Rupert is two

It was Rupert's second birthday on Saturday, along with 9 of his 10 brothers and sisters.  The 11th puppy was born after midnight so has her very own, individual birthday.

So on Sunday, Micah's birthday, we bundled Rupert and Hugo into the car and set off to the off leash dog park in Mount Martha, approximately five minute's drive from Stella's house.

We were exceptionally lucky with the weather.  It was cold, wet and foggy when we left Ballarat.  It drizzled on and off all the way down. It was raining five minutes before we got to the park.  Then the rain stopped and the sun even shone fitfully for the rest of the afternoon.

We had thought that Rupert and Hugo wouldn't recognise the dog park.  They've only been once and that was 9 or so months ago.  But no.  As soon as we pulled up and they saw the reserve, they got Very Excited Indeed.  As soon as they got out of the car, into the reserve and had their leads taken off they ranandranandranandRAN.

It was an excellent birthday party. Several of the puppies and their humans had met the night before but there were puppies at the park, along with other great danes, their humans and visitors, not to mention other dogs who came to the park and came to play.

A birthday party in the park:

Next time I go to a birthday party in the park, in autumn, on a drizzly day, I shall take a flask of soup rather than a platter of sandwiches.  Apart from that, it was all good. (I might take a few sandwiches as well as soup.  Soup and sandwiches are a good combination!)

Then we went and had a cup of tea with Grandma Stella and then we went home.  A well celebrated birthday


Exhausted in Mount Martha 😁

These two photos by Lindsey

A Busy Week

I did go down to Melbourne on Monday afternoon, tempting though it was to stay at home. I went to Buninyong to put fuel in the car and then, in a moment of inattention, found myself driving up Mount Buninyong instead of along the back road to Melbourne.

The only disadvantage to driving up Mount Buninyong on a sunny autumn afternoon is that the road doesn't go anywhere other than to loop around the top and then come back down.  There is a side road that I hadn't been down before. I went down it.  It takes you back to the Melbourne road but with the advantage of spectacular views out over the plains. I concentrated on not falling off the road!!

Back in Melbourne, Lindsey and I had thought about going to the pub for dinner - until Emily invted us round to her place.  I hadn't seen her flat before and it is very beautiful. We had gnocchi in various forms, with salad on the side.  Emily's friend's dog was staying with her while the friend was away.  Ruby was not entirely delighted by the advent of two comparative strangers into her airbnb!!!

Tuesday morning found me at the surgery, nice and early, in good time to open up, have a coffee and be ready to turn the lights on at 8:00. Open the gates and let a tidal wave of people in. Fortunately, they were all for Melbourne Pathology and not for me!  Turn the phones on. And almost before I had lifted my finger up, the phone started ringing.  And ringing.  And ringing. All the lines were alight. And ringing!

Bedlam!

Plus, of course, people were coming in for their appointments, to make appointments (no chance, really, not for Tuesday), to ask questions (I dunno - I'm a librarian, not a doctor).

Bedlam, I tell you.

Then another receptionist turned up, and so did Bethan who was helping out for a few hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Things became a little easier, but it was very busy all day.

Wednesday wasn't quite as bad. There wasn't a crowd of people waiting when I opened the gates at 8:00.  It took until 8:30 before the phones went mad. It was busy all day, but not as busy. I left at 5:30 or so and came back to Mount Helen

Thursday was ANZAC Day and the morning was blissfully quiet.  We were at our place and just pottered. In the afternoon we went with Lindsey out to Spring Creek for some veg and to Elaine to the farm shop for supplies. Otherwise, we didn't do much.

Friday I went back to work.  It was busy.  Again (although I didn't have to open up).  All these public holidays are all very well in their way. Nice to have a few days off.  But it does make it unusually busy when we open up again.

I got back to Hill House in the evening to find that Hugo hadn't been very well during the day.  He had thrown up his breakfast, refused treats, refused his dinner and was lying listlessly on the dining room couch. He even refused cheezels.  This was not a good sign!  He came and sat on the lounge room couch in the evening with Rupert, Jim and me.

