A Very Quiet Lockdown Sunday

It has been a lovely day today. The sky was blue, the sun shone, there was no wind. Really lovely. And quite cold! 

There are many things I could and should be doing in the garden but, truth be told, I couldn't be bothered. And it was cold 😜. I do have some "before' photos of the back garden:

Now I just need the "after" photos 😁

I did a little tidying and sorting inside in the morning. We had vegetable soup with crusty bread for lunch. I settled in front of the television in the afternoon and watched the Great British Bake Off 2020 final and a couple of episodes of Strait to the Plate, which is about the food and culture of the peoples of the Torres Strait Islands which lie between the north of the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea. We had a lamb and vegetable casserole with rice for dinner (soft foods for people with no bottom teeth and a badly fitting lower plate).

And that was Sunday. I didn't wash any windows - and I really should; the ones out the front haven't been done since we moved in and are looking quite sorry for themselves. I didn't sort out the front or the back gardens. I didn't properly clean the dining room floor. I didn't do any Japanese or French practice. I did take advantage of the sunshine and change the bedding on our bed and do loads of washing.

But mostly today has been quite a lazy day. It's now just after 7:30 and I'm more than ready for bed. All of this staying at home is exhausting 😂

Lockdown Saturday

Did you hear that bang overnight?  That was the sound of the interstate borders slamming shut, once again sequestering Victorians in their state. I have no interstate plans until December and I am hoping, with fingers firmly crossed, that by then things might be slightly more under control. I suspect that this might be me being a tad optimistic. But perhaps not as optimistic as those who are planning interstate trips in the next few weeks. I suspect that many of those simply won't happen.

Did you hear that soft, almost silent whooshing sound a week or ten days ago? That was the virus silently, stealthily making its way to many locations around the northern suburbs of Melbourne, in the person of a non-symptomatic delivery driver who brought it to the Summerhill shopping centre via the fruit and vegetable shop. You have some sympathy with the delivery driver, who had no idea he was infectious at the time. The breach only came to light last night and it was almost long enough ago to think that Summerhill might have evaded the virus's embrace. I wasn't there that day, but the surgery was oh so close to becoming a Tier One site. A reminder against complacency. If you have symptoms, get tested. Don't assume that you can't possibly have Covid and go out clubbing, thus offering the virus the means to embrace lots of people in more than one crowded, inside location.

Jim and I have stayed at home today. We don't urgently need anything, although my kitchen scales chose today to inform me that its battery was flat. I don't have spare batteries of that type but, even under normal circumstances, it would be slightly extravagant to get the car out just to buy a packet of batteries. Under a lockdown, I decided that I could probably manage without until I needed something else. I will need milk in the next day or so.  The batteries can wait until then.

It has been a very quiet day today. The sun has been out, although it has been a bit chilly. But people seem to be tucked up safely in their homes. There was someone out on the former reserve this afternoon. I don't know what he was doing - it looked as though he was flattening divots with a golf club but that seems a slightly odd thing to do on what will be a building site. Not that anything very much has happened on the building front recently. They put the new bit of road in weeks ago and then went away. Anyway, that person was the only one that I saw all day (apart from Jim, of course). I didn't even hear anyone out on the court. 

Covid Strikes Again.

So here we are in Victoria, back in a proper lockdown.  Once again, the whole state - and for a week this time.

Fortunately, Jim had his first podiatry appointment yesterday and the lockdown didn't start until midnight. He's had his first of four appointments with the dental technician too, but his second and third were during the lockdown period and have had to be cancelled.  Dental care, apparently, isn't an essential service. Which is all very well for legislators who have a full set of teeth. Not much fun for people who are waiting to be able to chew again!  Fortunately, the weather is stew and soup weather and there shouldn't be much chewing in soups and stews.

I didn't need to head out and panic buy anything. The supermarkets will remain open, as will the butcher and the bakery. I did go shopping. The mushroom farm and the Elaine Farmgate shop will be well and truly out of our 5km radius from home so we can't go there over the weekend.  We went yesterday, after the podiatry appointment. One thing I did need was vegetables and while our IGA is an excellent IGA and has lots of interesting stock and is well provided with all the staples, its vegetable and fruit selections can be a bit hit and miss. I did not relish the idea of hit and miss vegetables for the next week. We are nicely stocked up now.

