A 2 car convoy again this time. I like to get there early. Justin and the kids prefer a more leisured approach...
I took the ute, and listened to the much discussed and celebrated Serial podcast, put out by the people who made This American Life.
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| Serial podcast |
I listened to 3 episodes - pretty good. Got to Inglewood around 11.30 and did my usual rounds of friends on the main street.
Still very dry and crunchy, although I was pleased that one of the pomegranate trees that I had planted this Winter had flowers which were swelling up with the promise of fruit.
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| pomegranate fruit |
Unfortunately later in the week, these same flowers had either fallen off, or had been pulled off by enthusiastic birds. Not happy about that at all. The birds are also very keen on the ripening mulberries. I keep running out like an animated, demented scarecrow, and scaring away the birds, but it may be a bit late. We still have some of the old sheer/lacy curtains so I think I'll employ them next year to try and keep the birds away from the various fruits.
I also had a bit of a reptile fright when I walked back towards the house. I saw scales and stripes which could be a dangerous combination. Luckily there were feet also. Yep, it was a blue tongue lizard, indubitably much more nervous of me, as it sidled rather quickly over to an upturned flower pot, and hid there from me.
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| not a snake |
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| a blue tongue |
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| hiding under the flower pot |
Justin and the kids arrived mid afternoon, and Justin and I set to assembling a Christmas present from Alex & Prue - a rather nifty hammock
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| starting to assemble the hammock |
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| enjoying the hammock #1 |
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| enjoying the hammock #2 |
On Saturday night, Justin, Fraser and I watched Cinema Paridiso, as it was one of my favourites. We started after 9.00pm, but it was the almost 3 hour long directors cut, so we were falling asleep a bit. Had to stop and go to bed. But not before Fraser saw that I was in tears at certain parts of the film. I find it very sentimental and touching, and can't help but tear up at certain scenes.
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| Cinema Paradiso |
On Sunday, Justin had said that he wanted to finish up the little room that I had painted. Put on a 2nd coat, do the wood work etc. I said that I could then start on another room - patching etc. Justin was not thrilled with this idea, said I should "tidy up my mess first". I thought that a bit harsh, and perhaps plaintively reminded him that he said I'd done a good job (for me). I knew it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good...
Anyway, we had to find some more of the paint, an edge sander for the floor, and to match a piece of broken window architrave. The IGA and David didn't have what we wanted, so we drove into Bendigo on Sunday morning.
On the way in we stopped to take a photo of the Christmas hay bales - very cute
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| Christmas hay bales |
Bought a sander, and the yellow paint, but couldn't match the wood. Tried a couple of places. When we got back, my job was to hammer in the floor nails. It was an echo-y loud job, but satisfying enough. Justin patched up holes that I hadn't....And also pulled out those 2 lumps of wood that had secured the coat rack. I had plastered over those, as they were too difficult for me to remove. Hard enough for Justin also.
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| filling in some cracks etc that I missed |
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| Justin sanding the floor with the new sander |
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| sanded floor |
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| banging out piece of wood |
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| banging some more |
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| and banging some more |
After this I made some jam with the plums from the tree near the well. For some reason the birds were leaving it alone. The plums were on the small side, but very juicy when I was pitting them. Sticky juice ran down my hands and arms - like thin blood
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| pitting the plums |
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| smiling while pitting |
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| sticky red hands |
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| very sticky red hands |
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| hard at work |
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| very sticky indeeed #1 |
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| Very sticky indeed #2 |
Monday, and I'd organised for Enzo & Ros, and Denise & Steven to come over for dinner. It was our first Inglewood (people) dinner party, and I wanted to make it special. First off to the butchers who boned a chicken for me. I said I could have done it myself, but it would have taken me longer, and wouldn't have been as neat. I wanted to stuff and roll the boned chicken as a fancy main course.
I started cooking after lunch. Put the chicken carcass in the slow cooker with some herbs and onions etc to make a chicken stock, and made a herby garlic bread. Fried up some chopped ham and onions and garlic, wilted some spinach, and put a layer of spinach on the chicken, then the chopped ham on top, followed by some apricots. Then rolled the chicken, sewed it together, and put string around it. Cooked it in the bbq. it Looked fantastic, but forgot to take a photo of it. I also made some red dip, and had some pate, olives and crackers etc. And I made an Avgolemeno soup from the chicken stock- Greek lemon, egg and rice soup. Very tasty. and also a salad
I set the table nicely with a tablecloth, candlesticks, butter in a silver & glass dish etc, and had plenty of time before they came. No rush at all.