I got up this morning and he seemed to be entirely better.  Demanded breakfast.  Wanted a second breakfast.  Chased away magpies marauding in his garden.  I don't know what he had eaten that had upset his tummy so much.  Or perhaps he just had a stomach upset.  Anyway.  All better now.  Which is just as well because we are supposed to be going to a Great Dane meet tomorrow. We couldn't possibly go and leave him behind on his own. Neither he nor Rupert would approve of that!

All better and snuggling with my caterpillar

Rupert is also snuggling, but with a ball that you can't see

Easter

We have had a lovely Easter weekend.

Jim and I drove to Mount Martha on Good Friday to collect Stella.  We had a good run down.  The traffic heading from Melbourne to Ballarat, however, was amazing.  I don't remember having seen that amount of traffic heading towards Ballarat, even on Fridays at going home time. I think some them probably were heading to Ballarat - there were lots of people around over the weekend. Some of them were probably heading to Stawell for the Stawell Gift weekend and some to the Grampians. And I suppose some of them may have been heading to Adelaide and to points in between.  Wherever they were going, I was happy to see that they were not all heading my way.  It is true that there were lots of people heading to the Mornington Peninsula, but they all went along the Peninsula Freeway.  My satnav plus the overhead signs had warned me of congestion on the Peninsula freeway.  And I could see people queuing to get onto it.  I went through Frankston and avoided the queues!

Everyone had apparently got to where they were going when we brought Stella back.  Nice empty roads everywhere.

We joined Lindsey, Ian and Stella at Hill House for dinner on Friday evening.  Ian prepared salmon for us all. Jim drove us home.

On Saturday we joined Lindsey, Ian and Stella at Websters for lunch.  It was a glorious autumnal day

View from the lunch table

I drove back to Hill House, taking Stella with us, While Lindsey and Ian hit the shops for supplies for the Easter Feast.  We went for  a circumnavigation of the lake on the way.  The lake was beautiful and sparkly. Lindsey, Ian and Stella joined us at our place for dinner on Saturday evening. I made deconstructed steak sandwiches.

I had offered Jim the opportunity to drive home after our lunch at Websters.  He said no, it was my turn.  This was true, but it might have been a bit short sighted on his part.  This meant that it was *his* turn to drive home after the Easter Feast, which was at Hill House.  This meant that it wasn't my turn :-D  And there was an abundance of rather nice wine to be sampled.

I had bought vegan offerings for Ian to play with, and made a platter of vegetables to take to lunch

Hidden under the snow peas and broad beans are
green beans, broccolini, sliced carrots and sliced
brussels sprouts

Ian made a five hour lamb dish, seafood paella and a vegan friendly paella. There were roast potatoes and salads and an amazing gravy.  There were 15 people and six dogs in attendance. It was all very exuberant and very tasty.  And Jim got to drive home :-D  (He was alright - we have lots of wine at our place too)

Hugo in his bath

Puppy Leroy saying hello

Frannie, Stella and Suzie at lunch.
Thanks to Wendy for the photo

The weather has turned from beautiful, sunny and warm (possibly rather warmer than you would expect in mid-April!) to overcast and cool. No rain, though.  We could do with some rain.  Lindsey has taken Stella back to Mount Martha and I have been preparing food for the week ahead.  I have to start tomorrow at 07:30. Tempting though it is to stay here tonight and to leave at 05:30, I suspect I would regret this decision in the cold darkness of Tuesday morning.  I'll go down later this afternoon. Then I don't need to leave for work until 06:50 which is much more civilised. I have organised dinner for Jim for tonight and tomorrow night. Then I'll be back on Wednesday evening and here on Thursday.  I don't work on Thursdays but this coming Thursday is ANZAC Day and is another public holiday.

