Bits and Pieces

Jim and I went to a party on Sunday. An actual, real party! In Melbourne. Well, in an eastern suburb of Melbourne. It was all very exciting.

We haven't been to Melbourne for almost two years. We drive past it and even through it, but haven't stopped. We still haven't been into inner Melbourne but a suburb was almost as good.

It was the RMG work party, held at one of the doctors' house. The weather was good enough for us to be outside in the courtyard. There were loads of sandwiches, party pies, chicken wings, munchie things. Jim sat in a chair outside with wine and food and had a better time than I thought he might.  In fact, he knew many of the people who were there. In reality he only remembered Lindsey and me. No worries. I just introduced him to people, who did know him and they told him who they were and how he had met them before.

I didn't have wine. I was driving home. 

One of the nurses took a Lebanese chicken dish and a platter of Lebanese pastries. I took a plate of Christmas star biscuits. 

We all had a good time

 

On Monday a new carer came to meet Jim and me. I decided we needed someone to come on Wednesdays for a couple of hours around lunchtime to keep Jim company and to sort out his lunch. I leave lunch for him but he can't operate the microwave any more so I can't leave food that needs to be heated. And he gets a bit bored when left all on his own for 12 hours or so. She seemed to like us and we liked her, so we organised a carer's agreement.  Jim will be entitled to a My Aged Care package when he gets to the top of the waiting list, so we have to pay for this until his turn comes. But the agency we are using is an approved MAC agency so we should be able to transfer across.

On Tuesday, the Occupational Therapist came to see how we were getting on. She checked the new grab rail by the patio door and went through the My Aged Care paperwork with us. Then she said that she didn't think she needed to come any more and discharged Jim from the council OT service. This was, of course, good, but it was also a bit sad.  We like her.

Tuesday was also my birthday. We were going to have pizza for lunch to celebrate but the Buninyong pizza shop was closed (despite their webpage, Facebook page and Google entry all saying that they would be open!!!) So I went to Mount Clear cafe and bought burgers and chips for a celebration lunch. You might think that that should have been enough to keep us going until breakfast. But no. We were hungry in the evening and had a chicken and asparagus crumble with mash and veg on the side for my birthday dinner.

Birthday Burger with the lot
and chips on the side

I took Wednesday off work, partly for birthday reasons (no point taking Tuesday off; I work from home on Tuesdays and could fit that in around the OT and birthday food) and also because the carer was coming for her first visit. I was at home to let her in and show her around the kitchen. Then I left her and Jim to it and went into town to get new undies for me (mine have all fallen apart due to old age) and hankies for Jim (his all seem to have disappeared. I'm sure they'll turn up eventually but in the meantime he needs more).

I got home just before the carer was due to leave to find that she was feeling a bit guilty because all she had done was chat to Jim, watch TV with him, prepare his lunch and make him a cup of tea.  She didn't want me to think she was being lazy but I hadn't said what else I wanted her to do. In fact, I don't want her to do anything else. I don't need chores or tasks to be done. I just want someone to be with Jim. If there is anything that needs to be done in addition to that, I'll leave a note asking for it but otherwise just to sit and be and make sure he has his lunch and a drink.

Alas, she may not be with us long. They've sold their house much faster than they expected to and will be moving up country in the next couple of months. But we decided that she might as well come until it's no longer convenient for her and I'll readvertise then.

And so to today.

This morning I had my first online Japanese language lesson since September 2018. To be honest, I thought it was in 2019 but I can't find a trace on any lessons beyond 2018. From time to time they have sent offers for three introductory lessons to tempt me back. I haven't taken them up for a number of reasons - and in the past 2 years mostly because it seemed that my opportunity to use the language was remote. It may still be remote, but I am hopeful that the border between Japan and Australia might actually reopen in my lifetime. So when they sent an offer of three lessons for 5 USD I signed up.

I enjoyed the chance to speak (halting) Japanese this morning and have signed up for more lessons beyond  the taster three. I was the only student this morning so it was a  1 on 1 lesson by default. I've booked the remainder two classes this weekend. I need to set an alert - I only remembered this morning's 8:00 class at 07:15 when I was still in my dressing gown and had Things to Do! The 08:00 classes suit me, as long as the district nurse doesn't come early if it is their day. Fortunately today she didn't come until after 10.

