Hot Cross Buns, Spring Cleaning and Name-dropping

My one and only attempt at making the dough for Tsoureki, or Easter bread, turned out a claggy, grey mass resembling dental putty. Fortunately, my sister-in-law makes heavenly stuff and generously gives us some whenever she makes a batch. However, this year I decided I’d try and make the British equivalent: spicy buns. Well, mine were well named: my oven was too hot, and when I saw the end result, I got cross. Here are my over-fired Hot Cross Buns!

                                                       

Time to spring clean. First off, now that the rainy season has abated, we could get rid of our old Perspex-type roof covering part of the upstairs balcony: in the close-up you can see the moisture trapped inside.

                        

 

 Below is H inspecting the new roofing, offering more insulation and protection against the damp - we sincerely hope that is the case! Roof is now in place and we are having the room redecorated.

                                                 

The garden has lost its sogginess so H has been preparing the vegetable garden for imminent planting, while I had the unenviable task of freeing up plants and trees from weeds and over-exuberant honey-suckle.  The ‘after’ shot below reveals soil and wall, long hidden from view. All that bending, stretching, pulling and clipping is jolly good exercise but it causes real havoc on the fingernails

                                              

 

Now I’m not usually into it but today I’m going for it big-time: name-dropping! I’ll have you know that not only have I been presented to Prince Charles and Princess Diana - here at the British Embassy in Kuwait – but I have also had the pleasure of lunching with Lady Di. Protocol prescribed that ladies wore tights or stockings when in royal company, but, with temperatures in the 40s, I was definitely going to chance bare legs. I doubted whether an ultra-conservative courtier or enforcing equerry would actively check whether form was being followed as far as leg-wear was concerned. 

And why this trip down memory-lane? Well, I am happy to say I still dine with famous people. Here I am recently at lunch with Vassilis Kalaitzoglou. Who he? Apart from being the son of Angeliki, who travelled with me to Sheffield in early March, he is also ta-da……..

                                          

…………..a gold medal winner. Here he is proudly bearing the national flag after being awarded first place in Short Weapons Traditional Forms at the 2^nd Balkan Wushu  Championship held in Athens on the 24^th -26^th of April. Considering he was the youngest competitor with really stiff competition in his group, his achievement was even more impressive.

                                           

Well done, Vassili, we wish you ever more such accolades!