Tomatoes and other veg

It's been a funny growing season.  We have done well with the potatoes at Hill House, and we had a good corn harvest.  But the tomatoes took for ages to grow and set fruit and have resolutely refused to  ripen.  Up at Hill House the magpies have been eating them.  Down at Tani they are just now starting to ripen.  In other years the plants would have been dead by now but this year the days have remained quite warm and so far we haven't had any overnight frosts.

Just starting to ripen

These teeny tiny tomatoes are supposed to be tiny
and are little flavour bombs when you eat them

The peanut plants are gamely hanging on. We pulled one up to see what, if anything, was happening underneath and found several small peanut pods.  We'll leave the rest here until the plants die off properly and see if the grow/ripen any more.

The carrots are coming along and the purple sprouting broccoli plants seem happy in their box. We've only just planted them and they are just starting to grow. The zucchini and pumpkin plants were sacrificed to make way for them - they had started to die off and were no longer producing.  It must be said that immature butternuts make splendid zucchini substitutes!

We also have some hollyhocks, lupins and salvias ready to start a flower "garden"

Up at Hill House the miniature cauliflowers are starting to flower and we have PSB, more caulks and some cabbages ready to plant out. I need to get some more seeds sown. I have romanesco and carrots and cabbages which can be planted now.

We also tidied up, re-arranged and sorted out the garage.  We can now (just!) fit Ziggy in.  We thought Ziggy might like a bedroom of its own, should winter ever arrive.

Birthday

It's Jim's birthday today. He's 77!

Unfortunately, Ian is up country today and Lindsey and I are working in Melbourne.  There is no one in Mount Helen to celebrate with him, apart from Rupert and Hugo.

Nothing for it but to shift his birthday to last weekend.

On Saturday he and I headed to the Bridge Mall market and had a good mooch around.  Right, said I.  Let's go to Bunnings.   Why did we want to go to Bunnings?  No particular reason.  Just because.

So we went. And while we were there I bought a digital weather station, similar to the one Lindsey has recently bought for Hill House, and much like the one my father had at Mount Martha. I also bought a cheap rain gauge that you push into the garden bed. It measures not just rainfall, but also sprinkler use.  Jim was much puzzled by this.

Until we got back to Tani and I asked if he would like me to assemble his weather station (the nuts and bolts were small and my fingers are a bit more nimble than his).  Oh, said he. Is it mine?  I explained that it was his birthday present, including the rain gauge which we have pushed into the front garden bed.

About an hour later we had the weather station assembled, wirelessly connected to the digital screen inside, and attached to the fence.

We had salmon, chips and white wine for his birthday dinner.

On Sunday I went to the shop for much needed bread and milk. I came back with the bread and milk, and with a bottle of whisky as Jim's birthday present from Stella.  At lunchtime, Lindsey and Ian came by and we all drove out to Daylesford where we had Jim's birthday lunch at Bad Habits in the Convent Gallery.  I had a very delicious steak sandwich. Jim had egg and bacon pie, Lindsey corn fritters with smoked salmon and Ian a chilli calamari salad. We had extra potatoes and some more wine.  I think he thought it was an excellent birthday lunch

We did other things as well.  We have weeded the front garden beds, sorted out one of the back boxes for winter sprouting broccoli and pruned one of the shrubs outside our bedroom window.  We rescued a mouse that had got into one of the packing boxes in the garage and released it into the back garden. We have taken down the gazebo which we've had up for most of the summer. And I stewed a box of blueberries and baked some apples, both of which I got at the market. I will have the fruit for breakfasts this week.  Jim is having his with the apple crumble cake, custard, cream and bottle of white wine which Lindsey and Ian left as his birthday treat at Hill House, where he is looking after Rupert and Hugo.

Not a bad birthday weekend, I reckon.

Veggies

I think it got to a top of 28d or so on Friday in Reservoir, before the cold front arrived. Jim says he thinks it got to around 24 or 25 in Mount Helen.  It definitely wasn't that high when I arrived back on Friday evening!

It wasn't even close to that high when I got up yesterday morning.  Around 4d, according to Lindsey's weather station. It was foggy - you couldn't see the lights of Ballarat. It was damp.

