Living in the UK again

After the two days of Christmas, it was back to business as usual for me. The London jigsaw is complete, unfortunately there is a piece missing. I hope the ravenous Beagle did not eat it.  The Ukrainian folks seems to have a BBQ after Christmas, not on any specific day, so I am not sure when it will be. But my lodger had bought this pack of meat, I think its  pork, that is being marinated. We don’t expect to eat outside, only the chefs tending the BBQ need to be out in the rain. The new Journal app on my phone is quite good at logging things that I do during the day, which I can then use for any of the blog later on. When I was at the physio Wednesday I told her that I walked around  Windsor and Eton, she then asked me if I was still using sticks, I owned up and thought I might get told off for not using them, but she was pleased. So the sticks are safely put away. I made a new cake, a Victoria sponge, I was very happy with it, it rose well and tastes good. It’s my best o...

Christmas Eve had me on a Sticky Toffee Pudding production run, three of them. With the sauce too. You can’t, I have read just multiply the ingredients of a cake by the required  number, you have to either know what you are doing, or make them separately which is what I did. I had made the sausage rolls beforehand, and they got my lodgers seal of approval. As I had no bread in the house, I walked to the Cosy Nook and had lunch there. I was on my own on Christmas Eve, so I watched the GBBO special edition, before going to bed.  On the Christmas morning, I spoke to friends on Sifnos and Serifos. The Dog Palace lady had saved one of Rita’s daughters from a miserable and frankly terrible life. As I was talking to her, two other friends of ours dropped in to see her. It was really nice over there, as it is in the UK today. I opened up two presents I got, a Labrador picture and a hand made cake from Norway, this was the present my friend’s Beagle tried to open when they both visited...

So lots of photos, first of all the double orange cake that I made the other day. Unfortunately it’s sunk after cooking and after cutting a slice,  a stodgy underbelly was revealed. I checked online and perhaps overbearing  caused the problem in our food processor. It still tastes nice, there is orange juice in the sponge and the icing has some in too. Meanwhile I have my two new sets of glasses and my teeth checked out ok and were given a clean. I did a bit of cutting back and tidying in the garden. I got a lovely surprise from my friends on Sifnos, with a personalised message on them. I have done a lot more on the jigsaw, and I have visited a few more friends around and about. One of them, the card maker, showed me with her card to me, what you can do if you are really good at making cards. The colouring on this one is all done by hand. She reckoned it took her a day. The guy to fit the new internet came by, unfortunately the cable from the junction box to the house did not ...

It’s been a busy few days, and a few more “first time since” moments which are satisfying. The latest cake is Coffee and Walnut, it’s quite frightening how much butter and sugar goes into each cake! This was a nice cake, I used two new shallow 20cm tins, that I bought, so I did not need to cut the single thicker sponge in half to give me the two bits. I would say the coffee taste isn’t  very strong, so I make it stronger next time. Also I would have liked the walnuts in the cake a bit more visible, and as they went in the general mix, they got cut up small, as all the ingredients were mixed up with a blade in the food processor.  I was given this nice jigsaw of London by a neighbour and I have just started it. It’s very interesting and not too much blue! It reminds me a bit of the photo mosaic ones I used to do. On our latest food order, I bought some Piccalilli so my lodger can try it out. I think he will like it as he tends to like things like this, but he doesn’t like Brans...

   The identity of the Coffee gifter has finally been established. This is the kind person who put money behind the Cosy Nook counter, to pay for a coffee next time I turned up. I completely missed this person off, when I tried to work out who it was, as we knew the person had a black dog! I have made a first pass at identifying the cakes in the book I was given by my kind friends that I want to make. There are quite a lot of them, including sun dried tomato and rosemary biscuits. We also got a Christmas present from our kind friends in Norway, wrapped beautifully as usual. I have no idea what this is! The house is now completely decorated. I put the led lights up in the front window, and these and the Christmas tree lights are on timers, that you use to turn lights on and off in your house to deter burglars. It works very well. I have also been to the Cosy Nook and had the last wrap that I had not tried before. They call it the ultimate breakfast.  It has egg, sausage, h...

