From SS Quarantine #9

Jim and I still haven't killed each other, but it was a close run thing yesterday.

He went outside to tackle the last of the hoeing around the edges along the fence and the house.  He moved the herb box (with a bit of help) and got stuck into the mass of grass and weeds underneath it. Then he decided to do around the plastic cold frame (which I had been intending to do all of last week).  It had to be moved.  It was tangled in the long grass.  He gave it a yank - and there was an ominous cracking noise and the cold frame fell apart.

It is possible that his wife may have YELLED at him.  Applying brute force is not always helpful.

Fortunately it had merely disassembled itself and one of the poles was slightly bent.  He's put it all back together now.

And now it looks like this:

He even swept and tidied the tiny patio:

The backyard is now looking very good.  Perhaps I won't kill him after all :D

I now have no excuse for not getting on and planting the winter and spring veg seeds.

In another mad burst of experimentation I tried using the barbecue as an oven last night and put a roasting tray with a leg of lamb and some potatoes in it. It was only semi successful. The lamb wasn't roasted through - this wasn't entirely a disaster. It tasted lovely and we ate the cooked bits from the edges.  The potatoes were lovely.  Crispy and fluffy but just a bit over browned on the bottom.  Using the barbecue as an oven needs more work, but I can see how it would work really well with a bit of practice.  I shall carry on.  Sometimes having two "ovens" would be quite useful.

In the meantime I have stripped the rest of the meat off the bone and made a stock with the bone and other bits and pieces and added it to the "everything" stock I made yesterday.  I can feel a lamb tagine coming on.  Assuming I have all the stuff I need, but I think I probably do. Otherwise - improvisation is the Queen.

Apart from that a fairly normal day aboard the SS Quarantine. I did some work on the webpage and updated the RMG  Facebook page with my Thought for Today. I did a bit of tidying and a bit of cleaning.  We're pottering along.

Not dead yet 😜

From SS Quarantine #8

Last June I took out a subscription to Amazon Prime (Australia) so I could check out their video and TV service but mostly because they had just released a new series that I quite fancied watching.  I thought about trying it for a month but then  decided that wasn't long enough. After all, it might prove to be an unusual month and therefore not give an accurate picture of likely usage. So I thought about three months and decided that likewise, a winter quarter might not be typical of general usage.  So I took out a 12 month subscription.

And then didn't watch more than one episode of the program I had particularly wanted to watch.

You could hardly say that this has shaped up to be your typical 12 months, but yesterday Amazon Prime came into its own.  I received an email alerting me to the existence of a new series called The Test, about  Australian cricket post the ball tampering scandal.  There are 8 episodes.  Jim very happily watched 4 of them after lunch before drifting off to sleep. He'll watch the rest of them in a more measured way.  Then I watched a food and travel program.  My two favourite things combined :D

I may keep it after the subscription runs out.  And I should probably have a closer look at Apple TV+, which came with a years subscription when I upgraded my phone.  After all, we may be at home for quite some time. The government has stopped short of locking down people over 70 for now but is making very strong recommendations that people over 70 should stay at home unless there are pressing reasons to leave it.  Frankly, I think everyone should stay at home unless there is a pressing reason to leave.

I have no pressing reason to leave just for now.  Lindsey went out hunting and gathering yesterday and delivered unto our doorstep a positive mountain of food, including a supermarket rotisseried chicken, meat pies, bread, veg and other essentials such as wine and milk. She also delivered a block of fresh yeast that she got at the farm shop.  I have never, ever used fresh yeast.  I have no idea what to do with it.  It's sitting in the fridge while  I do some research.  The Quarantine Kitchen looks rather as though a bomb has hit it while I make soups, stocks and stews. My stockpot, slow cooker and largest saucepan have all been pressed into service. I may need another freezer!

We should be more than ok for sustenance until our quarantine finishes.

I was going to go out after lunch and tackle this

Then a storm arrived.  We had thunder, wind, rain, a sudden drop in temperature. The storm dropped 8ml of rain us in around 10 or 15 minutes and then went away, leaving a delightful late afternoon and evening.  Too late by then for me to go out and tidy up ready for seed planting.  I was happily ensconced in my chair playing with Amazon Prime.

From SS Quarantine #7

This is my Quarantine Best Friend

If the electricity goes, it won't be very useful, and I do have a grater and mixing bowls and wooden spoons and whisks and whatever (although if anyone wants to give me a decent grater for my birthday, it would be gratefully (😋) received).  However, I had a bag of carrots and half a cabbage that were looking a bit sad and the food processor chopped and grated them in under 5 minutes, ready for chopped and grated adventures. Would have taken me ages to do it by hand.

