Air Conditioning and Other Things

I have finally, finally, finally got around to having my air conditioning unit installed.  I only bought it last May. You can't say I was being hasty about its installation! It was sitting in the study, in its two boxes, more or less being used as a shelf.

I had asked the bloke who installed the dishwasher if he happened to have a friend who installed split system air conditioners. He said that he and his brother did them, quoted me a reasonable cost and we arranged a time for them to come around and do it.

And now - I have a fully functioning, split system, reverse cycle air conditioner at my place. It means that the house is now, more or less, completely electric. I do still have gas connected, and the gas stove is still operational, as is the gas central heating. However, I don't use either of them. The wood burner and the new air conditioner render the central heating redundant and I haven't used the gas stove top for 18 months or so. I have two portable induction cooktops covering it and am more than happy with them. Eventually I will replace the gas stove with a permanent induction stovetop. And I expect I will have the gas disconnected eventually. I will get very tired of paying $40 or so a month for the pleasure of a service I never use. But it will cost $1000 to have the meter removed and, just at the moment, I can think of many other things to do with a spare $1000.

I took this photo at the Ballarat Tramway Museum
last January

While they were here, the electricians pointed out that my gutters needed clearing. I knew this but when I had someone out to quote to do it, they quoted $800. I don't have a spare $800 to have the gutters cleared - and anyway, it seemed like an extortionate amount to me. My air conditioning blokes agreed. They said they would expect it to be around $200 or $300. Had I tried using Hipages or Airtasker? I had used Hipages, that was where the $800 had come from. So while they were sorting out the air conditioner, I downloaded Airtasker. And someone quoted $250. I took that offer, and a bloke is coming today to do the gutters. If it stops raining!

I do wonder if the $800 would have been quite as extortionate if Jim had been here. Or Ian. Or any other adult male. I would not like to cast nasturtiums at the tradie who said it would cost that much. It would be unfortunate to think that he might have been trying to take advantage of an older woman who he might have assumed lived alone. But I am not stupid and I knew that it would not take a whole day to clear the gutters. 

Lindsey and I went to the Zoo Drive market on Saturday morning,. We also went to the Saltbush Kitchen, a small shop which used to be in Bunninyong and is now in the city, and which sells spice mixes, dukkahs, oils and other things, using native ingredients. We dropped into Aldi and went out to the Mushroom Farm. On Sunday we went to the Ballarat Spring Fest, which was along the top of the lake. The weather was cool and damp but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the local population who turned out in force. There were LOTS of stalls and LOTS of shoppers. 

We didn't check out the food area. It looked very busy. We went to Websters for Brunch instead

Brandy is intrigued by the air conditioner. I  had it on yesterday evening for a short while, to put a bit of heat into the house. I didn't leave it on for long- it was a bit chilly rather than properly cold.  But I think it will be a good sidekick to the wood burner during the winter

Magnificent Mystery Box

Lindsey called into Wilson's last Saturday and bought me one of their mystery boxes. She took it to her place and put it in the fridge.

I picked it up on Monday.

There are no photos of it. Monday was a busy day for me and I brought it home and unpacked it in between doing a number of other things and didn't think about photos.

I should have taken a photo though. It was a magnificent box. It had a small mountain of tomatoes. Some mushrooms. A green capsicum. There was a quarter cabbage and a half cauliflower. A bunch of coriander leaves and a green chilli. A bunch of Dutch carrots. There were two different chunks of pumpkin. And then there were apples, white and yellow nectarines, white and yellow peaches, a pear, a lemon and a kiwifruit.  

