January 21st

21st January and we are blessed with glorious weather.  We were taking a walk today and wanted to go to the cemetery to see Dad and we had heard that, very sadly, our friend Yiannis's lovely mum Soulla was being buried tomorrow.  We were going out to lunch with Mum, Jackie and Costas so wouldn't be able to attend the service, we have told Yiannis and have promised to send a donation to the restoration of the local monastery which was something which Soulla was very supportive of.  We just wanted to know where she was going to be located so we could pay our respects on another occasion.

The cemetery for me is a very calming space.  The cyclamen that Kaye had brought and placed there before Christmas is still looking lovely and flowering - the weather has been kind to it although it was a little waterlogged.  I tipped out the water and took off the dead leaves and flowers and put it back.  I shall leave it there until it looks a bit sad and then I will bring it home and put it in the garden.

We found the grave which has been prepared for Soulla.  It is on the row in front of the row in front of Dad right by the pathway.  Such a shame as she was a really lovely lady.

We took a walk through the cemetery to look at some of the older graves - I think the oldest headstone we found was from the 1930s but propped up against a wall.  Most of the early ones seem to date from the 1960s so I am unsure what happened prior to this time.  

We walked back home through the village stopping at the post office to check for post.  Gail and Pete will be ecstatic that the Christmas parcel they have been waiting for has finally pitched up safe and sound.  Pete will go to the ball next year in his own Christmas jumper and not one which he has had to borrow from John!

We had a text this afternoon from Jackie and Costas to say that Jackie had had her fourth covid vaccination and was feeling very unwell so wanted to postpone our lunch with Mum at Londis Perasma tomorrow.  

This was no problem for us - Jackie has gone through so much health-wise that we fully understand where she is coming from so told her not to worry.  The only issue was that I had not anticipated having to cook and we needed to do something if Mum was going to come up.  I checked out the fridges, freezers, cupboards and veg boxes.  I had a potato that would feed a small village - check out the size compared to a standard bottle of gin!  This was, however, earmarked to be made into spicy wedges for our supper this evening along with some fillet steak.

On close inspection I declared that I had enough ingredients to be able to make a beef pie with smashed roasties and carrots and peas and some sort of pudding for tomorrow so informed mum of the change of plan and John and I set about trying to crate our Sunday Meal.

I had seen a recipe to make a beef pie using up left over mulled wine and I did indeed have some left over mulled wine and not just any old mulled wine the mulled wine I had made from the jollop that Liselotte had given me which included some very plump and boozy sultanas which I thought I could mix with some stewed apple as part of the pud.

It was a good thing that we had gone through the freezer contents in the week because we knew we had beef cubes and some pastry along with peas and I had some carrots, onions and potatoes so we cobbled together a beef pie and I got the veggies ready.  Pudding was going to be crepes stuffed with the apple and sultana mix into which I had added some lemon zest as mum doesn't like anything sweet.  These were going to be served with cream.

Our supper as I said earlier was fillet steak from Naz.  This was from one of the whole fillets I had bought from him before Christmas and it was absolutely superb.  We haven't had a bad steak from him - it is always tender and tasty.  I served it with my home made mustard sauce, peas, roasted vine tomatoes and wedges.  Absolutely scrummy and I guess that plateful probably cost me about €7.50 in ingredients - billy bargain.