I understand that there are returning travellers who are not taking the mandatory quarantine seriously. After all - who is going to police it?  (Er - the police!).  Jim and I are taking it seriously.  As I have said before, not only is quarantine protecting other people from anything we may be incubating, but it is also protecting us from anything that other people may have or be incubating.

The government has lost patience with these people and returning travellers are now required to be quarantined in a hotel in the city in which they entered Australia. There has been considerable community outrage that some of these people are complaining that being quarantined in a hotel room for two weeks is "like being in prison". This does tell us that the complainers probably haven't actually ever been in prison. The hotels are 4 star hotels so quite comfortable and with decent food.  However, I am enormously grateful that when we came back we were able to isolate in our home, where we have access to multiple rooms, a garden and a kitchen with supplies to play with. I can see that being confined to a hotel room, no matter how comfortable, might become irksome and a bit claustrophobic after a while.

Jim has been taking advantage of having the garden to play with.  He turned this:

into this:

and this:

into this:

Plus he's raked up loads of leaves and mowed the grass.

We had a garden waste bin delivered while we were away. It was empty last Sunday.  It's full now!

So that's a wrap for Week #1.  On to Week #2

From SS Quarantine #6

I know, I know.  I said I wasn't going to do this.  But Freyja drew my attention to this: Rosie and Ralph's Vegan and Gluten Free Chocolate cake

I realise that my Coeliac cousins are unlikely to come a-calling any time soon and my Vegans are equally unlikely to come visiting in the immediate future.  But I had all the ingredients to hand. You can't have too many vegan and/or gluten free recipes in your repertoire.

I decided to give it a go.  Rampant food experimentation in the Quarantine Kitchen.  To make it even worse, I messed about with the ingredients. 350g of sugar seemed a ridiculously high amount of sugar.  I reduced it to 250g which still seemed a lot but I thought I shouldn't mess with the recipe too much.  I also didn't use oat or rice milk. I didn't have any. I could have made some but I didn't have any lurking vegans and I do have some tins of evaporated milk which are past their best before dates loitering in my pantry.

I baked it in two cake tins. It didn't rise much and makes a dense, moist cake, much like a mud cake

Result?  It's much, much, much too sweet.  Much less sugar next time.

Grinding rice into rice flour was a revelation.  I had no idea you could make rice flour simply by blending rice until it forms a powder.  I think I didn't grind it quite enough.  It was a bit gritty, which didn't bother me but got stuck under Jim's dental plate. Also, I have rice flour so I could have used that.  And, I actually do have wheat flour so I could have used that.  I'll have a play around next time I am minded to bake cake.

There is absolutely no need to add raspberry jam. Nor a runny chocolate ganache to the top.  It would benefit from cream or custard I think.

I need more cocoa before I can do it again.

Otherwise, we carried on with Quarantine Life as normal.  Jim has carried on hoeing along the fence line and along the side of the house.  I haven't yet sorted out the cold frame for winter seeds but I will.  Apparently the garden centres, DIY stores and supermarkets have had their veg seed and seedling supplies ransacked.  People have decided to Grow Their Own.  I think they think it's easier than it sometimes can be and I suspect they don't realise quite how long it takes before you can harvest anything.  Fortunately, I have the seeds I need for winter and spring. Hopefully by the time I want summer seeds things will have calmed down a bit.

Time is passing quickly.  It's a week today since we got back.

And the sun continues to rise each morning - a bit later than before we went away, but it does come up

From SS Quarantine #5

A quietly domestic day yesterday, although I did have another look at the RMG Facebook page.  I must have a proper go at the webpage in the next day or two.

I was looking at the empty glass "oil" dispenser during the day and noticed that the tap was a bit loose.  I tightened the tap up, and then wondered if that might be causing the slight leak.  I put some water in it to test my hypothesis.  No leak.  So I dried it properly and then tipped the oil from the other jar in. That tap was loose too.  I've tightened it up as well.  Now I have drips rather than a leak.  Perhaps I won't buy a new jar after all!

