Sharing our weekend with friends...

How good is it that you have friends come and stay and Mrs Friend aka Nicky loves to bake and make puddings and sweets and chocolates...  This weekend she had kindly brought with her a home-made salted caramel cheesecake and a brandysnap and lemon mousse concoction for pudding and this morning she was having a lesson on how to use my combi-microwave so that she could complete baking some breakfast rolls.  One batch were sweet and were like a cinnamon swirl Chelsea bun and the other batch were savoury with a bacon, cream cheese and onion filling.  These were to set us up for the mornings viewing which was the first semi final in the Rugby World Cup which was to feature England playing New Zealand.  The picture of the cinnamon buns was before they were slathered with a frosted cream cheese topping - zero calories of course (NOT).

This is a picture of the savoury tear and share buns.  They were not glazed with egg or milk which may have made them look slightly less pale and allay Nicky's fears that they were not properly cooked.  The dough certainly pulled apart light and fluffy but the cream cheese may have been the issue and maybe next time normal cheddar or mozzarella or something harder would have been a little more successful.  They were as light as a feather but the combo of cream cheese and bacon did make them ever so slightly too salty for me but I have to thank Nicky for taking the time and trouble of making them because it saved me having to do breakfast.

We ate and then I tootled around in the kitchen getting supper sorted whilst the others sat through the rugby which I managed to keep and eye on and it was a really exciting game even if the Welsh referee conspired against the English team - or at least that was Marky Mark and John's view!!!  What a game and what a result - final next weekend but the second semi final is tomorrow Wales v South Africa so we don't know who the opposition are going to be.

After the game John and Mark went off to do man things across the road.  We are delighted that Nicky and Mark signed on the dotted line during the week to purchase the house which is directly opposite us.  This is to be a project for their forever home and one which they will complete slow time and they can tap into our experience of living here full time and what we would have done or not done if we were in their shoes.

We have spoken about the challenge of having people we know so well suddenly being our neighbours but we acknowledge that we have known each other long enough to be able to deal with that.

Nicky was saying that she appreciates that we have created a social life here and have great friends in Rob and Di and she doesn't want to intrude on that but would like to get to know them better and dip in and out of social events when she isn't up to her eyes in painting and decorating! She is right and we will sort out our 'boundaries'  in due course, although I will have to stop wandering out down the path in just my dressing gown looking for one or other of the cats because in future I will be in their line of vision!!

Anyway whilst the boys were doing whatever it was they were doing Nicky had asked me to introduce her to water colour painting and I dug out some of my stuff so that she could have a play this afternoon.  Her first attempt was to tackle the picture above but she wasn't happy with the end result although I quite liked it.  I didn't take a picture of what she had produced - I didn't think that was fair.

Later in the afternoon Mark was issued with a Sheffield United shirt so that he could fully appreciate the experience that is being one of their supporters.  They were playing away to West Ham who John loathes as he has never forgiven them for Carlos-Tevez-Gate and Sheffield United's relegation from the Premier League.  Let's just say that the spoils of this game were shared after SUFC had gifted West Ham the lead but then managed to get an equaliser.  SUFC are currently 7th in the league.

My culinary offering for tonight was going to be a three course meal but when we looked at the size of the lamb shanks I was cooking we decided that the main meal and a bit of pud was going to be more than enough.  The shanks, purchased from the fish shop on the Tombs of the Kings/Coral Bay Road seemed to have swelled in the cooking and were bigger after than before!  I served with dauphinoise potatoes and carrots and peas and had made a really nice gravy/liquor which asked for thyme and bay leaf rather than rosemary (which can be a little strong).  They were delicious and we would most certainly have them again.

Our lovely day with our soon to be new neighbours was rounded off by an easy to digest film - we had plumped for Toy Story 4 - Mark managed to watch about half, Nicky about three quarters and John and I managed to complete it before racing around to change the clocks that we could reach easily.  Tomorrow it is officially winter in John's book!!