May 9th - Happy Birthday Ellie...

Two posts again today so read this one and the one below...

 

My niece Ellie celebrates her birthday today - it is a busy month for birthdays.  Her brother Matthew will be 30 in a couple of days time and (sorry to give it away) Ellie will reach that milestone next year.  Where does the time go?

This morning I was being a culinary queen - I had some carrots and halloumi that needed using up so I decided to make some of the fritters that everyone seems to like.  

I must have been a bit psychic because just as I was sorting out the ingredients Elaine from Akourdalia text to ask if I would bring a plate of something to eat to her hen do which is being held somewhere down near the Sea Caves next Tuesday. The beauty of the fritters is that you can eat them hot or cold (although personally I prefer them hot) so they would be an ideal thing to take and being vegetarian should be ok for anyone (except a celiac as there is flour in them).

Just as I was getting organised my old magimix thing died so I have to thank Mum for my birthday present which I used for the first time and it is positively turbo-charged - it made mincemeat of the veggies if that's not a contradiction in terms!!  This one is 600 watt as compared to my old 250 watt so you can see how much better it should be.

I am amazed that with just a few ingredients I managed to rustle up two dozen fritters so that should be more than enough for the eight of us at the hen do.  

Unfortunately Elaine wants us to dress up - and as tarts - so some of you may well feel that that will be easy for me but to be honest I have no idea what to wear and remain comfortable!

John has it easy as the boys are going on a stag day on Thursday and they are going out on a boat and up round the top end of the island and going swimming and then stopping off back in Latchi for a meal - that sounds much more civilised to my way of thinking!

We are all praying the the weather will be good for them as the forecast is for the current mini heatwave to break at the weekend and last year in May we had quite a bit of rain particularly on Mum's birthday, May 18th, which is the day that Elaine and Paul have their church service and outside reception.

Anyway cooking done John wanted me to go out and give him a hand.  We were going down to Elaine and Paul's to help move a garden pot (you have to see it to see why) and as we would be passing the herb garden he wanted to give the rose geranium a good prune and let Caroline have the cuttings for her 'happy' tea.

All down the footpath the geranium has gone mad and I know it is in full bloom and attracts all sorts of insects and butterflies but it gets woody and benefits from a damn good haircut.  

After we had finished we managed to pickup nearly three big black bin-bags full - the smell in the car was overpowering to the point of giving me a headache!

Now that we have that cut back we are going to put up a bit a trellis between the wooden posts - it will make it look a bit tidier and give us something to cut back to when we are doing more haircuts.  These plants are in Gregoris's side garden but having been but it does make his house look much tidier and we know that he doesn't mind us doing that for him.  in fact the honeysuckle has positively bloomed since we cut it back and now smells absolutely gorgeous.

When I was down in Paphos on Tuesday I swung by the Kissos plant place in Kissonerga and bought a few things to plant up two of the pots by the gazebo.  We know that the gazania do well up here and will survive the winter if we look after them so at 50 cents each they are a good bet - don't know if the verbena will survive but it looked good and the succulents are just cuttings from one in the garden anyway so for €3 I got my two pots filled and added a bit more colour to the garden.

On the way to Elaine and Paul's we stopped off at the Herb Garden to give Caroline her rose geranium.

The Garden was looking lovely and it was great to see half a dozen or so people sitting enjoying the relaxing surroundings with a cup of something and a slice of something else to keep them going.  

Caroline was with a patient so we just dropped the bags off and she emailed later to say she was delighted with them which is good.  I am hopeful she may come to the next Ladies Lunch if she can get away - it might be a good opportunity to meet people who have not as yet come across her establishment.

I said that John was helping Paul move a pot for Elaine.  In fact it turned out to be two pots (each the size of a small igloo) and an arbor made out of reinforcing rod.  Both jobs were bigger than we had envisaged and it took longer than we thought.  Elaine is a very very keen gardener and really has a clear vision of what she wants and where it is to go.  Her roses are incredible and her use of colour and shape fantastic - she certainly knows her stuff when it comes to knowing which plant to use and where.  I am not sure that she and Paul agreed on the final resting place for the two big pots but I bet I can guess who got their way!

When we had finished at Akourdalia we shot down to Running John and Susan's because they wanted to know how they could upload their photographs to the net so that they could access them from wherever they might be.  John is currently going to IT lessons on a Monday afternoon so I pulled his leg saying that he could probably teach me a thing or two!

We had thought about going out for something to eat but we are out tomorrow night and with visitors coming will be going out a bit more - there is only so much my waistline and our wallets can cope with.