Olive Pickers Christmas Do...

It was a beautiful morning, clear and bright and warm (if you kept out of any wind as the wind this time of the year can be cutting up here).  We had planned to do so much this morning but John had a traumatic start to the day when, as he was about to enjoy several rounds of freshly made toast in bed, one of his teeth disintegrated.  To be fair it was one which had been filled to within an inch of its life.  All that amalgam in his mouth made him feel pretty queasy and we know that this is going to be an expensive exercise in dentistry not to mention probably pretty painful for John.  He has an appointment for first thing on Monday morning and we just hope that our medical cover will be enough for all the treatment.  We haven't had much luck recently what with that and the fridge and my speeding fine - well they say it comes in threes so lets hope that's it for a while.

I was paying a visit to Elena at Orexi this morning as I wanted to give her some of the fig jam I had made from some of the figs I had collected when we were clearing up her garden.  I have subsequently had a text from her to say it was delicious so I am pretty chuffed about that because you know how much I rate her cooking.  I spent a very pleasant couple of hours in her kitchen drinking coffee and eating the freshly baked spiced biscuits she had made which I think are something like Pfeffernuesse and which had an intriguing black pepper flavour right at the end.  Elena was preparing a nice looking piece of lamb while we chatted surrounded by herbs and spices and cookery books.  It's nice to get to know her better and learn about how she came to be living at Droushia 'castle'.

On my return from Elena's John was keen to make a cake using up some very over ripe bananas that had been sitting in the fruit bowl.  He had measured out everything he needed for his banana loaf which was based on the Nigella Lawson recipe which appears in her Domestic Goddess cookery book - adapted to take into account the ingredients which we had in the cupboard (a copy of which will appear on my food page).  The end result was a beautiful banana loaf, moist and full of flavour.

This evening we were going out with Crafty Jane and Olive Mark to a charity 'do' at the Farmyard in Kathikas in aid of Paphiakos Animal Rescue.  This was doubling up as our Oliver Pickers Christmas do and having seen Paphiakos in action yesterday we were happy to support it.  Jane particularly wanted to go because singing was a woman called Stevie Dean who she particularly rates.  We had supposed to have been going to see her singing at Molos on Wednesday but apparently she had been double booked or something so we were going tonight to the Farmyard instead.  It is really difficult to know what to wear at this time of the year and for these sorts of occasions so I plumped for layers (lots of them) and wore the dress I had for our leaving do at the Bull in Ilchester and the black boots that Laura had brought over for me - my principal boy pantomime boots!!  I shouldn't have worried about being cold because it was really warm at the Farmyard and it was packed with supporters.

We were sat on a nice table of people (who all live near Jane and Mark) and the food was really quite good bearing in mind the numbers being catered for - the buffet salad starter was plentiful and fresh and John said the basil and tomato soup was nice and hot.  The main course was a carvery (turkey and/or gammon) with roast potatoes and fresh mixed veg followed by a selection of sweets.  The singers after Stevie Dean had left weren't particularly my choice but that was just my opinion.

John had opted to be driver and we had picked up Jane and Mark so they could both have a drink.  I opted for red wine but Jane (and Mark) are white drinkers so I ended up having a whole bottle to myself and I today I remember exactly why I prefer to drive - getting home and to bed is all a bit of a blur - I slept so heavily it did me no good whatsoever and I have had a baggy head all day.