I chopped up the tomatoes and mushrooms and put them in a stockpot with a leek I happened to have lying around. I had some of the resulting stew with Monday's dinner and on Tuesday put the rest in the blender, passed it through a sieve and ended up with a delicious soup/broth/gravy base. I chopped up the nectarines and peaches and added them to some mango I already had. I've been eating that for breakfast. although I might lightly stew what's left to extend its useful life. By the time I got to the box, the kiwifruit was well past its best. It did not go to landfill though; it's in my compost bin. The apples and pear are in the fruit bowl. I've chopped up the cabbage and cauliflower ready for eating. The pumpkin and capsicum are in the fridge, waiting their turn. The carrots are in the veggie bowl, along with some tomatoes that I held back.

I do love Wilson's mystery boxes. They are such good value for money (usually $9 or $10) and such a fun challenge. Here is what I've got. Now - what am I going to do with it?

I'm eating well this week. Although I seem to have run out of potatoes. This is a very unusual circumstance

Have a random photo of Rupert, snuggled up to one of the new teddies that Lindsey bought last week. It's unusual for Rupert to snuggle the teddies. He isn't usually particularly bothered by them. Hugo, on the other hand, absolutely loves them!

Tribeca

I was working on Friday and Saturday so stayed in Lindsey and Ian's flat overnight on Friday. The flat is in the Tribeca complex of apartments, part of which, many years ago, was one of Melbourne's large breweries. It is made up of privately owned, privately rented and serviced short let apartments.

The company which ran the serviced apartments went, somewhat abruptly, into liquidation recently. This meant that holiday makers plus various workers, who rented the apartments on short term contracts while they were in Melbourne, suddenly and without notice found themselves without accommodation. People who were expecting to come over the Christmas and summer holidays are having to make alternative arrangements. 

I am surprised that the business has folded. It survived the lockdowns and the complex is in a prime location in Melbourne, close to the CBD, the hospitals, sporting facilities. It should have been a goldmine. I think it must have been well used - the car parks were much emptier than they are usually and not all of the permanent residents can have randomly decided to go away for the weekend.

It was a lovely evening on Friday. I bought some fish and chips from the shop in the plaza and then sat out on the balcony of the flat with my dinner, a glass of wine and my laptop. In the past, this would have been accompanied by a hum and buzz of merriment from down below. People frequenting the wine bar, the pizzeria, the fish and chip shop and, on pleasant evenings, sitting outside while they ate, drank and chatted. On Friday night there was a strange silence, broken only by people passing through the plaza, and a couple of kids messing about. I am worried about the future of the little businesses in the plaza.

Lindsey tells me that some of the permanent residents, on a social media group, are pleased that the serviced apartments have closed. They didn't like the short term visitors.  I think they should be careful about how pleased they are. Lots of jobs have gone with the closure of the business. And the residents of places popular with tourists are often more economically dependent on the visitors than they realise.  They might not have liked the visitors but they may miss the fish and chips, the pizzas and the mezze with wine if they close for lack of itinerant customers.

Shopping

Stella sometimes complains that we never take her shopping. She likes shopping. She quite likes window shopping but she very much prefers actual shopping.

Mostly, she likes shopping for clothes. She disagrees with me vehemently when I suggest that she should adopt a one-in-one-out policy towards her clothes. You can't, she says, have too many clothes. She is even resistant to me taking her winter clothes and putting them at my place, or at Lindsey's place, on the grounds that you never know when it might turn cold again. (She's not wrong about that!) As a result, her wardrobe is stuffed full of clothes. There is no room for any more. The carers sometimes just pile the clothes up in a heap rather than trying to hang them up because there is no room and no clothes hangers. (I was allowed take her bulky winter jackets to my wardrobe at Hill House. But that has been it. So far!)

We did not take her out shopping on Saturday. Lindsey and I went to the market, where the stall holders were shivering and slightly blue. The Bureau of Meteorology had forecast a sunny day with a top temperature in the mid 20s. At 10:00 by the lake it was overcast and a touch on the chilly side. We went from the market into town and visited the kitchen shop, the "scoop" shop (where you buy things by the scoop so can buy as much or as little as you like). We went to the supermarket and to Wilson's.

And then we went home, all shopped out.