Around 5pm, potential distaster struck. The kids were upstairs playing Nintendo Wii that I had bought a while back at Camberwell Market. And the power went out. Granted, I had the breadmachine and slow cooker on, and wondered if the kids had shorted the wiring when they turned on the wii.
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| Nintendo wii - photo from internet |
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| connecting up the wii |
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| Fraser playing on the wii |
Justin came downstairs to check the fuses, and they seemed ok. I suggested that he look outside to see if the eternal light was on in the Town hall. It wasn't. And without wanting to appear uncivic, we were glad, as it was the whole town (and Bridgewater and Kingower) and not just us.
Ros called up around 6pm asking if they should still come over, I said yes of course, lack of electricity didn't really effect us. Powercorp was also keeping us informed by sending texts to Justin's mobile
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| Powercorp texts |
So, they came over around 7pm, and given that it was rather windy we ate the nibbles and had the bubbles inside. I was a bit disappointed by this, would have preferred being up on the veranda. Oh well.
Once it got dark, the dining room became more atmospheric. It was a terrific night, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Many bottles of wine, many tall stories, Enzo inviting Justin out to go shooting with a couple of bottle of red (possibly not a good idea) etc.
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| Dinner party #1 |
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| Dinner party #2 |
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| Dinner party #3 |
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| Dinner party #4 |
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| Dinner party #5 |
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| outside looking in #1 |
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outside looking in #2
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Tuesday, and we took it easy, and we still had dishes to do from the night before....
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| dinner party dishes |
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| dinner party dishes |
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| dinner party dishes |
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| more dinner party dishes |
Basil is quite funny here, he won't go past the scullery, but seems to like running up and down the stairs and hiding in various rooms
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| Basil eating |
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| King Basil #1 |
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| King Basil #2 |
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| King Basil #3 |
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| King Basil #4 |
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| King Basil #5 |
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| Madeleine and Fraser in the top window |
Basil wasn't the only one who liked to muck around. I asked Justin to pose next to the portrait of his Dad - by his granny, as someone had recently remarked on the similarity
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| Father and son #1 |
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| Father and son #2 |
And Madeleine enjoyed putting her selfie stick together
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| reading the instructions |
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| and was a doona roll here for some reason |
Denise also showed me the Old People's Home current calendar - which had a lovely photo of Nimmitabel's previous owner all decked out in fox (supplied by Denise for the photo)
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| Previous owner of Nimmitabel |
Later on we played petanque/boule. The ground was certainly sandy enough. Fraser and I thought we were pretty good and challenged Madeleine and Justin to a best of 5. Unfortunately they won!
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| Justin. Madeleine and air borne ball |
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| pretty good shot |
In the afternoon, Justin went and did more work in the little room,
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| fixing up my mistakes |
and I decided on a project of my own. The kitchen cupboards have annoyed me for a while on 2 fronts. Firstly some of the lime plaster in the bottom cupboards is powdering away to grit, and coating the pots and pans etc, and secondly, the cupboards where I have the glasses and ceramics have a 1cm high strip of wood attached to the base about 10cm from the wall, which makes it difficult to put glasses etc behind them. I was determined to get rid of this strip, and also thought I would seal the loose plaster / cracks at the same time. I'm pleased to say mission accomplished. Got rid of the wood, reorganised the kitchen cupboards, and have now hopefully kept the grit/limedust at bay
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| stupid strip of wood in top cupboard |
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| organised glassware |
And so off to the IGA I went, and bought a big tub of bondcrete
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| Bondcrete |
It's my new favourite renovation "stuff". Just like good old pvc glue, or so it seems to me. Basically you mix it up with water, and paint it on the surfaces you want to seal. I did all of the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom, some of the cellar, some of the dining room etc. There was no stopping me...As I have complained bitterly that you can sweep the floor, but then grit just falls from the walls where the plaster is damaged
Justin also helped me by plugging up some larger holes in the bottom kitchen cupboards
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| Plugging up holes |
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| boncreting bathroom #1 |
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| boncreting bathroom #2 |
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| boncreting bathroom #3 |
Later on, Madeleine and I went scootering - in order to book a table at the pub
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| scootering #1 |
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| scootering #2 |
Alex and April arrived late afternoon on the Wednesday - New Year's Eve, and we went and had a nice dinner at the pub, after some nibbles etc on the veranda.
