A (not) Weekend Report

I was about entitle this Weekend Report.  However, it's only Friday so I probably shouldn't :-D

I have to say, though, it feels a lot like a Sunday.

I finished work on Wednesday when Lindsey (who is on holiday this week) dropped by in the afternoon to pick me up and bring me back to Mount Helen, where Jim and the dogs were waiting for us.  We got here and made several big bowls of various salads.  Then Ruth and Andy arrived from Port Fairy.  Ian came home with barbecue provisions.  It was a beautiful evening so we sat outside and ate well and drank well.

Thank you to Lindsey for the photo

On Thursday (which was only yesterday and which felt remarkably like a Saturday) Lindsey, Ian, Ruth and Andy went and walked the Lake.  Jim finds the whole perimeter of the lake a bit far so we went a bit later and walked the pretty, wetlands bit of the lake. We met the others for lunch at Pipers, overlooking the lake.  It was a lovely morning and early afternoon.

Lindsey, Ruth and Andy headed off to Melbourne. Ian, Jim and I stayed here with Rupert and Hugo. Ian and I cooked dinner together - sausages on the barbecue (Ian), slightly undercooked Hasselback potatoes (me - they could have done with an extra few minutes), Ian's ratatouille style vegetables and my beans, peas, asparagus and sesame dish.  Then we watched the second episode of the Great Australian Bake Off, which I am very much enjoying. And then it was bedtime.  Another day gone!

Today is Australia Day, a national holiday.  To celebrate the occasion, Ruth and Andy have gone to Tasmania for ten days, Lindsey came back from Melbourne, and Ian and Jim installed a lock which Emily had given Lindsey and Ian for Christmas. They put it on the new patio doors in the lounge room, which have never been very secure.  It would only have been another little while before Rupert learnt how to open them, and they lead out to an unfenced garden. He can't open the doors now!

For the past little while it has been obvious that we have been invaded by mice.  We have been fighting back and I think we are winning. But it was clear that we needed to sort things out, tidy up and a bit and limit the food that the mice could reach. The obvious place to start was the pantry.  So today I emptied the pantry, cleaned it, disinfected it, sorted out the contents and put them back.

I know this won't last but look how beautiful it looks this afternoon:

And then the weather broke. It started to rain. Then the thunder came.  Jim sat outside and watched thunder storms come from the left and from the right.  And then they met, pretty much over our heads!

It was positively tropical in its intensity. Except that in tropical thunderstorms the rain is hot and this definitely was not. But the thunder was dramatic, loud, rolling and very close.  It is just as well that Sam is not still with us.  Mind you, if he had been, I don't think he would have survived the storm.  He was terrified of thunder and this was loud and intense.  Rupert and Hugo weren't bothered, apart from expressing interest in the biggest storm either of them has encountered.  We haven't had such a very exciting thunder storm in Mount Helen since we got here.  

The storm was so exciting that Ian got stuck in the supermarket.  Had he been in Tesco or Sainsbury's or Waitrose he could have waited it out in the coffee shop or cafe.  Australian supermarkets don't usually have coffee shops or cafes.  No coffee and pastry for him!