Another Busy Week

Just after lunch on Monday I got a message from the library to say a book I had ordered was available. I thought about the rest of the week, wondering when I could go to pick it up. Then I thought: I'm not actually doing anything very much. I could go right now, this minute.

So I did.

As I drove out of the cul de sac I live in, I noticed that the child care centre was all in darkness. I had a closer look. It was GONE! Not the buildings, of course, but no lights, no signs, no children, no cars in the car park. Nothing. Gone!

I checked later, and discovered that it had closed a little over a week before. I hadn't noticed for a whole week! You have to go past it if you are leaving my cul de sac by car. I really should pay closer attention to what's going on around me. (Although, to be fair, Lindsey hadn't noticed either and she comes past it quite often too.)

On Wednesday, I was coming home from work. The satnav wanted me to come off at Ballarat Road, one exit earlier than usual. So I did. As I prepared to come off I thought: the new Costco opened here today. Perhaps I could go in and have a look. I changed my mind when I realised that the queue to turn left coming off the freeway was well and truly backed up. All the roads leading to the site  were backed up. The Costco carpark (which is enormous) was literally full to overflowing. I wasn't that keen on a visit to Costco so I kept going homewards. I will go and inspect it at some point, but I might wait for the excitement to die down a bit.

On Thursday, Lindsey and I thought we might have lunch out after doing our shopping. Perhaps at the newly renovated and recently re-opened Buninyong pub. Alas. They don't serve lunch on Thursdays. So we mooched on out to Meredith, where we found that the Meredith Hotel also doesn't serve lunch on Thursdays. But The Royal does. We had never been in The Royal, which is on the main road. The menu was typical of country pubs.  I had steak and chips, thinking it wouldn't be particularly exciting. In fact, it was lovely. The chips were hot and crisp. The steak was perfectly cooked. There was an enormous amount of garlic butter.  Lindsey had a lunchtime size chicken parma which she also said was nicely cooked and a perfect size for lunch.

Saturday saw us, in glorious autumn weather, at the market by the lake. There were lots of stalls, lots of people, lots of dogs.  The olive oil man wasn't there, which was disappointing, but otherwise it was a big and bustling market.

I was invited to join Lindsey and Ian for lunch yesterday. They had thought to try the pub in Buninyong but it was fully booked for lunch. So we went to The Shared Table instead and had the Chef's Tasting Menu.  I do like a good tasting menu - lots of different mouthfuls of things. We had mushroom croquettes, fresh crusty bread with olives and roasted carrot butter. We had a tomato salad with silken tofu, then little sticky lamb ribs and finally roast duck breast with fennel, beetroot and cherries

A vegan amuse bouche

I have been eating tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, runner beans and potatoes from the garden. I have also eaten the one apple that was on my apple tree. It was lovely, juicy and sweet. 

But that's the end of the summer harvest now. I am about to pull out the remaining summer plants and sow pea and broad bean seeds. I already have three silver beet plants settling in, and one celery herb plant. I don't use much celery but occasionally I want a little bit. It is very hard to buy a small amount of celery and if you do  find individual stalks they are very expensive. The celery herb isn't a proper, big celery plant. It has smaller, finer stalks.

Cosmos in flower:

Last Week

It was a busy week.

I went into work on Monday. Our new receptionist was doing her first Monday shift and I wanted to introduce her to the other two Monday receptionists, who hadn't yet met her. I also wanted to meet with them to discuss forthcoming appraisals. Plus I had a few things to do.

I went to work as usual on Wednesday and Friday. Two busy days - Friday especially so when an emergency walked in a little after 4:30. Was a long day by the time we all managed to leave.

(PSA - if you have symptoms which are potentially life threatening, you might be better to call an ambulance and go to the hospital rather than wandering into a nearby medical centre. It will probably be quicker in the long run.)

On Thursday, Lindsey and I wandered off to the shops. It's quite some time since Lindsey has been in town on a Thursday so we made the most of it. A visit to the Post Office, Kmart, Dan Murphy's, lunch at the Wildseed Cafe. A visit to the IGA. I also had things to do at home.