And now you find us at Rupert and Hugo's place. The weather today has been cold, wet and windy (to the surprise of my Japanese teacher this morning!) We had 20.5 ml in my rain gauge when I read it at 09:00 and my tomato plants are shivering. I opened the back door this morning for Brandy and Whiskey.  Brandy looked at me as though I had taken leave of my senses.  Whiskey did go out, then turned round and ran back inside post haste.  Even so, he was quite wet and was surprised when I dried him with a towel 😂

Me at a party :D 

Storm - in a Teacup

I left work a little early on Wednesday. After a warm and quite humid day in Melbourne, there were storms forecast. The radar showed they were heading towards Melbourne and would likely hit in the next 30 minutes or so.

I am not sure why, but the sat nav took me off the ring road at Dalton Road then took me down to Mahoneys Road. The Edgars Road ramp is closed so there was no alternative but to go to Sydney Road and rejoin the freeway there. This wouldn't matter, except that I think pretty much everyone's sat nav had suggested the same route. There was an enormous queue of people wanting to turn left onto Sydney Road, not helped by the queue jumpers who drove down the middle lane and then pushed their way into the queue at Sydney Road. It took an hour to get from Dalton Road back onto the ring road.

Then, the sat nav took me on an entertaining detour through Caroline Springs before delivering me to the Western Freeway. I have no idea why. It didn't seem to serve any obvious purpose but it was rather fun. Not a route I would usually consider!

There was very little traffic on the freeway. Nothing particularly interesting happened. Until I got to Bacchus Marsh. The excitement was on the other side of the freeway and I was not sure what was going on. There were lots of cars parked in the emergency stopping lane. There were police cars and SES vehicles, but no ambulances or fire engines that I could see. And whatever it was stretched along for a couple of exit/entrances. The traffic was being diverted off at the third exit (from my point of view - it would have been the first Bacchus Marsh exit if you were heading towards Melbourne).

Then I became aware that the car up ahead of me was driving in a strange and bizarre way. It slowed down and started moving around between the outside lane and the emergency stopping lane. I was so focussed on what it was doing that I didn't notice the cattle running up the freeway along the dividing fence until I was pretty much on top of them. It appears that a cattle trailer's door on the Melbourne side of the freeway had come open and the cattle had either fallen out or escaped and were running around at will. Only a couple of them were on the outbound side so, apart from one SES vehicle parked in the middle of the road about 500m beyond the cattle, our side of the road wasn't getting much attention.

It might have been better had the weirdly driven car ahead of me put its hazard lights on. It is probable that then I would have spent less time wondering what on earth it was doing and looked ahead for a hazard. And a bit of notice that there was an emergency vehicle stopped in the middle of the freeway might have been useful. Fortunately, the cattle just kept running up along the dividing fence and weren't tempted to run into the cars. And we all managed to avoid the SES vehicle.

And amongst all that, although there was a storm it wasn't particularly exciting. A bit of heavy rain. Lots of lightning. A bit of thunder. And I'm not at all sure that I gained any time by coming off the ring road at Dalton Road. The traffic seemed to be in good order when I rejoined it at Sydney Road an hour later.

The cattle were surprising, though :-D

We didn't get a storm overnight but we did have some lovely storm clouds in the evening

Had it been July or August, you might have thought they were snow clouds.

Wedding Weekend

I went to a wedding on Saturday morning.

In Ottawa!

My niece Emily had been due to marry her Canadian fiancé in Ottawa in the Canadian summer, 2020. We were going to go. I've never  been to Canada and had been looking at things we could do before or after the wedding. Then covid struck. Jim and I had to make that hasty return from England in the March and the wedding was postponed to the Canadian autumn. 

Then it was cancelled. International borders were closed. And not only was Australia's border closed to incomers, those of us who were in Australia couldn't get out unless you had an exemption permit, which were very hard for ordinary citizens to get hold of.

Eventually, a few weeks ago, Emily managed to get an exemption permit which meant she could get a visa that let her into Canada and off she went.

The wedding finally took place, in Ottawa, on Friday afternoon, Ottawa time. 9:00 Saturday morning, Mount Helen time. We were all invited.

Ian brought Stella up to Mount Helen on Friday and she was ready, all dressed up in wedding clothes, with Lindsey and Ian at Hill House. I was dressed and ready to go at Tani. Tabitha and Gareth were there in Sheffield, Austin in Gifu, Freyja and Simon in Westgarth. I think pretty much the whole Australian family was there, plus many of the overseas bits of family, plus the groom's  family in the Caribbean. There were 30 or 40 people actually at the venue and just under 90 logins from around the world so perhaps 150 - 200  virtual people.

