Markets

Although there are some markets still open around Victoria, the ones in and around Ballarat are all closed for the duration.

This poses a problem for some of the regular market stall sellers.  For instance, the local mushroom farm mostly sells at the markets.  You can buy some of their produce at our nearest IGA but I don't think they have a large clientele outside the markets. They were worried that they might need to close down. Our local dairy sells milk at the IGA and in various other locations but their main clientele was the cafes and restaurants which are, of course, all closed for eating in. Many of them are simply closed.  The dairy was worried that they might have to close down.

Many small and/or local producers are in the same boat.

The dairy began selling their milk, cream and yoghurt in other places.  At the Spring Creek vegetable farm. They were already selling at the Elaine Farm Shop but I think they have bumped up the quantities. The mushroom farm opened up a farm gate shed and began selling their mushrooms there on a few days of the week. They also started stocking the dairy's milk.  Then they started selling eggs from one of the regular market stalls.  And sourdough bread from another. Cultured butter from another.

The small producers are being very inventive in how they approach this.

Lindsey and I took advantage of the Government Mandated allowable crowd of two and, properly physically distanced, of course, went to the mushroom farm on Saturday.  It was packed! But everyone was taking the physical distancing seriously and keeping a suitable distance from other people.  Everyone was nice and patient.  And I came away with bags of mushrooms. Other people were buying some of the other produce. Oh, and there was a seafood van there. I got some prawns while I was there.

I wonder if the physical distancing would be any less if the markets were allowed to operate in Ballarat. People are, on the whole, quite respectful of it.

Then we headed out to Elaine and did the veg and meat shopping, amongst other goodies.

I had been to our local butcher earlier in the week and got some of their bacon and a few other bits and pieces.

The only thing I would quite like to buy that I haven't been able to get in the farm shops and stalls and at the local IGA is Yorkshire Tea, or strong English Breakfast tea.

Apart from one delivery when we were quarantined, I haven't been to Woollies or to Coles since we went away. I may need to, to get the teabags. The Elaine Farm Shop has plentiful supplies of flour, yeast, sugar, all the things that the supermarkets are short of. The veg farm has loads and loads of produce. The IGA fills most supermarket needs, plus wine and beer

I bought online a box of six cheeses from small Australian cheese producers, which I shared with Lindsey.  I realise that these are not local produce but the small cheesemakers are also struggling and I like to support these things when I can.

Lunch on Saturday was a gigantic mushroom from the mushroom farm filled with bacon from the local butcher (who makes his own) and blue cheese from my cheese box, with toast made from bread from the local bakery on the side.  I really felt quite smug :D

I don't think anyone in Eilish Court gathered in their driveways at 6 am for the private ANZAC day remembrances.  I wasn't really up by then.  I did go out to watch the sunrise, though, in remembrance.  And very beautiful it was too

I saw video of many of the private remembrances on the TV later in the day, and the quiet, sparsely attended official ANZAC day ceremonies.  Much more appropriate, in my view, than the usual large crowds and parades. Quiet, dignified, thoughtful.

It was a beautiful start to the working week this morning.  (I am still working from home). Usually I work in the study but first thing in the morning I tend to sit at the dining room table.  Not a bad little office, first thing on a sunny morning

And that it Jim's birthday jigsaw at the other end of the dining table.  All finished

Essential Travel

One of the acceptable reasons in Victoria for going out of your house is for care giving or compassionate reasons.

Stella's carers are only with her on weekdays, so she is alone at the weekends unless one of her children goes to see her.

We have not been to see her for almost 2 months.  In the first instance we were in the UK. Then we were quarantined at home for 2 weeks.  Then it was felt that it would be better to wait for another little while, Just in Case. There are a few studies which suggest that people *might* be infectious for as long as three weeks and we definitely didn't want to give Stella (or anyone, come to that) The Virus.

We went down at the weekend.  It's funny.  I know perfectly well that care giving is a legitimate reason to travel.  We were care giving.  I had supplies and all sorts in the car.  Even so, I was poised, ready to be stopped and for the Stasi to demand to know what I thought I was doing and where I thought I was going. I put it down to having been compulsorily sequestered at home for two weeks. No one else seems to be particularly worried about going about their legitimate business!

Nobody stopped us to enquire what we were doing!

We got home on Sunday evening and I was putting things away. CATTLEASTROPHE!!  DISASTER!! I realised that I didn't have my laptop.  I knew exactly where it was.  I had moved it off the dining room table and put it on a chair with an enormous teddy bear. I hadn't noticed it when I was checking to make sure I had everything; you couldn't really see it.