I also decided to sort through the freezer drawers in the fridge freezer in the kitchen.  In them I found:  1.5 loaves of sliced bread, a half packet of mountain bread, a packet of flatbreads and a rosemary and garlic pizza base plus there are tortilla breads in the pantry. No more bread baking until that lot is eaten. I also found a giant bag of frozen chips, a giant but opened bag of potato gems and only a small number of hash browns.  It shows how unreliable your memory of what is in the freezer is.  Had you asked me I would have said we had loads of hash browns but not much else.

Jim went out and hoed along the back fence to curb the growth of grass and weeds which we are finding difficult to control.  We do have a whipper snipper (small brush cutter) but no fuel for it, so the only way we have of doing the edges is using a set of hand shears. Our backs do not enjoy this!

It looks great - but it crosses my mind that you have no frame of reference, although if you look at the side of the house it gives you some idea. I hadn't thought to take any "before" photos.  I have now taken a few of the rest of the garden, just in case we are motivated to do any more work out there :-D

We had a butterflied, boneless chicken for dinner last night.  I roasted it and we had it with a load of roasted vegetables.  It was a lemon and Greek herb flavoured chicken and not the sort of thing I usually buy. I would have preferred an ordinary whole chook, but the online supermarket didn't offer them and I thought I would give this one a go.  I am reminded that I very often do not like pre-flavoured things. I prefer to add my own flavours. Pre-flavoured things so often seem heavy handed to me. And too salty.  I won't buy it again. However, it fed us and there is some left.  Might make a small pie with it.  But not tonight.  I have some turkey mince to use before it gets to its use by date.

From SS Quarantine #4

I had quite a productive day yesterday.

I actually did some work.  Like real work. The work I get paid for.  The webpage needed updating. I fixed that but I might have a trawl through it and see what else needs to be done.

Work now has a Facebook page which had been set up but needed populating.  I did a bit of that yesterday and will mess about a bit more today.

I also had a happy time messing about in the kitchen.  I used the left over Yorkshire pudding batter to make some pancakes which I filled with cheese and caramelised onion and put in a baking dish with a jar of tomato and basil pasta sauce over the top.  We had half of that for lunch.  I made a mushroom and chicken risotto for dinner - inspired by something I ran across on Instagram.  My Instagram feed has quite a lot of food related things on it.

While I was poking about in the pantry cupboard I found two drink dispensers that I bought 18 months ago and which I have only used once.  I decided that they were not earning their keep and was about to put them in the "Take these to the Op Shop whenever Op Shops become available again" pile. Then I thought that perhaps they could be used to keep cooking oil in.  I cleaned them up and decanted the better part of a large bottle of canola oil into one. It looks great and makes dispensing oil more convenient.  But they were only very cheap from Kmart and they leak very slowly.  When all this is over (and always supposing we survive to the end) I might buy proper Mason jar drink dispensers for oil

In other news, I had a phone call from the Airport Shuttle Bus people yesterday asking if we still wanted to use the return part of our tickets.  I said that we were now back home and couldn't see that we would be travelling anywhere much in the next little while. And she refunded the return portion of the fare.  I also had emails from the Trainline in the UK offering a refund on the tickets we were supposed to be using tomorrow to get from Sheffield to London.  Plus I have had an email from eBookers offering to try and get a refund for the return leg of our flight home, which is supposed to be next Monday.  I wasn't expecting any of these things to happen and am quite impressed.

There are reports in the Australian press that some people who have returned from overseas are breaking their mandatory quarantines.  Apparently The Powers That Be are going to start checking up on all of us. (They know who we are and where we should be - we had to fill in declarations at immigration.)  I have no plans to break the quarantine.  I may never leave the house again.  The only germs, viruses and contaminants that are in our place are the ones that Jim and I brought in with us. If we get the end of any incubation periods for any ailments that may be brewing, we should be in bounding good health for months - if we stay at home and don't let anyone in.

From SS Quarantine #3

A quiet day yesterday, mainly doing useful domestic things.

I am trying to "spring" clean one room at a time. I didn't do that so much yesterday as tidy various categories of things up.  Like sorting out the winter and summer wardrobes. I think it's supposed to warm up a bit at the weekend but we've had the heating on since we got home and I thought it was likely that we would need our winter clothes more than the summer for now.

Jim ran the vacuum cleaner round. I swept the floors.  It's a thankless task sweeping our floors.  No sooner have you done it than bits of grass, leaf, mud, dust, whatever start making their way back in. Still, it needs to be done. Every so often, at least :-D

I put the soaker hose on the front garden yesterday evening. The ground is very dry and getting some of the weeds out was proving to be quite difficult.  The hose is on a timer so it turned itself off after the set time.  I intended to go out and turn the tap off before I went to bed. Sometimes the joint leaks and I don't want to pour water expensively and unnecessarily down the drain.  I forgot.