Grandmother and parents of the bride, ready and waiting

Me, wearing my best summer jumper, ready  and waiting
It was not a summer temperature!

It was a lovely wedding. Lots of fun. The venue was beautiful. But cold. If I was a bit chilly in my summer jumper in Mount Helen I imagine that Emily was positively frozen in Ottawa where there was snow falling!

Have a few screen shots. They are a bit fuzzy but you get the idea:

As I said, it was a lovely wedding.  Really happy. And it is a perfect way to attend a wedding. You don't have to get properly dressed if you don't feel like it, although I did. You don't have to leave home. You can have champagne if you are minded and no need to drive afterwards (I had a cup of tea; 9:00 in the morning is a bit early for champagne for me!) No need to hang around in the falling snow while interminable numbers of photos are taken. The virtual guests were all projected onto a large screen so the bride and groom could see their world wide attendees.  Perfect.

Ian had organised a High Tea from the Westin to be delivered on Friday, ready for post-wedding celebrations. Very generously, he had bought servings for Jim and me to have at Tani.

Post wedding celebrations:

At Tani

and at Hill House

Jim stayed in bed for the wedding ceremony but got up with enthusiasm when I set out the High Tea for brunch. The lure of tiny sandwiches and cakes is very strong!

We continued the celebrations on Sunday with lunch at the Swiss Mountain Hotel in Blampied on the way to Daylesford. They have only recently reopened after the recent lockdowns and density restrictions and people have returned in droves. It was a lovely day on Sunday and the restaurant was very busy. Nice to see people venturing out again and returning to the pubs, cafes and restaurants - but it was a bit noisy and there was quite a wait for our food.  Worth the wait, though. The food was lovely.

Ian and Jim were also with us

The Weather Dogs seem to have heeded my request for some nice springlike weather. It was beautiful yesterday and is shaping up to be a nice day again today.

Sunday morning sunshine:

Stella is going home again today. We've got the district nurse coming to give Jim his Monday morning shower, then someone is coming mid-afternoon to put a new grab rail by the door onto the back patio. Life goes back to normal after the excitements of the weekend

Dear Weather Dogs

Please may I draw your attention to the calendar?  It's oh-so nearly December. Oh-so nearly the start of summer.

I am neither expecting nor wanting Very Hot Weather, but a small spot of warm-ish weather wouldn't go astray. The morning shouldn't look like this

It shouldn't be necessary to have the heater on, or to have to buy wood for the fire.

I wasn't expecting to be wearing proper winter clothes. Maybe not summer clothes, but definitely not a thick jumper.

If you wouldn't mind bringing a smidgeon of warm, sunny weather, I would be very much obliged. Not boiling hot, you understand. Just pleasantly warm.

Many thanks.

Love and kisses ...

Sunday Roast Potato Party

Freyja and Simon were once again in Ballarat over the weekend. Freyja asked if we had any Sunday Lunch plans. We didn't, so I suggested they come around and we could have Sunday Roast Potatoes.

Freyja and I both like roast potatoes a lot, so it seemed like a good plan.

I contacted Lindsey and Ian and asked if they fancied joining us for a Sunday Roast Potato Party. They did indeed fancy it.

And it was genius. I can't imagine why I have never thought about it before. If you invite people around for a Roast Potato Party, pretty much the only thing you are obliged to provide is a large platter filled with roast potatoes. Nothing else has been offered, so nothing else has to be on the table!! All I had to do was to peel a mountain of potatoes (the potatoes I had to hand needed to be peeled, or I might not have bothered with that step), cut them into sensibly sized pieces, put them in a large roasting tray with some oil and put that in the oven - and let them get on with it.

I did, of course, provide other things, so the roast potatoes could bask in their potatoey magnificence. I made a platter of green vegetables in a "cheezy" sauce made with oat milk, corn flour and nutritional yeast. We had spiralised zucchini and carrots, which I found ready spiralised in the IGA, in a tomato sauce. I would have added olives but some amongst us are not fans, so I served the olives in a separate small dish. 

I had some vegan Christmas munchy treats that I had found in Coles; I served them too as a taste test for Christmas.  Very tasty. I'll try and get more for Christmas feasting.

We had summer fruit with chocolate sauce after - mango, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, since you ask. 

But mostly we had roast potatoes.

It was great!

Mystery

The other morning I looked out the front window and found my pretty little pink flowered bush squashed flat.

It had not been flat at the previous day's end. I have no idea what had sat on it to squash it so. I pulled off the broken bits and left it, to see what it would do. It has started to pull itself up again and yesterday I propped it back up.  I think it will be ok.

