The Day Before Christmas Eve...

We were getting ready for our visitors to arrive and having looked back at the blog it would appear that I had made a fresh loaf of bread in readiness this time last year so John thought he would do one this year.  I blame the TV myself as he has been watching far too many programmes about bakers!!  

You can't tell him anything though and whilst I tried to advise on the merits of kneading to develop the gluten he adopted what he referred to as 'the Yorkshire method' which involved a lot of slapping rather than pulling and stretching!!!

When it came to the proving stage the dough did not double in size and as he had to shoot down to Paphos with Dad halfway through the process the loaf was doomed to failure!!! 

Mum and Dad had arrived minus one of their bags - the essential one with undies etc!!!  Mum and I were going out to listen to carols at Faros so John and Dad made the trip back to the house to pick up the missing bag.  The resulting loaf was a little heavy to say the least!

Crafty Jane has her Mum staying for Christmas and had suggested we go down to Faros together in order to hear the carols which were going to be played there at lunchtime.  Jane had had a fraught morning so was running a bit late but eventually we made it down to Faros, Jane and her mum Margaret, Helen and her mum Cynthia together husband Al (that's Helen's husband Al obviously!!) and my Mum and I.  Faros was packed and he had two large fires burning so it was toasty warm.

It took a little while to get people in the festive mood but at the point where they were asking for each table to get involved in the 12 days of Christmas we threw caution to the wind to sing with gusto the line "Eight Maids a Milking". 

It was good to see Harry Hawkins back playing after his bad accident earlier this year when he fell. I haven't seen him since July last year but he has aged somewhat and looks a little frail.  

It was a much much better day than had been forecast for today and we had some pleasant sunshine.  The view of the marina was lovely, from indoors, but fresh when you stepped outside.  Latchi is now quite a ghost-town.

We left the taverna having started to get in the Christmas spirit and went off in search of sprouts - you can't get more Christmassy than that!!!  Jane needed some - I had already bought my half dozen to keep Dad satisfied on Christmas Day!!

Jane dropped Mum and I off at the entrance to Lordos 1 and we were both followed by a sweet little puppy that had obviously been dumped - this is a side of Cyprus that I find difficult to accept.  I tried to shoo it away but it just kept running back, tail wagging, just looking for company.  It really was a sweetie but we do not want a dog - our cats just hate dogs but equally we didnt want to see it come to any harm - we just had no idea what to do with it.  To cut a long story short we managed to get hold of Judy who runs the Paphiakos rescue charity place down in Polis and she said that if we could keep hold of it overnight she would accept it down in the new surgery the following day.  We had to lock the poor little thing in a cage up at Sharon's but not before we had fed it and given it water and some attention.  Needless to say I worried about the poor little thing all night.

In the afternoon John lit the gas fires in the conservatory so that we could use the natural light to play our regular game of Noms.  I had a right old sense of humour failure when I kept getting stuffed on the Miz hands and threw my toys out of the pram.

It being Sunday it was my turn to cook but I had opted out and we had booked for us to go to Steni to have their ribs - Mum and Dad had enjoyed it so much the last time we had gone.  We had a really lovely evening.  The place was warm and we were made very welcome.  The food was excellent and when two other tables of diners turned up it transpired that John knew both from Football.  

It had been a good start to the break!