And the Weekend

I went out to the mushroom farm on Saturday, on my own because Lindsey, as you know, has covid. I called in to the Delacombe shops on my way back, and then into Coles as I drove past. 

I visited Stella and Jim in the afternoon. I pottered in the garden and the house. I enjoyed the unusual bursts of sunny weather.

No time for pottering on Sunday. I had to make a dash up to Rupert and Hugo's house, masked and socially distanced, not from the dogs but from Lindsey. Rupert and Hugo do not do social distancing!!! The charger cord for my laptop was at her place, and my laptop was definitely hungry. Plus I wanted to pinch some wine and a couple of dog treats. I had, at my place, lots of non-alcoholic drinks, a bottle of alcoholic bubbles and plenty of red wine. Oddly, I had no bottles of alcoholic white wine. I didn't really want to go to the supermarket and I figured Lindsey would neither miss not mind me taking a bottle or two from her supplies.

For quite some time, Chris has been asking me to make gyoza for her, should she come to visit. Various visit plans have had to be put off for various reasons, but she had not forgotten the gyoza. She and John, Gillie, and Irene and Flora were coming for lunch. Clearly, gyoza had to be on the menu. 

I made gyoza! I also made chicken katsu kare (which is more or less crumbed chicken with Japanese vegetable curry with rice) for the main course, followed by mochi ice creams which Coles has conveniently started selling, with little Japanese chocolates and raspberries on the side. The visitors seemed to enjoy it.

Flora enjoyed the dog treats and the cat bed

She enjoyed Whiskey the Kat much less. Whiskey was puzzled but not worried when Flora arrived. He approached her, as if to say "Who, and what, are you?" Flora was not happy. Whiskey got closer, wanting to have a good sniff. Flora retreated under the small coffee table. Whiskey got closer for a proper sniff, and patted her with his paw. Flora covered her eyes with her paws. "I am not here! There is no Flora! You must be hallucinating!!!" I took pity on Flora and put Whiskey in my bedroom, where Brandy was peacefully sleeping, completely oblivious to the incursion of a kelpie.

Monday, which is part of the weekend as far as I am concerned, saw me tidying up the kitchen, watching the rain and thinking about lighting the fire. I had pretty much run out of the sawdust briquettes and bricks for the fire and HAD been hoping not to get any more until March or so. However, the top temperature forecast for yesterday was 9d. It was close to  freezing at 6:00 when I got up. I gave in and ordered some more at 7:30, hoping that they might come sometime this week. The weather is forecast to warm up a bit at the weekend but the unsettled, cold weather isn't showing any signs of going away in favour of summer weather.

I had an online Japanese lesson at 1:00. The truck with the fire briquettes turned up at 1:15. You can't complain about the efficiency, but it wasn't exactly a convenient time :D Even less so for the Sensei and Lindsey (who obviously isn't working this week so could join the class). I clicked to turn my microphone off while I went to receive my briquettes, Alas - the computer didn't register it and it was quite noisy for the Sensei and Lindsey.

I did wonder how the delivery could have come so fast. The driver said that he had put extra bins on board when he set off for Ballarat that morning and that he had got several extra orders as the morning had progressed!!!

I called up to drop some things off for Lindsey, after visiting Stella, Jim, the pharmacy and the IGA. As I got out of the car I saw two large birds sitting by the fence in the top paddock, eating something. I didn't have my binoculars with me, but got as close as I could to see what they were. All the usual birds were conspicuous by their silence - and absence. I assumed they were the local eagles, although I had never seen them sitting in the paddock before. Then they got up and flew away. They were much, much bigger once their wings were in play. Definitely eagles!

The photo is blurry, but does show
two wedge tailed eagles in the paddock    

And lest you should be worried that I am wantonly wandering around, spreading covid like some kind of Typhoid Mary, I am temperature testing and RATting daily, and wearing a proper mask. The temperature checking and RATs are done twice a day if I go to visit Stella and Jim. Once when I get up, and again when I arrive at the Mount Clear residential facility. They won't let you in unless you do both on arrival. So far, so negative.