Smashed avo salad

Pork belly salad, Vietnamese style

It was quite a relief to get to the weekend and realise that I didn't have any actual plans. I had thought about going to Melbourne on Sunday to visit a dinosaur fair that Freyja was involved with, at the new-ish Glenroy Community Hub. I would like to visit the new hub and am quite interested in dinosaurs - but I didn't really want to drive back to Melbourne yet again and Freyja had reported that around 2500 people had registered interest in the event. I stayed at home

Lindsey and I visited the Bridge Street Market on Saturday, which was bustling and fairly busy. We visited a new chocolate shop, on the site of the old Darryl Lea chocolate shop. We went to the Scoop Shop and to the IGA on the way home.

Over the weekend I made a ham stock with a ham hock from the freezer. I used it to make a pea, lentil and ham soup. I cooked up a load of vegetables and then blended them into a sauce. I bought some blackberries at the market and have been eating them with some Greek style yoghurt. I will probably stew the rest of them so they last a bit longer.

Whiskey and I watched some dinosaurs on TV, in lieu of me going to the dinosaur fair.

Brandy, not as interested in dinosaurs.
He pushed the back cushion down on the couch
and made himself comfortable and cosy

I didn't do much in the garden, although I have bought some seedlings for the back garden beds. It's turned quite cold and going outside wasn't very enticing. I do need to crack on with it, though. Not only do I need to get it ready to have brochure photos taken, I also need to get on and do the usual autumn jobs. And plant the seedlings. It's supposed to be warmer next weekend, but I can do small stints outside between now and then.

The cucumber plants don't seem to have noticed the downturn in the temperature. I have got cucumbers galore. I'm not sure how I'm going to eat them all!

Our clocks went back to standard time on Sunday morning. Winter is a-coming in

Sunday morning sunrise

Garage

Freyja and Simon came to my place on Saturday.

I had acquired a skip in readiness.

And we tackled the garage. 

Simon armed himself with one of my FOUR hammers (Why do I have four hammers? Why did Jim have four hammers? I may need to have a hammer cull!). Freyja armed herself with gardening gloves. I armed myself with a broom. And Freyja and I moved out and then Simon smashed up everything that was going in the skip.  We swept the garage floor. Freyja arranged the furniture that was staying. We annoyed a large number of daddy longlegs spiders. We did not see many other (proper?) spiders.

And then the skip looked like this:

And the garage looked like this:

And the car fits in:

There was room in the skip for more stuff. Which was just as well. It was very windy on Sunday morning and the fence panel by the mail boxes at the front of the drive blew down. I heard a loud noise outside from the kitchen and went to investigate. Freyja and Simon had just come back from Buninyong and were looking at it as I came out the front door. We have put the panels and the top bit in the skip.

There is still room so I am planning to start moving garden junk this afternoon.

We had lunch in the Thai cafe in Mount Clear on Saturday, before tackling the garage. We had baked cauliflower with butter beans for dinner. And on Sunday Pat joined us for lunch and we feasted on a lentil taco stew that I made and a chilli con tofu that Freyja and Simon made. We had roast potatoes, corn chips and salady things with them. It was all very delicious.

Authentic Thai food

A nod towards Mexican food

I have been thinking about how to organise the selling of this place and moving into a new place, if I am not intending to buy until I have the money for this place in my bank account. I had been giving serious thought to renting a place in Docklands or somewhere nearby for six months, starting soon.  Or maybe taking a "long" rent in an AirBnB, which might be more practical and would definitely be more flexible. THEN I thought - if I put this place on the market in May, let's say it takes until at least July or August to sell, then lets say the buyer wants a 90 day settlement - if all that happens, I might not start looking seriously until November or December or even into 2026. It might be a bit hasty to run off and rent somewhere now, especially since I would have to find something to buy and then arrange a 60 or 90 day settlement myself.

I think I might wait to rent somewhere until I have a firm offer on Tani.

This is not a reason to stall, delay or pause the Getting Ready to Move project, although I might not pack quite all my worldly possessions just yet

Meeting the Elephants

One of the advantages of being a zoo member is that you get invited to things.

