It rained very heavily this morning. Torrented down. It isn’t cold – between 18C and 20C, but very wet indeed. We went to a Christmas Fayre in aid of Cancer charities this morning at the Kaya Palazzo hotel. Managed to dodge in through the downpour. You have to be careful on all the marble flooring out here. It gets very slippery.

It was a very big craft fayre, a lot of stalls. There was a charge of 30 tl (about £1.75) to get in and that also gave you a free hot drink and cakes and nice homemade biscuits. Everyone was masked up but there wasn’t any checking going on, either in the fayre or at the door of the hotel.

We had a good walk round the stalls and if we were going to be here for Christmas or even for a while longer we would have bought quite a bit of stuff. There were several very excellent looking stalls of home made produce, vinegars, oils, chutneys, jams and preserves, pickles….. Really home made, not those powdery generic ones you get at UK markets, and fares. There were also lots of Christmas decoration stalls – wreaths, table decorations, poinsettas, candle holders. But we can’t really carry any of that home, either too heavy or too fragile. Still we enjoyed looking around and we definitely enjoyed the coffee and cakes at the end.

It was still raining when we left and we made a couple of food shopping stops on the way home.

The sun came out in the afternoon and the skies totally cleared. We started to pack away some things we definitely won’t use over the next few days. It’s lovely in the garden after rain, the scent of the mountain thyme comes out and also the jasmine which is not even in flower.

I made goat curry for dinner. I got some fabulous pieces of kid at the butchers in the new Ileli so I slow cooked it in a curry sauce. The smell was mouthwatering. It was absolutely delicious and you’re probably thinking there should be a picture…. The truth is: if there’s a way of serving curry that doesn’t look like the cat ate it first, I’ve yet to find it!! However the goat was so tender and tasty and a lovely rich gravy thickened with lentils and corn. No need for rice.

Caught up on Masterchef and Strictly.