In the small back garden bed in the front yard I have growing three hollyhocks, one lupin and lots of long grass. I intend to put the spare wooden raised box along there when the hollyhocks have flowered. I was measuring that bit of garden bed to see if the box would fit, when I realised that the lupin was gone!

It was quite a large plant. It didn't seem likely that snails had carried it off, rampant though our snails might be. It seemed unlikely that a human had come and taken it. If a human was tempted by the plants in the garden, there are more attractive ones than a lupin partly buried in long grass. Also, there wasn't a hole where it had been.  It had simply disappeared.

Oh well. I'm not going to lose any sleep over a lupin, much as I like them. I decided to dig up some of the long grass, since I was there and so too was the garden fork. As I dug a few bits of grass out, I found the lupin root. It had come out with a large clump of grass. The plant had been apparently bitten off right down to ground level. And eaten, I assume.

The only thing I can think of that would likely have been in the garden and would squash a small bush and eat a lupin plant would be a possum. We don't often get possums in the garden, that we are aware of, but I can't think of anything else it could be.  Not bird behaviour, nor cat or dog. Echidna, possibly - although, do echidnas eat lupins? And I wouldn't have thought echidnas would find the locale to be delightful. And why eat the lupin and not the delicious, juicy hollyhock plants?

A mystery. I have no idea. Fortunately, whatever it was doesn't seem to have its eye on my baby zucchini, melon, cucumber, sweet corn and potato plants, Nor has it got into the backyard, where a veritable smorgasbord of herbs and plants awaits a hungry visitor. Something has been munching on the carrots' leaves but I suspect one of the many bird visitors and have take steps to deter them. And there will be big, big trouble if any mysterious creature eats my asparagus plants!

Light in the kitchen

Some while ago, Lindsey said that she had been talking to the Handyman at work and he had said that he had recently bought some solar skylights and was very pleased with them.

I had never heard of solar skylights!

I did a bit of investigating and, the next time I encountered the Handyman, I quizzed him carefully about them. Then I went to Bunnings and had a look at the various options. Then I thought about it for a while.

A fortnight or so ago I bought one, as an experiment, for the kitchen. I am aware that, no matter how sunny it is outside, if I am at home I always have the electric lights on in the kitchen. This seems quite wasteful if there is an alternative.

On Thursday an electrician came and installed it. He was here for less than half an hour. And I am very pleased with it. I rather wish I had bought a bigger one, but this certainly makes a difference. So much so that it makes the lounge and dining rooms look rather dim.

I intended to buy a couple for the hallway, which gets no natural light, if I was pleased with the experimental one in the kitchen. I am now also going to get one each for the dining and lounge rooms. The electrician says he will do a discount for bulk installations so I think I might buy one a month or so and call him back when I've bought all four.

Jim is a bit confused by the new light being called a "skylight". He spent quite some time looking up at it and then complained that it hadn't been properly installed because he couldn't see up through it. It is true that it is not a proper skylight. There is a small solar panel on the roof and then a cable running through the roof space to the transformer inside the light fitting. I have started calling it a solar light, which makes much more sense to him. 

You can get them with a battery for use in the evening as well as the daytime, plus there are some which can also be connected to the electricity supply. I decided that for now that was all a bit complicated. I'll look into alternatives down the track, when this one and its forthcoming companions need replacing

Winter Fights Back

The weather over the past few days has been less than clement.

It was horrible on Friday. It was cold and it rained pretty much all day. I knew that Jim and I were going up to play with Rupert and Hugo on Friday and on Thursday had bought them a bone each.  A proper bone, not a dried bone. Rupert and Hugo are not allowed to have proper bones in the house but it really wasn't a day to insist they go outside. So I set them up on the squishy, old couches in the dining room and made them sit on them to have their bones.  It seemed unwise to let them chew marrow bones on the brand new leather couches in the lounge room!

They were happy with this arrangement.

Much later, Rupert asked to go outside.  Hugo decided he would go outside too. Now, what normally happens when Hugo asks to go outside and the weather is horrible is that you open the door, Hugo starts to go out, stops abruptly, sniffs the air, looks at the rain, turns round and gives you a filthy look and comes straight back inside. Rupert just goes out, does his business and comes back in and goes somewhere warm to dry off.

