Veggies

I think it got to a top of 28d or so on Friday in Reservoir, before the cold front arrived. Jim says he thinks it got to around 24 or 25 in Mount Helen.  It definitely wasn't that high when I arrived back on Friday evening!

It wasn't even close to that high when I got up yesterday morning.  Around 4d, according to Lindsey's weather station. It was foggy - you couldn't see the lights of Ballarat. It was damp.

Nevertheless, I was determined to go out to the Spring Creek Organic Veg farm for their Pick Your Own Corn event.  We went mid-morning, once the fog had cleared and the sun had come out.  There were quite a few people there and the farm had put out lots of trestle tables laden with all sorts of veg - including lots of corn cobs.  We were dressed for heading out into a paddock in winter-like weather but fortunately there was no need.  We came home with loads and loads of veg for less than $50 and it took about ten minutes to select it:

Rupert and Hugo were convinced that this was all meant for them :-D

I'm glad we went out when we did. We got home from the farm just as it started to rain.  Then it began to hail. Then the wind picked up.  The temperature didn't reach double figures at all on Lindsey's weather station.  The highest I saw was 9.5d. We stayed at home in the afternoon!

I have roasted two of the three bags of tomatoes and will make tomato puree with them.  I wish now I had bought more. I can think of lots of things to do with tomatoes. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with all the carrots. I've cooked the beetroot and am planning to put most of the corn in the freezer.  We had a selection of the veg with our dinner last night. Oh - and Rupert and Hugo had a carrot each. Rupert would have preferred broccoli. Alas, I didn't buy any. A carrot had to do.

It was a funny day yesterday.

It started more or less as planned.  Lindsey left for work, as planned.  I also left for work, as planned. Jim and the dogs stayed at Hill House.  The morning progressed, as planned, both at Hill House and at Summerhill.

Then news broke that the air traffic control tower at Sydney Airport had been evacuated because of smoke.  Flights in and out of the airport were suspended.  No worries, thought I.  I don't know anyone flying out of Sydney today. Austin isn't leaving until Tuesday.  Should be fixed by then.

This was all very well - but I had forgotten the people I knew who had intended to fly *in* to Sydney.  Such as Lindsey.  Amongst others.

The airport was open for flights by the time Lindsey's flight was due to leave but by then, of course, there were massive backlogs.  Her flight was delayed from 20:00 on Friday to 06:00 on Saturday.  She has, in fact, just taken off.

Meanwhile, back in Summerhill ... The TV in the waiting room was reporting a grassfire in Bunker's Hill, which is near Ballarat and just inside my summer fire watch zone of 20km.  It's beyond the Delacombe shopping centre.  Jim rang to tell me that he could see it and should he pack the car with the dogs and Run Away.  The fact that you could see it from Hill House wasn't necessarily an issue.  On a clear day you can see right across to the Grampians.  It didn't seem as though Mount Helen was in immediate danger and no warnings had been issued for us.  For that fire to get to us it would need to pass through some properly built up areas, including the fairly new Delacombe Town Centre shopping complex. He decided to remain alert but to remain where he was.

Then they reported another fire at Mount Mercer, to the south of Mount Helen, also just inside my summer fire watch zone but not posing any risk to Hill House.

Add into the mix a cold front coming in from South Australia with strong swirling winds and a bit of rain

Lots of smoke, combined with a dust storm outside Melbourne and the arrival of the winds led to lots of  interesting "cloud" formations around Melbourne, lots of polluted air, and lots of smoggy haze. The traffic was very slow moving at the Melbourne end of the freeway.  Adding to the excitement were the police officers on motor bikes who were weaving their way through the traffic.  And the fire engines, sirens on, lights flashing, who were trying to get to the fires around Ballarat.  It's lots of fun trying to get out of the way of large fire engines in more or less stationary traffic!!

It was even more fun when we got to Melton and across the freeway was strewn an extraordinary amount of rubbish.  Huge black bags of stuff. Long tubes. Plastic things.  I have no idea what had shed its load all over the freeway (and then, apparently, not stopped to try and clear up) but all the traffic slowed down to almost nothing, formed a single line and then more or less chicaned its way through the debris.