I didn't pay much attention to the invitation to meet the elephants in their new home. It was at 8:30 in Werribee, Monday to Friday for two weeks. It was tempting, but the 8:30 start seemed a bit of a stretch for a non-working morning.

Then Freyja and Simon said that they were going on Thursday and did I want to join them.

So I did.

For mysterious reasons, my sat nav decided that when I said I wanted to go to the Werribee Zoo, I meant that I wanted to go to the Werribee Station. I got to the station at 8:20, which was when I was aiming to be at the zoo. As it happens, the station isn't all that far from the zoo. I got there at exactly 8:30 and just managed to join the group that Freyja and Simon were with.

It was a keeper-led tour of the new elephant home and the human walking trails, before the zoo opens to the public,  and it was well worth the early start. The elephant home is beautiful and very spacious, and the elephants seemed very happy - although that might have been because it was breakfast time, which was clearly very exciting!

Coffee and snacks for humans

Then we went on the safari bus tour and watched more animals having breakfast, or morning tea, or brunch, depending on which animals we were looking at. Some of the animals were only just getting up as we went past. Others had clearly been up for some time and were happily snacking

Brunch/Lunch time for Freyja, Simon and me and then we went to visit the hippos before heading home

Hippo playing with a fountain

While I was playing with elephants, rhinos and hippos, a new skip was delivered to my place. I must get on and start filling it up. Although Freyja and Simon are coming later this morning and I should perhaps make up their bed before they get here!

Morning view as I left home at
6:45 on Thursday morning

Autumn

We have had some lovely, properly autumnal weather recently. Cold-ish in the mornings, warming to low to mid 20s in the afternoons. Cloudy and misty in the mornings, sunny in the afternoons.

But not a lot of rain.

I have started the early autumn garden tasks. I've pulled the runner bean plants on the porch side of the veg beds. I had eaten all the beans and there were no more flowers. I've left the ones on the other side. The plants in there still have beans and flowers. I've eaten almost all the corn. I have done really well for ripe tomatoes this year and am starting to bring in the (plentiful) green tomatoes to ripen inside. The cucumber and zucchini plants are still producing, so I'll leave them for a while. I am going to plant pea and broad bean seeds in the beds when they're empty.

I'm pottering around in the backyard, slowly, slowly tidying it up. I've started tackling the leaves along the back walkway and I finally got around to cutting the grass in the side garden. I'm not sure why I'm so reluctant to get out and tidy the garden up. It's not really hard work and once I get started it doesn't take long. I just seem to completely lack any motivation. It's not even that I don't like tidying the garden. I do. I just don't want to get started!

I have had to buy a new vacuum cleaner. The previous one, which I hadn't had all that long, simply stopped sucking. This seems to defeat the purpose of being a vacuum cleaner. I couldn't fix it so cut my losses and bought a new one. But this time, instead of buying another stick vacuum, I bought a barrel one. And it is MUCH better. It also has a fitting that scrapes the carpet and pulls up all the cat hair. I already had a manual carpet scraper, which I use once or twice a month -  but it is very convenient having one that attaches to the vacuum cleaner.

I took some boxes of donations to the Buninyong Lions' Op Shop on Saturday morning. They were very busy, which might have had something to do with the half price tables outside and the sunny weather.

I have more boxes ready to go. I also have boxes of bottles and jars to go to the bottle bank. (There is no kerbside bottle collection in Ballarat!) And I have ordered another skip to come on Thursday. Although - I ordered it online and I am not confident in his technological prowess. I might go retro and give him a call and check that he got the form. This time the skip is largely for the garden. I have lots of wooden boxes that are starting to fall apart that we used for vegetables when we first moved in.  I don't use them any more and they need emptying of soil and breaking down. 

Sunday pickings to go with dinner

Sunday sunset

Skip

This came last Thursday

Since then I have been emptying out the garage of all the junk, the electrical and electronic rejected things, the rubbish and stuff that has accumulated in there. Lindsey came down on Sunday and helped me manoeuvre a mattress out and prop it up against the skip. She also helped me move a bookcase into the guest bedroom wardrobe.

