Summer is most definitely here...

The weather is unbelievable at the moment even here in Droushia and I have been galvanised into action to take our home out of Winter Mode.  This has meant the hoovering, washing and beating of the various rugs which we have around the house to stop our feet getting cold and then getting them rolled up and put away - this is always the hard part as our storage is limited.  All such items go into the shed which is something of a Tardis as it seems to house far more than you could ever imagine by looking at the inside.

I like it when the conservatory is clear of rugs although, as John likes to point out, we should have gone for grey tiles or grey grouting at the very least because the cream I wanted with the cream grout is a bugger to keep clean.

We have Di and Rob coming round for supper this evening and so I wanted the place to look nice and I had bought some sweet little bottles in Jumbos originally to hold candles until I got home and realised the bloody candles wont fit so picked some lavender from the garden and gave the ficus a haircut and filled the bottles with that instead.  John liked them which is a plus as he accuses me of filling the house with 'stuff', 'stuff' and 'dust collectors' and he is right - the only problem is he is guilty of doing the same thing and we rarely agree on what we should retain and what we should get rid of.  John wanted to be chief chef tonight, he wanted to know how I make my signature dish of Stifado so we started it together yesterday - I always like to start cooking mine at least the day before it is to be eaten - it is better to be cooked long and slow for the meat to be tasty and tender.  I wanted John to taste it at this stage before we put it in the slow cooker for the remainder of the day so that he could decide if it was lacking in flavour - this is where he struggles - he will know that something doesn't taste right but doesn't know what is required to rectify that.  In my opinion it needed more cinnamon and a little more sweetness and John felt it required a little more tomato flavour so we added all of those things and then popped it into the slow cooker so that it would ready for this evening.

This afternoon I was revisiting the dentist to try and get my two fillings completed after last week's failed attempt and multiple injections - today I had been supplied with some diazepam to be taken before Dr Haris tried again.  It very nearly didn't work - it took forever and a full syringe of novacaine before my jaw was deemed numb enough for the fillings to be carried out.  Getting there was painful and at one point the adrenaline gave me the shakes.  The dentist was flabbergasted - he said my reaction was very rare and unusual and put it down to the fact that I have had a rather stressful few weeks.  I don't remember ever having an issue with fillings and injections before and having had major jaw reconstruction 30 years ago have never really had a dread of dentistry.  I have two more fillings to go but have decided to wait a while until after John returns so that he can come and be my taxi driver as the diazepam spaced me out.

This is not actually a photograph of John's stifado but it is pretty damn close.  He produced a fabulous meal and even made a chocolate orange cheesecake for pudding.  We had not expected a late evening but Rob and Di stayed until after midnight - I haven't managed to stay awake beyond about 9.00pm for about the last month but it was a lovely evening which I really enjoyed and really needed and I think John did too - we are lucky to have such good friends right on our doorstep.