I decided that this was annoying but not really disastrous.  After all, I have a tablet and a smart phone. It could wait until someone went to Mount Martha and could bring it to Melbourne. I'm sure I could think of an excellent reason to go to Melbourne.

By Monday lunchtime I had changed my mind. I am supposed to be working from home at the moment and there are many things I need to do which either can't be done or which are difficult to do on a tablet and smart phone.

We braved the Stasi again on Wednesday and went back to Mount Martha to pick up the laptop.  I decided that it definitely counted as essential. I can't work without it.

We didn't see any Stasi, nor any police.  Nobody was remotely interested in where we were going and what we were doing. And there was more traffic than I was expecting.

Even so, the staying at home policy seems to be working.  There is very little disease in the state at the moment. The Virus, flus and colds seem to be being held back by a big shield.  I fear that they are biding their time lurking behind the shield, waiting for it to be lifted so they can burst out and take us all by surprise.

Anyway, I have my laptop back.  I can work, update the blog, catch upon emails and do all sorts of things again, more easily than when I don't have the laptop.

We are back up for sale. Again.  All three units are on the market. I am hopeful that if we are sold it will be to an investor.  If it's a private purchase I think this time I might wait until the lease runs out before heading elsewhere. We like living here.

Vegetables

What to do when you have been given all these carrots, slightly beyond their best before date and then you find some onions in your veg bowl that have been there a while?

You add some celery and a few more onions and you devote the afternoon to making this:

Then you box most of it up and cram it into your freezer, saving some of it so you can turn this overgrown zucchini (next to a small pumpkin for reference)

into this

There were four but I had served two up before I remembered the camera and the blog! They are stuffed with a savoury mince mix, made with the mirepoix (or soffrito if you prefer your cooking terms in Italian) along with red wine, garlic and mixed herbs, then baked in passata and veg stock and covered with cheese shortly before serving. 

Perhaps not quite how my grandparents would have made stuffed marrows but the principle is much the same.  See?  I said I had gone Old School!

Rays of sunlight

I have said before that, to my surprise, I find it easier to be housebound on sunny days than I do on  gloomy and rainy days. I have no answer to why this might be. After all, under usual circumstances I tend to bunker down at home when the weather is gloomy or stormy and drink tea and eat toast.

I probably haven't previously mentioned that, much as I love our current abode, I would never have put in lots of long, thin windows. They make the place quite dark, especially with the long, wide curtains that adorn them. If it were my place I would replace the curtains with Holland binds. Since it isn't, we tie the curtains back to let in as much light as possible.

Then, on sunny mornings, I realise how the windows channel the light in.

Shining light on the jigsaw

and across the lounge room floor

Sunlight coming in through the little window by the front door

Black cat in the window

And a tiger in our bedroom, watching for invaders

At this time of year we get beautiful morning skies

Easter

It has, of course, been a topsey turvey Easter for most people this year.

It's been very quiet for us too.

We don't see many people from our place.  Occasionally the people who live around us in their gardens or in the street.  The odd person walking down the lane, although we only see the tops of their heads, usually.

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, we didn't even see any of them.  Mind you, the weather wasn't conducive to playing in the garden, or loitering in the street or taking unnecessary walks.  It's been gloomy, wet and chilly for days.  Until today.  Today is glorious. The sun is shining.  The sky is a beautiful blue. There is but a light breeze.  Excellent washing day :D

Our food has been a bit topsey turvey too.

Ordinarily we would have fish on Good Friday, but I had some lamb cutlets that I had defrosted earlier in the week for Jim's birthday.  In the event he asked for cottage pie for his birthday dinner.  I didn't think the cutlets would keep until Sunday so we had them on Friday.

Ordinarily we would have vegetarian food on Hoy Saturday, but we had the left over cottage pie from Jim's birthday and I didn't want to waste it. So we had that.

Ordinarily we would have lamb on Easter Sunday (usually at a Family Feast at Hill House). No family feast this year and I had some chicken pieces that needed using up.  So we had a chicken and vegetable curry with rice instead.

Not a typical Easter weekend means at all.