Now the skip looks like this:

And the garage looks like this:

The back walkway by the laundry door has had loads of Colorbond garden bed edgings moved out the way - cautiously because there were lots of what easily might have been redback spider webs around them. I only saw one spider, which didn't seem to be a redback. Now the back walkway looks like this, waiting for me to sweep up all the leaves and for the arrival of another skip for more rubbish removal

A lot of what I have isn't necessarily junk. But if I am planning to move from a house with three bedrooms, a lounge room, a kitchen/dining room, a bathroom and a laundry, with garden,  to an apartment with one bedroom, one small lounge/kitchen/diner and a bathroom, no garden, realistically I need to get rid of most of my stuff. 

As I wander around the house and garden I ask things these questions:

• Are you coming with me? 
• Yes. 
• Do I need you between now and then?
• Yes. Stay where you are
• No. You get packed in a box, as boxes come to hand
• No
• Do I need you between now and then?
• Yes. Stay where you are
• No
• Can I take you to an opportunity (charity) shop?
• Yes. Into a box you go, or into a corner of the garage while I work out how to get you there
• No. Into the skip you go
• No. Stay where you are until I work out how to get rid of you
• I don't know 
• For some things, like the bookcase, now in the wardrobe, or the desk in the middle of the garage, it depends if there is room in the new place. Obviously, I won't know that until I get the new place. 
• For other things, I just don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Until I decide, just stay where you are.

There will be at least one more skip before I put the place on the market, and almost certainly one when I finally move out.

I put a YouTube Cat TV channel on the TV yesterday afternoon

Brandy and Whiskey showed absolutely no interest at all. None. Not a bit 😂

They watched it for ages, before eventually
deciding it was time for a nap

(For the avoidance of doubt - the cats will be coming with me!)

Labour Day long weekend

The rest of the week proceeded without further alarms.

Tabitha sent me this :

It's a hand towel with a sketch of Bishops' House, a medieval building in Sheffield which is now maintained as a museum. Jim and I used to volunteer there when we lived in Tupton.

The My Car in Reservoir fixed my car headlight so I can now drive at night again. I would have done it. myself, except the bulb fixtures are very hard to get to in the Honda Jazz and I couldn't reach them to twist them properly.

It's a long weekend in Victoria, and the Begonia Festival in Ballarat. The traffic heading home on Friday was ridiculous. It took me an hour longer than usual to get home. I gave serious consideration to renting a place in docklands and moving immediately. At least if the traffic is awful while you are on a tram, it's not really your problem and you can read a book or gaze idly out the window while somebody else watches the traffic. I might not move immediately, but it did give impetus to carrying on with getting the house ready to sell.

Lindsey and I went to the market by the lake, on Saturday morning, which was combined with the Begonia Festival market. I didn't buy a lot but I did buy some very pretty, mixed mushrooms, along with eggs and some flowers. I also bought a can of Red Duck beer for a libation for Jim, when we scatter him at Hill House. He liked Red Duck beer. This one is a "Ruddy Brown Ale" and his surname was Ruddle. It seemed appropriate. 

We came home via Stockland Shopping Centre, Wilson's and the IGA.

Such pretty mushrooms
I had the pink oyster mushroom last night
It was delicious

Jim's beer

On Sunday, I headed to Geelong for lunch at Irene's place, together with Gillie, Chris and John (and Flora). It was quite hot, to say that it's March. I think it is supposed to be in the 30s pretty much all week. We had a lovely, retro avocado mousse with prawns to start, a chicken casserole with couscous, beans and salad, and a cheese platter to finish. All very delicious. It was a lovely afternoon. I came back via the bay, so I could say I had seen the sea. I had, of course, forgotten that it was the middle day of a long weekend, and that there are festivals and events right around the coast, the central highlands and everywhere else. Lots and lots of people all over the place. Certainly nowhere to park around the beach. Not that I wanted to park, which was just as well! And there was rather more traffic than you usually get on a Sunday afternoon between Geelong and Ballarat.

It rained on Sunday evening. The air was fresh and cool. The cats and I sat on the front porch for half an hour and watched the rain, which didn't reach us, under shelter. But it did water the garden a bit.

