Lunching. Again!

I definitely wasn't abandoned over the weekend.

Lindsey and I went to the market, which has now moved back to its paddock on Zoo Drive. We went to Wilson's. We collected Stella and went to Oscar's for lunch and then went clothes and shoe shopping with her.

I had a nice long chat with Neighbour #2 in the driveway.

We drove in my car. Lindsey's car is sitting in her driveway waiting for attention. The engine starts but we don't think it's safe actually to drive it. It got her back on Thursday night after its altercation with the kangaroo, but not only is the front stoved in, the radiator is damaged and who knows what's going on behind that.

On Sunday morning I had a nice long chat with Neighbour #1 in the driveway . Both their units are now available to rent and Mooch the cat (who looks much like Whiskey) has gone. I'm going to miss talking to Mooch through his lounge room windows.

And then I finally had the Sunday lunch that had to be cancelled a month ago when Stella fell and Jim died.

We had a really lovely salad, which I assembled in my trifle bowl. It started out with the makings of a Greek salad, but then I added layers of pomegranate, capsicum, sunflower seeds, kidney beans, other tasty things and topped it with more feta and then crushed peanuts. We had it with toasted Turkish bread. It was delicious!

Then we had roast lamb, roast potatoes, green things and a sweet potato sauce, followed by apple crumble. We had alcoholic wine, low alcohol wine, no alcohol wine.

We had lots of chatter.

It was good to catch up.

Yesterday I went and collected Lindsey and we went to Kmart so I could get a new (cheap!) air fryer to replace the previous one which had randomly stopped working on Friday. I have also borrowed her alleged air fryer with shelves. It's not really an air fryer. It's more of a very small, bench top fan oven. If you think of it in that way it is very effective. As an actual air fryer it is rather disappointing. The conventional bench top oven has moved into the garage, ready for when I start to assemble my "garage kitchen", and the not-air fryer has taken up its space. I might almost have enough ovens now, especially if you count the microwave.

We visited Stella again. She is very pleased with her new shoes and clothes.

Lindsey's car has gone to hospital on a tow truck. 

And I had better get moving. I have a Japanese lesson in 30 minutes and I am not ready!

Abandoned

I'm beginning to feel slightly abandoned!

Both of my unit neighbours are planning to move out.

Neighbour #1 is moving into a house with a friend in the centre of Ballarat.

Neighbour #2 is moving in with a friend on the other side of Buninyong.

They both cite the rising cost of living and the increase in their weekly rental as the reason for going. Neighbour #2 has been here for 13 years, first in Unit 1 and then in Unit 2. He must have been here pretty much since the units were built. His rent had been increased by $30 a week, which seems extortionate to me. And to him! It seems very short sighted to me to get rid of a longstanding tenant who causes no trouble, pays his rent and looks after the property well.

There is a For Lease board up at the bottom of the driveway.

The people in house #7 have moved out and turned their house into an AirBNB while they are waiting for it to sell. You might wonder why people would want an AirBNB in Mount Helen but it is very well used at weekends and there are often people here during the week.

I am beginning to wonder if it was something that I said

Even my car abandoned me yesterday, after Lindsey's car had an argument with a kangaroo on the freeway on Thursday night. I think the kangaroo came off second best, but Lindsey's car was very definitely not well. So she borrowed my car to get to her meeting in Bendigo and I had an unexpected day off work.

Fortunately, I am not expecting to be completely abandoned over the weekend. There are plans both for today and tomorrow.

Lunching

As you are aware, I was working on Saturday morning. We were very quiet. Pathology was very busy.

I finished just after 12:45 and went out to Alphington, where I met Freyja and Simon in a little cafe called Kissaten. I have driven past it several times and thought how cute it was that a coffee shop was called by the Japanese word for a coffee shop. I had never been in, or even paused to look, although I have once or twice used the fuel station a few doors up.

