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I went on an airplane!!!! I honestly didn’t believe the trip was actually going to go ahead even while I was in the air on the way there (THEY COULD TURN THE PLANE AROUND!!). But the plane did land and there I was in Adelaide.

Cristoforo picked me up from the airport and we spent the afternoon eating, walking, catching up. It had been ages. I got to see the work he’s done on his house. We went to the beach. Ate ice cream. So nice.

Emily and I stayed with Jill, since Cassia’s house is now filled with cute, obedient children. She has a lovely view from her place.

The point of the trip was to go to Joseph’s Celebration of Life. They had it in the botanic gardens and it was lovely. People told stories and made speeches, and we had a toast in Joe’s honour. I cried.

Afterwards the family and close friends came back to Jill’s house and we ate pizza and drank old wine and caught up in a more casual setting. Even though I’ve known Cassia’s family for more than 25(!!!!!!!!) years, I’ve never actually had a conversation with Mischa, her brother. He generally avoided us when we were making giant green cookies in her kitchen when we were 12, lol. It was nice to get to know him. I also hadn’t seen Em in AGES as well so it was great seeing her again too. How funny is it that we all ended up living in Australia, and how amazing that Covid didn’t ruin the plans for once.

Rest easy Joe, I think of you every time I try to identify a new type of bird.

Purple sky twilight game at the MCG. Great to be back. Dees are looking good this year, hopefully the season can continue on normally.

Another #smaj activity. An outdoor food truck market type thingy in Spotswood (Westgate Bridge in the background). It had a lot of unique options! We had a scotch egg, an African sandwich, fried chicken bao, roti chicken tikka wrap, mango lassi, cheesecake on a stick, a big soft cookie. Probably more that I’m forgetting. I had to lie down for several hours afterwards.

I bought my friends old camera and am trying to learn how to use it. It’s a Canon mirrorless full-frame camera, aka a pretty huge upgrade from my 10 year old point and shoot I was using before. Unfortunately shortly after buying it I got super sick (was tested, not covid), and Victoria went into lockdown so I was pretty limited to taking pictures in the backyard only. Hence the plant pictures and the creep shots of the new gigantic house being built two houses away.

Lunar eclipse/blood moon! I only noticed this was happening a few hours before so I frantically Googled what camera settings I should use and we headed to the park near our house. It was pretty neat! I don’t have a long enough lens to be able to take great photos but it was still a fun exercise. For my future reference the first picture was f11 1/100s ISO100 105mm and the second was f6.3 1/2s ISO800 105mm.

I went down to the car after finishing work and saw that I had the flattest tire of life. :( I went back up and got my colleague to give me a hand changing the tire, but then unfortunately the spare was very flat as well (yes I have learned that lesson now). So I had to take that tire off again, carry it through the hospital (of course I got a full elevator) while she brought her car around, drive to the petrol station, come back and put it back on again. What a pain. Thank you Fran.

I got my bike back from the warranty repair. They sort of fixed the wheel, and they gave me a brand new battery. Unfortunately they bent the rack frame so much that I couldn’t slide the battery out any more, which is how I charge it. AKSJHSDHJSHDSJJJ so annoying. I don’t even know how they bent it, because it was impossible to budge. Did they run over it with a car?? Did they break it off and then weld it back on straight?? Idgi. So then they had to send me a new rack. I swear they’ve replaced every part of this bike now, yet they don’t want to just give me my money back.

Unpictured things:

  • Jemma organised a surprise baby sprinkle for Jess at another friends house. Jess was pretty surprised to see me there when she had just seen us at our house that morning!
  • Mothers Day breakfast at Vicky’s
  • My coworkers engagement party in the city. Got to see the lower half of all my coworkers’ face for the first time in ages.
  • Scott played his first real hockey game! It looks like giant sized Timbit hockey, heeheehee. He had a lot of fun. Except for when he fell on his chest and quite possibly cracked a rib. He didn’t want to stop playing but then lockdown 4.0 started so he was forced to take a few weeks off.

We were supposed to go on an epic roadtrip through the outback at the end of May. The plan was to fly to Alice Springs, go to the Melbourne v Brisbane footy game, then spend two weeks campervan-ing to Adelaide via Uluru. I was suuuuuper excited, especially after getting my fancy camera, and learning about astrophotography. The lunar conditions were going to be perfect!!!! It would have meant another chance to see Cassia before they move back to Spain too. However, we started having covid cases pop up again that week (I’m talking ~5 cases/day) and the other states slammed their borders shut and we got put in 5km radius lockdown again so we had to cancel everything. We are bummed.

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Scott bought us a cheese making kit from Amazon for a #smaj activity. We already successfully made halloumi, but Rosemarie said I should document the process next time, so here is our attempt at making cheddar cheese!

Don’t use this as a recipe, I haven’t included the finer details.

Heating the (6L) unhomogenized milk, calcium chloride, starter culture, and rennet.
Once it was set I cut the curd. Then we had to heat it up again very slowly while stirring to break up the clumps.
Curds ready for hanging. I didn’t save the whey this time, but last time I used it to make bread, which turned out weird.
Then we hung the bag for an hour.
Which resulted in a more solid curd lump.
Breaking up the curds and adding salt.
Curds in cheesecloth-lined press.
Scott setting up the press.
We pressed it at 5kg for 10 minutes, then 10kg for 10 minutes, then 20kg for 12 hours.
What it looked like after pressing. Also this is my favourite picture I’ve taken with my new camera so far.
Our cheese cupboard. LOL.