The sun had come out by now and it had turned into a lovely late spring, very early summer afternoon.

Stella was pleased to see me when I called in to visit on Saturday afternoon. I had taken with me a small tub of broad beans (amongst her favourite vegetables), which I had bought at the market. I also had with me a box of fresh raspberries and a box of fresh cherries, also from the market. And I had a pork pie, which they had in Woolies.  She likes pork pies and doesn't have them very often. 

I also offered an invitation to go shopping on Sunday!

Not clothes shopping, but a trip to the plant nursery at Avalon.

She was definitely up for that.

So on Sunday morning, Lindsey, Stella and I drove out to Avalon, where Stella bought many more trays of vegetable and herb seedlings than you might think she would need, given that she doesn't have a garden, nor even a balcony. We stopped by the cafe where she bought a cupcake, a muffin and a scone, plus a milkshake and two hot chocolates. We went back via Coles, where she bought custard and bananas to go with her raspberries and cherries. She bought a pumpkin salad to go with her pork pie. She might also have bought some Baileys chocolate truffles. And some cat food. Not that she has a cat, but I'm sure we can find some cats to benefit from the trays of Dine.

So no clothes. Even so, she enjoyed a couple of hours of retail therapy, in amongst the plants and the groceries. She likes that kind of shopping as well.

There are flowers on Jim's lime tree

and some teeny, tiny peaches on my dwarf peach tree.
I am not expecting them to ripen this year.
It's only a baby tree.

Cup Day Weekend

Tuesday was Melbourne Cup Day, which is a public holiday in much of Victoria. Lots of people take the Monday off as well, including some of the schools.

The weather was lovely.

Lindsey wasn't available to play on Saturday. She and Ian took Emily to the airport as she began her journey back to Canada. I couldn't be bothered going far, didn't bother with the Bridge Mall market and did some tidying in the garden.

On Sunday I went to Geelong, to Irene's house, where Gillie, Chris and John also gathered. Chris and John report that the foreshore was very busy with lots of activities and lots of people engaging with the activities. We stayed inside and ate asparagus soufflés, roast pork, and rhubarb cake. We caught up on all the chatter and generally whiled away  a very pleasant late spring afternoon. And played ball with Flora 😀

On Monday, a bloke turned up at 7:45 to install my new dishwasher. I was expecting him early, if not quite that early, so I was up and dressed. I am usually up early, but not necessarily dressed for the day. By 8:30 he had finished, cleared up and gone away, taking the old dishwasher with him. The new dishwasher is white and seems to make the kitchen much brighter. The sun was shining brightly on Monday morning and the solar light in the kitchen was also shining brightly. The light was reflecting off the white door of the dishwasher and rebounding around. I hadn't realised how much the silver door of the old dishwasher was absorbing the light.  (Looks speculatively at the (silver) fridge/freezer, then decides against replacing it Just Because!)

On Tuesday, the actual public holiday, Lindsey and I went out to find a pop up Christmas shop, which was advertising itself on Facebook. We found the address but couldn't see any signs of Christmas Festivity. Just an ordinary house with an ordinary driveway and an unadorned gate. So we went away. Lindsey sent the person a message to say we had been but couldn't see a pop up shop. Apparently it was around the back in a shed, decorated with elves and Santas. I don't know about you, but I am not wandering around people's gardens searching for elves and Santas. I feel that at the very least some sort of festive decoration on the front gate might have been encouraging.

Anyway, we went to the Stockland shopping complex and pottered around there. We went to Kmart and House. Lindsey had a quick haircut. Then we went to Bunnings. We went out to the mushroom farm. I visited Stella. It ended up being quite a busy day.

And the weather broke overnight. There were 20 ml of rain in my little rain gauge when I looked yesterday morning.