It's lovely. The menu is Japanese inspired but not exclusively Japanese. We sat out in the courtyard, for the  weather was pleasant and it was relatively warm. Freyja had a ramen bowl, Simon had a katsu tofu sandwich, and I had a chicken katsu curry which was very delicious.

Then we went to Northcote to look at the outside of the flat that they will be moving into at the beginning of October. I am very much looking forward to seeing the inside next time. Underneath the flat is a rather nice grocery and wine shop. I am looking forward to exploring that too.

And then I came home.

On Sunday, Lindsey, Stella and I went back out to the Wallace pub, to see if the food really was as good as it had been three weeks ago. After all, it might have been a fluke. 

It wasn't! The food was just as good. Stella had salmon over risotto. Lindsey and I had the roast pork. It was a lovely day for a drive out into the country, the food was delicious and the people were delightful. I have definitely added it to my list of weekend pubs.

Not lunch related, but I am yet again re-organising the gardens. Not a lot of reorganising out the front. I'm just putting back one of the hexagonal small beds that I took away last spring. I need somewhere to put a small rose bush and some mixed flower seeds. I've cut the grass. I might do it again if it doesn't rain today.

Out the back I'm putting in some new garden beds for more veg seeds. I'm also rescuing the bed along the back fence which has the lemon trees. I have pulled out the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes. They weren't thriving and I need the space for other things. And I am slowly pulling out all the long grass which has grown over the past year. 

I am hopeful that there may be a bit more time for keeping the garden up together this year. Hopeful, but not optimistic!

Solicitor

I went and saw my solicitor on Thursday. He didn't seem particularly perturbed by Jim's death certificate. He agreed that the 10 year onset of Alzheimer's dementia was wrong but couldn't see any value in challenging it at this stage.

Apparently, because we bought the house jointly, his share automatically became mine on Jim's death. And Jim didn't have any other assets of sufficient value to be problematic. If the solicitor isn't worried, then I am not going to worry.

He made formally certified copies of the death and marriage certificates. He decided I didn't need a new will unless I wanted to change anything (I don't). He said he would act to transfer the house title to my name, although I want to wait for that until I am clearer what my monthly income will be. All appears to be well.

I was in his office for all of half an hour, and then went to have lunch with Rupert and Hugo, who were delighted to see me. That may have had something to do with the party pies I had with me!

I was working yesterday and I am also working this morning. I stayed in Lindsey and Ian's flat in East Melbourne overnight. I rather enjoyed not having a two hour drive home - although the traffic on and around Hoddle Street was unusually chaotic. No idea why. I had pizza from the pizza shop under my feet and went to bed nice and early.

This was my early morning view, when I got up today:

And here is Brandy, enjoying his early morning view on Thursday:

The weather bods are talking of there being a spring heat wave this week. The forecast is, it must be said, rather pleasant. Until you get to Wednesday, when the temperature in Ballarat is predicted to drop from 22d to 13d! Perhaps I'll actually be able to get into the garden before the weather changes. And maybe I won't put the winter jumpers away just yet.

Jim's Party

We held Jim's party at home on Sunday afternoon. There were about 20 of us, which is a nice number for our place. It didn't rain but wasn't particularly warm so not many people went out into the courtyard.

We ate party pies and roast potatoes; cheese and biscuits; vegan delicacies from Smith and Deli, which Freyja and Simon picked up on their way up from Melbourne. We had jelly slices and logs in ponds (it would have been frogs but I couldn't find any small chocolate frogs; we had twirl bites instead.) We had tiny cakes and macarons, biscuits and chocolates. We drank alcoholic and non-alcoholic wines and beer. We drank tea and coffee. We had a good time.

Jim's daughter and son in law came down from Sydney. My siblings all came, apart from the one who is holidaying in Africa who was granted an exemption. Friends came. And many of those who couldn't come because of distance or previous engagements or other reasons nevertheless had roast potatoes and raised a glass in their own locations and time zones. 