Now we have to leave it in the cupboard for a week, flipping it twice a day, so it can develop a natural dry rind. (We have a mesh food cover for it.) Once it’s dry we have to cover it in wax, and then leave it to age for minimum 5 weeks.

Part 2 in six weeks!!

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I only heard about Pound Bend near the end of the summer, so when Easter Saturday was supposed to be a freakishly hot day we knew it was the last chance to try it this year. The air was warm but the water was SO COLD. It takes a good 3 to 4 hours to float around so while I was OK up on the inflatable pizza, Scott was freezing his butt off on the water hammock. Plus some parts are quite shallow so he was also bashing his butt on rocks. It was fun for a couple hours but then became way too long.

We finally had a board game night with friends. Michael and Gina made an EPIC wonton feast!! It was soooo good. We played Tiny Towns, with hilariously bad results by some. I think Michael’s final score was NEGATIVE ONE in his first game hahahaha. (He did much better in the second game btw.) It is totally different experience playing with six people instead of 2 or 3.

We heard that our favourite game store was selling crokinole boards and were pretty much like START THE CAR, LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!! What a fun game. RIP everyone’s fingernails.

I competed in another weightlifting comp. I did snatch: 44/47/49x, and C&J: 52/55/58x. The 47kg and 55kg were equal comp PBs, which together gave me a 1kg total PB. I have never even tried anything heavier than those, even in training, which freaked me out a bit, but those third attempts went better than I expected. Hopefully I can get them next time.

Volunteering at State Champs. It was nice to see some good lifting in real life again. Maybe some day I will qualify. Maybe.

Endless bike drama. Prepping to ship my bike back so they could try to fix the bent back wheel.

I finally got to the framing shop and framed my Escher cross stitch, and the print we bought in Tofino, BC in 2015. I’ll try to take better pictures of the cross stitch soon. It is gigantic!! I need to research what’s the best way to do that with my fancy camera. Little peek of our new couches there too! We finally got them, after buying them in Boxing Day sales!!

Unpictured things:

  • Many family meals. Dinner at Brett’s, Easter brunch at Jemma’s, Noah’s 16th birthday lunch. It was nice being able to see everyone again after barely seeing them the year before.
  • We played Ticket to Ride online with MEP and Paul and I didn’t even win.
  • Went out for a dumpling lunch with my internet friends. Loooove having dumplings in a big group so you get to eat ALL THE THINGS.

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I’m back. Let’s catch up.

Our March #smaj activity was clay target shooting in Carrum Downs. I was worried about it! I don’t think I have very good hand-eye coordination, and I’d never even touched a gun before. But it was actually super fun! I did better than Scott!

We got to do three rounds. In the first round, they shot one target at a time and they told you where it was going to come out. In the second round they shot two, but told us where they would come out from. And in the third round they also shot two, but you didn’t know where they would come from. I think I got about 70% of my targets which is WAY higher than I would have guessed.

The guy standing next to me in the picture who ran the whole thing went to the Commonwealth Games! Maybe it’s a new hobby for me when I retire from weightlifting. :D

We went to a AFLW game. We got to see the goal of the year!

Terrible picture but Da Boys came over for lunch and games. We played Tiny Towns and Camel Up, and ate sausages and mac and cheese.

I was doing regular, uneventful back squats and thought “Hmm, my finger feels kinda weird” and then watched it turn purple right before my eyes! I must have burst a blood vessel or something?

Waiting after jab #1. My work got us vaccines very early. We all thought we were category 1B, but we got them nearly straight away with category 1A. We got AstraZeneca, then literally the next day they started having all these news articles about how you could get blood clots and they were going to stop using the vaccine in many parts of the world. Felt great man. But we all survived (so far) and I’m due for my second dose this week.

It has been reassuring being half vaccinated while still seeing lots of patients, many of whom are immuno-compromised. (And also don’t wear their masks properly.)

Just a random tasty meal. Honey gochujang baked salmon with green beans and rice.

Other things not pictured:

  • Scott played A LOT of lawn bowls. He got promoted to the club first team, and they made it to the finals.
  • He also made it to the grand final in his basketball league.
  • We had a few family lunches.
  • We went to this progressive dinner thing in Kew where we had entree, main, and dessert at different restaurants within walking distance. I didn’t take any pictures but it was fun. We ate so many different things and also way too much.
  • We started pottery class. I think I’ll make that into its own post.

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I’d had Cactus Country bookmarked for years, but because it’s 3 hours away from Melbourne and not really close to anything, we still hadn’t made it out there. But it fit into our Bright and Echuca trip perfectly.

It’s $17.50/adult to get in to see 1000s of cacti and succulents set up in little themed trails. There are number markers that match up to a guidebook that gives you tons of fun facts and information. They also have a cafe where you can try cactus cake and cactus ice cream, and a shop where you can choose a cactus to bring home.

We were lucky to see a few flowering cacti.

So colourful! I kinda want a cactus Christmas tree.

Huuuuge!!
Spiky boy.

They use these ones to make the cactus cake.

Scott made me do this.

Cactus ice cream and cactus cake. A friend asked me what it tasted like and I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Maybe like apple? The ice cream was mild with a pleasant crunchy texture, and the cake was moist and spiced.

I bought a little Monkey Tail cactus to try to grow at home. We’ll see how it goes.

Overall we both loved Cactus Country! My favourite was the “underwater” themed area with all sorts of genetically unstable mutant cacti. The place was huge, there was so much to look at, so many cool pictures to take. And the information guide was very informative. I recommend a visit for sure.