The Mystery of the Missing Christmas Dinner

So this is my concentrating hard face from yesterday - not very flattering but I was at a critical point in my project!  I am silvering the bottom rim and, after it had dried, the top rim of the vase I had decorated for Mum.  I hope she likes it.

It was a good job that I had booked in to go yesterday because the weather is set to deteriorate badly from later on tonight - in fact I have seen a yellow weather warning for the amount of rain which is set to fall overnight.  We need it obviously, but not all on one night!

I plan to go back next Friday - I want to make something for my sister that she will be able to take back home with her on the plane.  She is due over early in December.

This is the finished article.  It won't ever get used as a vase I am sure so I might get one of those battery candles to go inside and I will probably get it given back to me at some point but it will give Mum something to open on Christmas Day or on the Christmas Day we are having when my sister is here.

I cannot believe how quickly the four hours passed as I was doing this and it doesn't really bother me going on my own either as there were a couple of people there I knew anyway.

It cost me less than 10 euros for all the stuff I needed to decorate the vase.  It is easier for me to go there and buy what I need than have it here at home because inevitably I will buy too much and then not use it all.

So that completes my report on my crafting morning in Neo Chorio yesterday.

This morning I was out walking with Nicky - we were starting with a nice easy walk down through Inea and back along by Lordos 2 - we call it the Boxing Day Walk because we did it one year with Nicky's family on Boxing Day.  It was a nice morning - we left at 8.00am and it wasn't too warm.  We passed the Inea Donkey on our way down.  It looks reasonably ok for a village donkey and there was a very large bale of hay for it - just out of picture.

Walking back through the village it was good to see that yet another of the long empty dilapidated village houses is being done up.  I think that Philippos's mother lives at the back of this one.  It has been empty and falling down all the years that we have lived in the village and it is on the same stretch as the houses where the old lady used to fill her bucket from a well outside which are also being done up.

We decided to pack the Do-Jo away this afternoon - we usually leave it too late but we are taking the weather warning seriously and there are a lot of cushions and things on the daybed that need to go away when they are dry.  It always seems a bit sad when the outside furniture gets put away but it is the sensible thing to do.  We have lost too many gazebo covers and brollies by putting it off.

This evening John put himself through the pain that is being a Blades Supporter - the euphoria of being 2-0 up after about 20 minutes faded quickly and was replaced by the despair of being 3-2 down right into the dying seconds of the game.  It was an ill-tempered affair with some right dodgy refereeing decisions most of which went against the home side (SUFC) eventually and somewhat miraculously they managed to scrape an equalizer.  The game finished but a full-scale brawl broke out with the Blades goalkeeper being given a red card and a three match ban.

To soften the blow we had some Shuks Steak served with my signature mustard sauce, smashed potatoes, griddled carrots, mange-tout and some barbeque onions.  It was absolutely amazing and made up for all the pain previously.

So I see you asking why I entitled this post The Mystery of the Missing Christmas Dinner - well regular readers may remember that after the Christmas Dinner I did for mum and The Crew we had quite a lot of leftovers which we distinctly remember putting somewhere safe but which we never found.  John accused me of tidying them away into the dustbin.  I thought that I might well have done that but actually no I didn't.  

I have for a few days complained that there have been more flies in the kitchen than normal and on a number of occasions I found what looked to be maggots on the work surface but often they come out of fruit which we have been given.  Tonight we found the source.  The leftovers had been put in one of my serving dishes ready to be dealt with in the morning and put into the freezer.  A lid was put on the serving dish to protect the food from flies and the cats.   John had obviously seen the dish and the lid and not realising there was anything inside put it away for me because I cannot reach so it had to be him.  Anyway it has been there ever since which has to be quite a while - the flies obviously found it and managed to squeeze under the lid - when we took that off you don't want to know what it was like inside - let's just say now I know where the maggots had come from.