Thursday - A Fine Bright Day...

We all had a lie-in this morning - our late boozy Noms Night had taken its toll.  I had got up in the early hours because I heard it throwing it down and I knew I needed to put a towel against the front door to stop the water coming in but apart from that it was well beyond 8.00am when we got up!!!  We had our breakfast together before Mum and Dad made their way back to Emba - all in all yesterday had been a pretty good day all round!

It turned into a fine and bright day and as we were having friends over for supper we were having a bit of a tidy up inside and out - taking advantage of the dry as more storms are forecast this week and then I needed to cook something for later.

The photograph on the left is the moment when Minnie Mou discovered there was an interloper in her custom made hidey hole.  Both she and Chivers realised that there was something snuggled up in under the workbench and on closer inspection it turned out to be Fluffer the feral cat who lives in and around Sharon and Sean's - we don't know if she has done it before - bless her she shot out when she realised she had been discovered.  Actually she is a lovely cat and we really wouldn't mind her keeping herself dry in that place but we reckon now we have found her in there she probably wont come back.

We spent some time today reorganising the conservatory so that we could put our little TV in there as during the day in the winter it is the warmest place to sit - it took some time to decide on the best place because we needed to take into consideration the position of the sun and glare etc etc  but in the end decided to try it out sitting on the chiller until we were absolutely sure where it should go and then John will put up the TV bracket - he doesn't want to do it and then have to move it and I don't blame him - it takes six screws and so therefore when moved leaves six screw holes as witnessed in the spare bedroom now that we have taken it down!  We now have some filling and painting to do!

I know I say it all the time but that conservatory is the best thing we have done to the house (certainly the thing that has given us the best value for money) - when we were waiting for Crafty Jane and Olive Mark to arrive for supper this evening we wacked on the SuperSer for about 15 minutes and were warm and cosy inside listening to music with both Minnie Mou and Chivers chilling out - bliss!

We have been visited again nearly every day by the goatherd whose flock (if that is the collective term for goats) are benefiting from the lush growth in the field next door.  I am guessing they breath a sigh of relief that goat is not normally top of the shopping list at Christmas!

The cats still don't like the goats but they are less inclined to go provoking them which is quite a good idea as many of them are now sporting some impressive looking horns.

This goatherd is not the one that we refer to as the Egyptian that lives in the hut down the road, this is the nearly blind goatherd who shouts a lot at his animals.  He may only be a goatherd but it tickled me to hear his mobile phone ringing when he was standing around waiting for the beasts to eat their fill - bloody technology gets everywhere nowadays!!!

Still, I think you can see from the colour of the sky behind him what a beautiful day it has been today which is very welcome after the cool wet and chilly conditions of late.

We decided that we would take the opportunity to nip out to the Herb Garden to drop off the seven bags of rose geranium clippings that we had amassed and which were in danger of going mouldy.  Caroline was so grateful that she gave us two big slices of her gluten-free chocolate chilli cake as a thank you (that was pudding tonight sorted then!!!)  This was a particularly good bake I have to say as it had the consistency of a chocolate brownie and not too much of a hit of chilli.

We called into the Vasilikon Winery on the way back to get some bottles of white wine for Crafty Jane.  We aren't white wine drinkers so we can never be certain if what we have knocking around is any good so would rather serve up a known vintage!

I went into the winery and asked for three bottles but the owner thought I had asked for three boxes!!!  I felt a little embarrassed when I had to stop the men trying to put them in the back of our car!

I asked when they would be moving to the new premises and he said 'soon' which could mean anything over here but we are hoping that it really might be soon and that the winebar element will go ahead as we think that would make a nice place to go for Sunday Lunch or to take visitors - time will tell so watch this space.

With Jane's three bottles of wine purchased (sorry it wasn't three boxes) we headed back home to get the food ready for this evening.  As far as I can make out the only thing that Mark is not overly keen on is lots of fish so he was in no danger as I had decided to make a spicy sausage casserole and John had the brainwave of an idea of putting lentils in to bulk it up - this joined the onion, chilli, peppers, butterbeans and green papaya!

We served the casserole with little saute potato croutons, coriander and fried onion crispies and John took a lovely seeded village loaf we got in a tiny shop in Kathikas (and paid a fortune for) which he toasted and then sprinkled with olive oil salt and oregano.  Pud was a small slice of the chocolate chili cake courtesy of Caroline, a small slice of my sticky orange drizzle cake and some Lidl ice cream - delicious!!!

There was nothing left so I think it must have gone down well!