Lime Parfait Unveiled 25 & 26 June 2016

Had to get up here by 11am as I'd booked a chimney sweep.

It was a very cold clear day with ice warnings on the Calder at Macedon, and my car's snow warning went on when the outside temperature dipped below 3.5 degrees.

I was a bit concerned about Black Ice, so stayed in the left with most of the other cars.  In fact, you could see that the road had dried  on the left lane with all of the cars travelling across it.  The right lane on the other hand was still wet, and perhaps even icy.  Justin said that he thought he still saw some frost on a verge in Kyneton. So didn't risk it

dry on one side, wet and icy the other? 

But, back to the chimneys, we use the dining room fireplace a bit over Winter, and have not had it swept before, and who knows when any of the rest of them were swept last....

We don't want to have the party and have the house burn down...

Anyway, Al arrived with a truck load of chimney cleaning equipment - Swiss and precise, although might look a bit of a mess in the photo. He started in the dining room, and made sure that the dust could not escape by taping down a sheet, and then stuck up a bendy pole with various brushes on the end and tugged and scraped etc.

Brought down 3 or 4 bucket loads of ash - mostly the black bad stuff.   Said it was black because wet or green wood had been used, or the fire just wasn't hot enough.  He said you should have white or grey ash.  He also advised us to light a newspaper taper and stick it up the chimney each time we started a fire - having the kindling ready below.  That way we would warm the chimney and have a better fire.

Al ended up staying for hours, did the kitchen oven (and fixed up around the flue) And the 2 other downstairs fireplaces, the red room and the big room upstairs.  He told us that the Lime Parfait room had the chimney blocked, so he couldn't do that.

And in the meantime, Justin was finishing off the Lime Parfait room, and I was gardening

Finished off around 4.30 or so again, and I jumped in the bath again around 5 - had enjoyed it so much last time -warming me up, that I did it again and read the weekend paper in there.  Stayed in about an hour, by which stage I had stored up enough heat, or that's the way it felt, so I was warm for the rest of the night.  Justin wasn't, he should have had a bath.

And as per last time, another cheese & biscuit etc picnic dinner in the big room upstairs while we watched a dvd - Brothers.

Sunday morning was frosty again, and the day was cloudy, so psychologically if not actually colder than yesterday.

Puffs of visible breath at breakfast - you can see it diagonally to the right from Justin's mouth

Given the cold and grey, I stayed inside, and tidied up/cleaned in preparation for the party.

Polished up the copper kettle - although it can still do with some more polishing.  No Alladin popped out though

  
And Justin finally unveiled the Lime Parfait room - I'd waited long enough.  He still has some more work to do in it, but it's pretty much finished, and we can put the furniture back in.  He wanted to keep some of the original colours ie the dark blue green trim on the skirting board

,

I guess it looks pretty good, we'll see what the guests say

Queen's birthday weekend 11-13th June 2016

The first really cold weekend of the year there.....

Yep,  you're so cold that when getting dressed, you can't stand your freezing hands touching your warm trunk.

Anyway,  I got there early Saturday morning, I didn't want to drive on Friday night again, and Justin arrived from Ballarat mid morning.

Steven had called me up earlier in the week saying that a magpie was loose and frantic in the house. We were so lucky that he had noticed, well in fact one of his friends had.  There was a group of them with their motor bikes parked out the front, and the friend had noticed the bird, and mentioned it to Steven.. He called me, and we organised the key for him to let it out.

Luckily, not too much of a mess, a bit of bird poo around the house.  We figured it had come down the kitchen chimney. as there was lots of  coal on the hearth and floor.

coal on the floor

coal on the hearth and hotplates

bird poo on the chair

Outside, and the grass was even greener if that's possible, and it's now "lumpy" as some weeds grow faster than others - you sort of have to wade through the weeds now.  I was treading down paths on the way to Gordon's trailer with bucket loads of weeds that I had pulled out.

