Anticipation and the new beastie in my kitchen

First of all the beastie in the kitchen - Chris and I are both on a mission to eat healthily and lose weight, and at our age, we are aware of the danger of rising cholesterol levels. Our diet is already better than it was in England as we eat very little processed food, and there is a wonderful range of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables available locally. But we do like chips, and other fried foods, so when I saw my son's gadget for frying without, or with a minimal amount of, oil, I was very interested. Back in Spain, we visited our village 'electodomesticos' and the man knew instantly what we wanted and soon had one in the shop for us. He said he had one in his home and it was very good! So here it is. It seems to me bigger than the one my son had, but there was no choice of size when we bought it, so maybe it is just that my little kitchen would fit into one corner of his huge one, so the appliances seem larger by comparison. Anyway, yesterday I made lovely chips from fresh, raw potatoes and half a tablespoon of oil. Not bad at all. I hope it cooks other things just as well so that it justifies the space it is taking up.

And now to the anticipation - around November of last year I showed you a cactus in my garden with a single flower bud on it. I had to wait for a couple of weeks as it slowly swelled up and eventually 'popped' and an amazing flower appeared. You can see the flower on my blog if you click here. Thanks to my friend Jane's blog, I now know that it is called 'Stapelia gigantia', a very fitting name as compared with most flowers in my garden, it was fairly gigantic! Jane's was in flower a few weeks back, but mine didn't open until mid-November last year. (She lives higher up the mountains than me so maybe that has something to do with it). Anyway it looks as though mine will be out a couple of weeks earlier this year, and here is what I am anticipating - a truly amazing display of flowers! The plant has spread out onto the path, and has several buds at each end of it, but very few in the centre. I can't wait to see it when some of those buds have opened. Watch this space...