An early start to the day

Up at Hill House there is a little suite off the kitchen which houses two bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet and a door leading to the backyard.

Our bedroom is one of the two rooms in that suite.

There is a door between the kitchen and the small corridor but we almost never shut it.  Instead, we close a child gate to keep the dogs out overnight.  We never close our bedroom door.

This is what happens when you forget to close the gate when you go to bed and then get up at 4:30 to go to the loo

It wasn't daylight yet.  I had put a light on when I got up

It didn't seem worth the effort trying to get them to move.  I usually get up sometime between 5 and 5:30 anyway.  So an early start to the day for me.

Sunday Lunch -- OUT!

It's been months since Jim and I have been properly out for a meal.

Stella has had takeaway sandwiches from her local cafe and eaten them sat in a car with a carer or family member in the car park by her local beach.  But she hasn't properly been out for a sit down meal.

For a long time we couldn't.  The pubs and restaurant and cafes were closed for dining in.

But now they are open, to a limited extent.  They can have up to 20 people in each "space" provided that people are seated at a table and that the appropriate physical distancing is observed.

The Dava in Mount Martha has re-opened and is allowed to have up to 40 people, in two spaces.  Matthew tried to book last weekend but missed out.  I heard about this and booked a table last Tuesday.  And on Sunday, Stella, Jim and I turned up for our first proper Sunday lunch out since March.

They had Welcome signs up on the walls, plus the required Physical Distancing posters. They had hand sanitiser bottles dotted around and instead of salt and pepper shakers there were sachets in little bowls.  They had far fewer staff - but also far fewer patrons.  There were 17 people in the bistro.  I don't know how many there were in the cafe but they also had the bar in play, which doesn't usually serve meals.  Mind you, at this stage you can't buy alcohol unless you are having a sit down meal, so they might as well use it for meals.  The casino and the deck upstairs were closed.

They also have a reduced menu.  This was no bad thing.  You don't really need a menu the size of a book.  A few things done well is more than satisfactory.

We had a lovely time and a lovely meal.  It was good to be able to dine out again

I have never really noticed the carpet at the Dava before.  And if I had, I wouldn't have thought anything much about it.  But I noticed immediately we walked in on Sunday that they have hundreds of Corona viruses scattered all over their floor.  I have to admit that, until the new corona virus emerged in December or January, I had never heard of them. Or I didn't remember having heard about them. I don't usually pay much attention to viruses.  I didn't even know that they aren't properly alive.  But when they started showing images of various corona viruses I thought that they were quite pretty. Not that I wish to make the acquaintance of them up close, you understand. But the images are quite pretty.  And so is the carpet at the Dava.  In an ironic sort of a way

The Backyard

This is what our backyard looked like on Saturday morning

On Saturday afternoon we went to Bunnings with Lindsey. While we were there I bought a hexagonal small raised garden bed, thinking that we could put one of the lemon trees in it.  When we got home I assembled it (no screws, just slotting things into place; took 5 or 6 minutes) and put in the lemon tree, still in its plant pot.

Cool, thought I.  We need another one for the other lemon tree.  And perhaps another couple to grow vegetables and herbs in.

On Sunday, Jim and I went back to Bunnings and bought more hexagonal beds and some square ones.

Now our backyard looks like this

I need another couple of hexagonal ones or something similar for the now dispossessed lemon trees.

I did consider shaping the hexagonal boxes in the shape of a Coronavirus, and getting some narrow ones to form the spikes. But I think it would have taken up too much room.  And perhaps wouldn't have amused anyone but me :-D  

I also wonder what it is about us that makes us buy blocks of land with really weirdly shaped boundaries.  The land in Tupton had all sort of angles forming the boundary.  And so does this place, although not quite so many.  What ever happened to rectangular blocks of land formed with right angles???

You may think it reckless of us to start landscaping the garden when it isn't yet ours. But the  raised beds aren't permanent fixtures and can be dismantled and moved as required.  We have not planted the lemon trees. And today we went to the bank and signed the Home Loan papers. 