It was cold, but it was reasonably sunny, but still very damp everywhere.  Had nice warm toasties for lunch to warm up - very civilised

weeds from the veranda

weeds on the ground #1

weeds on the ground #2

So, I weeded, and Justin painted the new green room - I still haven't seen it - since the initial viewing where I didn't like it.  Some people from Rheola dropped by - Marie who had been to the open day last year.  Was wondering if we were having another one, as some of her colleagues were coming to Inglewood in the next few weeks and would have loved to have a look.  We couldn't make it then, but showed Marie, her husband Ian and their 2 friends around (beat the weeding).  I told them that I couldn't show them the Lime Parfait room though (but Justin could).  They thought it looked, or would look quite good though , that I had "nothing to worry about"

This is a before shot of what I had to contend with weeds wise

there is a path and bricks under there

Maile and David had also dropped by, and invited us for Prosecco that afternoon around 5pm. Finished up the weeding 4.30ish and had a lovely hot shower - maybe stayed under there a bit too long, but I was cold, and the hot shower was so nice...

So had our prosecco and some cheeses with Maile and David, inside this time, and then went onto Terry's for dinner.  David & Arlene, and Damien, Nicole & Jerry were there.  Terry made us a superb French inspired meal.  Creamy cauliflower soup, prawns in garlic butter sauce,  beef bourguignon,  mashed potato & greens, and pear poached in red wine with creme anglais.  Just marvellous.

Late-ish night, and a bit of a sleep in - I just love those block out curtains (Justin less so, as he doesn't like to sleep in a completely black room, and unfortunately I do.

Was cold overnight with a frost

Frosty grass

frosty car

Some hot porridge for breakfast - stirred on the stove.  Warmed us up.

Justin enjoying some porridge

Justin had also started up a fire as you can see in the background.  To warm us up, but also to warm up the paint before he started painting, as I guess it was too thick and cold to easily paint with.

 And back to more weeding and painting

Before

After

another after

But Spring is in the air, despite it being barely Winter - with some hardy blossoms coming out

prunis blossoms

jonquil nearly coming out

 Justin took a break from painting and planed off the shed door, which had expanded in the cold/wet

planing man

Had brought up some bits and pieces this trip ie a couple of cane chairs from Karen and Mark for the veranda - which go very nicely, and also a microwave oven which had been Karen's Dad's.  That will be very handy

new veranda chairs

And George had given us a couple of shrubs - which were surplus to his needs

bit hard to identify the new shrub in there - but I know it's there

After working in the garden for the day, I needed more warming up and cleaning in that order.  Given that we weren't going out, I had a nice long bath.  Yes I know the bath isn't much to look at (neither is the bathroom).  But, we have instant hot water, and I soaked in there for a good 45 minutes or so, just storing up the heat, and reading the weekend papers

We didn't really feel like that much for dinner, so organised ourselves a "picnic" dinner of cheeses, biscuits, nuts, tomatoes, olives etc which we ate while watching some movies :- Valkerie followed by
Devil.  I remained warm after my bath, but Justin was a bit on the chilly side

Justin enjoying his picnic dinner #1

Justin enjoying his picnic dinner #2

 
I was nice and toasty in my dinosaur one-sie after my bath

me in my one-sie

More frost overnight, and more porridge for breakfast

frosty weeds

Hot pies for lunch out the front

pies and coffee afterwards for lunch

 The Lime Parfait room is nearly finished, - it takes longer than anticipated of course.  Justin says he'll finish it up next time, so I'll be able to see it then, and re-set it up as a bedroom.  Hoorah!

Toaster and kettle together 28 & 29 May 2016

I drove up on the Friday night, as Justin was having a "boy's night" going out to a Bob Dylan music night.

The last 1/2 of the drive was a little tense, of course it was dark, but it was also raining, at times quite heavily, which made it that much harder.

I gave myself a fright at one stage - careening into a body of water in the middle of the road.  It made quite a noise, and sent a sheet of water up into the air, there were a couple of smaller ones on the left hand side of the road also, but they were more expected.