I remembered again when I woke up around midnight.  Reluctantly, I got out of my warm and cosy bed, put my dressing gown and slippers on and went out to check.  The joint was not leaking. I turned the tap off anyway. Then I looked up. And my reward for getting up in the night to check the tap  was a breathtakingly beautiful starry, starry sky.

I didn't hurry back in.

My other reward for checking the tap was that when I went back to sleep I didn't wake up again until 5:00. This may seem early to you but it is when my alarm goes off on Tuesdays and Fridays when I am off to work, so not an unreasonable time to wake up. And it is a huge improvement on waking at 3 or 4 and not being able to go back to sleep at all.

My front flower bed:

From SS Quarantine #2

Morning sky on Monday

From our front door

Some people who know me well have asked/commented about having the time to enjoy playing about or experimenting with food.  It is true, I do enjoy messing about with ingredients and experimenting a bit.  I don't want to experiment too much at the moment, though.  I can't pop to the shop if I need something and don't want to waste what I have got.

I have, however, been reading.  Tin can cook and Vegan(ish) both by Jack Monroe and One pot wonders  by the Hairy Bikers.  I have been re-reading some old favourites such as Love your leftovers and Three good things by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.  I have new books that I haven't got to yet.  I've also noted that one of the people I follow on Twitter has been having an entertaining discussion with his followers on how to tart up cauliflower cheese. (I had cauliflower and broccoli, milk and cheese to hand. I hadn't thought about cauliflower cheese before reading the Twitter feed. I didn't tart it up - much).  I am reading the Aussie food magazines online.

And those months of volunteering in the Pot Luck Pantry in Sheffield will prove useful.  Look at what you've got and think of what you can do with it.  I would blitz a Masterchef Mystery Box challenge (but none of the rest of it - I won't ever be auditioning!!).

I do have to hand the ingredients to make lots of things that I enjoy eating but don't often get around to making. I may play about with those as the fortnight progresses

You won't be surprised if food figures in the blog for the next little while (crumbed lamb cutlets with mash and the cauli-broccoli cheese last night, since you ask).  But don't expect Fine Dining!

I had a fairly productive day yesterday.  I have caught up with the washing. I weeded most of the front garden. I need to water it today and then dig out some of the agapanthus which are starting to grow back. I cleaned the bathroom.  I watched the last episode of Griff Rhys Jones' journey around Australia by train.  They had the first three episodes available to watch on the flight home.  Alas, episodes 4 and 5 are no longer available on iPlayer. But episode 6 was fun.

I haven't made much progress on the learning Japanese and refreshing my French front. I possibly need to make a daily timetable to fit it in (which I will then completely ignore :-D)  I can't find my DVD player which I took to the UK.  I don't remember actually taking it out of the suitcase. Maybe it has gone into its own form of quarantine

So far Jim and I have narrowly avoided killing each other.  Imagine how much worse it must be for couples or families shut up in hotel rooms or granny flats.

From SS Quarantine #1

Officially it's called Self Isolation but really it is a quarantine.  A bit like pets. You come in from overseas and you need to stay put in one place for 14 days.  Fortunately, we have a house with multiple rooms and a garden. Others, less fortunate, have to stay in a hotel room, or a parental caravan, or other tiny spaces (I know this from talking to returning people in airports and on planes).

It is only day one and things may get boring or frustrating but I will try to remain grateful for having our own space to quarantine in.

Yesterday I went quite Old School.

I made a Yorkshire pudding batter.

I took some vegetable stock out of the freezer and chopped up loads of veg, added a tin of kidney beans (must add tinned beans to my shopping list when I can go shopping again!), some tinned tomatoes and some pasta and made a large pot of minestrone soup.

I am fortunate enough to have flour and yeast so I made a loaf of bread. We had some with the minestrone for lunch.

We had a lovely piece of beef that Lindsey had left in the fridge for us. I roasted that in the evening and we had it with roasted potatoes, from the crop at Hill House, green beans from our boxes and broccoli that Lindsey had got at the vegetable farm. And the Yorkshire puddings, of course with a mushroom gravy.

I have made an apple crumble with some sad looking apples that we left here when we went away. I meant to give them to Lindsey and forgot.  But they chopped up fine for a crumble.  We haven't eaten it yet but we will.

