I was pretty happy with the garden produce for this week,   we got lots of  traffic light capsicums, a great addition to our scatter platter salads!

 

A little visitor came in with the basil

Anzac Day Ceremony on the balcony was lovely, I kept the candles burning to welcome the dawn.

 

D1 came in from work for her one week R & R , it wasn’t quite so weird this time to stand at the top of the stairs for a  chat when she arrived. She bought steaks when she went shopping on Saturday.  

Papa Bear barbecued them to perfection as always. What better meal to end Anzac Day.

D1 knows her place now!

 

A lovely evening chewing the fat!

 

And there was left overs for yummy beef salad the next day, that steak was cooked just right!

The seaweed invasion continues, and I don’t think I swam at all this week, but I walked on a few occasions. I have been listening to the audiobook of The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan. I love listening to audiobooks, you really get the full impact of the words if the book is well written. The only problem I had was the book was read by an Irish woman, it is set in Ireland and most of it  was beautifully read. However there is one character who has lived in Australia for 20 years and the attempt at an Aussie accent was excruciating. It was a mixture of an ocky Aussie accent with a smidgeon of Kiwi and South African thrown in. For the most part though the lilting Irish accent blended well with the sand, sun and seaweed.

One morning we were blessed with the most stunning sunrise. It made me think of the tornado from the  Wizard of Oz

 

I chatted with D2 who is halfway through her 4 week swing at Christmas Creek

And read books for my granddaughter. I made some videos and she didn’t quite get that it wasn’t live. Her Mum said she kept asking me questions!

 

My sourdough starter  was a bit like me this week, lazy! I fed it and it should have been rising beautifully in the jars but spent the day stubbornly refusing to budge much past the elastic band.

It was sent back to the fridge in disgrace overnight  but I gave it a second chance the next day and it behaved beautifully.

Tomorrow I am going to continue in my quest for the perfect loaf of sourdough bread. I’ll let you know how I go but if  I don’t mention it, don’t ask!! In the meantime, keep safe everyone.

“They lay resting in the great strong arms of the sea” 

This is from Charlotte Wood’s latest novel, The Weekend, a description of three women swimming and floating in the ocean.  My friend Mrs L is currently reading this book and shared this line with me. It’s beautiful isn’t it? I would love to do that but our beach is still infested with seaweed. A dip in the ocean is a struggle against strands of thick algae wrapping their tentacles around your ankles and  dragging you out to sea, never to be seen again! The sea gulls loved it though.

 

And it’s still a magical place early in the morning

Because of the weed I walked along our street a few times

The sunflowers were happy

The playground in the park a sad lonely sight

But an enterprising dad has built a playground for his kids around a huge tree in the front yard. I have just realised I have made a presumption there,  I guess I am saying Dad because I have seen him out playing with the kids.Maybe Mum could have built it and Dad is the one who plays with the kids….or perhaps….sigh, these days you are so scared of being politically incorrect! Anyway, it looks fabulous, unfortunately there are shadows all the time, so not a very good photo I’m afraid

 

We are well into a routine now. We got a huge grocery delivery from Woolworths, I have taken full advantage of being a senior! We unpack onto the bench and attack everything packaged with disinfectant and wash our fruit and veg.

Obviously we have way too much time on our hands because we spent a lot of time before the delivery discussing whether it would come before or after 10:00am in the designated 7:00 – 12:00 window. We even bet on it! I bet that it would arrive before 10:00am and would you believe the truck pulled into the driveway at 9:59…no joke! We then spent some time discussing whether the bet meant the delivery was actually unpacked outside the front door. Here is Papa bear  cooking dinner as a result of losing the bet.

The slices of crumbed eggplant were a delicious nibble with our evening drinks

You may have noticed by now that a lot of our time is spent around food and food prep! I spent some time this week putting together a Monthly meal plan in my bullet journal.

You may also  notice that I haven’t made much progress with making my journal Instaworthy but it is functional. 

After  I dragged out my sourdough starter for pancakes I decided I’d have a go at sourdough focaccia. The starter activated nicely and I soon had the dough ready for the first prove.

Next prove was in the pan

And here it is ready for the oven

You will have to believe that it was the best sourdough focaccia ever, because I forgot to take a photo!

I made my second fruit cake, this time with Grandma Bear’s recipe which we sourced from Papa Bear’s cousin. Don’t you love it when you are just about to put a cake in the oven and you see this,

the sugar that was supposed to have been boiled with the fruit for the fruit cake! I’m saying don’t you love it because I found it before the cake went into the oven and was able to stir it into the mixture. It was fabulous, Papa Bear was happy. I got carried away with putting almonds on the top of my baking. I have decided not to do that any more because it is difficult to slice neatly when there are almonds in the way.

Papa Bear cooked breakfast,

fried egg and potato and cabbage patties. Everything is served with cabbage because we got the biggest cabbage you have seen with our groceries.

I cured salmon pieces in sugar and salt with a spice coating

Papa Bear cooked it on a smoke infused piece of wood on the BBQ, it was amazing!!

My sourdough starter came from a sourdough bread class I went to at the Matter of Taste Cooking School in Perth, which is run by the gorgeous Tracey. Papa Bear and I were actually due to go to an American Nosh class the week before we entered self-isolation, but because of the C-19 Tracy had to close the classes. Instead of face to face classes she gives us 3 online classes a week and I just love them, I look forward to them all week. She makes delicious, simple, every day meal, her love of cooking just shines through and I learn so much. One of the dishes she did Week 4 was chicken parmigiana (yay!)

I am a member of her Cooks Collective so get access to all her classes but  you can purchase classes individually. Next week we are doing creme brûlée, so if you want to join up click on Matters of Taste above.

I think that’s it folks, I want to get this out there and go have a coffee and some fruit cake. Keep safe.

 

(Bad language ahead!)

A friend of mine posted on Facebook last week, suggesting an activity  we might like to do now that we’ve got time. A friendly, helpful post. As always I looked at the comments.  The first one hit me “You’re fucking joking aren’t you?” And more comments from women who obviously didn’t have time. Now, I am very aware that there are lots of folk out there who are struggling with home schooling, working from home and  wondering how they are going to put one foot in front of the other. I feel for them and every day I am ever so grateful that I am not in that position, that I have a beautiful home to live in, plenty of food to eat and my biggest problem is that  I miss all my kids so much and I can’t wait to hug them all. 

One project that has been on  my “When I Retire”  list, now renamed my “While I am in self-isolation” list  is to take a photo from the same place on my balcony every day for a year with my proper non-Apple camera. (By the way, my self-isolation has so far lasted longer than any of my previous retirements!) An interesting project given that I had every intention of doing a lot of travelling!

Anyway now is as good a time to make a start, let’s see how far through the year we get. Here are the first four weeks, no editing other than some cropping and to take out the power line which dominates every photo I take from the balcony.  The camera is ready – aim, click!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next four weeks I am going to take the photo at the same time every night, and I hope to make a start on a photo editing course I bought online a few years ago so I may have a play. I’ll look forward to sharing them. Keep safe y’all.