Nevertheless, I was determined to go out to the Spring Creek Organic Veg farm for their Pick Your Own Corn event.  We went mid-morning, once the fog had cleared and the sun had come out.  There were quite a few people there and the farm had put out lots of trestle tables laden with all sorts of veg - including lots of corn cobs.  We were dressed for heading out into a paddock in winter-like weather but fortunately there was no need.  We came home with loads and loads of veg for less than $50 and it took about ten minutes to select it:

Rupert and Hugo were convinced that this was all meant for them :-D

I'm glad we went out when we did. We got home from the farm just as it started to rain.  Then it began to hail. Then the wind picked up.  The temperature didn't reach double figures at all on Lindsey's weather station.  The highest I saw was 9.5d. We stayed at home in the afternoon!

I have roasted two of the three bags of tomatoes and will make tomato puree with them.  I wish now I had bought more. I can think of lots of things to do with tomatoes. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with all the carrots. I've cooked the beetroot and am planning to put most of the corn in the freezer.  We had a selection of the veg with our dinner last night. Oh - and Rupert and Hugo had a carrot each. Rupert would have preferred broccoli. Alas, I didn't buy any. A carrot had to do.

It was a funny day yesterday.

It started more or less as planned.  Lindsey left for work, as planned.  I also left for work, as planned. Jim and the dogs stayed at Hill House.  The morning progressed, as planned, both at Hill House and at Summerhill.

Then news broke that the air traffic control tower at Sydney Airport had been evacuated because of smoke.  Flights in and out of the airport were suspended.  No worries, thought I.  I don't know anyone flying out of Sydney today. Austin isn't leaving until Tuesday.  Should be fixed by then.

This was all very well - but I had forgotten the people I knew who had intended to fly *in* to Sydney.  Such as Lindsey.  Amongst others.

The airport was open for flights by the time Lindsey's flight was due to leave but by then, of course, there were massive backlogs.  Her flight was delayed from 20:00 on Friday to 06:00 on Saturday.  She has, in fact, just taken off.

Meanwhile, back in Summerhill ... The TV in the waiting room was reporting a grassfire in Bunker's Hill, which is near Ballarat and just inside my summer fire watch zone of 20km.  It's beyond the Delacombe shopping centre.  Jim rang to tell me that he could see it and should he pack the car with the dogs and Run Away.  The fact that you could see it from Hill House wasn't necessarily an issue.  On a clear day you can see right across to the Grampians.  It didn't seem as though Mount Helen was in immediate danger and no warnings had been issued for us.  For that fire to get to us it would need to pass through some properly built up areas, including the fairly new Delacombe Town Centre shopping complex. He decided to remain alert but to remain where he was.

Then they reported another fire at Mount Mercer, to the south of Mount Helen, also just inside my summer fire watch zone but not posing any risk to Hill House.

Add into the mix a cold front coming in from South Australia with strong swirling winds and a bit of rain

Lots of smoke, combined with a dust storm outside Melbourne and the arrival of the winds led to lots of  interesting "cloud" formations around Melbourne, lots of polluted air, and lots of smoggy haze. The traffic was very slow moving at the Melbourne end of the freeway.  Adding to the excitement were the police officers on motor bikes who were weaving their way through the traffic.  And the fire engines, sirens on, lights flashing, who were trying to get to the fires around Ballarat.  It's lots of fun trying to get out of the way of large fire engines in more or less stationary traffic!!

It was even more fun when we got to Melton and across the freeway was strewn an extraordinary amount of rubbish.  Huge black bags of stuff. Long tubes. Plastic things.  I have no idea what had shed its load all over the freeway (and then, apparently, not stopped to try and clear up) but all the traffic slowed down to almost nothing, formed a single line and then more or less chicaned its way through the debris.

There were no further driving excitements after that. Just more swirling winds and a bit of rain. But I was glad to get back to Hill House and settle down to a quiet evening in.  No alarms, no excitements, nothing particularly interesting. Just wine, steak and roasties.