The traffic around Melbourne was cray-cray-crazy yesterday morning. Pretty much everything was crazy. One of the main mobile phone companies had gone down, nationwide. Around 10 million people's mobile phones, internet and internet-based equipment were out of action. So too, in Melbourne, were the trains, hospital telephony,  EFTpos machines, bluetooth equipment. Chaos and mayhem all around. I managed to get to work more or less on time, where our machines and internet were unimpeded by the outage. We use a different company.  

I left at 2pm and went to East Ivanhoe to see Jane the Optometrist. I had somehow managed to destroy the lenses of my computer/reading glasses by smearing them with alcohol solution or hand sanitiser or something that the lenses didn't like. Fortunately her EFTpos machine and other equipment were also unaffected. I now have new glasses on their way. The traffic was also crazy on the way home. The trains were running again but, of course, all the people who had gone into work by car instead of by train in the morning were now going home again by car. Plus there were random intense rain storms. 

I got home eventually. And went early to bed.

Revisiting My Dissolute Youth

Actually, I don't suppose my youth was particularly dissolute. I married quite young and had a child at 21, so there wasn't much opportunity to be properly dissolute. But I did spend quite a lot of my 20s and even part of my 30s in and around Carlton, Parkville, North Carlton, Brunswick. And Lygon Street was a favourite haunt when I was an undergrad.  

I was working on Thursday and opening on Friday, so I stayed in East Melbourne overnight. I was due to meet Freyja and Simon in a pizzeria on the corner of Lygon and Elgin Streets at 7:15 on Thursday evening. So I had a bit of time to spare after work.

I caught a tram into town and went to Daiso. They didn't have any of my favourite mints. Where they usually are, there were Christmas decorations. They did have other tempting things, though. 

Then I took another tram to Lygon Street and went for a walk down one side and then back up the other side. When I was an undergraduate, Lygon was pretty much 100% Italian. All sorts of pizzeria, pasta places, coffee shops, gelateria. And a few other things, like toy shops, kitchen shops, Readings, the bookshop. But mostly, Italian food shops. I think there was an occasional Greek one, but not on the main strip. Apart from the souvlaki shop on the corner, where we would go if hungry in the evening for souvlaki and chips.

Now you can get absolutely any nation's cuisine that you could possibly want. And still pizza and pasta and plenty of coffee

I met Freyja and Simon in the pizza and pasta shop on the corner of Lygon and Elgin. We had a vegan pizza, a vegetarian pizza and a meaty pizza, together with a glass of wine each. Then Simon suggested that we head to a wine bar for an after pizza drink. And we went to a back bar at Jimmy Watsons, where I don't think I've been for 35, perhaps 40 years. It was never a regular haunt. If we were going drinking we usually went to one of the nearby pubs. But we did go when we were feeling flush, or had an occasion to celebrate. Or whenever.

And it's a lovely place. You can see why it's survived. Lots of little bars and courtyards and terraces. And friendly, chatty but not obtrusive staff. "You haven't been here for 35 years? Welcome back! But why not? Where have you been? England? Ballarat? OK. I guess that's a reasonable excuse!"

I was, however, reminded that I am not, in fact, in my 20s or even 30s anymore when it was time to get up on Friday morning! I had a 7:30 start so needed to be up by 6, if I were to have a gentle slide into the day. Getting up was not high on my list of favourite things to do at 6:00 on Friday morning!

I can't remember now if I mentioned it, but when Lindsey and I were in Japan in March we visited the Sekigahara Battle Museum and I bought Stella a Samurai teddy bear in the museum shop. Alas, at some point someone stole it from her bear cabinet. We suspect one of the casual staff. If it had still been in the facility someone would have found it and I don't think any of the permanent staff would have nicked it. If they had light fingers, I think they would be gone by now. Anyway, it doesn't matter who took it. It was gone.

Ross was recently in Japan and he went to Sekigahara. Austin selected a replacement bear. I e-sent the money for it. Austin purchased it. Ross brought it from Japan to Ballarat. Lindsey brought it from Ballarat to the surgery. And today, I took it to Stella's place in Mount Clear. It was, I'm sure you will agree, an excellent family venture!

