Sofas and Weeds

Two new sofas were delivered at lunch-time. We had been thinking of replacing our very uncomfortable three-seater sofa for some time, and after visiting the Thrift Store many times we realised it could take months - even years - to find what we were looking for. So we went to some of the furniture shops. Most were expensive, with mainly leather-covered suites. Quite attractive in their way, but not much point having something like that with four cats in the house. One scratch and leather (or leather-look) would be ruined.

Eventually we ended up at D V Pavlimbes and sons, a furniture store in down-town Larnaka. Their selection was much more to our taste, and their prices better too! After much thought we went to order two two-seater sofas on Saturday. We chose a material that was somewhat more expensive than the default, thinking it would last longer and be better able to cope with feline scratches. All the sofas are hand-built and covered, so we thought it would be a week or two at least, and were surprised when the very friendly man who took our order said it would be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Cyprus companies are not renowned for good timing. So I was very surprised when today - Wednesday - a phone call came at 11.30am telling me the sofas would be delivered in an hour. I mentally decided that meant probably some time in the afternoon, but to my amazement the doorbell rang at 12.30, and the sofas were delivered. The boys like the look of them (that's a relief! Dan had threatened to leave home if they were tasteless) and we spent some time rearranging the room to best effect. When we finally had it the best way we could think of, Dan suggested swopping the dining room area with the living room area. Hmmm.... that would be a major effort (there's some fairly heavy furniture in the dining room) but it might work. He's going to model it in his graphic program Blender so we can see how it would look before moving anything. But it might just be a great improvement...

This afternoon I tackled some of the weeds in the garden. I was feeling very overwhelmed by the garden at the weekend; a couple of hours of heavy weeding seems to make very little difference, and with the warm wet spring we've had so far, the weeds are growing much faster than I can deal with them. Still, every little bit does help. Tim did a bit of lawn-cutting ('lawn' is a euphemism for 'green weedy area that we keep cut short and which contains a bit of grass) and I tackled the far end of the garden which has always been terrible for weeds. I even put out a few more bedding plants, having made some space for them. These are the last of some plants I bought over a month ago and which were looking decidely pot-bound. I wonder if they'll survive. Rain is forecast tomorrow, which wouldn't be a bad thing. Unfortunately it's also forecast for much of next week when my brother and his wife are coming to stay from the UK.