There were no further driving excitements after that. Just more swirling winds and a bit of rain. But I was glad to get back to Hill House and settle down to a quiet evening in.  No alarms, no excitements, nothing particularly interesting. Just wine, steak and roasties.

I had nearly changed my fire watch zone to the winter range of 10km earlier in the week.  I wasn't expecting there to be proper fires to worry about at the end of March.  I might leave the summer one on just for now, even though the weather has abruptly changed to winter temperatures.

Austin

Austin is in Australia this week for a wedding in Sydney on Sunday.

He flew in to Melbourne last Saturday. Jim and I were in Mount Martha, eating seafood and roast potatoes with Stella.

On Sunday, Lindsey brought Austin, Freyja and Simon to Mount Martha so Austin could see Stella.  We had looked at his schedule and Sunday was really the only time we could get him there.  This wasn't an issue. Sunday is an excellent day to visit.  We all went to the Dava for lunch.  And lest you should be worried about Rupert and Hugo, languishing abandoned and alone back at Hill House, Ian returned from a brief visit to New Zealand on Sunday and went to stay with them overnight.  Jim and I went back to our place after a good visit with Stella.

We came up to Hill House on Monday and here we remain.  Austin and Sunday's groom, Zoy, came to Hill House on Tuesday evening.  They were joined by Austin's former housemates Julia and Ali, and Julia's partner Travis.  We had roasted shoulder of lamb with Yorkshire puddings and loads of veg for dinner, followed by apple pie and custard.  It was a merry evening - in every sense of the word!

Julia and Travis had to leave to pick up Travis' children form Julia's parents place.  Austin, Zoy and Ali stayed over. Jim and I retired to bed at a fairly reasonable time.  Austin, Zoy and Ali stayed up until around 3 am.  This wasn't particularly a problem for Austin and Zoy, who could stay in bed until they chose to get up (although I think they felt a bit rough when they did get up :-D ). Poor Ali had to leave at 6:45. I think he tried to creep out without disturbing anyone, but he had no hope of the dogs not noticing. And in any case, I was up and moving around.

Austin and Zoy went down with me to admire Tani and then went on their way back to Melbourne and thence to Sydney. Jim and I had a nice, quiet day.  You will notice that I was not at work.  I took Tuesday and Wednesday off.  I am beginning to wish that I had taken Friday off too!

We are off to Melbourne today. Jim has an appointment with his dermatologist to have the lesion on his nose cauterised and to have a dubious spot on his back removed.  It's a beautiful morning.  I suppose I should go wild and get dressed

Photo by Simon

Photo by Lindsey

A long silence

Goodness.  Such a long silence.  Anyone would think nothing had been happening.

In fact, lots of things have happened.

Last weekend, our cousins Ruth and Andy, who have been staying in Sydney with a side trip to Perth, came to visit.

I picked them up from the airport on Friday afternoon and took them to the flat where they stayed with Lindsey and Ian overnight.  I went back to Hill House.

On  Saturday, Lindsey, Ian, Ruth and Andy went to Matt and Belinda's place in Warragul.  Annie the vet came to stay at Hill House so Jim and I could have a night at home, and join the family lunch in Warragul on Sunday.

Rupert and Hugo were VERY excited to see Annie.  They do love her, which is odd when you consider that she is their vet :-D  Rupert did, eventually, remember this. He also remembered that last time Annie had come to visit she had clipped his toenails. He HATES having his paws touched.  He backed out into the garden, looking watchful.  No one was going to touch his toes, thank you very much.  Fortunately, Annie hadn't brought her clippers with her and all was well.

We haven't had a family gathering at Warragul before and it's a lovely location.  It's a bit of a trek from Mount Helen but it's very accessible from Melbourne and from Mount Martha.  Belinda's mother was there.  Our mother was there.  Ant and Jess were there for their swan song - they were off to Sydney on the following day for Ant to take up a new job.  Sydney is not that far away but it's not absolutely handy for random family lunches!

Alas, Annie had had to leave mid-morning so Jim and I couldn't stay long, but it was a lovely lunch and a good catch up.

