A Festive Sunday Lunch

At some point in 2020 the Australian government managed to annoy the government of China. This resulted in lots of trade sanctions, including a boycott of Australian wines and seafood. Other things, of course but I didn't particularly notice them.

I'm not sure what supposed reason the Chinese government came up with that meant Australian wines and seafood couldn't be imported into China.  I'm sure they came up with something other than that they were annoyed. The end result was that there were lakes of wine and mountains of, mainly Western Australian, seafood languishing.

The rest of the world came to the party and bought up lots of wine. Australians are also more than happy to drink Australian wine. And we are definitely happy to eat the seafood.

The sanctions are still in place. Western Australian seafood is still not going to China.  This is good.  It means that we can have it. And rock lobsters, which often retail for $80 or $100 when the bulk of them are going to China are considerably less expensive when they are staying here.  Still not cheap, you understand, but nowhere near as expensive. Woolworths was selling them for $24 each on Saturday.

So I bought some for Sunday's luncheon party, which Irene, Gillie, Chris, John and Flora were all coming to. And I put the rock lobsters onto a platter with scallops, salmon, oysters and prawns. I made a big bowl of salad and I made roasted baby potatoes with garlic, lemon and lime pieces, sprigs of thyme and olive oil flavoured with lemon myrtle. We had local cheeses, fruit, Christmas biscuits and chocolate Santas after.

People seemed to enjoy the food.  It was a lovely afternoon, despite the weather. Saturday had been a beautiful day. Monday was a beautiful day. Sunday was cold, wet, windy and gloomy.  Ah well. The company was warm, friendly and sunny and that's all you need.

Jim enjoyed it but it did rather tire him. He took himself to bed at around 6:00 and didn't get up until after 8:00 on Monday morning!  Brandy and Whiskey coped with the arrival of Flora, mainly because I shut them in our bedroom just before Flora arrived. 

Today has been almost the perfect summer day. It's been lovely and warm, but not too hot. There has been a light, gentle breeze. The sun has shone. The sky has been blue. You honestly couldn't ask for better. So I went out to the mushroom farm to do a bit of early Christmas food shopping. I dropped into Delacombe for the supermarket. I went to Formosa, the garden centre. And I've finally sorted out two of the garden pods in the back and planted runner bean plants and yellow and green bean plants, which I've been nurturing from seeds. I've put crushed egg shells around to see if that keeps the snails off. If not, I shall deploy chemical weapons! Brandy and Whiskey have been indolently lying around in various sunny spots, watching me. Or not, as the case may be.

Jim has decided that he doesn't eat raspberries (this attitude might not last - he was eating them last week!). This means I don't need to share these raspberry drops so I just eat them as I wander past. 

Somehow, the birds don't seem to have discovered them, which is slightly odd because there are lots of birds that potter about along the back path, where I am slowly growing a raspberry hedge. So far I have two boxes of raspberries. I think I might move the blackcurrant and rhubarb plants in the autumn and keep planting raspberry canes until I have a hedge right along the back path. The blackcurrants don't like it there. They're getting a bit leggy. Not enough sunlight, I suppose.  They're in quite a shaded spot. The rhubarb doesn't mind being in a shaded, dappled light.

Early summer in the back yard

The poppy plant that prevented me
putting the orange tree in its final
resting place.
There are five more small ones coming along

Teeny tiny zucchinis coming along nicely.
This is already shaping up as a better
growing season than last year, although
the summer may yet hold unpleasant surprises.