On the other hand - earlier in the year Lindsey and I went to the Buninyong Blueberry Farm and spent an afternoon picking blueberries.  I also got some mulberries from the Elaine Farm shop.  Lindsey had asked that I keep some in the freezer and make a fruit pie for the Easter Feast.  The fruit has been in a secret drawer in my freezer. I'm not sure what the proper purpose of this drawer is but it is an excellent place to keep things that you don't want to use by accident.  There is the drawback that you are likely to entirely forget about the things that are hidden away in there, but I ran across the fruit when I was sorting out the freezer a week or so ago.

I had some (supermarket) frozen raspberries and even some apples.  So I stewed apple chunks, raspberries, mulberries and blueberries with a little sugar and some orange juice I pressed from fresh oranges.  I couldn't be bothered making pastry so made a crumble mix instead.  And I made two fruit crumbles.  One for Lindsey and Ian and one for Jim and me.  I put Lindsey's and Ian's on the little table on our front porch and Lindsey picked it up while out for supplies.  Jim and I had ours with cream after our chicken and veg curry.  An unorthodox Easter Feast at our place, perhaps.  But delicious for all that.

Jim and I are making steady progress with his birthday jigsaw.  It is harder than I had expected it to be.  But we've almost built the Eastern Seaboard!

And Cally and Flynn have decorated their front window for Easter

Birthday aboard the Cruise Ship Solitude

It's Jim's birthday today.  He is 78.  He therefore easily falls into the older age group where people are being exhorted to Stay At Home for their own safety.

He did go out yesterday.  We were out of fresh vegetables so we drove to the Spring Creek Vegetable farm.  It was good there.  They have loads of produce. And people are being very considerate and wait in their cars until it is their turn to go in. Not that there were lots of cars. We were the second of three while we were there.  They do report, however, that they are nice and busy. Good!

Jim didn't get out of the car.

Then we went to the IGA in Mount Clear.  Once again, Jim didn't get out of the car.  Most people were very considerate and kept their distance.  A few, not so much.  It was very tempting to push out of the way with my trolley the people who came up close to look in the freezer cabinet that I was already looking in.  Their behaviour would have bordered on rude under normal circumstances.  It was positively reckless under the present ones. I sprayed myself with my Anti-Covid spray after they had moved out of the way.   And didn't ram them with my trolley.

We have had quite a lot of small wildlife in and around our place lately.  There are oodles of small black millipedes pottering round.  We get them inside from time to time.  At the moment they are flocking in in droves.  Jim vacuums them up when he has the vacuum cleaner out.  Every now and then I sweep them up and put them outside. We have also been finding unusual numbers of spiders. We get spiders, of course, but not usually so many.  Mostly they have been small and relatively unobtrusive. But we've had a couple of larger ones and I don't know what they are.  They're not big enough to be Huntsman spiders, unless they are juveniles. But Huntsman don't usually rush about much and these have positively scuttled.  Not only that, when you approach them they rush about and, more often than not, rush at you.  This is not typical Huntsman behaviour. I don't suppose it matters much what they are.  I put a glass over them and then put them outside.  Huntsman are usually fairly resigned when you do this.  These spiders get positively antsy!

We get lots of corvids too (no anti-corvid spray!). But outside. So far none have come inside, although there was a magpie looking through the patio doors the other day.  I think it was waiting for me to refresh the water in the bowl I keep outside for them.

I have been quite busy, amongst all the things I do every day.  I found a purpose for that little wall shelf I ordered by accident

Put on its side, it makes a great desk tidy

I have sorted out the seed tent and started planting winter and spring veg seeds

Now I just need to tackle the snails

I have pulled out the tomatoes and cut the beans down to the ground

Now they are ready for the winter and spring veg.
If the snails don't eat all the emerging seedlings!

And I have sorted out the compost bins.

It was a beautiful morning for Jim's birthday

I gave him a jigsaw for his birthday. I know he doesn't need any more jigsaws.  He has several that he hasn't done yet, plus one unfinished one waiting at Hill House, if we ever get up there again.  But I thought it might be educational as well as keeping him occupied

He seems to be enjoying it

Shore leave

I did go to the post box yesterday. It was very odd. I kept expecting someone to leap out from behind a shrub and demand to know what I was doing out of the house!

We live at the top of our court and don't often hear traffic from the main road, unless there is something unusual happening. Apart from the tree fellers' machinery it has been very quiet in our little world.  But there are cars and other vehicles on the main road. Not as many as usual, but some.  There were people out walking and riding their bikes.  Not many, but some. Not close enough to be a danger. It was strange to see a semblance of normal life.