Contracts have been signed. Finance is in place. Settlement is set for July 21st.  Short of some sort of disaster, the place will be ours in around 40 days.  And if there is a disaster of such magnitude that it falls through now, the raised garden beds will be the least of our worries. 

It is an indication of the differing complexities of buying and selling property in England and Australia that, when I told people about this, the Aussies all said: "How exciting! Congratulations" and the Brits said: "How exciting! I hope it all goes well"

Advice

I have a piece of advice for you.

It is a bad, bad plan if you have had several sleepless nights in a row to put little containers of apricot and custard crumble in the oven and then to sit down on your cosy, cosy couch next to your cosy, cosy heater with your cosy, cosy cushion, ready to watch Masterchef.  A very bad plan.

Because what will happen is that, instead of enjoying small servings of apricot and custard crumble during the second half of Masterchef, you will drift off to sleep, miss pretty much all of Masterchef and awaken a couple of hours later to find your crumbles have transformed into something so solid that you could practically use them as bricks - if only you could work out how to get them out of the containers!!

Apart from that, we have had a largely uneventful few days. Lindsey and I did the usual round of mushroom farm and Elaine farm shop on Saturday. I accompanied her to the supermarket and actually went into Woolworths, which was quite exciting. The weather has been cold and miserable so not much has happened outside. We have garlic to plant both at the Hill House allotment and in one of my boxes but neither Jim nor I is motivated to go out into drizzle, mizzle, mist or fog to plant them.  We'll do it the very next time we have a dry day.

The buying of the house seems to be trundling along OK.  I have closed my British credit card and, while I was at it, the bank account associated with it.  I haven't used that account much since we left the UK, not even when we were in England in March. Seemed silly to keep it, especially as we have a joint account with a different British bank which we do use.  We have signed the pieces of paper the conveyancing solicitor sent to us and sent them back. As it stands at the moment, the place should be ours on July 21st.  Fingers crossed!

We have also arranged to update our wills.  We do have wills, of course, but they're in the UK.  I figured that if we were buying a house in Australia, we should probably have wills in Australia.

It's funny how things work out, though.  If we had been looking for a house to buy when we first came to look at Tani as a rental, it wouldn't have been Tani that we would have looked at.  We would have been looking at miner's cottages and little Federation houses closer in to Ballarat. Then, when we had rented Tani and got settled in, people asked if we would buy it if we could and we said yes.  We like the location. We like the unit. We like not having to move house again.  So there you go.

And I will be able to put a fly screen door at the front.  The present owner said we could at our expense, as long as it had the same colour frame as the fly screens on the window.  I did want a screen door - but not enough to pay exorbitant amounts of money to have a frame made to order. I won't care if the new screen door matches the window screens. We can get a sensibly priced one from Bunnings.

News

So we went to visit the bank.  Somewhat to my surprise we have had a home loan conditionally approved for more than enough to pay for our unit.  I'm not sure what conditions, apart from the fact that they want me to close my British credit card (gulp - I may have to learn to live credit free :-S )

We have put in an offer on the unit which has been accepted.

We have paid a 10% deposit.  Ordinarily the deposit would not be refundable if we pulled out, but we have made our offer subject to finance being properly approved, rather than conditionally.  If the bank pulls out we can have our deposit back.  If we change our minds ...

My mind does not like dealing with large numbers.  This confounded and infuriated my father to the end of his days.  He could see patterns in numbers that my mind simply doesn't get.  Lindsey is the same.  The patterns in numbers are as clear as crystal to her. It drove my father to distraction when I was a child that I could learn poetry and spelling and songs with complete ease but the multiplication tables were (and remain) a complete mystery to me. I see patterns in words, not numbers.

So it was very anxiety making having to transfer a deposit with multiple zeroes at the end of the numbers.

Fortunately, I got the zeroes right and I got the bank details right and the deposit has gone through.  It would have been a lot of money to send to the wrong person or out into the ether.

The outcome of all this activity is that in a couple of months or so, if all goes well, the unit will be ours.  Well, ours and the bank's.  I will be able to put up a shelf in the laundry. And mess about the back yard. And keep working until I am 195 years old.

