Food glorious Food!!!

I woke this morning in a panic because I realised we had not taken the chicken out of the freezer that is earmarked for Sunday Lunch and although it is bright and warm outside in the sun inside is a different story.  So I took out said chicken and moved it into the conservatory for a bit of warmth.  Charlie told me that he would keep an eye on it.  Fortunately it was the eye that doesn't work since he was knocked over!  I couldn't leave the bird there unattended because I know Charlie better than that.  I am just hoping it will be defrosted thoroughly before I need to prepare it tomorrow.

The Mighty Blades were the early game today so we had decided to forego breakfast in favour of a brunch which we had late morning.  Full English with a twist - I had some halloumi that needed eating so that was added into the mix.  It was delicious and set us up for the day.  This evening we were having our weekly fillet steak which we hoped would be in celebration of another SUFC victory.

John had seen a recipe earlier in the week for some oat muffins.  He is always on the look out for something we can rustle up as a pudding on a Sunday.  I used to have a right old sweet tooth but now prefer savoury and am still being mindful of my food intake.  This recipe was fundamentally porridge oats and apple but when I came to make them I realised I didn't have any apple sauce so replaced that element with some cranberry.    They came out looking ok and John and I did some quality control on the smallest one and thought they tasted nice.  We try and make sure that they aren't too sweet because of Mum and her sugar intake.

I cannot sit with John whilst he is watching his team play.  He screams and shouts and gets so agitated that it does my head in so I decided, as it was such a beautiful day, that I would go for a walk.  I had plotted a shortish one using tracks I had not been down before which took me down past Kelly's house and then across the main road heading towards Terra and then back up so that you crossed the main road by the Kritou Terra turning.  I contacted Nicky to see if she fancied coming with me which she did.

We thoroughly enjoyed the walk - save for the long hill back home which stretched us a bit but the views beforehand more than compensated plus we got to see a magnificent Long Legged Buzzard which we think is nesting just down the road from us - we managed to see it twice but with our phones were not quick enough to capture it so the following photograph is not one of ours!!

So I looked up this particular species of buzzard - Buteo rufinus and learned...

The long-legged Buzzard is a large bird of prey with long wings.  It has a characteristic rufous (reddish brown) plumage on the tail and the head.  When in flight it can be identified by the prominent black carpal patches, on of each underwing.  It is the only buzzard species that breeds in Cyprus nesting on cliffs or tall trees so as we saw it on the top of a very tall pine tree we might well be right in thinking that it was nesting.

It was amazing to see it in flight and see it so close - that brief brush with a wonder of nature just put a smile on both our faces.  It was good to be out and enjoying the spring sunshine and I know that Nicky is keen to do more walking as am I because this time last year I was completing about 30Km a week and now I don't do anything like that much.

We did not celebrate a Mighty Blades win this evening but neither did they lose so we celebrated the draw instead.  The fillet steak was, as it always is, superb and we had a simple salad and some piri-piri 'chips' which set your mouth on fire but nicely!  

This was washed down with a glass or two of Agios Onoufrios.  We had intended to drink the bottle of Methy that we had been given by the winery at Christmas but it was a large bottle - a magnum (1.5 litres) and Methy is a rich heavy and spicy red wine which we decided was going to be too much for us tonight.

We decided to catch up on The Apprentice because we just wanted some TV wallpaper to keep us occupied for an hour or so before turning in - for some reason we struggled to find it and when we did there was a bloomin' advert every couple of minutes which was very annoying!

We had decided to sleep on the sofa-bed - this confused the cats no-end particularly because it afforded them an interesting hidey-hole to mess about in at all hours.  I am not sure we will be doing it again in a hurry!!!