An Autumn Drive to Work

 It's a beautiful morning. The morning light is lovely

It was very much like this yesterday as I drove to work. Obviously, I couldn't take any photos as I was driving. But it was glorious. Mount Warrenheip was bathed in golden, autumnal light. There were wisps of fog and mist. There are splashes of orange and yellow deciduous trees among the eucalypts.

Beautiful. But extremely difficult to drive in, as you round a corner and the sun is shining directly in your face, much like this

Not so bad when I am stood on my verandah admiring it. Much more difficult when you are in charge of a vehicle going  down the freeway at 110 km/h! I tucked in behind a handy truck and used it as a sun visor.

There are parts of the route which were covered in fog yesterday. I might not have seen the Pink Moon on Tuesday night, but as the rising sun  filtered through the fog, the fog went pink.  Again, difficult to drive through but it was very beautiful.

Then we all got taken off the freeway at Bacchus Marsh and directed along the road through Toolern Vale towards Diggers Rest. It's a very lovely, country road which we do use for fun from time to time, although more usually when coming home. It is not designed to carry almost all of the morning traffic that would usually be on the Western Freeway. And the Calder freeway did not enjoy having the morning traffic from the Western dropped onto it at peak hour!!

It was a long, long drive to work.  It was almost as long a drive home. I have no idea why the traffic was quite so heavy on the way home; there was no obvious reason. In the morning it was because part of the freeway was closed after a truck accident. Most of the drive home was after nightfall, so not as pretty as the early morning drive in. And I was glad of a chicken and vegetable stew and a glass of wine when I got home!

Sunday Lunch

Back in August of last year I bought a Cook Along box with recipes from the Hellenic Republic. I enjoyed very much Cooking Along with George and had every intention of buying further Cook Along boxes as and when.

The Cook Along with George boxes closed when the restaurants re-opened in Melbourne. Every now and then I would see Cook Along boxes which looked interesting, but they mostly wanted you to sign up for 12 months worth of boxes and I didn't want to. I don't need a box of ingredients with cooking instructions and videos every month. I held fire until I could find something that looked interesting and which would let me buy one box, every now and then.

Then Atlas Masterclass came into view.  I watched them for a while. They feature the cuisine of a different country or region every fortnight, but you can chose from other cuisines as well or instead, if you are minded. This fortnight just gone was Persian food. So I ordered a lamb dish, a pilaff and an Italian pumpkin ravioli with fennel and sage.

Lindsey, Jim and I had the pumpkin ravioli for lunches during the week. Each meal is designed for four dinners, so we got 6 lunches from the ravioli kit.  I don't suppose I really need a kit or, indeed, cooking instructions for making ravioli for lunch but I would never have thought to combine fennel and sage with pumpkin ravioli.  It is a very delicious mix.

Rupert and Hugo came for lunch when I got my Cook Along with George box.  They came again yesterday, bringing Lindsey and Ian with them. We positively feasted on leg of lamb fillets, encrusted with paprika and coriander seed with a cucumber and radish salad on the side, together with the pilaff which was accompanied by roasted carrots and green capsicums with feta. I added a bit of saffron to the turmeric mix for the rice. Ordinarily I would say that you shouldn't mess with a recipe the very first time you make it but I have saffron in my spice cupboard and the rice looked as though it wanted it. I am glad I added the saffron!  I put a bowl of yoghurt on the table, which wasn't called for in the kit but I bet people from Persia, Iran and Iraq would have put yoghurt on the table I also added some green beans because I had them and rather fancied some.  It was all absolutely delicious.

It was also the first time that Rupert and Hugo had been to our place since the Cook Along adventure last August. I had shut Brandy and Whiskey in our bedroom out the way, in case Hugo in particular decided they would make a tasty lunchtime snack. The dogs were ever so excited to come to our  place, particularly when they discovered the cat biscuits and the little soft toys that live on a shelf that is accessible to Great Danes. We should perhaps have them over slightly more often so they don't get quite so excited when they come. And Hugo didn't want to go home. He equally didn't want to be left behind at our place when the others left.  But he flatly refused to get in the car. And if a Great Dane doesn't want to get in the car it is extremely difficult to make it. He ignored the offering of tasty treats. He ignored the left over lamb. He ignored Rupert eating the tasty treats and left over lamb (Rupert had got into the car with no argument). Eventually, I thought: I wonder if melty cheese slices might help. Hugo LERVS melty cheese slices.  And lo - He stepped into the car with alacrity when I offered melty cheese slices from the other door. We must have the cheese on hand next time!

It was a good lunch. But next time I make it I might use shoulder of lamb instead of fillets of leg. I think it would be magnificent with slow cooked shoulder.

Hugo has helped himself to a small hippo

Curious cats inspecting the garden after the canine visitors had gone home: 

Thursday

Yesterday was such a lovely day.

Not the weather. The weather was chilly, gloomy, damp all day.

Nothing exciting or interesting happened.  Nothing much really happened at all.

I sorted out the winter jumpers and put the summer jumpers away. The mid-season jumpers stay out all year round.