Meanwhile, back in Brunswick, Freyja and Simon were supposed to be getting ready to fly to Perth for a few days.  Then the cat escaped and couldn't be found.  Ghost, the cat, is an indoor cat. She is not familiar with the Great Outdoors.  They postponed their flight to Perth.

Fortunately, she hadn't gone far and hastened back inside.  Freyja and Simon took a later flight.

On Monday I went to their place to Ghost sit. I expected her to be nervous and reserved.  But no.  She was delighted to see me.  She's a tiny little thing but she thunders up and down the hallway in Great Dane style. She leans on you, Great Dane style. She supervises you in the shower in much the same way that Rupert does. It must be said that having a Ghost cat jump on the bed in the middle of the night is nothing like as "surprising" as when Rupert or Hugo does it. You barely notice. On the other hand, Rupert and Hugo don't play with your feet in the middle of the night in the way that Ghost does.

I enjoyed my stay at Freyja and Simon's place.  It's a great location, well serviced by public transport.  So I went to steak night at the flat by tram.  It's a 20 minute drive to work. It's a cute, quirky house.  Perhaps not quite as quirky as the shipping container that Freyja and Simon were staying in but quirky enough.  I would banish Freyja and Simon to the shed and move in, except there isn't a shed.  There isn't room for a shipping container in the backyard.  I came back to my place in Mount Helen.

Which is not a 20 minute drive to work.  I had better go and get ready to leave.  Lindsey will be coming by in an hour to pick me up and I'm still in my pyjamas and dressing gown.  I haven't made lunch. I need to iron my work trousers.  I am not remotely ready!

Sunday

It was our turn to host lunch for Chris, John, Irene and Gillie.

I bought a fillet of girello from the butcher in Summerhill a couple of weeks ago.  It was not a cut that I had ever heard of until he started bringing them in. The Americans seem to call it Eye of Round, but I didn't know what that was either. I asked what it was and discovered that it's a fairly lean cut from the silverside part of the cow. He said it benefitted from slow cooking.  So I bought one, tried it in my slow cooker and thought it was fantastic.  Lovely flavour, nice and tender. I decided it would do for yesterday's lunch and bought another one.

On Saturday it sat in the slow cooker with some onions, mushrooms, spices, a bit of wine and some stock, while we were out and about. Then I let it go cold and strained the cooking liquid. Yesterday I sliced it up and put it in the oven with a gravy made from the strained liquid. We had it with oven cooked vegetables along with carrots and cabbage (not oven cooked).  I thought it was all delicious.

You may remember that some time ago I bought a box of apricots and made apricot pies and dehydrated apricots.  I had intended to make some apricot jam - until we went to Mount Martha and I cleared out the pantry, discovering many many jars of apricot jam as I did so.  I asked Stella why she had so many.  They had been bought for Tony who was very partial to apricot jam (not that this explains why there were quite so many!!).  Stella isn't a big jam eater and didn't really want them.  So I bought all the jars of apricot jam back with us.  We now have what I suspect is a life time's supply of apricot jam, even though I took some to Hill House.  Definitely no need to make any more.

So the apricots were bagged up and put in my small freezer, where they have been slumbering, taking up space.

I enquired if the lunchtime visitors liked apricots.  And they do!  So I made an apricot crumble.  Have to say that I have never made an apricot crumble before.  Lots of other kinds of fruit crumbles, yes.  Apricot - no.  So I put fresh (defrosted and de-stoned) apricots in a dish.  I added some of my dehydrated apricots, rehydrated in water and orange bitters and a dash of golden syrup. I topped it with a crumble mix (flour, brown sugar and butter - no nuts, coconut or other fancy extras) and baked it.  We had it with cream and custard. It was lovely. We will be having apricot crumble again.

Another good day.  Lots of chatter and merriment. Good to catch up. We had all seen each other at Chris's birthday party in January but there wasn't really the chance to have a good natter. And it was the first time they had been to Tani (#2; they had been to #1) so we got to show it off.

It's a public holiday today. We have absolutely no plans. It's quite nice sitting around, drinking tea and eating toast and not rushing about.  We will head up to Hill House later today but otherwise we are just pottering.

Ballarat Begonia Festival

It is a long, long time since I visited the Ballarat Begonia Festival.