We have not put it in the bear cabinet. Let us not tempt fate. We have put it next to Tony's memorial bear and with the little "Stella" teddy Stella was given when she first moved in:

And Austin sent over a bag full of my favourite Japanese mints, so it didn't matter that Daiso didn't have any.

Garden in the mid-spring

I have managed to get a bit of work done in the garden over the past couple of days.

I have weeded and sorted out half of the bed along the back fence, ready for veg seedlings when they are big enough and the weather is consistently warm enough for them to be planted out. I will need to do something about the snails which seem to have taken up residence on the fence!

How it was on Sunday morning

 

And how it is now

This half has yet to be done and will be more difficult
I will do it section by section

Yesterday I turned my attention to the side bed, which the fruit trees were waiting to move into:

I've fenced it off so the cats can't get in and dig it all up, and I threw some random vegetable seeds on as well, just to see what happens.

It's nearly three years since I planted the first set of asparagus crowns. They were very small when I got them so I haven't cut any spears until now. This year I have taken two, small cuttings and left the rest for the crowns to use The plants are looking healthy and robust. I think next year I might be able to harvest more:

A cold front came through just after lunch yesterday. The temperature plummeted, the wind picked up. Later in the afternoon we had hail and thunder, followed by heavy rain. The bloke who provides my sawdust briquettes for the fire had seen the weather forecast and rang me during the morning to say he would be in the Ballarat area during the day and did I want more fire supplies. I had also seen the forecast and accepted a delivery with alacrity. It came around lunchtime, just before the cold front arrived.

When we made the final visit to Mount Martha a year ago to finish clearing out Stella and Tony's villa, Wendy took some cuttings from Tony's rose bushes. I was a bit doubtful about this, but she got a friend who Knows About Roses to graft them and nurture them. One of them is now in my front garden. To my surprise, it has a flower bud. I have recorded the flower bud just in case one of the possums, which occasionally visit the garden, sees it as a tasty treat and eats it!

Confusion, a Mystery Box and a Market

I have been so confused this week about what day it is that I have moved Jim's dementia clock into my bedroom! Stella has a similar clock in her room but hers is designed for the sight impaired rather than the mind impaired.

Jim's clock, now on my chest of drawers

Stella's tells her the day, date, temperature and time in a size large enough that she can see it, even from her bed. Jim's dementia clock doesn't give the temperature but does tell you the time of day. Before 06:00 it says that it is "before dawn" so if you wake up at 03:00 and think it's just after lunch, the clock tells you that it's the middle of the night and you should be in bed asleep. In fact, Jim slept quite well and, as far as I am aware, didn't get confused about the time of day, although many people with dementia do.  I like this clock because it has the day in very large letters at the top. My clock is much smaller and tells me the time (as a 24 hour clock) and also the temperature. I like that clock too. There may be two clocks in my bedroom at the moment.

Freyja and Simon were here on Thursday night. They brought with them their rather large TV, which doesn't fit in their new place. It is now on an extended holiday in my lounge room. My not so large TV is resting in the wardrobe in the study. We had to rearrange some of the furniture. The side table that my TV was on is too high for the visiting TV. We put the visiting TV on a coffee table and the side table is presently in the dining room. Whiskey thinks it's wonderful

He can now sit right behind me when
I am sat at the dining table
and supervise

Simon was working from (my) home on Friday. Freyja had the day off. So we went and visited Stella, diverting her on her way to her morning exercise class when we arrived bearing flowers and hot chocolate. Then Freyja and I went into town where we bought a replacement dishwasher for my place and then a mystery fruit and veg box from Wilson's. We had dumplings and spring rolls for lunch and then mid-afternoon they went home.

