Chicken Chasni - Who Knew??????

Our lovely weather was short-lived as today was grey and chilly which was so disappointing.  Nicky and I were walking this morning - only locally but it was good to get out and get some fresh air.

We went out of the back of the village and headed towards Arodes.  We normally take the first turning right after the 'tip' but today decided to take the second one and see where that took us.  We were doing great until we encountered a very large barky dog which was accompanied by a very small barky dog.  The owner assured us that they were just noisy but I know Nicky isn't overly keen on dogs and neither am I for that matter so we went on a bit of a misery tour.

The one good thing about taking a road less traveled is that we get to see places that we would not otherwise get to see and we can often get some great ideas about houses and gardens when we are able to see what other people have done with their properties.

There are some very picturesque parts of Arodes and once we had found the main road we could get our bearings and make our way up towards Inea which is the route we normally take.  Although grey and a bit miserable it wasn't anything like as cold as it has been so really the conditions were good for walking.

We were out for about an hour and a half.  John was round at Ellen's trying to put together her TV stand which had arrived in the container yesterday.  The only trouble was that not all the bits were together, there were no instructions and Ellen didn't even have a picture of the stand when it had been erected in the UK.  Nevertheless John managed in the end to get it together and the TV on it and working and Ellen was delighted!!!

We then shot off down to Dips at Universal to see how the installation of the new air-conditioning units had got on and to say our goodbyes.  When we got there we could see that the aircon was in but Dips car was not and so we phoned and he told us that he had nipped out with his mate for lunch but he had delayed his return to the UK so that he could get some more work done and would catch up with us at the end of the week which was fine by us.

We left Dips to go and spend some time with Mum.  In the container had been some jigsaws, some special shoes and some etching books which I had planned to give her for Mother's Day and her birthday - we had missed Mother's Day by 24 hours so took the gifts today and she was delighted.  I was especially pleased that the shoes (Sketcher type but cheaper) were perfect.

We stayed for a cup of tea and a biscuit and long enough to get all her clocks and timers set as she wanted them and the edges of a new jigsaw in place to keep her entertained.  She was on good form today and so pleased to see us which was nice.

We picked up a ready cooked chicken from Sayyas in Chlorakas and when I got home I made us a curry for our supper.  I had a Curry Frenzy kit that must have been a free gift because I didn't recognise the flavour as being one which I would have chosen but it was a real hit.

Chicken Chasni Curry has both mango chutney and mint sauce in it - MINT SAUCE?????  yes well it does and it works really well and then you read that the curry originated in Glasgow and you have to think to yourself if they can deep fry a Mars Bar and think it is ok they probably put all sorts in a curry!!!!

We used mango curry with chili in it which gave the curry a right old kick.  After a grey day we had a grey and miserable evening and so we lit the wood burner - probably for the last time this winter - hopefully so as we have burned for about a month longer than we would do normally.