The tree fellers aren't actively felling trees at the moment. They are mulching the fallen branches and using big machines to move the tree trunks.  Last week sometime they put up some temporary fencing.  And on the fence they have put these notices

I am not sure that chopping trees down really counts as protecting them. But I am hopeful that "my" trees, the ones across the laneway that goes down past our fence, are being protected.  They are on this side of the the temporary fence.

I have had to dispose of the yeast that Lindsey bought.  It had stopped smelling of yeast and was starting to smell of slightly stale beer. I have put it in the compost bin.  I wonder if the compost will aerate and rise in a pleasing manner. In the end I used a little over 200g of it. I think that is as much as a home baker could realistically expect to use. And in future I need to make much smaller loaves of bread.  Jim and I can't eat a home made loaf of bread before it goes stale.  I shall ponder.

A Postcard from the Cruise Ship Solitude

We embarked on our cruise on The Solitude on Sunday - when we exercised our democratic freedom not to leave the house. The only thing we really needed was milk and Lindsey dropped off a couple of litres. The weather was wet, cold, gloomy, misty, dank, mirky.  Delightful, as you can tell. No real incentive to go out at all.

We didn't go out yesterday, either.  We still don't need anything. I am walking around the house and garden and didn't feel the need to leave just to go for a walk. We have stayed at home, eating well, watching TV, watching the few DVDs that we have, drinking tea and later wine.  It's quite a pleasant cruise all told.

Not that I have any plans at all to go on a real cruise. Cruising has never appealed as an activity unless as a means of getting somewhere without flying - although I understand that cruise ships can be environmentally very unsound.  At the moment, however, they appear to be positively dangerous.  We will stay on dry land for now.

What I did need was more toner for my printer.  I bought the printer for tuppence ha'penny at Kmart. I assume you can get the cartridges from other places but I have always bought the replacements there.  At considerably more than I paid for the printer!  I discovered that you can buy from Kmart online, with free delivery for orders over $45.  The cartridge pack cost $42.  They wouldn't let me have two packs.  Hmmm.  It costs $15 to have things delivered to regional addresses. So I added a flat pack set of shelves for $20.  Figured I might as well get something for my money rather than just delivery.

The package turned up yesterday.  Inside I found not a flat pack set of shelves but this

It's a wall shelf for little things.  I had accidentally clicked on the wrong thing. It cost $16.  I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

But I wanted a set of shelves for the lounge room to put the DVDs (and other things) on.  I was considering ordering another from Kmart, or waiting until I could actually get to a store.  Then I remembered that I had one in the study.  It had the printer on it and not much actually on the shelves.  So I moved it.  And here it now is:

I'm going to have to leave the house today. One of the DVDs that came with the player from Amazon is faulty.  They have sent another one but they want the original back.  It's packaged up. Now I have new toner for the printer I have been able to print out the return label. It's all ready to go - and there is a post box just round the corner.  No need to go to the post office, plus I'll get a little walk.

Oh - and Tabitha has found my missing USB DVD player.  It was hiding under her bed.  Guess it fancied a longer stay in England. And there it can stay until a stray passing Aussie collects it and brings it back. I am not expecting that to be any time soon.

From SS Quarantine #14

And so our enforced quarantine comes to an end.

I had expected to be a bit bored, a bit restless, a bit fed up as the fortnight progressed but in fact I wasn't really any of those things.  It was a bit like a super dooper long weekend and there wasn't all that much that I usually do at the weekends that I couldn't do in quarantine.  True there were no markets, no farm shops, no farms. No popping out just to grab something. Apart from that, not much. We almost never go to the pub just for a drink. We do go out for lunch but didn't really miss that and don't do it all that often anyway.

It seems we usually lead quite a quiet life.

I have found it mildly frustrating that I couldn't go and see what the tree fellers are up to and I do miss Rupert and Hugo. Humans you can talk to by phone or text message or video call or email or by any number of different ways.  No so easy with dogs!

Another thing I have learned is that I (not necessarily anyone else) find it more frustrating to be cooped up at home when it is wet, windy and cold.  I had expected it to be the other way but have found sunny weather not so bad.  I guess because there is more to do in fine weather.  It brings the garden into play.

According to the news reports, approximately a third of the people who were supposed to be in quarantine at home have not been there when police have come to see how they are doing (ie, check up on them).  This is reckless and rather selfish behaviour. I have been hugely grateful that we could quarantine at home and have felt no need to break the quarantine by wandering off.  The people who are now having to quarantine in hotels are reporting that the food they are getting leaves quite a bit to be desired and they can't get out of their rooms for a walk or for exercise or even for fresh air.  We have had the kitchen and the garden and windows that open and  plenty of space. And for the record, no police came to check on us.  But we would have been here if they had.