Yesterday, Lindsey and I went to the Lakeside/Zoo Drive market, where I seem to have spent next week's food money on top of this week's. I came home with the usual market stuff, plus a large shoulder of lamb, two more $4 bags of lemons, cheeses and a large Turkish bread. Out at the Mushroom Farm they asked if I had forgotten to buy dog treats for Rupert and Hugo, which I often do get. Lindsey had already picked those up, so I hadn't bothered. But it amused Lindsey and me that they noticed that I hadn't picked up any dog treats. but have not noticed (or at least not commented) that I no longer buy cakes, donuts or biscuits for Jim!

The upshot of all of this food buying is that I have a LOT of food at my place. Possibly too much:

My fridge is very full and I seem to 
have run out of bowls

The mystery box from Wilson's had a pineapple in it, which I gave to Simon because, although rational people know that pineapple is not food, apparently he thinks it is. (Lindsey, it seems, also thinks that pineapple is food. She can have the next one, should such a thing reappear in my kitchen.) It also had half a rock melon, two passionfruits and an apple. There were two bunches of parsley, a bunch of Dutch carrots and half a dozen fat carrots, four Roma tomatoes, two onions, some ginger and a large bunch of silverbeet/chard. And one lonely, small-ish potato. I'm not sure why just one potato. Seems a bit miserly.

So yesterday afternoon I slid quietly in Sunday mode, and processed most of the vegetables. I made a pot of vegetable stew with the tomatoes, some of the silverbeet, one of the onions, some carrot, and some cauliflower and green beans that I already had. I put the lamb shoulder in the slow cooker with some preserved lemons, some more of the veg and some water and white wine. I chopped up all of the parsley and made a not-tabouli with some of it, along with some cherry tomatoes and cucumber I got from the market and some mint from the garden. I chopped up the melon and a mango that I had hanging about and mixed it with the passionfruit to make a fruit salad. 

I trashed the kitchen!

The new dishwasher isn't coming for another week, alas.

The freezer is now almost full. Again! I have yet to peel and slice the fat carrots,  and to shred the lamb shoulder, which is cooling in the fridge after simmering in the slow cooker overnight. I have strained the stock, which is also cooling in the fridge. All of these things will end up in the freezer, which had already filled up quite a bit. Some of the Turkish bread is in there, plus some dumplings and spring rolls from Friday. Plus all the stuff that was already in there. I had better embark on another "shop from the fridge and freezer" campaign.

You can perhaps see why I am as confused about the days this week just as much as last. Freyja and I mostly did Saturday things on Friday, I did some Saturday  and some Sunday things yesterday. I was at work on the wrong days during the week. I expect to do mostly Sunday things today, but perhaps also some Monday things. And I am working Thursday and Friday this coming week. It's all very discombobulating!
 

My view this morning from the breakfast table

What day did you say it was?

It was quite confusing this weekend. I found it very hard to work out what day it was.

I was at work on Friday, which is not in itself unusual. But then, Lindsey and I left a little early and went to the airport to collect Emily who is visiting Melbourne for a few days. Her plane was delayed. Then there were delays on the roads back home from the airport - not helped by there being a booze bus at a roundabout near the airport. I can see why there might be a booze bus near an airport on a Friday afternoon/evening but it did significantly hold the traffic up.

Saturday was where the confusion originated. Emily has a very tight schedule and if she was to have lunch with Stella it had to be on Saturday. We decided that, if we were going to have a celebratory lunch, it should be at a good location, so we went out to the Wallace Hotel. We only ever go there on Sundays and we more or less had a Sunday lunch (without the roasts, alas). In my head we were doing Sunday things, so it had to be Sunday.

Which made yesterday Monday, obviously. And I pretty much did Monday things. Washing, ironing, supermarket, prepping veg (which is, it is true, done on Sundays and/or Mondays depending). I emptied and sorted out the pantry, visited Stella, and did most of the things I do at the start of the week.