 Yesterday the kind lady who runs the Dog Palace on Serifos heard that her surprise to me had arrived safely, a lovely box of the best chocolates in the world from Switzerland, her country. I had sent her a surprise of my own, which had arrived but the labelling must have got lost, so she was ringing up her friends, to try and find out who sent her the After Eights bundle and ten pig ears, the latter for the dogs. Mystery solved then.  In the morning, I made a lemon drizzle cake, the top bit rose alarmingly, I need to check that for next time. Trouble is my tin was a bit small, so it was a bit of a squeeze. It’s best to put the lemony drizzle on when the cake is still warm, but I did not have that luxury, I think the idea is the sugary liquid has a better chance of drizzling through the warm cake instead of settling half way down. No taste test done yet. I decided that I would walk to the Cosy Nook and get a wrap, if the projected rain appeared, I knew my HD friend was going t...

So my home made Christmas cards are in the process of being delivered, I decided against the glitter on the house roofs, I could not get the glue to spread well, and the test card looked messy, so I left the cards like this. Thank to my friend for lending me the card kit. In the morning, a TRHA friend and myself visited two other horticultural society stores, for interest, sharing of ideas and experiences. At the first, they were selling Elephant garlic. Yes it really is that big! I bought three  and put them in the big pot I have outside. Let’s see what happens to them! I made a Devon Honey cake yesterday with a lemon drizzle type topping, as a friend of mine said, it can’t be a Devon Honey cake if it’s not got Devon Honey in it!   Half of this cake and the Ginger cake got taken to the Christmas street party outside the Cosy Nook on Sunday afternoon, it was a lovely time, everyone bought something along. My HD mobility scooter friend made awsome sausage rolls, with an unusual...

 So the latest visit to the Fracture Clinic, in quick step time, it looks like my bone is 50% healed, which is good, but by my reckoning, it’s now looking like the end of April 2024 at the earliest before the cage comes off. It might be sooner, it might be later. I ‘wasted’ a month of the time that has past, as in Greece no weight was put on the leg. So it might still make the end of March. It doesn’t really matter of course. I would rather it is left a bit more time to avoid the risk of any complications. It makes a visit back to Greece before the summer busy period more troublesome next year. Meanwhile today, after a really lovely chat with my American friend on Serifos, I did some more work on the Christmas cards, there is just the glitter layer to do now, hopefully tomorrow during the rain. My friend with the Harley Davidson Mobility scooter who is a needle and embroidery expert took me to  Sew Divine  which is a shop that sells all things to do with sewing and embroi...

My lodger made dinner last night. He pickled some Herrings that he had  bought, in vinegar with onion, and he made some nice potatoes, which can best be described as partly mashed, so they were creamy with big lumps in them! It was all topped off with one his excellent salads! I told him about jellied eels that you get in London, maybe I will take him to an eel pie shop there one day.  He was sending his parcel off to Ukraine today, so I signed one of my bought Christmas card for his wife and daughter from us. The other day in the morning the door bell rang. It’s one of those kinetic powered door bell presses stuck to the door frame. When I opened the door, no one was there, but the door bell press was on the ground. It’s screwed on the frame now. I have been making my batch of home made Christmas cards the last couple of days. It’s quite hard work, I use the magnifying glass to make sure the colour is covering the area I want it too. There are two colours to go, then a bit of...

 Here is a photo of the Chicken Basque from the other night, it was quite spicy, but went down very well. It’s been quite cold here and on one day barely getting above freezing during the day, so I had to have the heating on to keep warm. I got our Advent Calendar into use on the first of December, I will open the odd days, my lodger the evens. He went to the nearby town of Bracknell to buy his wife and daughter presents, he will use a courier to send the presents to Ukraine. The recently setup WhatsApp group for our road, paid dividends on Saturday. The road and surrounding area was subject to an unexpected water supply cut, and the group was able to inform every one, share resources and advise as the supply came back. My lodger and his friend opposite were able to go into the village and get emergency bottled water supplies provided by the Water Company  and distribute them to vulnerable people on our road. The pyramid puzzle is finished, the pattern of the pieces looks pret...

The Christmas cake is baked, it’s now stored for a few weeks, being topped up with Brandy, periodically then it will get a covering of marzipan and royal icing. The latter might be a bit tricky! Meanwhile I decided to tackle what I thought might be an easy puzzle, but it’s not, the pieces are triangular in shape and take a lot of getting used too! But there are only four hundred of them, so not so bad.  I have the keyboard in the house now, plus some books, the beginners book looks like even I might be able to do it, but whether I progress beyond it, let’s see.  I have setup a WhatsApp group for our road, it was an idea suggested to me, so I created it and I put some flyers through peoples doors to invite them to join it. I think we have about half the houses represented now. I have decided to make up a batch of the Christmas card I showed on this blog a week or so ago, and send to people I know around here. We will be sending a few others, but not as many as we used to. I thi...