It has been amazing how the reappearance of Covid in Melbourne has galvanised people into action when it comes to getting vaccinated. Our Covid clinics have been trundling along quite steadily until Monday, when it became clear that the Covid cluster in the northern suburbs of Melbourne was growing apace. Suddenly, the phones rang hot with people, who had previously been dilly dallying and shilly shallying, wanting to know when they could come for their vaccine. We have plenty of vaccine available so have put on extra clinics. And the state government has opened vaccine hubs all over the place and widened the criteria for eligibility. Mind you, if people had been a bit quicker off the mark when the vaccines became available, and if the commonwealth government had made them more widely accessible - then just maybe we wouldn't be in this lockdown. Horses, stable doors and bolting come to mind.

I have finally been digging the potatoes, growing up at Hill House. The plants have died but the potatoes are snuggling happily underground. We've got good crops of Kipfler and Dutch Cream this year.  I'm hoping to supplement those two varieties with King Edwards next year.  King Edwards are all but impossible to get hold of here and I am rather partial to them. I've just had an alert from Diggers to say that they have some seed potatoes in so I'm hoping that they are still in stock. I'm also hoping to get another couple of asparagus plants and some rhubarb plants for planting in the Tani vegetable beds.

Have a picture of some very elegant whiskers, with a Smol Fluffy Kitkat attached:

And while we're at it, two very handsome Great Danes:

and a tangle of ginger and cream:

I do not think they will find a seven day lockdown particularly troublesome. I daresay they will quite enjoy it.

Odds and Ends

We have been based up at Rupert and Hugo's house this week while Lindsey and Ian have been in Sydney.

I go down to our place for a few hours in the mornings to keep Brandy and Whiskey company, while Jim stays up at Hill House with the dogs. On Tuesday and Thursday the district nurse comes to our place to help Jim shower so we both headed down the hill for a couple of hours. I also go back to our place late in the afternoon for an hour or so.

Brandy and Whiskey are always curious
when a car turns up, and head
to the nearest window to see
who it is.
This is the window at our front door

It works, although I think that Brandy and Whiskey will be pleased when we go back to sleep at our place, and I know that Rupert and Hugo will be pleased when Lindsey and Ian come back.

Freyja and Simon were in town last weekend and brought with them a water fountain and a cat tunnel that their cat Ghost definitely did not like.  Brandy and Whiskey like them!

As soon as I turn it on, they come trotting over
to play with it

Whiskey the racing driver 

Meanwhile, up on the hill, Rupert and Hugo are being very helpful

Helping to make the bed

The move at work has gone fairly well.  The old space is now boarded up and being prepared for the new business. We are more or less settled into the new place, although there are still things to do.

Our new signage is up out the front

but not yet inside the centre, although our new
reception area is coming together well

We have a presence outside the shopping centre now, and can be clearly seen from inside the centre. Previously we were hidden away at the back of the pharmacy and were quite difficult to find. Also, the previous site was quite dark and had no natural light. The new place is light and bright and some of the consulting rooms actually have windows! And people are noticing us. We're getting a number of people each day wandering in and asking about us.

Sunset, from inside the
entrance hall at
Hill House

Moving Day

Jim was a bit disconcerted when I started talking about Moving Day. He thought I meant that we were moving house! You know - you might have mentioned it before now :-D

But no.  It was the surgery and the pharmacy that were moving - all the way across the shopping centre, pretty much opposite to where we were, to where a restaurant used to be. It closed ages ago and has been empty ever since. The new clinic is lovely and bright and light.

Friday was Moving Day. For us, at least. The pharmacy moved into their new space the weekend before. We closed our consultation diary at lunchtime, although we did run our Covid vaccination clinic in the afternoon. We grabbed a load of supermarket trolleys and just trundled our stuff across. Back and forth we went, carting things over. And by going home time the move was well underway.

Lots of people turned up again on Saturday to carry on the process. I did not. I was busy in Ballarat, doing Useful Things at home and looking after Rupert and Hugo on Saturday evening.  The final clear out of the old clinic was yesterday. I think quite a lot of junk and perhaps-not-junk is cluttering up the new place while decisions are made about their future.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new look surgery, which is now up and running, when I go in tomorrow.

Jim came out to the mushroom farm and the Elaine farmgate shop with me on Saturday. They have almost finished the interminable roadworks beyond Buninyong, which have been going on for months and months and months. They are cleared from Buninyong to Scotsburn. I live in hope that the rest of the work will be cleared very shortly. It is very tedious driving along a country highway at 60 km!  I came back along back roads. It probably doesn't take any less time than driving at 60 along the main road, but it's more interesting. Jim enjoyed his trip out and was surprised but pleased when we came back along the back roads.