I had nearly changed my fire watch zone to the winter range of 10km earlier in the week.  I wasn't expecting there to be proper fires to worry about at the end of March.  I might leave the summer one on just for now, even though the weather has abruptly changed to winter temperatures.

Austin

Austin is in Australia this week for a wedding in Sydney on Sunday.

He flew in to Melbourne last Saturday. Jim and I were in Mount Martha, eating seafood and roast potatoes with Stella.

On Sunday, Lindsey brought Austin, Freyja and Simon to Mount Martha so Austin could see Stella.  We had looked at his schedule and Sunday was really the only time we could get him there.  This wasn't an issue. Sunday is an excellent day to visit.  We all went to the Dava for lunch.  And lest you should be worried about Rupert and Hugo, languishing abandoned and alone back at Hill House, Ian returned from a brief visit to New Zealand on Sunday and went to stay with them overnight.  Jim and I went back to our place after a good visit with Stella.

We came up to Hill House on Monday and here we remain.  Austin and Sunday's groom, Zoy, came to Hill House on Tuesday evening.  They were joined by Austin's former housemates Julia and Ali, and Julia's partner Travis.  We had roasted shoulder of lamb with Yorkshire puddings and loads of veg for dinner, followed by apple pie and custard.  It was a merry evening - in every sense of the word!

Julia and Travis had to leave to pick up Travis' children form Julia's parents place.  Austin, Zoy and Ali stayed over. Jim and I retired to bed at a fairly reasonable time.  Austin, Zoy and Ali stayed up until around 3 am.  This wasn't particularly a problem for Austin and Zoy, who could stay in bed until they chose to get up (although I think they felt a bit rough when they did get up :-D ). Poor Ali had to leave at 6:45. I think he tried to creep out without disturbing anyone, but he had no hope of the dogs not noticing. And in any case, I was up and moving around.

Austin and Zoy went down with me to admire Tani and then went on their way back to Melbourne and thence to Sydney. Jim and I had a nice, quiet day.  You will notice that I was not at work.  I took Tuesday and Wednesday off.  I am beginning to wish that I had taken Friday off too!

We are off to Melbourne today. Jim has an appointment with his dermatologist to have the lesion on his nose cauterised and to have a dubious spot on his back removed.  It's a beautiful morning.  I suppose I should go wild and get dressed

Photo by Simon

Photo by Lindsey

A long silence

Goodness.  Such a long silence.  Anyone would think nothing had been happening.

In fact, lots of things have happened.

Last weekend, our cousins Ruth and Andy, who have been staying in Sydney with a side trip to Perth, came to visit.

I picked them up from the airport on Friday afternoon and took them to the flat where they stayed with Lindsey and Ian overnight.  I went back to Hill House.

On  Saturday, Lindsey, Ian, Ruth and Andy went to Matt and Belinda's place in Warragul.  Annie the vet came to stay at Hill House so Jim and I could have a night at home, and join the family lunch in Warragul on Sunday.

Rupert and Hugo were VERY excited to see Annie.  They do love her, which is odd when you consider that she is their vet :-D  Rupert did, eventually, remember this. He also remembered that last time Annie had come to visit she had clipped his toenails. He HATES having his paws touched.  He backed out into the garden, looking watchful.  No one was going to touch his toes, thank you very much.  Fortunately, Annie hadn't brought her clippers with her and all was well.

We haven't had a family gathering at Warragul before and it's a lovely location.  It's a bit of a trek from Mount Helen but it's very accessible from Melbourne and from Mount Martha.  Belinda's mother was there.  Our mother was there.  Ant and Jess were there for their swan song - they were off to Sydney on the following day for Ant to take up a new job.  Sydney is not that far away but it's not absolutely handy for random family lunches!

Alas, Annie had had to leave mid-morning so Jim and I couldn't stay long, but it was a lovely lunch and a good catch up.

Meanwhile, back in Brunswick, Freyja and Simon were supposed to be getting ready to fly to Perth for a few days.  Then the cat escaped and couldn't be found.  Ghost, the cat, is an indoor cat. She is not familiar with the Great Outdoors.  They postponed their flight to Perth.