I am also hugely grateful to Lindsey for bringing us fresh food and treats.  I think we would probably have had enough in the freezers and the pantry to survive but it has been nice to have fresh milk, eggs and fresh veg delivered to the door.  And the treats :D

I am still making use of the yeast.  I made a cinnamon swirl yesterday

It could really have done with some icing and I thought I had icing sugar but I discovered when I went to get it that the jar was sneakily empty. No popping out to the shops for icing sugar so I glazed it with water, caster sugar and more cinnamon. It was very tasty but rather a lot when there are only two of us.  I think Jim will be having toasted cinnamon swirl for breakfast for the next few days.  I am on the look out for a recipe for coffee scrolls now. And trying to think of something to make today.  There is contradictory advice in my baking books and on the internet about the successful freezing of fresh yeast but pretty much everyone agrees that freezing unbaked dough works well.  I might make up some batches of dough and shove them in the freezer and see what happens.

And so we disembark from the SS Quarantine and join everyone else on the Cruise Ship Solitude.  Here's hoping for fair winds and a following sea.

From SS Quarantine #13

There is a group of us who do a Work Week step challenge on the Fitbit app.  Lindsey, Freyja and I are amongst those people.  One of the nurses at work participates. Two friends in England and a friend of theirs are also involved.  Usually I come towards or at the bottom of the pack.

Now pretty much everyone is working from home or quarantined, although Lindsey and the nurse are still at work.  I decided that I had to be much more competitive. I can't go out but I can still move around.

So I set myself the challenge of reaching 1000 steps an hour between 08:00 and 17:00, and a minimum of 10,000 steps each day. I walked up and down the house. Most days I walked round and round the garden. And every day this week I managed to reach at least 10.000 steps.  My total for Monday to Friday was 56,500.  At the moment I am at the top of the leaderboard.  I realise that the Work Week challenge is now over but not everyone has synched their steps yet so I may not win the challenge.  But I will not be at the bottom :-D

I have been pondering what to do with Lindsey's kilo block of yeast.  There is no way I can use it all up before its best before date.  I decided to do some experimenting. I have broken some of it up into small pieces and put it in the freezer.  I am going to make some balls of dough and freeze those after the first rise but before baking, And I am going to keep making yeasty things until the yeast dies - which I think may well be beyond the best before date. I have been reading my baking books for ideas of things to do beyond bread, rolls and buns.

I made pizza. (This was not an experiment. I often make pizza but usually with soda bread rather than yeasted bread)

The weather was better yesterday. We watched the people felling the conifers on the reserve.  So far it's only the conifers which are being tackled.  The native trees and the broadleaf trees have been left. So far.

We have been trying to make weekdays different from weekend days.  We didn't do quite so well yesterday.  All day it felt like a Saturday.  So much so that I was quite surprised to wake up this morning and find that it wasn't Sunday. It is, in fact Saturday and Day #14 aboard the SS Quarantine.

On we sail.

From SS Quarantine #12

Well now.  It was a completely different day yesterday to the day before.  We went from this:

to this:

In the last 36 hours we had almost 30 ml of rain, with most of it from late on Wednesday until after lunch yesterday.

We did not spend much time outside although, after the rain had stopped, Jim did go out the front and trim back a shrub that was threatening to take over the whole of our (private bit) of driveway.

Our somnolence was abruptly broken early yesterday morning by the sounds of saws, machinery and loud banging, thudding noises coming from the far side of the reserve across the laneway.  Obviously we couldn't go across to see what was going on, but we can see a bit from our bedroom window.  There were people there felling the large coniferous trees way over there.  I knew that the reserve was being sold off as house blocks (although now seems a very odd time to press ahead with that) and I can perfectly see that tree felling can't be done from home.  But it's hard to see how it can possibly be classified as "essential" work unless the trees pose some sort of danger.  Also hard to see how the blokes can possibly be practising proper physical distancing, although they do seem to keep well apart as the trees topple.

