Lunching, and Spending Money

Stella had an appointment with her GP on Friday. She is in pretty good health, after her bout of covid, although she has recently acquired a cough and has also gained a sore shoulder.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with her having recently decided (been persuaded by one of her carers :-D) to join the morning half hour exercise class!

Her appointment was at 11:30. I needed to go to Kmart in Delacombe to pick up a doona cover. Stella decided to come with me and we combined the visit to Kmart with lunch in one of the cafes.

The Groove Train has closed down so we went to another of the cafes. It was fairly busy, which we thought might augur well. Alas, lunch was slightly on the disappointing side. Stella's crispy chicken with coleslaw was not crispy, was very salty, and although there were coleslaw vegetables, they were buried under a Pacific Ocean's worth of mayonnaise. My lamb shoulder salad did have plenty of salad, but the lamb was chewy and the dish was too salty and the dressing was strangely sweet. Neither of us ate much of our lunches - although the iced chocolates were quite nice.

I don't think we'll go there again. 

I was tidying up in the study on Saturday and found a brochure for a food and wine trail in the Moorabool Valley, which is between here and Geelong. The brochure pre-dated covid so I figured it would be out of date. So I sat down and looked at each of the entries to see if they were still operating and if they did food. I found 6 or 7 which look good to try for Sunday lunches, plus I checked on a few pubs that also look worth trying. As we say, if we don't like it, we don't ever have to go there again . As we won't for Friday's venue.

We did go out for lunch on Sunday. Lindsey, Jim, Stella and I went to the Golden Point pub, where we all had Seniors' portions. No left overs for a doggy bag! 

In other news, I have had my application for a state government subsidy for solar panels approved. No date has been set yet for their installation but at least it is now in train. I have also arranged to have my elderly gas hot water service replaced by an electric heat pump system. I was eligible for some commonwealth and state funding for that too. It should be coming in a month, perhaps two. And then I will have the gas to the house disconnected. My most recent bill was $88 for two months, of which $80 was for service charges. I am not happy about paying such a lot for service charges when I use so very little gas. Pretty much all I use it for now is for hot water. I haven't used the gas stove (which I must look into having removed) since I bought my portable induction hobs. I don't use the gas central heating. And I understand that in May or June there will be subsidies for people to have split system reverse cycle air conditioning installed. It's on my list of things to do and if the government wishes to help pay for it, who am I to complain?

While I have been splashing money around, I have also bought a second cabinet, to match the one I bought a year or so ago for the side wall of the dining room. Someone is coming on Thursday to assemble it for me. Once that happens, I am going to get rid of the dresser along the back wall. If you want it, let me know (free to a good home, pick up only). Otherwise, I'll offer it on Facebook.

Cats on the Cat Tree

Brandy Cat on the guest bed

Whiskey Cat on my bed