Fortunately, she hadn't gone far and hastened back inside.  Freyja and Simon took a later flight.

On Monday I went to their place to Ghost sit. I expected her to be nervous and reserved.  But no.  She was delighted to see me.  She's a tiny little thing but she thunders up and down the hallway in Great Dane style. She leans on you, Great Dane style. She supervises you in the shower in much the same way that Rupert does. It must be said that having a Ghost cat jump on the bed in the middle of the night is nothing like as "surprising" as when Rupert or Hugo does it. You barely notice. On the other hand, Rupert and Hugo don't play with your feet in the middle of the night in the way that Ghost does.

I enjoyed my stay at Freyja and Simon's place.  It's a great location, well serviced by public transport.  So I went to steak night at the flat by tram.  It's a 20 minute drive to work. It's a cute, quirky house.  Perhaps not quite as quirky as the shipping container that Freyja and Simon were staying in but quirky enough.  I would banish Freyja and Simon to the shed and move in, except there isn't a shed.  There isn't room for a shipping container in the backyard.  I came back to my place in Mount Helen.

Which is not a 20 minute drive to work.  I had better go and get ready to leave.  Lindsey will be coming by in an hour to pick me up and I'm still in my pyjamas and dressing gown.  I haven't made lunch. I need to iron my work trousers.  I am not remotely ready!

Sunday

It was our turn to host lunch for Chris, John, Irene and Gillie.

I bought a fillet of girello from the butcher in Summerhill a couple of weeks ago.  It was not a cut that I had ever heard of until he started bringing them in. The Americans seem to call it Eye of Round, but I didn't know what that was either. I asked what it was and discovered that it's a fairly lean cut from the silverside part of the cow. He said it benefitted from slow cooking.  So I bought one, tried it in my slow cooker and thought it was fantastic.  Lovely flavour, nice and tender. I decided it would do for yesterday's lunch and bought another one.

On Saturday it sat in the slow cooker with some onions, mushrooms, spices, a bit of wine and some stock, while we were out and about. Then I let it go cold and strained the cooking liquid. Yesterday I sliced it up and put it in the oven with a gravy made from the strained liquid. We had it with oven cooked vegetables along with carrots and cabbage (not oven cooked).  I thought it was all delicious.

You may remember that some time ago I bought a box of apricots and made apricot pies and dehydrated apricots.  I had intended to make some apricot jam - until we went to Mount Martha and I cleared out the pantry, discovering many many jars of apricot jam as I did so.  I asked Stella why she had so many.  They had been bought for Tony who was very partial to apricot jam (not that this explains why there were quite so many!!).  Stella isn't a big jam eater and didn't really want them.  So I bought all the jars of apricot jam back with us.  We now have what I suspect is a life time's supply of apricot jam, even though I took some to Hill House.  Definitely no need to make any more.

So the apricots were bagged up and put in my small freezer, where they have been slumbering, taking up space.

I enquired if the lunchtime visitors liked apricots.  And they do!  So I made an apricot crumble.  Have to say that I have never made an apricot crumble before.  Lots of other kinds of fruit crumbles, yes.  Apricot - no.  So I put fresh (defrosted and de-stoned) apricots in a dish.  I added some of my dehydrated apricots, rehydrated in water and orange bitters and a dash of golden syrup. I topped it with a crumble mix (flour, brown sugar and butter - no nuts, coconut or other fancy extras) and baked it.  We had it with cream and custard. It was lovely. We will be having apricot crumble again.

Another good day.  Lots of chatter and merriment. Good to catch up. We had all seen each other at Chris's birthday party in January but there wasn't really the chance to have a good natter. And it was the first time they had been to Tani (#2; they had been to #1) so we got to show it off.

It's a public holiday today. We have absolutely no plans. It's quite nice sitting around, drinking tea and eating toast and not rushing about.  We will head up to Hill House later today but otherwise we are just pottering.