Which has made today almost impossible to identify. It doesn't help that this week is likely to be atypical in many ways. I am expecting to be at the surgery on Tuesday and Thursday instead of Wednesday and perhaps Friday. Freyja and Simon are planning to be here on Thursday night.  So I shot out of bed unnecessarily early this morning because I could not work out where I was supposed to be and at what time (I did not stay up when I realised the time and what day it was!)

To confuse matters even more, I have Japanese lessons at all sorts of odd times this week. I must remember that I have one at 13:00 today, and absolutely must remember that there is also one at 07:00 on Friday, neither of which is in my usual schedule.

I have also changed the linen on the spare bed, "helped", or not, by Brandy and a bit by Whiskey.

Eventually, I won!

I'm sure I will eventually work out what's happening when. Maybe on Monday of next week 😁

It was a lovely late afternoon last Thursday, so Brandy, Whiskey and I went and sat on the front  porch to enjoy it, before winter burst back on Saturday and we had to shake out the jumpers again and light the fire in the evenings.

Apples and Lemons, say the bells of ...

Wendy came up for the weekend on Saturday morning. Lindsey and I picked her up from the station and then went to the Zoo Drive market- which is now back in its  proper place in the paddock.

We had a cheese toastie each from Tim's Toasties. I bought some tomatoes and cucumbers from the Yendon Tomato Man. I got some Lemon&Lime oil from the Olive Oil Man. I got two bags of 6 lemons each for $8. And a few other bits and pieces that I've now forgotten.

We went to the Mushroom Farm Shop. I got milk and a few bits - and a 4kg bag of apples for $4.

We went to Warrenheip so Lindsey and I could vote in the referendum. Wendy got the Democracy Sausage sizzle sandwiches while Lindsey and I were voting. Wendy had voted earlier and they don't encourage you to vote twice in the same election/referendum 😂

Wendy and I went to visit Stella and then had a quiet afternoon at home. I juiced one bag of lemons, which I froze in an ice cube tray and dehydrated the zest in my dehydrating machine. Which was very much underused last year. 

On Sunday I took the dehydrated lemon peel and pulverised it in my mini bullet blender. Lemon peel powder adds a vibrant and strong lemon taste to things, I find. When I remember to use it 😛

Wendy and I went, with Stella, to the Golden Point pub for lunch. You may remember that it's very much like The Dava in Mount Martha. We haven't been there for while; we've been busy trying out other pubs around Ballarat. The food isn't particularly exciting. It's reasonably typical "chain" pub food. Reliable but not adventurous. I have to say, though, that my deconstructed lamb souvlaki was absolutely delicious. Beautifully cooked. Very tasty. Enormous! (I did eat most of it, just not absolutely all of the salad)

Then we went, at Stella's determined request, into town. She wanted lingerie. I can't imagine why. I never want lingerie. I do, it's true, wear knickers and bras and even socks in season. But never lacy ones. My socks are mostly inherited from Tony and Jim. My undies are Kmart's finest and purely functional. But Stella wanted lacy thingies so we went and bought lacy thingies. Labelling them was a tad challenging, but it has now been done.

On Monday, I peeled. sliced and stewed all the apples, portioned them up and put them in the freezer. All of this preserving is usually an autumn thing but I guess it is just as appropriate in spring. Wendy went home. I had lunch with Rupert and Hugo, visited Stella, fed Rupert and Hugo their dinner. pottered in the garden, got ready for the week ahead.

Simon (SiL) mentioned that their dishwasher in the new place was misbehaving. He had done various things to address this and it is now working again. So I pulled my dishwasher out of its space, checked the hoses, checked the filters, checked what I could - and then ran it on a short cycle with some bicarb to see what happened. I put a towel in front of it as a precaution. While it was running, just a small amount of water leaked out. I thought it might perhaps be the sealing rubber that was at fault. When the short cycle finished I went to do something else. When I came back the kitchen was awash with water, well after then cycle was done and the power had been switched off. Not the sealing rubber then.  I can feel a new dishwasher coming on 😞

Little tubs of apple sauce,
ready for the freezer