Sister and brother in law 20 & 21 August 2016

Helen, her kids, Alex and I went up to Inglewood this weekend.  Helen got there on the Friday night, while I arrived early on Saturday morning, and Alex around lunch time

Didn't work on any projects as such, rather moved around rugs and light shades.

Took the 2 x original glass shades from the dining room and replaced them with shades which had been in the upstairs hallway. I do really like the original shades in the dining room, but with one missing, it looked a bit incomplete.

"new' dining room shades

 Put in 2 lots of 3 glass shades in the upstairs hallway, and put the other upstairs hallway shades back into the little yellow room

new upstairs light shades

Took the large original Victorian glass shades from the music room, and put them in our bedroom, where they look much more in proportion

new bedroom shades #1

new bedroom shades #2

Put some smaller shades which we'd bought in Ballarat into the music room

Music room shades #1

Music room shades #2

 

There was an awful lot of going up and down ladders...but all for the greater good.

Moved the William Morris rug which had just been rolled up in the study into the top hallway, and moved the large red rug which had been in the music room into the downstairs green room

upstairs hallway

blurry Xavier vacuuming the large red rug

Alex ably assisted me with all of this - and so did Xavier - as you can see he's vacuuming the large red rug above.

I also did some weeding, as with all of this rain, the weeds are plentiful!, and Denise visited with her new little puppy, which the kids were very taken with

Xavier & puppy #1

Xavier & puppy #2

Michaela & puppy #1

Michaela & puppy #2

Maile and David also dropped in, and invited us over for a late afternoon prosecco.  So we drove over there, and had a lovely time, and they showed us lots of photos from their recent trip to America for their 50th wedding anniversary.

It was after 7pm by the time we left, and too late to cook  - so we went to the pub for dinner, and were very pleasantly surprised at how quickly our food came!

Sunday, and it was grey and cool, and we had last night's planned dinner as a hot lunch.  Helen and Alex did it while I was in the garden.  Weeded most of this lot - remember its gravel under all of those weeds and fringed by bricks.

there's gravel under the weeds

Had a roaring fire too, very cosy, and a lovely way to spend a grey afternoon.  Lunch was roast chicken with roast vegies, peas, and an apple crumble for dessert.

a luncheon feast #1

a luncheon feast #2

a luncheon feast #3

a luncheon feast #4

apple crumble

coffee by the fire

We also had some more visitors - just before lunch.  A barrister acquaintance of Justin's who has a place off the Calder closer to Marong.  He dropped in with his partner - and had travelled here in style with a well restored Packard.  

fancy Packard #1

fancy Packard #2

fancy Packard #3

Helen and the kids left soon after lunch, Alex a while later, and I pottered around a bit, washed the dishes etc (was only fair,as I hadn't done anything for the lunch)

I should also add that Justin had fixed up the collapsed shelf in the kitchen

fixed shelf - clever Justin

While I was pottering around it started raining, and water was pouring off the tank making quite a noise - you can sort of see if if you look closely at the below photo

Rain!

Christmas in July in August with the Americans and Salamis 6 & 7 August 2016

Another relatively early start as we had to swing by Penny's place to pick up the dumb waiter, and then had to get to Inglewood in time for me to get the pork (and fat) that I'd ordered for making the salamis.

Arrived in Inglewood around 11, unloaded the ute, got the pork,  visited the op shop ladies and Denise,  picked up the fixed brass bed head, and re-assembled the little yellow room - whew!

fixed

Claudia, Reese, and Ethan (in Viking horns) arrived about an hour later, round 12 - and we had some lunch soon afterwards.

Ethan the viking

And then we watched Fraser's Nimmitabel slideshow, (very enjoyable) and they played some music, and had a fire upstairs while I pottered around

setting up #1

setting up #2

thinking

crawling

tickling

playing #1

playing #2

Went up to St Marys around 5.30, as Terry had asked if we could go there about an hour earlier to help set up.

the set table

Me & Terry

more setting up

Claudia gave Ethan a little bit of food, Reese introduced him to some "life sized" Christmas bears, and then they made up a little bed for him up on the stage.  He just curled up and went to sleep - priceless!