On this occasion, Hugo shot outside and over to  his bath by the fence, followed in a more leisurely fashion by Rupert. I was a bit surprised. He came back to the conifer tree, again followed by Rupert. What has he picked up, I wondered. It seemed unlikely that Hugo would dash out into the rain to pick up a soggy soft toy. Rupert, maybe. Hugo, no. I went to investigate.

What he had picked up was a baby rabbit. A live baby rabbit. "Drop it, Hugo," I said.  He did not. I said it again, more urgently - and much to my surprise, drop it he did. He regretted this immediately and tried to grab it again but it ran away and went under the fence out into the paddock. The rabbit explained why Hugo had dashed out into the freezing rain. He went back in again as soon as he decided the rabbit had really gone!

The rain cleared a bit on Saturday morning so Lindsey and I went out to Avalon to get some trees and other things. It wasn't dry, you understand, just not as wet. The rain came back in the afternoon.  It was wet and very cold yesterday. Anyone would think it was August rather than mid-November and, strictly speaking, towards the end of spring. I have had the fire lit all weekend. I still worry about the cats getting too close to the wood burner (although I never worried about Marlo getting too close to the one we had in Tupton - strange!). So Jim and I went into town to see if we could buy a fire guard. 

I went to Barbecues Galore, where I had bought the wood burner. They didn't have any in stock. "It's the wrong time off year", said the sales bloke. "People are more likely to be buying barbecues than fireplaces and their accessories."  We both looked out the window at the wind and the icy, icy rain - and laughed! I don't think the temperature got into double figures yesterday and they were forecasting snow down to 1000m.

Jim and I came back home and I went to buy a fire guard online through the Barbecues Galore website.  They had exactly what I wanted for $99. I would have bought it, but the postage fee was $125.  $125 just for postage! Extortionate! I bought something similar through eBay for $75 and $10 postage. Much more reasonable.

It's still raining. It's still cold. I think it's supposed to stay this way for several days. I've almost run out of firewood and I don't really want to buy another lot just yet. I wasn't expecting still to be using the fire by now.  I was expecting to be considering whether my little Dyson space age heater/cooler would cope with a hot summer or whether I should invest in a reverse cycle air conditioner. The last two summers have been very mild in Ballarat. I think we are probably due a hot one this year.

Sunday Lunch

There are tales that are told from the Before Times of folk gathering in groups at tables in each others' dwellings. In these tales people gathered to eat food, drink wine and engage in conversation and merriment. There is a mythic quality to some of these tales, although the tales portray the gatherings as nothing out of the ordinary.

It is a long time since Tani has hosted any such gatherings.

I know we saw Freyja and Simon at Stella's place last Sunday but it was rather nice to see them again yesterday at our place for the first Sunday Lunch with guests in months. I had intended to make a big salad platter with summery additions, like tempura vegetables, crumbed zucchini, picnic style foods.  The weather, however, was chilly and damp and cloudy so we had the salad with ravioli and a tomato and spinach sauce on the side.

We had a bottle of the (alcoholic!) Hero of Zero and a bottle of (non-alcoholic) Giessen sauvignon blanc and soft drinks.

We had conversation and merriment.

It was just like the Before Times!

The shops have all opened again in Victoria and most covid restrictions have been lifted. When I was at work on Wednesday I called into the Everything Shop by the surgery and bought a new cat climbing stand that I had my eye on throughout the Melbourne lockdown. As you might expect, my cats were a bit suspicious of it when it first arrived but Brandy, especially, has started playing with it. It's a bit wobbly at the top. I need to work out how to stabilise it a bit.

    

    

        

Post Lockdown Sunday Lunch

It was a lovely day yesterday. Then sun shone. It was pleasantly warm. We were in Mount Martha. And Freyja and Simon came for a late lunch, after Freyja finished work.

The view from Stella's house, first thing in the morning:

She lives in a leafy retirement village, a stone's throw from the bay. She is fortunate in that she has lovely neighbours who look out for her.

Jim and Stella had their usual kippers for breakfast and then passed a quiet Sunday morning while we waited for Freyja and Simon to come on their first proper trip out since the very beginning of August.

Waiting for visitors:

They're here!

Lunch time!

We had cheesy pasta for lunch. I had a vegan cheezy pasta mix that I got at The Source for Freyja, and I made a cheese sauce with parpadelle for the rest of us. I also made a large salad with leafy greens, tomato, cucumber, snow peas and mango. I divided it into two bowls and put bacon on top of one, which Jim would eat, and avocado on top of the other which Freyja and Simon would eat. Stella and I would eat both of them!

Freyja finally got her birthday present!

It was a good day.