A rolling remembrance 😊

We made an afternoon of it. People came from around 12:30 or so and the last people left around 5:30.

Jim would have very much enjoyed it. He did like a good party - apart from an ongoing anxiety that he had, whenever I invited more than half a dozen people or so to come round, that it would pour with rain and there wouldn't be enough room in the house for everyone. This was a ridiculous worry in Tupton where we had a sizeable lounge room, a separate dining room, a kitchen and an enclosed back porch. It isn't particularly likely to be a problem in Mount Helen. Not quite as much space as in Tupton but enough, if you move all the furniture to the side of the rooms. I will grant him that we never have enough chairs for everyone to sit down, but not everyone wants to sit down at the same time unless you are having a sit down meal. And I wouldn't invite 20 people to a sit down meal!

It may not have been your traditional funeral followed by tea and cake but it was a good party. And a good send off. 

I did miss having a working dishwasher on Monday morning though!

Weekly Round Up

 I was doing ok - until the death certificate arrived last Friday. I picked it up from under the front door when I got back from work, mid-evening.

It wasn't the death certificate itself which was a problem. It was that the facility's doctor (who I have never met) had put the cause of death as Alzheimer's Dementia, but had said that it commenced 10 years ago.

In 2013 we were still in England, Jim was still working, he was driving and operating totally independently. Absolutely no signs of dementia. Not only that, he had had an immigration health assessment in Australia in 2019. If he had had signs of dementia then they would certainly have noticed it (and almost certainly wouldn't have approved his permanent residency). He was first diagnosed in 2021 with probable early Alzheimer's.

None of this would really matter, apart from disturbing my innate desire for accuracy in these things. Except that we bought a house and made new wills in 2020. My immediate thought was that a 10 year diagnosis would probably make probate problematic. Not that I absolutely know this but at that time on a Friday night, following 12 months of battling Centrelink to get the fees for the care home sorted out - it was just all too much. When does it all end, I asked myself. When can I stop?

I had no idea that you can challenge a death certificate, but apparently you can. I have drafted a letter to send to the facility's doctor. But before I send it, I have made an appointment to see my solicitor. I need to see him anyway. I need a few things done and decided I would run all this past him to see what he thinks. Probate is his thing. He should know much better than I do what needs to be done.

So on Saturday Lindsey and I went to the Bridge Mall market, which has moved to a different end of Bridge Street and was rather lovely. We did a bit of shopping. We hit the mushroom farm and the supermarket. We started laying in tempting morsels for Jim's party. On Sunday Julia and Not So Baby Henry came round and took away all the things I had lying on the spare bed. I had been intending to sort through them for things for the Op Shops, things for the recycling bins, things for the bin. But Julia just loaded it all into her car and took it all away. She did leave behind the spare bed's bedding 😂

I have met friend Chris for brunch in Websters, visited Stella, finally got around to slashing the grass in the backyard (need to do that again), weeded part of the patio (need to do more) and randomly bought a small electric saucepan. If you were a university student in Australia in the 1970s and 80s you would recognise it as being very like a Birko. Except it's got a cute picture on it. I thought it would do for small portions of rice or other things.

21st century rendition of a 1970s Birko

I have a Japanese lesson in 20 minutes. I should get ready. I had a lesson on Tuesday morning and put a jumper over my pyjamas. Can't do a Japanese lesson in my dressing gown! It was quite chilly so I put a snuggle blanket over my knees. As the lesson progressed I realised that Brandy was pulling the blanket off my knees and onto my feet. Then he lay down on it. Whiskey joined him. So I now had a blanket and two cats on my feet, which were getting too hot, and no blanket on my knees, which were getting cold. He's not stupid, is that little cat!

Fortunately, a magpie came to bathe in the bird bath outside the front window and they went off to watch it - and I could reclaim my snuggle blanket for my knees,

Brandy has form in these things.
Here he is lying on the clean bedding
I had put out for my bed.