I am not a big fan of begonias.  I find them a blowsy plant.  If plants were the cast in soap operas, I could see begonias behind the bar in the Queen Vic (Eastenders) or the Rover's Return (Corrie). I would not go out of my way to go and look at a whole load of them.

I am also not a big fan of paying for entry to the Ballarat Botanic Gardens, which are usually free to enter.  I am certainly not a fan of paying for entry to the gardens, and then having to pay for entry to the hot houses to look at begonias.

The Ballarat Begonia Festival does not figure high on my list of things to think about.

The monthly market by the lake, on the other hand ...

We don't go all that often.  It's not very big and there isn't anything specific that calls us to visit. However, on sunny Saturdays when it is on, we do trundle out because it's a beautiful location and there is enough at the market to keep us interested.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. So Jim, Lindsey and I went out late morning to have a look.  And, of course, the Begonia Festival was on, as it is every year on the Labour Day weekend.  Freyja and Simon were in town over the weekend and had plans to go to the festival.  So we visited the market and then went across the road to the Botanic Gardens.

Lakeside market:

Things have changed in the 30 years or so since I last went to the festival.  You no longer have to pay to go into the gardens.  There are food stalls, plant stalls, seed stalls.

There are things for the children to do; things for adults to do.  The heritage tram rides were free over the weekend

The Western Bulldogs were there:

It was a beautiful day by the lake:

We met Freyja and Simon, plus Julia, Travis and Travis' daughter.  Julia's sister was there with her little lad.  And Julia's parents were also there.  Haven't seem them for years.  Jim had never met them.

We didn't go into the hot house where all the begonias were!

Lindsey, Jim and I  went back to Hill House and had lunch with Ian, who had been out doing other things and come back with a delicious frittata.

In the meantime, in Gifu Austin and Tatsuki had gone to see Spiderman at the cinema:

(Photo by Austin)

In Sheffield, Cally and Flynn have new bunk beds:

(Photo by Tabitha)

And Rupert is feeling toast deprived in Mount Helen:

(Photo by Freyja)

All in all, it was a good day.

It was a relatively quiet weekend, which is unusual at the moment.  We went to the Bridge Mall market on Saturday morning and then just pottered for the rest of the day.  Lindsey, Jim and I went to a little autumn festival at the community gardens (allotments) in Ballarat on Sunday morning, then to the garden centre, a DIY store and the supermarket. Jim and I did useful things in Tani. Apart from that, we did nothing of note.

Our weather was warm, hot, sunny, windy, cloudy. It was very, very windy and hot in the east of the state and there have been some terrible bushfires. Some were quite close to Matthew and Belinda's place.  They spent the weekend, among other things, watching and waiting, cars packed in case they needed to leave.  Fortunately they didn't. No significant fires on our side of the state, though we also were watchful.

Jim and I are based at Hill House this week.  Yesterday we both went down to Melbourne, nice and early.  Jim had an appointment at the surgery to check his blood pressure, which had been a little high when he went for his immigration health assessment. He also had an appointment with a dermatologist to look at a lesion on his nose.  She doesn't seem to think there is much to worry about as far as his nose is concerned, and did a full skin check while he was there. She is investigating the odd rash he has on his back and buttocks.  He's had it for years and it has bamboozled health professionals on two continents.  She also doesn't know what it is, but thinks it should be possible to find out.  She biopsied that, as well as his nose.

We came back to Mount Helen after all that excitement. It is unusual for me to be here on a Tuesday night, and thus unusual for me to wake up here on Wednesday morning.  It has proved to be very difficult to be motivated to get up and get moving.  My head is convinced that it should be Thursday and therefore there should be no rush.  But I do need to be motivated.  And to get moving. I need to be at the surgery by 8:30 and it will probably take two hours to get there.  It will be peak hour when I get to the suburban freeways. Could be worse.  I'm down for some 7:30 starts in April - though I am hoping to be in Melbourne on those mornings and not in Mount Helen!

It's raining this morning.  And the forecast high for Ballarat is only 16d. This is a significant contrast to the last few days when it's been in the high 20s and 30s.  I must find my jumper!