His support systems are beginning to come into play. A district nurse came this morning to help him use our shower. He doesn't like our shower anymore.  He finds it a bit small and worries about over balancing. The district nurse had him in and showered, dried and dressed with no trouble and no worries. Someone is going to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help with the shower plus he can use Lindsey and Ian's shower, which is bigger, when he is up with Rupert and Hugo. He has an appointment with a podiatrist later in May. An OT is coming out to do a home safety assessment in a few weeks, particularly focusing on the bathroom. And he got an emergency appointment with the dental technician to have new bottom teeth fitted so doesn't have to wait until July. 

It is cold, foggy, damp and gloomy today. It was much better yesterday morning:

Oh - and these came in the post yesterday. Now that was exciting

Health

Jim's cognition has noticeably deteriorated over the last 12 months or so. It's hard to know whether it has been affected by the isolation of lockdown, although we haven't been anything like as isolated or locked down as many other people. Even so, he no longer does many things that he used to enjoy doing. He struggles with jigsaws. He doesn't read anything. He no longer comes shopping, or not often.  On top of that his hearing is deteriorating and his balance and mobility are worsening. His world is shrinking, little by little.

We saw a geriatrician early in April who diagnosed probable early Alzheimers. He has just started on some medication to see if it helps at all. Too early to tell yet - he's only had two tablets! But it also means that we can start to put some things in place to help. The geriatrician made a referral to the Aged Care people for an assessment and yesterday a lovely lady came from the Ballarat Council health services to talk about our options.

She has arranged for someone to come three times a week to help him shower. She has referred us for an Occupational Therapy assessment to see if we qualify for subsidies to put grab rails into our toilet and perhaps even to assist with my planned refurbishment of our bathroom. He is eligible for podiatry care, and perhaps physiotherapy in the future. So many services that we are, will be or might be eligible for. And the advantage of living in a regional city rather than a metropolitan area is that the waiting times are less. 

In other health news, Jim has also had his first Covid vaccination. I had been planning to take him to one of the Covid clinics at the surgery but then the government opened a vaccination hub in Ballarat, a mere five minute drive down the road from our house. I took him there. I have to say I was very impressed. They've taken over a conference venue and it is really well organised.  A bit like going round Ikea, you move from point to point until you reach the place where they jab you. Then you are escorted to a "recovery" area and after 15 minutes they check that you are feeling well and send you out to make an appointment for your second dose - and home you go.

He's also been to the dentist to have his sore mouth sorted out. This resulted in him having a tooth removed. Unfortunately, this was the tooth that his lower dental plate hooked onto. His plate doesn't fit now and slides about in his mouth if he tries to put it in. This means that he can't chew so he's on a soft diet. He's seeing a dental technician tomorrow to see if the plate can be adjusted to fit. If not he will need a new one and that can't be done until July. I really hope the existing plate can be adjusted. I don't think he will enjoy a soft diet until July!

He does enjoy his "job" looking after Rupert and Hugo at Hill House. He loves them and they love him. They provide companionship when I am at work. He loves Brandy and Whiskey as well, but cats aren't quite as companionable as dogs - and Great Danes are very companionable dogs. Hugo was training to be a service dog when he came to us. He didn't complete his training. We didn't need a service dog. But I think he remembers. He is very, very gentle with Stella when she comes to visit and these days he is quite gentle with Jim. 

Rupert loves Jim too

We don't usually get beautiful sunsets at our place. We don't have the sort of view that allows for sunsets under most circumstances.  But I happened to notice on Sunday evening, when I went to bring the sheet and pillow cases in from the line, that the trees behind us were glowing red. Not a fire. A sunset!

Autumn, Mount Helen

An Autumn Drive to Work

 It's a beautiful morning. The morning light is lovely

It was very much like this yesterday as I drove to work. Obviously, I couldn't take any photos as I was driving. But it was glorious. Mount Warrenheip was bathed in golden, autumnal light. There were wisps of fog and mist. There are splashes of orange and yellow deciduous trees among the eucalypts.

Beautiful. But extremely difficult to drive in, as you round a corner and the sun is shining directly in your face, much like this

Not so bad when I am stood on my verandah admiring it. Much more difficult when you are in charge of a vehicle going  down the freeway at 110 km/h! I tucked in behind a handy truck and used it as a sun visor.

There are parts of the route which were covered in fog yesterday. I might not have seen the Pink Moon on Tuesday night, but as the rising sun  filtered through the fog, the fog went pink.  Again, difficult to drive through but it was very beautiful.