We also madly decided to go up to the lookout at Melvilles Caves to watch the Bendigo and Castlemaine midnight fireworks. Justin wisely decided to stay home (otherwise we would have needed 2 cars)
Anyway, I was driving fairly slowly (still scared of kangaroos jumping out suddenly) and something almost hit the wind screen. In fact Alex and I both ducked instinctively. We had no idea what it was - a bird, a huge moth, a bat? It was quite small - about the size of my hand, and luckily it went up and over the car without hitting it. Justin and I saw something similar a few nights later when coming back from David & Maile's. On describing it to Terry he thought it would have been a bat.
Anyway, we got up to Melvilles caves having only seen that mystery flier and a stunned kangaroo on the Melville Caves Rd turnoff. We were surprised to see another car there, and even more surprised when it turned out to be Steve and Denise waiting up the top for us. I would like to be able to say that the fireworks were spectacular. Sadly they were not. In fact it was hard to even identify any. Sure we saw a few lights on the horizon, but no blazing colour, no shooting rockets. It was also a hazy, cloudy sort of evening, so visibility wasn't that good to begin with.
I guess we stayed til about 12.15 or so, yes we did the countdown, but no champagne. Thought we'd have that once w got back to Justin. But once w got back, - close to 1am - we just wanted to go to bed. So sadly, I didn't have one taste of champagne on New Year's Eve at all. Oh well.
New Year's Day brought a different sort of fizzer. I was determined to get us some yabbies for dinner. David R had advised a dam, and also advised chicken necks for bait. So, off Alex, April and I went keen to catch us some dinner. All optimism and good cheer when setting the nets.
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| working it out |
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| getting out the bait |
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| mucking around with the bait |
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| waiting |
Even went for a walk around while the nets were filling with all of those yabbies
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| presumably mining stuff |
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| presumably mining stuff #2 |
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| spot the kangaroo |
Came back, read a while, and then hauled in our mighty catch
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| getting excited |
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| nothing |
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| nothing |
Nothing - not a thing - so we tried again in different spots
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| trying again #1 |
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| trying again #2 |
Once again nothing - so we went home empty handed....
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| nothing again #1 |
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| nothing again #2 |
I went back to boncreting - this time in the scullery - as there is lots of loose /gritty lime plaster there
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| boncreting in the scullery |
And Justin and Alex did more painting
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| Justin painting #1 |
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| Justin painting #2 |
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| Alex painting #1 |
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| Alex peering out from behind Justin |
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| Justin painting #3 |
In the evening, after dinner we played ipad "celebrity head" which was quite fun.
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| me - having to guess with ipad on my forehead |
On Friday, Justin embarked on a new project which was to rip the rotten old lino off the scullery counter and sand down the lovely old wood underneath. Easier said than done. There was nasty sticky stuff on the wood that gummed up the sandpaper. Will have to wait for another day to complete
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| removing the lino |
And on Friday afternoon Justin (his first time there) and I went to visit Dave and Maile - and had a lovely afternoon there - with plenty of bubbles and nibbles, and then Maile kindly invited us to stay for an impromptu dinner. It had been a very hot day - over 40 degrees, and windy too. Total fire ban. Their house was lovely and cool :- evaporative cooling via solar energy. Very effective. Sat outside later, and possibly saw a satellite wizz past. Justin has a aeroplane app on his phone, and couldn't see a plane there. So if not a satellite then what?
Saturday morning, and more watering of the garden nice and early as it had been so hot. Justin bumped into Terry at the IGA when buying the paper, so he dropped in for a chat and a coffee. Brainstormed movies /themes for upcoming Kingower events ie Like Water for Chocolate.
And it was another hot and windy day. I certainly kept my eyes peeled for smoke and the radio on 774 for any emergency broadcasts. Luckily none came.