I went out to read the rain gauge yesterday and there was a very large grasshopper trying to get in through the front door.  I discouraged it.  Perhaps I should have let it in.  A short time later we saw a magpie sitting on the fence looking at something.  Then it swooped into the garden and flew off with a grasshopper in its beak.  I fear it was the one I denied entry into the house. I had only seen one.

Jim went out through another door a bit later and a skink (tiny lizard) dropped from above his head. We thought it was dead, it lay so still on the ground.  When I went out through that door later another (or the same) skink fell from above onto the ground and looked dead for a very short while.  Then it ran away.  I think it was the same skink, climbing up the fly screen and obviously also trying to get into the house.

I'm not sure why these creatures are finding our house so enticing. It's not as though we have much grasshopper or skink food lying about. Although I suppose they might fancy mu vegetable supply, now I come to think about it.

Home

We left Sheffield on Thursday at lunchtime and headed down towards Heathrow.

We had had a notification from Qantas telling us that our plane, headed for Sydney, had been delayed from 20:30 to 23:30. This was worrying. It meant that there was no way that we would meet our connecting flight to Melbourne in Singapore.  However, the text message from Qantas told us that they were aware that we had a connecting flight and they were monitoring the situation.  I wasn't really worried.  I knew they would get us home. Even if eventually!

The car, however, had to back at its home in Heathrow by 16:00. I didn't want to pay unnecessarily for an extra day. There had already been too much profligate splashing of cash.  We were determined to deliver it on time, even if it meant a long wait at the airport.

Tabitha suggested that the airport might be quite busy. Although travellers from a week or so earlier had been reporting eerily quiet airports, it seemed quite possible that people would be trying to get back to their various homes before international borders were closed.

And so it was.  It was bedlam at Heathrow.  No one at all was taking the idea of social distance remotely seriously.  We arrived at the checkin desk more than half an hour before it opened and there was already a lengthy queue, waiting cheek by jowl.

Eventually we were checked in, through to Melbourne.

Oddly enough, it took almost no time to get through immigration and security. No idea why.I had expected a long wait.

We holed up in an airport pub while waiting for it to be time to board.  Again, no sense of keeping a distance between people.  The tables were very close together. I would have found them a bit too close even under normal circumstances.

Eventually we were on board our flight and off we went.  A good flight. Uneventful. I even managed several hours sleep.

As predicted, we missed our connecting flight in Singapore. Qantas had it all under control. Boarding passes for passengers to Melbourne and Brisbane had already been printed out. All we had to do was go and collect them. They put us back onto the flight to Sydney and then onto a hopper from Sydney to Melbourne.

The upgrade that we had  been given to Business Class from Singapore to Melbourne was honoured on the flight from Singapore to Sydney.  Our luggage went all the way from London to Melbourne by Business Class, even with the extra flight thrown in :-D

It was bedlam in Singapore too.  The Australian government had summoned its citizens and residents back from overseas and citizens and residents who had been intending to return in the near future had heeded the call.  Aussies from all around the globe were on their way back.  The Qantas staff at Heathrow, at Singapore, in Sydney, and on all three flights were magnificent in what must have been very trying circumstances and in the face of the imminent grounding of the fleet. You would never have known there was a crisis if their demeanour and professionalism were any indication.

In the meantime, Lindsey and Ian had been pondering how we would get from Melbourne back to Mount Helen. Government advice is to travel by private car if at all possible. I had bought return ticket on the airport shuttle but they required that returning international passengers wear face masks. I didn't have any face masks and couldn't get any.  So Lindsey volunteered to drive my car to the airport. We met her in the car park - at a safe distance! Then she joined Emily and they went away in Emily's car.  I picked up the car key from the bonnet of the car, where she had placed it so we could stay at a proper distance, and drove Jim and me back to our place.

And that is where you now find us. We are in a mandatory 14 day quarantine. When we arrived back in Australia we had to fill in forms that said we agreed to self quarantine for a period of 14 days from yesterday and to give the address where we would be and a contact phone number. Fortunately, I have well stocked freezers and pantry. Lindsey had picked up perishable goods for us and a few pantry staples that we might run short of. Also, we qualify for priority online supermarket deliveries. Online supermarket deliveries are largely suspended at the moment so the frail, elderly, disabled and vulnerable can have priority, including those who are in mandatory quarantine. I filled in an online form and was added to those who had been approved. If we run short of things and Lindsey isn't available to shop for us, I can order online. Assuming there is anything available to order - although I believe that things are starting to improve on the panic buying front.

