whole area into a space I can now enjoy sitting in while I wait for some character to grow. 

All attempts to photograph the work and results were miserable failures, angle and sun location issues - so tomorrow morning I'll take a photo from my balcony to give a better view, for my memoirs you understand.

Not only did I do a day of housework, I also did some garden clearance of my own in the early evening, in between some pool time, followed by a stroll to the sea front with the woofer where dinner and a beer at Pasa restaurant was well deserved. Took a photo of the sunset - but decided there are only so many Akbuk sunset photos I can upload to my Blip journal in any one month, so the woofer it is, along with his fav toy, Lamb Baby.