Yesterday was the public holiday and the culmination of the various festivals happening around the state. Lots of parades, a big one in Melbourne, a smaller one at the lake in Ballarat. I did not go to any parades. I carried on with a little gentle clearing and tidying of the house and garden and in the afternoon went out with Lindsey. I have had a good go at de-fluffing the lounge room carpet, which is looking good. I need to shift the furniture and do under that as well. I will steam clean the. carpets, but not until I am ready to put the place on the market. I need to go to the post office and to the bottle bank today. If it doesn't get too hot, I might sort out the patio. I won't power wash it, but I might ordinarily wash it. Maybe :D

And I must order a skip for the weekend.

Mount Buninyong

I went back to work on Wednesday. I couldn't leave at my usual time because I discovered that one of my headlights wasn't working, so I waited until it was light enough for me to use my sidelights.

All was going well at work - until I had an alert from the Vic Emergency app to say that there was a (small) bushfire on Mount Buninyong.  

Lindsey, Freyja, and Emily in Vancouver also got the alert.

Then the alert was changed to a Watch and Act, for Buninyong and Scotsburn.

Freyja told me that Ross had closed the bookshop, but that the cafes in Buninyong were carrying on.

The fire was on the south side of Mount Buninyong, so probably wasn't, under the prevailing conditions, a threat to Mount Helen.

Lindsey and I, who were together in Reservoir, kept our ears tuned to the app alerts.

It was a lot more disconcerting when the app alerted us to a bushfire in Mount Clear, near the Woowookarung forest. If it would take a mighty effort for the Mount Buninyong fire to get to us, a fire in Mount Clear could just stroll up along the trees and grassland by the side of the main road. Fortunately, it was quite a small fire, but that can change very quickly.

I decided to come home, just in case. I could, if necessary, rescue the cats and grab important documents from both my place and Hill House.

Mount Buninyong looked like the active volcano it once was, as I drove along Yankee Flat Road. Billows of smoke erupting from one side.

The Mount Clear fire was under control by the time I got to Mount Helen. Buninyong was not, but still wasn't considered a threat to Mount Helen. All was calm at my place, although it was quite smokey.

And all remains calm.  Mount Buninyong isn't yet properly out but the mount isn't smoking like a volcano about to erupt. As far as I am aware, Mount Clear is extinguished.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting fire alerts on Wednesday. The weather wasn't doing anything exceptional. It was rather a nice day, all things considered.

Brandy and Whiskey were entirely unfazed by the fire alerts

Werribee Open Range Zoo

At Stella and Tony's wake on Sunday, Freyja. and Simon said that they were planning a visit to the Werribee Zoo on Tuesday and did I want to join them.

Definitely, I wanted to join them. I am back at work this week, but I only go into the clinic on Wednesdays and Fridays and spread my remaining hours over the rest of the week at home. I could arrange to be free on Tuesday.

And it was a beautiful day. Sunny. Pleasantly, but not too hot. Light breeze. I drove along back roads to Werribee, mostly because that's the way the SatNav took me.

It's a lovely zoo.  We had gone because the elephants have moved there from the Melbourne Zoo, although they are not yet receiving visitors. They are settling in and getting to know their new home. Didn't matter. There lots of other animals to visit, paths to explore, trails to wander, and a safari bus to ride.

There are hippos in here, if you look carefully 

It's not only about the animals:

But there are, of course, animals:

We will go again, when the elephants and their new home are open to visitors.

I bought an annual membership for the zoos. I haven't done so before because it's quite expensive. The advantage to only having to think about me is that I only needed to buy one annual membership. Of course, it will still be VERY expensive if I only go once, but I expect I'll go more often if I can just drop in whenever. Freyja rang me from the Melbourne Zoo the other day. She had been going past and dropped in for an hour or so Just Because. (She and Simon have annual memberships). And I get a discount because I am old and have a Seniors' card.

On another matter, my vegetable garden this year is small but has been quite productive. This was my dinner selection the other evening:

Not a bad late summer dinner,
accompanied by a small
piece of steak