The Australian Government is now saying that residents who are overseas and who are planning to return home at any point should do so ASAP.

I had already come to that conclusion.

I had an email from Qantas this morning asking if I wanted to bid for an upgrade to business class.  I assume that this means they are still intending to fly on Thursday.

We have cancelled planned trips to the pub tonight and tomorrow.  We can meet those people on a future trip when the chaos has all calmed down a little.  Jim will be 78 at the beginning of April and is staying in the house until we go to Heathrow by car. I am not venturing out much - I did go to the local small supermarket this morning but apart from that I too am staying in the house.

On another note, I had an email from River Cottage in response to mine telling them that we wouldn't be there on Sunday, offering me a long dated voucher to use later if we come back. It duly arrived and was for the full amount I had paid for the lunch.  I have to say I was very impressed. I wasn't expecting any sort of a refund and not a voucher which is dated for 12 whole months.

We went to the supermarket yesterday. before deciding more or less to stay at home. There were mountains of fresh fruit and vegetables available.  I bought quite a few.  They had everything that I had on my list.  There were gaps on the shelves, toilet paper and hand soap, of course.  Odd things that I probably wouldn't want to buy anyway, let alone stockpile.  Then we got to the frozen veg section.  It looked as though it had been ransacked.  There were peas lying loose all over the bottom of the freezers but no bags of peas.  There were virtually no frozen veg at all.  It was all very odd, I thought, as I ambled off with my lovely fresh veg.  If I had been staying for any length of time and was worried about supply, I would have bought fresh veg and frozen it myself. (I do have supplies of pre-frozen veg in my freezer at home, but I wouldn't panic and rip bags of peas apart in my frenzy to fill up with ready frozen things, particularly if fresh were available)

Bailing

Jim and I are bailing on the Europe trip.  All people arriving in Australia have to self isolate for two weeks.  Both the UK and Australian government are threatening to confine people over 70 to their homes. I can see tourism drying up and people refusing to travel thus planes being cancelled.  If we are going to be sick, sequestered, solitary we would rather do that at home.

I spent a very considerable time yesterday morning trying to get onto eBookers either by phone or by chat to see if I could bring our return flight forward.  This was a complete waste of time.  When I eventually did get hold of someone (on their messenger service) they said they couldn't look at exisiting bookings :-S This might have made me a bit grumpy

I gave up.  And bought a new flight with QANTAS.  We're going home on Thursday, arriving Saturday morning. Then we get to stay in our house for 14 days.  There are occasions when this seems like a tempting thought.  I suspect, however, that the reality of not being allowed to leave the house and gardens for two weeks might be a bit testing.

Imagine if Jim is confined to quarters for months!!!!!

But before all this happens, we went to the pub for one last fling.  Off to the Rutland for us. Where we had a magnificent bowl of slow cooked mutton with Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, veg and gravy.  Ginger Richard came. So did Nate. But not Duncan who was at a rehearsal for a musical which may or may not happen.

Ginger Richard and Cally

Nate and Taffa

One of the big advantages of being confined to the house is that we won't be able to spend much money.  Might give my credit card a chance to recover from all this profligate spending on (unused) train tickets, (unused) rented apartments, (unused) tickets to a River Cottage Sunday lunch.  

Cally's Birthday

It was Cally's birthday yesterday. To celebrate we went to the Tropical Butterfly and Wildlife Park.

It was a grey, mirky day so we thought it would be quite quiet.

It wasn't!

As well as lots of people we saw lots of animals.  Butterflies, of course.  Birds. Lemurs. Meerkats. Dinosaurs.  Lots and lots of fun and interesting things.

Then we went home and Cally and Flynn had pizza for the birthday tea.  And there was cake.

In the pub

Jim and I had quite a quiet day yesterday.  Taffa was back at work. Flynn was back at nursery.  Gaz was also work.  Cally was at school.

We had the house to ourselves.

So we stayed in it.

I went down the road to get a roast pork sandwich for me and a pork pie for Jim. for lunch

I did some washing and drying. I washed the dishes.

Then just before 5, Jim and I wandered into town and found the Head of Steam, where we met some former colleagues of mine.  There have been multiple reshuffles of the department while I have been away and there aren't many former colleagues left who are still working there.  One or two people who have left the institution came.  It was a small but delightful gathering.