Social media have been discussing how absolutely everyone has been buying flour and yeast and making bread. I too have been baking bread.  That is not a new thing for me.  I quite often make bread, not to mention pizza bases, pastry, cakes. Not so much biscuits, but even those occasionally.  I haven't made yeast bread for some time because we are blessed with a very good bakery not far away. Not that I can get to it at the moment, although they have recently started doing deliveries.  However, you may remember that Lindsey gave me a slab of fresh yeast in Sunday's food delivery.  I have never used fresh yeast before.  I have always used dried.  But it was expensive, so I thought I had better give it a go.

I read some of my baking books and looked online (at sensible things) and in between watching the rain and the tree fellers yesterday I made a loaf.  It's not bad.  Not bad at all.  I wish the place she got it from offered 100g blocks rather than kilo blocks.  Fresh yeast has a short shelf life and I can't see how your average home baker could possibly use a kilo before it died.  But I'll use as much as I can.

I don't usually work with wholemeal flour either, but Lindsey had found a 5 kg bag at the farm shop and brought it back to the Quarantine Kitchen before we got home. I think she is hoping that once the Quarantine Kitchen morphs into the Isolation Kitchen that some of the produce might make its way to the Hill House kitchen :-D

The fresh yeast combined with the wholemeal flour was very delicious.

From SS Quarantine #11

I had a very exciting day yesterday!

I had ordered a DVD player and some train journey DVDs. I had an email to say the DVDs had been delivered so went down to the letter box to pick them up.  If we leave post in the box the snails eat it and I didn't really want them eating my brand new DVDs!

On my way back up the drive I saw our next door neighbour standing at her front door.  I was on the far side of the drive.  Lots of space between us, much much more than 1.5 metres.  She had seen me walking down to the letter boxes and had come out to see if we were OK because she hadn't see us for weeks. Was there anything she could get for us? Did we need anything? Any help?

It is very quiet in our corner of Mount Helen. We see the tops of the heads of the few people who walk down the walkway on the other side of our fence. We hear the local children playing. Apart from that the only people we have seen have been Lindsey when she drops off supplies, delivery people dropping things off and waving at us through the window and the gas man who came to change our meter. It was quite exciting to see the next door neighbour as well. And very kind of her to worry about us.

The DVD player arrived yesterday too, delivered to the front door.  Jim had a happy couple of hours armchair travelling round Australia by train.

In other exciting news, I have found my missing loyalty, library and membership cards.  They were exactly where I would have expected them to be, but hiding underneath some other things.  I suspect them of having been deliberately hiding from me. They re-appeared when I was looking for something else.


It was lovely and sunny yesterday so I washed the sliding doors in the dining room and the lounge windows looking into the backyard.  Unsurprisingly it rained hard overnight. The windows are all splashed and grimy again ;-(

This is the view I usually show you from our front door,
looking down the drive towards the road

This is what you see if you stand at our front door
and look straight across.
We are surrounded by trees

From SS Quarantine #10

I didn't make a proper tagine yesterday.  I usually put apple or apricot in and I didn't have either of these things.  I did, however, have Jordanian Za'atar and Lebanese Baharat in my spice cupboard (thanks to our Lebanese nurse at work, who drew my attention to them). So I made a tagine inspired lamb stew last night with lemon slices and carrots to provide the citrus and sweetness.  We had it with rice and veg on the side.  It was very delicious and there is some left for tonight.

I was reading a (British) blog which said that the days had all blended into a permanent run of Sundays.  Not quite the case aboard the SS Quarantine. The mornings are work days.  I do some work on the work Facebook page and the webpage. Sometimes this is quite quick.  Other mornings it takes longer. The webpage can sometimes be grumpy and does odd things that then take ages to sort out.  I realise that it almost certainly user error but it still takes time to sort out.

I am making some progress on the "spring" cleaning.  I even cleaned a window yesterday.  Only one and I agree it was only a small one.  But it is clean and we can see out of it.

I might do another one today :D)

I have decanted some rice bran oil into the other glass drink container.  it's the one that originally had the canola oil.  It still drips a little but isn't as bad as it was

Then it gets to lunchtime and the afternoons morph into Sunday afternoons.  I read or mess about on the internet. Jim snoozes.  We drink tea and eat cake and watch the telly. We mooch about until evening time.

It's not a bad little existence.

Now. If anyone can tell me what I have done with my loyalty cards, library cards, membership cards, I would be very grateful.  I clearly remember taking them out of my wallet and putting them away before we headed off to England.  I didn't put them in a "safe place".  I really only have one or two places where I put such things and they are not there.  i've looked in all the places I can think of to look.  I begin to worry that I might have accidentally thrown them out in a fit of excessive tidying.