I turned out a couple of wardrobes and sorted out things to go to the charity / op shops and other things to be thrown away.

I went to Mount Clear for some milk and ham, and came home with takeaway fish and chips as well.

We drank tea and ate biscuits.

We had the heating on and were warm and cosy.

I washed some sheets and hung them to dry on the clothes horse.  Brandy and Whiskey were sure I had put up play tents for them and had a lovely time "camping"

 

It was a gentle, quiet, happy day of no moment at all.  We need more like that, please.

It was our weekend to go to Mount Martha to visit Stella.

Lindsey and I went, as usual, to the mushroom farm and to the Elaine farmgate shop on Saturday morning.

Jim and I headed to Mount Martha after lunch. It was a good trip down, not too much traffic and no real hold ups.

We had steak and stuff for dinner.

On Sunday morning the three of us headed into the Mount Martha shops and bought hot chocolates all round. Then we drove to a little car park overlooking the beach and drank our hot chocolates watching someone wind surfing and someone else kite surfing. There were people walking and playing on the beach, and a golden retriever who was having a lovely time digging holes in the sand and chasing balls and sticks into the sea. It's a lovely little car park to sit and watch the beach from. And then we went back to Stella's place and had roast chicken for Sunday lunch.

It was a pleasant, uneventful and restful weekend.

We were driving home and approaching Bacchus Marsh on the freeway when I noticed a couple of trucks on the Melbourne-bound side of the road with flashing orange lights. Behind them was an absolutely enormous object on a huge truck bed being towed along. Behind it were two more trucks with flashing orange lights. I don't know what the object was; it was about as wide as a train carriage I think but seemed to be longer. Whatever it was, it must have been taking up much more than its fair share of the road because the tailback stretched as far as Myrniong, or around 20 km. My sat nav knew about the delay on that side of the road. I hope that it might have suggested coming off the freeway before I hit the tail back, had I been heading to Melbourne. Fortunately, on my side of the freeway there were no delays and we made it home with no excitements at all.

We were making our way up to Rupert and Hugo's place yesterday afternoon and turned into their road, which is an unmade road above the forest that the University sits in. Ahead of us were a woman and a small child walking along the side of the road and slightly ahead of them was another woman leading a horse.  I slowed right down and passed as far to the right of the horse as I could. I had no wish to startle it and have it bolt away. Shortly after that I went to turn into Rupert and Hugo's driveway - and there, parked at an angle, just inside the drive was a Mercedes. It was not a car that I recognised. I stopped and a woman appeared and asked if I had room to get by.  Yes, probably. But this was not a woman that I recognised. It is very unusual for there to be strange vehicles and people actually in the driveway.

I asked if she was all right. It seemed she was waiting for a horse. Steve the Horse Man had rung from his holiday destination and asked her to head to Hill House, where he agists horses. She was waiting for the horse that was being walked along the road. We continued up the driveway - and there at the top was a large van. It was the Council ranger's van. The ranger was talking to Lindsey. The horse had escaped from the paddock. No-one was clear if only the one horse had escaped or if the others had gone too. There should be four but none were in sight.  Jim and I went inside to talk to Rupert and Hugo, while people more intrepid than we are climbed up the hill to see if the other horses were merely out of sight or if they too were missing. Fortunately, they were happily munching grass in the paddock. All horses were now accounted for. Everyone went about the rest of their afternoon.

I recently bought Brandy and Whiskey another climbing platform.  They were quite suspicious of it when it first arrived.  I think they have decided it is an acceptable addition to their furniture

Birthday Weekend

It was Jim's birthday on Friday. He turned 79.

I took the day off work and we had Chinese take away for lunch up at Rupert and Hugo's house, and I made a chicken curry for dinner at our place. We didn't do anything specific to celebrate, just a nice quiet day, and a nice bottle of wine with dinner.

We did celebrate yesterday. Lindsey and Ian took us to the Highlander hotel in Ballarat for lunch. The Royal Highlander was its original name. Then it was renamed the Peter Lalor and later The Pub With Two Names. Now it has been renovated inside and has reverted to a form of its first name, although Peter Lalor's portrait still hangs over the front.

The food was magnificent. A large wagyu steak and chips for me, with miso and sesame broccoli on the side.  Jim had an enormous plate of flathead tails and chips.  Lindsey and Ian both had wagyu beef and bourguignon pies. The wine was lovely.  It was an excellent birthday celebration

There were storm clouds over Ballarat all weekend.
Fortunately the rain didn't hit at the times we were outside!

A lovely bottle of NZ white

No pictures of the food. I was too busy eating it! 

When Lindsey and I went out to the mushroom farm on Saturday, they were selling 10 kilo boxes of saucing tomatoes for $18. I bought one. Usually, when you buy "saucing" tomatoes it really means "seconds" tomatoes and by the time you get down the box some of the tomatoes are going mouldy or are squishy or in other ways unusable. Not so with this box. I have no idea why they are being sold as saucing tomatoes. They're lovely.