The Head of Steam is VERY busy and VERY noisy but we managed to find a table to fit us all in in a distant corner where we could more or less hear each other.

I was pleased to be able to show English Rupert photos of his Australian namesake.  I did send a photo when Australian Rupert first arrived as a 10 week old puppy but didn't hear back.  English Rupert says he is fairly sure he didn't get it.  This is possibly right.  Bea sent me a message after we had been away for about 6 months to say she had found a couple of emails from me that had been caught up in the university spam filter.  And Rupert quite rightly points out that he might have forgotten to reply but he would remember the existence of an Antipodean canine called Rupert.

People all went home.

Steve and Bea drove us back to Woodseats and they and we reconvened in the Woodseats Palace for a bite to eat.

We came back to Taffa and Gaz's house and went to bed.

A Very Good Day.

It's Cally's birthday today.  She is 9.  There have been presents and balloons.  And shortly we are going to the Tropical Butterfly House to look at butterflies. And other things. Coats, hats, scarves and gloves are at the ready. 🌧🌧☔  (Actually, it's supposed to bright up as the day progresses, but we will take rain kit with us anyway!)

Memory Lanes

I was very tempted to entitle this "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again".  Except I wasn't dreaming.  And it wasn't Manderley.  But we did go on a trip down many memory lanes.

It was all slightly enlivened by Flynn, who was quite happy about the idea of going out with Mamma, Gamma and Grandad Jim - until he went outside and realised that we weren't going in his car, but in Gamma's very scary hire car. (It doesn't scare me, although I don't like it very much.  It's quite uncomfortable to sit in and it doesn't seem to have much oomph, although it is considerably bigger than Ziggy)  He had a full on melt down, flatly refusing to get in, to sit in his car chair, to have his seat belt done up.  Eventually he was persuaded (possibly by me yelling at him to sit down and behave :-S  and then pacified by Thomas the Tank Engine games and a granola bar ) to buckle up and off we set towards Chesterfield.

For the proper mooch around that I had said we would do this week.

Out we went to Tupton to look at The Sidings.  It has a new front door.  And it could do with a coat of paint.  Otherwise it doesn't seem to have change much.

Neither has Tupton. Everything is still where we left it when we departed three and a half years ago.

We drove out towards Ashover to look at what they had done to The Nettle.  It is now a rather nice looking residence with a number of modern town house style buildings in what had been the car park.

We drove out past Marsh Green, which is closed.  I know the previous owners had sold up but it doesn't look as though the new people have opened it again.

We headed out through Beeley and the Chatsworth Estate.  On to the Farm Shop, where we laid in provisions.  We had intended to have lunch in the cafe, but it is closed for renovations and doesn't open again until next week.  So we went to the Devonshire Arms in Pilsley and had lunch there instead.  It was very busy. No pandemic worries evident in the pub yesterday.

And then we came back to Taffa and Gaz's house.  Flynn still doesn't like my hire car, but at least he got back into it for the trip home.

The Australian government hasn't yet closed its borders to non residents coming in from Western Europe, but it has issued a travel advisory suggesting that all overseas travel should be reconsidered unless absolutely essential.  The British government is advising against travel to Spain.  It looks as though we made the right decision cancelling the European train trip. I don't think that it could possibly be called "essential" travel.  I am not sure that a trip to Devon is really essential but we are already in England so might as well do something. And Tabitha and Gaz weren't expecting us to be here for three full weeks.  They may have plans for next week (such as sleeping in their own bed and having unlimited access to their kettle and fridge).

Europe

We have very reluctantly decided that prudence would suggest not going on an extensive train trip through France, Spain and Italy next week.  It is strongly rumoured that the Australian prime minister is about to close the Australian borders to non-residents who are or have been in Western Europe.  This wouldn't actually affect us - we would still be able to return to Oz, though they might quarantine us.  However, if the health officials think The Virus is sufficiently widespread that they want to put a travel ban in place, it is perhaps wise not to go to that place.

I have managed to get back more money than I was expecting to. The train fares are mostly non-refundable. but I got back half the fare for a couple of legs. One apartment is non-refundable (I knew that) but one was fully refunded and the other was half refunded.

We are going to Devon instead. This means I can use the train tickets to and from London.  I can use the (non-refundable) hotel I had booked in London on our return.  I have booked train tickets to and from Axminster. I have arranged to hire another car once we get there. And we have a cottage outside of Seaton, near Axminster booked for the week.  As compensation for the disappointment of not meeting another cousin and her family for Sunday lunch in Geneva, I have booked tickets to Sunday lunch at River Cottage.  I was a bit surprised there were tickets available.  It is Mothering Sunday in the UK on that day.  But there were two tickets, so I bought them.  We will go to that event by taxi. They have a bar stocked with local wines!