In the meantime, CV-19 restrictions have lifted a bit in Victoria. We are allowed to have up to 5 visitors at a time.  So Lindsey and Ian came to Tani for Sunday lunch.  I had been at the mushroom farm on Saturday and the seafood man was there with his seafood truck.  I might have spent a week's food budget on seafood.  So for Sunday's entree we had this:

I made a cream cheese, smoked salmon and prawn mousse and topped it with a seared scallop and lobster pieces and prawn on the side.  Oh, and in a nod to Masterchef, I delicately placed a fennel frond on top.  There was one each.  This isn't actually Masterchef and it seemed a bit miserly to make one small plate to share between four people, even taking into account the price of lobster!

I tried my hand at making the chicken and ham pinwheels I buy from the butcher.  Mine completely lacked the elegance of his, but they tasted good.  I shall try again until eventually I get pinwheels rather than splodges.

Rupert and Hugo are allowed to have visitors too, so Jim and I came up at lunchtime today to play with them, given that they are on their own today.  I was somewhat taken aback to find a massive impediment to progress on the normally fairly quiet road that Hill House sits on.

I have no idea what they were doing but there was only just enough space to get my car past - and Ziggy is only a small car.

From next Monday Jim and I will be allowed to have 18 visitors at our place.  I'm not sure where I will put 18 visitors.  We don't have 18 chairs!

Shopping

So we headed out to Elaine to the Farm Shop and got most of what I wanted.  However, they didn't have any red cabbage. I wanted to make a red cabbage coleslaw, which is a bit difficult if you don't have red cabbage.

So we went to Spring Creek, where they had had red cabbage, and several other colours of cabbage the last time I was there.

They have expanded since I was there a couple of weeks ago.  They had a new shed filled with loads of different kinds of pumpkins and cabbages and cauliflowers.  It was a vegetable heaven!

They had red cabbage :-) I made the red cabbage coleslaw, with beetroot, carrot and apple as well as the cabbage. Was delicious!

We didn't go to Woolies.  I decided that I couldn't be bothered so we went back home and I put in an online order. Online ordering has more or less returned to normal and there were plenty of delivery slots available.  The only issue I have with online ordering is that you get more short dated perishables than you would if you chose things yourself.  I asked for a tray of mixed vegetables for roasting, which I had in mind for Sunday.  Alas, the use by date was yesterday so we had them for Friday dinner instead.  I was a bit miffed because the order was delivered on Thursday. Had I done the selecting myself I'm fairly certain there would have been longer dated trays.  I wouldn't necessarily have worried about the use by date, but some of the vegetables were beginning to look bit sorry for themselves.

This has gone up at the bottom of the driveway:

Uh oh!  Time to go and have a chat with the bank, I think.  We have a reasonable deposit available from when we sold The Sidings in Tupton. Not quite enough to buy anything in Ballarat outright. Enough, though, perhaps to persuade the bank to lend us enough to buy something. I'm beginning to get a bit paranoid.  We rent something and the owner decides to sell us!!

Food Fail

I saw a blog post recently, although I don't remember where, where the writer had made a fish pie inside baked potato shells and topped it with mashed potato  made from the scoopings from the baked potatoes.  A good idea, I thought.

A few days later Jim dug up the last of the potatoes in the Hill House allotment. There were a couple of large spuds amongst the crop so I decided to give the fish pie idea a go.

I couldn't find the blog post and didn't remember who had written it or even when I had seen it. But how hard can it be to bake a couple of potatoes and make a fish pie filling?

I had salmon, hoki and prawns in the freezer. I pretty nearly always have the wherewithal to make a white sauce. So I made a fish pie filling and put the two large spuds in to bake.

I was unsurprised to find that the core of the potatoes had been munched by some creature, and cut out the manky bits and saved the rest.  Alas.  It made very poor mash.  The inside of the potatoes went into the compost bin.

No worries, thought I.  I'll put the fish mixture into the shells and put the lid of the potato on top.