Then we all got taken off the freeway at Bacchus Marsh and directed along the road through Toolern Vale towards Diggers Rest. It's a very lovely, country road which we do use for fun from time to time, although more usually when coming home. It is not designed to carry almost all of the morning traffic that would usually be on the Western Freeway. And the Calder freeway did not enjoy having the morning traffic from the Western dropped onto it at peak hour!!

It was a long, long drive to work.  It was almost as long a drive home. I have no idea why the traffic was quite so heavy on the way home; there was no obvious reason. In the morning it was because part of the freeway was closed after a truck accident. Most of the drive home was after nightfall, so not as pretty as the early morning drive in. And I was glad of a chicken and vegetable stew and a glass of wine when I got home!

Sunday Lunch

Back in August of last year I bought a Cook Along box with recipes from the Hellenic Republic. I enjoyed very much Cooking Along with George and had every intention of buying further Cook Along boxes as and when.

The Cook Along with George boxes closed when the restaurants re-opened in Melbourne. Every now and then I would see Cook Along boxes which looked interesting, but they mostly wanted you to sign up for 12 months worth of boxes and I didn't want to. I don't need a box of ingredients with cooking instructions and videos every month. I held fire until I could find something that looked interesting and which would let me buy one box, every now and then.

Then Atlas Masterclass came into view.  I watched them for a while. They feature the cuisine of a different country or region every fortnight, but you can chose from other cuisines as well or instead, if you are minded. This fortnight just gone was Persian food. So I ordered a lamb dish, a pilaff and an Italian pumpkin ravioli with fennel and sage.

Lindsey, Jim and I had the pumpkin ravioli for lunches during the week. Each meal is designed for four dinners, so we got 6 lunches from the ravioli kit.  I don't suppose I really need a kit or, indeed, cooking instructions for making ravioli for lunch but I would never have thought to combine fennel and sage with pumpkin ravioli.  It is a very delicious mix.

Rupert and Hugo came for lunch when I got my Cook Along with George box.  They came again yesterday, bringing Lindsey and Ian with them. We positively feasted on leg of lamb fillets, encrusted with paprika and coriander seed with a cucumber and radish salad on the side, together with the pilaff which was accompanied by roasted carrots and green capsicums with feta. I added a bit of saffron to the turmeric mix for the rice. Ordinarily I would say that you shouldn't mess with a recipe the very first time you make it but I have saffron in my spice cupboard and the rice looked as though it wanted it. I am glad I added the saffron!  I put a bowl of yoghurt on the table, which wasn't called for in the kit but I bet people from Persia, Iran and Iraq would have put yoghurt on the table I also added some green beans because I had them and rather fancied some.  It was all absolutely delicious.

It was also the first time that Rupert and Hugo had been to our place since the Cook Along adventure last August. I had shut Brandy and Whiskey in our bedroom out the way, in case Hugo in particular decided they would make a tasty lunchtime snack. The dogs were ever so excited to come to our  place, particularly when they discovered the cat biscuits and the little soft toys that live on a shelf that is accessible to Great Danes. We should perhaps have them over slightly more often so they don't get quite so excited when they come. And Hugo didn't want to go home. He equally didn't want to be left behind at our place when the others left.  But he flatly refused to get in the car. And if a Great Dane doesn't want to get in the car it is extremely difficult to make it. He ignored the offering of tasty treats. He ignored the left over lamb. He ignored Rupert eating the tasty treats and left over lamb (Rupert had got into the car with no argument). Eventually, I thought: I wonder if melty cheese slices might help. Hugo LERVS melty cheese slices.  And lo - He stepped into the car with alacrity when I offered melty cheese slices from the other door. We must have the cheese on hand next time!

It was a good lunch. But next time I make it I might use shoulder of lamb instead of fillets of leg. I think it would be magnificent with slow cooked shoulder.

Hugo has helped himself to a small hippo

Curious cats inspecting the garden after the canine visitors had gone home: 

Thursday

Yesterday was such a lovely day.

Not the weather. The weather was chilly, gloomy, damp all day.

Nothing exciting or interesting happened.  Nothing much really happened at all.

I sorted out the winter jumpers and put the summer jumpers away. The mid-season jumpers stay out all year round.

I turned out a couple of wardrobes and sorted out things to go to the charity / op shops and other things to be thrown away.

I went to Mount Clear for some milk and ham, and came home with takeaway fish and chips as well.

We drank tea and ate biscuits.

We had the heating on and were warm and cosy.

I washed some sheets and hung them to dry on the clothes horse.  Brandy and Whiskey were sure I had put up play tents for them and had a lovely time "camping"

 

It was a gentle, quiet, happy day of no moment at all.  We need more like that, please.