Arrived around 9.30, got myself a nice glass of wine, and got cosy in bed watching Monarch of the Glen.

Awoke to a glorious morning and everything was green, and damp.  Went and visited the Op shop ladies,and took a whole lot of Madeleine's stuff - which they were pleased to get, and bought some meat from the butcher.

Liz (old friend from I-View) and a couple of her friends - Sue & Helen had been visiting Bendigo, and had suggested a visit - bringing morning tea with them.  A splendid idea.

Showed them around again (as they'd been up a couple of years ago).  Told them that I couldn't show them the Green room, they'd have to look at it themselves.  They understood my rationale having checked out the blog in preparation for the visit.  (It's funny, sometimes I'll people something about Inglewood, and they'll know already as they had read it in my blog.)

Had our morning tea outside in the sun

Morning Tea with the gals #1

Morning Tea with the gals #2

Morning Tea with the gals #3

With all of this rain and new grass, there were also lots of new weeds, so I did some weeding after they left.  Now, most of the ground is covered in green (some grass, lots of weedy groundcover), as opposed to it being mainly bald over Summer

look at all of that green

Despite the sun, it was a bit cold, so I felt like a hot lunch, and treated myself to a hamburger with the lot from GGs

Justin arrived mid afternoon, but by that stage it was cloudy, our beautiful day had disappeared.

I thought that we would have a nice roast dinner, so did a chicken in the oven with various vegies, and our first open fire of the season.  Had a McLarenvale red in celebration of our recent trip to Kangaroo Island Very cosy.

Maybe not that cosy - Justin with a scarf on inside

roaring fire

Justin made me breakfast on Sunday morning.  Eggs. toast and coffee - and was able to do them all at once, as Powercor had finally come to flick the switch or whatever they did on the last bit of wiring.  We now have no more old wiring, it's all new all safe, all good.  There are still a few niggly things that have to be fixed up - they had lengthened the pull switches, but had just got additional lengths of cord and tied them on.  Not very satisfactory to my way of thinking (and Justin didn't think so either).  The scullery cord still needed lengthening, and the power-point in the kitchen was a bit loose.  So nearly there but not quite.  I sent Josh an email about it, so he'll come back and fix it all up for us.

And, speaking of emails, I emailed the bloke who wrote the cook book that I got my proscuitto recipe from, as I wanted to know if he had any advice as to how to make it less salty - ie use less salt, or have it in the salt solution for less time. I was surprised and pleased when he wrote back very quickly.  Basically he said to keep it in the salt tub for 5 days (I had in there for 3-4 weeks).  The rationale is 1 day per kg, therefore it was a 5kg leg = 5 days.  Helen thought it very funny that I had left it in there for 4 times the length of time that I should have.

However, I thought it could be longer than that, and when I came back to Inglewood this time, I checked the recipe - and yes I'm vindicated.  It's a bit hard to read - but he says  "but I've left it in the salt for over 25 days with the same result"

vindication

   
So, yes I ended up with a very salty proscuitto, but for the first time, it was very good, and I figured the more salt, and the longer the better (belt and braces type approach)

After breakfast some more weeding - didn't quite finish the below patch

lot of weeds

less weeds

And also transplanted some lettuce/rocket etc that had self seeded and was growing in the wrong places.

rocket

more rocket

lettuce

Also took some home to Melbourne to plant

transplants

And found a whole lot of tiny toadstools (unfortunately all the mushrooms have disappeared)

lots of toadstools

red toadstools

different red toadstool

Justin and I also went to visit Samuel who was fixing his guitar amp.  Samuel thought it had been fixed, but had left it for a few days, and when he switched it on to show us, it was popping again - so he wants to look at it some more to fix it properly.

I am also pleased to say that the hole which had been dug as a result of the fuel tanker accident has been refilled, and the temporary traffic lights taken away, however the Royal remains closed after Paul sold the lease.  Let's hope that it reopens again soon.