The fish pie mixture was delicious.  Seriously so. Alas (again) the shells were too hard to eat.  So not a fishy fail but a definite potato fail. And I suppose not a washing up fail.  No fish pie dish to clean.  I'll give it another go and see if I can make it a potato win next time!

Otherwise we have been eating quite well. We made a care visit to Stella at the weekend and had chicken pinwheels made by my local butcher.  We've had them before and they are lovely. We partnered them with roast potatoes and pumpkin from the Hill House allotment, and green things, not from the allotment. I am minded to have a go at  making the pinwheels myself.  It doesn't look as though it would be very complicated, although whether I could make them at home for the amount I pay for them at the butcher is another matter.

We have had some beautiful late autumn weather recently. Sunshine, blue skies, light winds.  It was glorious at Mount Martha, and several degrees warmer than it has been at Mount Helen. It's not such a nice morning today. Dark clouds, high winds and a bit on the chilly side.  Still, I suppose it is nearly June so not really surprising.

We might head out to Elaine today. I need a few things, most of which I'll be able to get there. I might even go wild and go to Woolies. I haven't physically been since we got back in the middle of March (although I did have one delivery when we were quarantined and I've been in the Coles by the surgery a couple of times). The farm shops and the IGA in Mount Clear have filled most of my needs.  But there are a few supermarket staples that I am beginning to run short of which I can't get in Mount Clear.

But first I should probably get dressed.

Quiet

It's been a very quiet few days.

We didn't go shopping at the weekend.  We didn't really need anything much and it seemed silly to go shopping just for the sake of it. Anyway, we really need to make some sort of a dint in the things in the freezer and pantry. Then we can get, make and bake more

It's been quite wintry recently.  I don't mean snow, but cold and wet and windy. So not much garden activity.

We have finished the fiendishly difficult jigsaw that Jim was given for Christmas.  He doesn't remember who gave it to him and everyone I have asked has denied responsibility.  It kept us busy for AGES!

It was very large.  It took up a full half of our dining table, which is not a small table

Rupert and Hugo have a new toy.  It's a lion made up mostly of tennis balls

They do love it :-)

The weather dogs have blessed us with some spectacular sunsets

So it's been quiet but hasn't lacked interest or things to do.

I have been thinking about the markets this week.  As you know, the local markets are all closed for the moment.  And the farmers have been finding alternatives so they can keep selling their produce.  I mentioned before that some of the farms are selling from their sheds and farm gates and have been including produce from other market stall holders.  I follow many of these producers in various social media and am beginning to wonder if the markets will ever come back.  Some of the farm gates and sheds have evolved into small markets in their own right. It's lovely to see how they are all working together and with other local small businesses.

Victoria is very slowly starting to open up again.  We can now have up to five guests in our homes, properly distanced, of course and not all the time. But I wonder why five.  It's seems an odd number (well, it *is* an odd number, but I meant it seems a strange number to pick). Why not an even number, like 4 or 6?  Anyway, no matter.  It means that Rupert and Hugo can come for dinner one evening, or for lunch.

Food, Work and Furniture

I actually had to go into work this week!  It felt very brazen to be in the car as the sun was rising, and heading towards Melbourne. (Me, not the sun - the sun was already there!)

I've been working from home since I got back from the UK, maintaining the webpage and the new facebook page, plus doing other admin-y things.  But Wednesdays have always been problematic for staffing reception and it had got to the stage where reception was effectively down to one person.  Lindsey had been keeping me in reserve, Just In Case, but you can't run reception with only one person. So down I went. Actually, it was quite useful to touch base.  It was getting harder to maintain the social media when I didn't actually know what was going on!  I'll be doing Wednesdays for the foreseeable - and hoping that CV-19 stays away from us all.

The restaurants and cafes are closed for in-house dining in Australia. Some of them are simply closed, while others are offering take away food. It is sometimes tempting to order in take away food, but for me the whole point of going out to eat is the Going Out bit. Apart from buying pies from the local bakery and very occasionally bringing home fish and chips, we don't eat much take away food. But every now and then I do fancy a pub meal.  Sometimes, British Pub Grub.  So during the week, I made my own

Giant Yorkshire pudding, mash,
stew and veg. Yum!

