Putting the Gin Palace to bed...

After a brunch of bacon rolls and coffee, Ele, Kenny, D and I headed into the garden to empty the Gin Palace of soft furnishings and put it to bed for winter.  

Thankfully it was a lovely sunny afternoon and there was much hilarity and messing about with Lola, who was having a ball getting so much attention!  

Gin Palace emptied, it was soon filled up again with garden furniture.  It serves as a great storage space over winter.  Seat cushions into the storage boxes and the garden umbrellas and stands into the garage.  The big table is too heavy to move so it had its cover put on.  Think we ate at it all of three times this summer!   Not a single BBQ was had! 

Once the garden was done, Ele and I tackled the massive pool inflatables.  Time for them to be deflated! 

I always planned to have two comfy garden chairs and a small table at the side of the pool, but the corner that was reserved for that has been home to a massive unicorn, swan, various sizes of rubber rings and a banana, yes you read that right, an inflatable banana, so the chairs have never been in situ.  Alan doesn't use any of these inflatables for his hydrotherapy sessions, they're really only used when Esme or Faith and Anna are here, so time for them to go! (Just into the cupboard :-)  Ele and I spent ages and lots of energy squeezing the life out of the unicorn and the large doughnut (forgot to mention that) before David appeared with the battery operated air pump.  I didn't realised it deflates pool toys as well as inflates!  

After that we were all in need of coffee.

Ele and Kenny headed home.  We had these for dinner.  First time I've made them and they were delicious.  Will definitely make them again.  Watched the Strictly results and carried on crocheting the daisy squares.  I may have snoozed! :-))