Towards the bottom of the box, and still
excellent quality

I have put most of them through my slow cooker, then the blender and then a sieve for the freezer, and use over the winter. I've still got another portion to process, but I think I might do them as a tray bake with a load of other veg that I have kicking around.  Alas, I'm going to have to get another roasting tray before I can do this. I put a chicken and ham tray bake into the oven on Saturday afternoon and then completely forgot about it - until I wondered what the funny smell was emanating from the kitchen. Usually, when I am cooking something for later I put a timer on so that I don't forget about it. For some reason, I hadn't on this occasion. My first thought was sadness for the waste of the food. It was only later that I realised that I might struggle to get the roasting tray clean!  It's been soaking ever since. I'll give it a proper go this morning but I might get at least one more roasting tray anyway. You can't have too many.

The weather has turned cold and wet. We have got out the winter woollies and cranked on the overhead heating. Winter is approaching. Although I believe it is hanging on grimly in Sheffield. Tabitha has sent photos of a light covering of snow in their backyard. Others have posted photos of snow in the Peak District on social media. No snow here.  Yet!

Easter

 

Sunrises from our place

Glorious days at Hill House

Magnificent sunsets from the Hill

The weather was glorious over the Easter weekend. Temperatures in the high 20s during the day, sunshine, blue skies, light breezes.  You couldn't have asked for better summer weather, even if it is mid-autumn! I even got the t-shirts out of the summer wardrobe 🌞

I greeted Good Friday with Duruflé's Requiem which I streamed onto our TV.  It was a proper requiem mass, recorded last year at Trinity College in Cambridge. No congregation and the choir and soloists were physically distanced.  It was very beautiful to listen to and to watch. Thank you to Friend Robert for the suggestion of the Trinity College performance. YouTube then ambled on to Allegri's Miserere and then Fauré's Requiem. Jim was still in bed and the cats were dozing in their beds. It was still and quiet, with sunlight streaming in through the lounge room windows. An excellent start to the Easter weekend.

In Australia, most things are closed on Good Friday, so no supermarkets, no DIY stores, no grog shops. But some smaller enterprises were open and one of those was the mushroom farm. Lindsey and I went out for a few bits and pieces (mainly, I wanted vegetables) and then we went out to the Avalon garden centre. A nice country drive, a potter around the plants and trees, and a toasted sandwich in the cafe.

On Saturday I accompanied Lindsey and Ian out to Gordon where a new farm shop has recently opened. It's only open for a couple of hours on Saturdays and is staffed by volunteers.  It's also, more or less, an order online and collect shop. Lindsey had ordered a family sized vegetable box. It is a beautiful drive across country to Gordon (which we usually pass by on the freeway). The vegetable box was a good size and had a good variety of vegetables. We shared the contents between us. They also had bread, hot cross buns, local meat and various other things that you could pre-order.  Not much that you could actually buy on the day, though (which frustrated me a little!)

The Easter feast was in Warragul this year. I had decided that I didn't really want to drive all the way to Warragul, have lunch and then come back. Lindsey and Ian were going on Saturday afternoon and staying  over, so there wouldn't be room for Jim and me to stay. So Lindsey and Ian headed to Warragul and Jim and I headed up to Hill House and spent the night with Rupert and Hugo. Alas - I did not sleep well.  And the clocks went back at 2:00 on Sunday morning.  I saw 2:00 happen twice!  Jim, Rupert and Hugo slept extremely well, although Rupert and Hugo didn't notice the clock change, or care all that much.

"Where's our breakfast?"  "You are an hour early. The clocks went back overnight." "You seem to be speaking in an incomprehensible, alien language. Where's our breakfast?"  I gave them their breakfast.

Rupert

Hugo

Back at Christmas, Jim's daughter and her family had given us a gift voucher for a place called The Hop Temple. I had never heard of this place so investigated and parked the voucher for a lunch out at some point. I recently ran across the email again and booked us in for Easter Sunday lunch.

It's down a little laneway that I had never noticed before and is an American Smokehouse/BBQ diner. On Sunday they had a smoker BBQ in their courtyard and a little Blues band inside in a corner. They have a huge range of beers, a good selection of wine and an interesting range of cocktails and mocktails. I had a Philly steak sandwich, which was probably a heart attack on a plate (although so far I have not succumbed). Lots of finely sliced Scotch fillet with two types of American cheese, fried onions and capsicum in a long bread roll and with twirly chips on the side.  It was absolutely delicious. Jim enjoyed his fried chicken sandwich and his twirly chips - but I think he enjoyed his beer and wine even more. I was driving so had an autumn berry mocktail.

Apart from that I have done a little gardening, a little clearing and tidying. I have used as many of my mystery box of vegetables as possible, including an enormous lasagne, a tray bake, little pies. I have a huge number of tomatoes, some from the mystery box, some from my garden and a bag of free Black Russians from Avalon. I am in the middle of processing most of them for the freezer for winter deliciousness. The lady over the back fence gave me some surplus zucchini - very welcome because I had pulled up my zucchini plants on Friday ready for autumn planting. And the weather has become more sensibly autumnal again.  Cloudy, misty but no rain in the forecast for the next few days.