Then Tabitha drew my attention to a British news article.  Apparently the Belgians are pleading with people to buy chips (to take away), the beef producers (I think in the UK) are pleading with people to buy the steaks that the restaurants and cafes aren't using because they are closed, and the French are pleading with people to buy more cheese. I am, as ever, happy to oblige (although I had potatoes, steak and cheese in the house already so didn't need to buy more)

Steak, chips, veg
with a mushroom and blue cheese sauce

And finally - furniture.

Last week, the lounge room looked like this:

I bought the chairs when we moved into Tani #1. We needed a lot of things quite quickly so I bought them from Kmart for not very much money. They are really camping or garden chairs, not lounge chairs.  Nevertheless, they did perfectly well. Until recently when I discovered that if I was watching television and Jim was sitting in his chair, every time he moved the chair rustled and squeaked so much that I couldn't hear the TV. I decided we needed some proper lounge furniture.

I had discovered some time ago that IKEA does online sales and deliveries.  I trundled around their website and bought lounge room furniture.  It arrived ready to be assembled (fortunately, it was more of a 25 piece jigsaw puzzle rather than the somewhat complicated 1500 piece actual jigsaw that Jim and I are currently doing). I assembled it and now the lounge room looks like this:

The blankets are separate, for winter cosiness

And now, of course, I find that we "need" another small occasional table, a rug and perhaps a standard lamp or two :-D

May

So here we are, the start of May.

I have heard people saying that, in their worlds, March had dragged along for umpty zillion years while April had vanished in a flash.

In my world the opposite would have been the case.  Mind you, March in my world did include a flight to the UK, a couple of weeks of relatively calm holiday, followed by quite a bit of drama, a rapid retreat back to Oz and quarantine at home. The quarantine had a kind of restful peace about it. and passed quite quickly  April, on the other hand, seemed to last interminably. Not sure why. We could, and did go out from time to time. There was plenty to do.  Each day passed surprisingly quickly.  There just seemed to be an awful lot of them. I wait with interest to see what May has to say for itself.

Jim and I went out to the Spring Creek Vegetable Farm this week.  Primarily I wanted milk and yoghurt and the Inglenook Dairy is stocking their produce in a fridge at the farm gate stall.  I wasn't planning to buy much veg.  And then I saw these

At $5 each they were a definite bargain

Very fortunately, before I headed UK-ward, I picked up a book at the pop up Book Grocer in the shopping complex the surgery is in.  I wouldn't ordinarily have bought such a book but it was only $5 and it seemed like a fun thing to buy.  It might have just come into its own :D

The problem with buying an enormous cabbage is that the outer leaves are slightly too big to fit in my larger stewpot. I parboiled 8 of them in two lots.  Then I made "cannelloni" with them, filling them with a bolognaise that I had in the freezer.  I baked them with passata and grated cheese on top. My grandparents would probably have called it stuffed cabbage leaves - and been puzzled by the Italian style flavourings, and especially by the garlic. I only used 4 of the cabbage leaves.  I might make a "lasagne" with the others, although I have used all the pizza cheese mix.

I have also been doing a lot of slow cooker meals.  Lindsey acquired large quantities of various different cuts of slow cooking beef recently. She has been making stews in her pressure cooker but not making much of a dint in the supplies.  So I brought some down here and have been making Japanese style curries, beef stroganoff, beef bourguignon, beef stew, for my freezer and for the freezers at Hill House.  The weather is playing ball too. The temperatures have plummeted in recent days. The rain, it has rained. The wind has blown with enthusiasm.  Perfect for slow cooked stews and casseroles and buttery mashed potato.

They had bunches of rhubarb and bags of seconds apples at Spring Creek.  $5 each.  $5 seems to be the price de rigueur at the moment.  

Yes, yes.  Of course I bought some. I can feel a Sunday crumble coming on.