I'm not sure my stash of Euros will be much use in Deepest Darkest Devon, but at least they speak English.  Of a sort :-D

Eating out

We very adventurously hopped on a bus on Tuesday and trundled into town.

We had a lovely wander through the Winter Gardens and then met cousin Penny for lunch in Ego, next to the Winter Gardens.

Ego does a lunchtime menu which offers a small sized lunch with a glass of wine or beer on the side. I had a Greek chicken wrap with chips and white wine.  Jim had salmon fishcakes with beer. Penny had a falafel wrap with white wine.  It was all delicious and a perfect size for lunch.

There used to be an American diner at the bottom of Tabitha and Gareth's road.  One day it went away. And then an Italian diner came in its place.  We went there for dinner on Tuesday night with Tabitha, Gaz, Cally and Flynn.  It too was very delicious.  Jim and I had sea bass with prawns, tiny octopus and calamari.  Jim has eaten a lot of fish since we've been here.  We both like fish and we eat it at home but I think he has been missing the European fish.  Much like I missed snapper and gummy shark when I was living in the UK

Waiting for dinner:

We didn't have lunch out yesterday, but I did take advantage of the proximity of a roast pork sandwich shop.  Roast pork sandwiches for lunch it was.  Then Jim and I met our friends Bea, Steve and Richard in the local Wetherspoons pub for dinner.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food.

We are going out shortly. Tabitha has taken a day off work.  Flynn is not at nursery.  We are heading off into Derbyshire for a meander around Tupton, Ashover and the Chatsworth estate.

Week 2 - Sheffield

We have relocated from Salisbury to Sheffield.

We left Peartree at about 10:30 and mooched across country to Marlborough where we stopped for morning tea.  A lovely toasted teacake with hot chocolate for me and cappuccino for Jim.

We trundled up the motorway and stopped in the services for a not very nice Burger King combo.

For old times' sake, I drove up the A38 and through Clay Cross, where we stopped at the Tesco for supplies.

I was just telling Jim that I wasn't going to go through Tupton but would carry on up the highway through Chesterfield. We would come back later in the week and have a proper mooch about. Then I noticed the sat nav was telling me to go down Queen Victoria Road, through Tupton. How odd, thought I. Then I saw the queuing traffic up the road towards Chesterfield. And turned down QVR.  We drove past the Sidings but it didn't count as a proper mooch.  We will still go back later in the week.

And now we are at Taffa and Gaz's place.  You will be surprised to hear that it is raining.

Taffa has just left for work. Cally is getting ready for school.  Gareth doesn't work on Tuesdays so Flynn isn't getting ready for nursery.  Cally's friend Poppy is here, waiting to go to school too.  Jim is, very sensibly, still in bed, keeping out the way.

Old Mill Hotel

You may remember that I said that we used to stay at the Old Mill when visiting Salisbury from Tupton, after the Swan in Stoford changed hands.  The Old Mill was a lovely place to spend a weekend but I wanted an apartment if staying for longer.  And so we came to the Peartree.

But I wasn't leaving without at least visiting the Old Mill, so we went for lunch yesterday.

I am very pleased I had booked a table in the restaurant.  I think they were fully booked.  Walk ins were directed to the bar. They serve the same menu in the bar, and it is a lovely space - but the restaurant is in an ancient part of the building and we love it.

Jim has eaten quite a lot of fish and seafood while we have been here. He carried on with whitebait to start and scampi and chips for his main.  I took the opportunity to have a proper pub Sunday roast.  Beef, Yorkies, roasties and veg.  We went wild and had dessert as well. Apple crumble for me (lots and lots of apple) and sticky toffee pudding for Jim.

We walked there, so I could also have wine with my lunch.  It's not a long walk and it is very pretty.  Jim managed quite well - spurred on, I think, by the thought of lunch at the end of the outward leg, and fuelled by good food and wine on the return trip.

Sunday walk, along the Town Path

The Old Mill, Harnham

Lots of water lying around

Looking across the meadows

And that brings to an end Part One of our trip.  We are off to Sheffield today.  Farewell and thank you to Wiltshire, Hampshire, various family members and to the Peartree for a fabulous week.