Happy Birthday Raymondo...

NEW RECIPES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE FOOD DIARY PAGE!!

Another beautiful day in Droushia - slightly more cloud than yesterday but beautiful all the same.  

I forgot to put on the blog the beautiful Thank You card that Vicki left for us after her stay.  Her cards are so professional.  I may have to dismantle it and recycle it at some point so I will apologise now if any of you readers receive it in a different guise but will take no credit for it myself - that would be wrong!

We have adopted Mum and Dad's 'privy purse' routine when we have visitors as it helps with the cost of food, petrol, eating out etc and dispenses with the arguments as to who is paying for what, one purse, one pot, equal shares!  As I had done a mega cook-fest in preparation for Vicki's stay her privy money has actually helped us to pay for another load of wood.  We were expecting it earlier in the week but Charis's chainsaw was broken - this must be a common problem this time of the year as John's has gone back to be looked at because it kept conking out.

We got the call from Charis first thing to say he was coming this morning - he brought with him a load of well seasoned Lemon which looks great and which he says is a good slow burning wood - well he is hardly going to say it will go up in a puff of smoke is he!  It has filled the wood-store and appears to be a larger quantity and better quality than the last lot which as you know contained a lot of unwelcome wildlife and was full of holes and slightly damp.  As Charis said with the wood full of holes you get to burn a lot of fresh air.  He seemed a very genial and honest guy so I expect we will be using him again and soon as apparently there is a shortage of wood on the island - more wood burners and colder winters can't help.  Must thank Simon for giving us Charis's number.

We have completely cleared the gap between the two buildings in readiness for the conservatory to be built - it has confused the hell out of the cats who keep wandering in looking for the sofa to snooze on.  Unfortunately the weather forecast for next week is not that great and the guys are due to start on Tuesday when rain is forecast - still it might change you never know.

Vicki had brought out a couple of toys for the cats which had been hanging from the shutter knob on the bedroom window but John has moved them and they are now hanging from the olive tree in T&V corner which is a favourite play area for Chivs and MM.  

It didn't take long before Chivs found them and he was soon to be seen dashing up and down the trunk beating the hell out of the black spider - bits of which are all over the garden now - it is looking quite bedraggled and is only sporting six legs!

There is, however, nothing quite like the real thing when it comes to play or pray for that matter and Chivers appeared with his second mouse - this time a dead one.  In fact it looks pretty much like the one he had yesterday (but I guess all field mice look the same) which probably died from the shock of being battered by his big old boxing glove paws.  John had to encourage him to let go of it, which he eventually did but by this time Minnie Mou had become interested and grabbed it and ran off.  John was busy shouting not to let her indoors but with it being a nice day all our doors were open and I managed to shut them, all but the back door - so where did she head for?  Yep you guessed it the back door and into the house proudly carrying her new toy - we don't mind them catching mice but we dont want them in the house dead or alive, nor do we want lizards, geckos or snakes for that matter but somehow I think we will be getting little presents brought to us as time goes on.

Anyway as I said in my Weather post it was such a nice day that I got completely carried away forgetting it would be a damn sight cooler come the evening so as we got ready to go down to Emba to celebrate Raymondo's birthday I wore short sleeves!  I did take a coat and scarf but you cant really sit in a restaurant in  a coat and scarf throughout the meal can you!

The island is just so beautiful this time of year when the sun is shining as everything looks so green and lush.  Its hard to imagine that in just a few short months it will look like a cross between the desert and the moon!  Just at the moment though there is an air of anticipation of the long hot summer that is to come with balmy evenings, barbecues, trips to the coast and meeting up with friends from the UK albeit briefly.  Fortunately our visitors are all well spaced out (not in the head obviously - calendar-wise!) so we have different people to meet and greet between now and September.

Returning to the theme of this post - Happy Birthday Raymondo - it was indeed Ray's birthday today and we were joining him, wife Janice, Mum and Dad for a meal at Gustoso which is along the Tomb of the Kings Road.  I needn't have worried about my short sleeves as they have some fantastic and attractive gas fires and I was sat right next to one - I had jokingly said to Ray that I had been booked as his strip-o-gram (NOT) but as the evening went on and the fire got warmer and warmer I was in danger of actually making this a reality - thank God I had matching underwear on!

We had a lovely evening and returned to Chez Burgess for a nightcap or two or three.  Mum and Dad did the sensible thing and retired at a respectable hour before Raymondo got out his vinyl (old fashioned Music - nothing kinky) and we ended up dancing into the wee small hours in Lakoudia Street.