Ethan, friend, and Reese #1

Ethan, friend, and Reese #2

Nighty night

Dinner was great as always :- Prawns in garlic butter plus a home baked bread roll for entree, jacket potato, peas/corn, force meat, beef and turkey for main, with home made plum pudding and white sauce, and trifle for dessert. Yum!  There were  22 of  us there - Maile & David, Nicole, Damo & Jerry, Jan & Geoff, Chrissie & Mark, Bruce, of course Terry, and a few others.  David & Arlene were in Hawaii awaiting the birth of their 2nd grandchild.

dinner table #1

dinner table #2

dinner table #3

dinner table #4

Bruce telling a story

So, once again a good night was had by all, and Reese drove us home.

Sunday, and we had a late-ish start.  And then up to Terry's by 10am for our salami making.  We all went - with Claudia and Reese more watching than participating.

Was lots of fun.  First task was to cut the bits of fat and any gristle etc off the pork, and then to weigh the pork and fat at to get the right proportions ie 70% meat with 30% pork.  Terry had recommended that we use disposable gloves in order to keep it as sterile as possible.

cutting off the fat #1

cutting off the fat #2

working it all out

Next up was the mincing of both, and then the mixing in with herbs and spices.  I'd bought enough pork for Justin and I to make 3 small salamis each - so he made chilli, red wine, garlic,  and pepper (and salt), and I made paprika, garlic, red wine and salt & pepper.

Then into Terry's Kenwood - as per last time when we made sausages I pushed the meat through, Terry caught it in the sausages skins, and Justin tied them off

adding to the sausage maker

  

the finished product

Ethan played for a while

playing #1

playing #2

 Claudia, tried putting Ethan to sleep again - but wasn't as successful this time

not quite sleepy yet

 

And once it was done, Terry gave us a glorious lunch of his fabulous cheesy lasagne

And then back home, as Claudia and Reese had to get back to Melbourne.  And we hung the salamis in the cellar - should take 2-9 months depending on how cured or hard we want them.  I'm very much looking forward to sampling them

hanging salamis

Post Party Tidy 30 & 31 July 2016

Had to leave by 9am - as I had a hair appointment at 11.30.

However as they say, best laid plans...

We were rudely awoken very early in the morning by inconsiderate builders who were behind schedule and so decided to do a completely illegal concrete pour that went for at least 2 hours from around 4am...

Not happy, in fact, Justin got up to investigate what was happening, as it was pretty noisy.  And the powers that be couldn't/wouldn't do anything about it.  Very frustrating.

Eventually got back to sleep, but that meant sleeping in a bit, and therefore a later start.  We were also transporting some furniture etc in the ute, so that had to be loaded up  took additional time.  At least it was blue and sunny.

But, unfortunately not the whole way.  In fact it rained for quite a while and Justin was afraid that the furniture (cabinet, grandfather clock etc) and electrics (Oven from Karen & Mark etc)  might get ruined (they weren't all covered).  Luckily all survived.

new old clock

Along the way, we saw how wet it had been,  not just puddles, but sheets of water in some paddocks.  It's been a long time since we've seen that.

Anyway, got there late (had called Michelle to advise), and had my haircut.  Justin did too.

Anyway, too look this good, it took a few hours....so got home after 2 and had a quick lunch, and a read of the papers.

Emily - an Architecture student and her boyfriend dropped by around 3.30pm - as she had wanted to look around the house.  So we gave them the grand tour.  They were very nice, and gave me some flowers in appreciation.

Didn't really do much afterwards - read the paper some more.  Didn't want to do any gardening, too damp and gloomy, and didn't want to get dirty.

Had another cheese and biscuit picnic dinner upstairs with a nice fire.  All very cosy.  And we watched Sideways - which I had remembered as being quite funny, but was actually somewhat morose.  Tried to watch A Bridge Too far afterwards, but was falling asleep (because of our interrupted sleep the night before), so we had to go to bed.

haircut

spread out our picnic on the party trestle table

Sunday, and we moved furniture around - as we wanted to have turn the study into a bedroom, so took another single bed down there, and took the day bed from Ocean Grove up into the Music room/library - not the dormitory anymore.

re-setting up the day bed

Also organised for my old brass bed head to be fixed up.  Turns out that the curly bits on the end are actually steel, not brass, and so can be soldered.  Took it down to the wiremakers and they will fix it for us.  Hooray.

Justin was also concerned that there was no fender around the upstairs fireplace, so we bought a nice old wooden one from Denise & Steven

 And looked at some at the other shops

Here's one we were considering...nice cast iron one - not quite long enough though.  Didn't take  a photo of the one we actually bought though

cast iron grate

One of the shelves in the kitchen cupboards also collapsed - too hard to fix at the moment, so just took everything out, and may see to it next time.

broken shelf