Getting Crafty...

Rain is forecast from tomorrow for quite a few days - think it must be the tail end of yet another storm.  This has meant some revisions to the itinerary so that we are not getting wet in the thunderstorms.  Today however John and Stan were safe to go down to Paphos to Marios's to play golf and Janet and Jackie were here doing craft.  We were continuing with our air dry clay projects which have proved to be much more difficult than it looks.  We have struggled with the clay cracking and the pieces bending but this is just fun and a learning curve and, thanks to Jumbo, not an expensive thing to do!  Today were were going to decorate the pieces we created last week and then try some new techniques with the terracotta coloured clay which was left over (we had been using white).

These were what I had created last week.  The joy of the decorating is that you can see every flaw and mistake!

There are loads of videos on YouTube showing people whipping up amazing pieces which dry flat and uncracked and then they decorate just by dipping their brush in a little bit of watercolour and it floods seamlessly into the imprint in a perfect flow.  Really?  We never managed that!!!  But actually with a bit of patience we did manage to create some half decent efforts and it was our first time trying.  The pieces do look better once coloured and varnished.

Jackie had a good idea to leave the backs unvarnished on her pieces so that she could infuse them with some essential oils and leave them on radiators so that they could release their aroma when the heating was on.

We did several pieces with the terracotta clay, just playing really and using some dried flowers and bits from the garden to make impressions and patterns.  Not sure when we will get time to finish them but with the weather change we may well have some enforced hours indoors.

We ask the Clan before they come if there is anything they could like to do or anywhere they would like to go so we can factor it in.  They use this blog as a reference point making notes on places we mention.  They had seen that recently we had returned to eating at Petradaki after years of not going.  This is thanks to (a) Marianne and Jeff convincing us that it was worthwhile (which it is) and (b) a different atmosphere now that the sons are working there (we actually get to see Nicky smile) so this was where we were eating this evening because it was Salmon Friday and we know how much Jackie likes fish.

We arrived at 6.30pm and were the second table to be seated and by the time we got to our main course the place was absolutely rammed. We had thought out on the terrace it might have been chilly as the storms clouds were gathering overhead but the amount of people meant that it was actually a nice temperature in there.

We had a good meal - some lovely starters including vegetarian keftedes, mushrooms, koupes and pate. Jackie and Janet had salmon, Stan had sea-bream, John had lamb chops and I had medallions of pork.  There was complementary cake at the end.  

Everyone agreed it had been a good meal and with our favourite wine at only 15 euros a bottle it is much more reasonable then some other places.