No major issues at the state border. The border permit check took about 10 minutes, but the roadside covid test took over an hour as there was only one poor nurse swabbing every single person in every single car. I felt very bad for her, I hope she was getting paid well. At that point you didn’t have to isolate after getting that test so we continued on.
We arrived in Adelaide and checked into the hotel and then I went straight to the gym. I had a competition the following weekend so I didn’t want to skip training! I found a weightlifting gym (Athletic Compound) very similar to my club willing to let me drop in. I was nervous to go in but it was fine once I started.
Then we went out for an Afghan dinner with Cristoforo in Port Adelaide, of which I took no pictures. It was a funny dinner, we were the only customers in the restaurant and I’m not really sure they really wanted customers? Food was good though, and enormous. Then we went for a drink and saw a crazy man with a dog and a bicycle. Fun.
The next day we caught up with Jill and Cassia and family. M REALLY did not like Scott. From the very first second. She pretty much cried any time that he was close by.
We did lots of walking and talking and hanging out at their house, because they were leaving for Spain a few days later they, understandably, really did not want to accidentally end up at an exposure site. I just wanted to hang out with them anyway, so it was all good. We did go out for a lovely patio dinner at the Lion.
The jacaranda were in full bloom. I never remembered seeing them before? Neither Scott or I knew what kind of tree they were and were pretty convinced that there aren’t any in Melbourne. However since returning I have seen approximately 90,000 of them, including about 50 between our house and my work. I seriously don’t know how we didn’t notice them before.
They had a goodbye party in a park with their friends and some family. Scott finally won M over (temporarily) by pulling her and C around in the wagon. Lots of happy giggling.
The last day I went to the gym again to train. They gave me a t-shirt! And then Scott and I went out for dinner at Laura from Masterchef’s pasta restaurant. It was nice! We had burrata with beans, zucchini and pickled cucumbers, gnocchi with artichoke and asparagus, and rigate with goat.
Then we went for one last hug goodbye (although maybe not too long until we see them again, if we are actually able to rendezvous in Ottawa in April, fingers crossed). The next morning we got up early and drove all the way back to Melbourne in one go. Scott did 75% of the driving, he is the best.
October was much less depressing. Things are finally getting back to normal here in Victoria.
Our allowed radius increased to 15km so we finally got to try Moon crullers. They were very good and very pretty, but very very oily. I think I enjoy regular Lune stuff better.
We walked off the crullers in Yarra Bend Park. We were trying to find red-rumped parrots but didn’t see any.
Scott got a bunch of supplies to get into resin casting for a belated September home-based #SMAJ activity. We tested it out by casting a little metal bird thingy, board game pieces, and a soy sauce bowl. I’m trying to sculpt something to cast next but I keep getting distracted.
I did finally finish this C2C crochet blanket. I made the eight squares a looong time ago but have completely forgotten how to do it and had no interest in re-learning, lol. So instead I cobbled a blanket together with random coloured double crochet borders and stripes. I know it looks ridiculous but whatever, it’s DONE.
We met up with Jemma and kids in a park in our overlap zone for a picnic. They enjoyed throwing the frisbee into the trees and getting Scott to get it back.
I mentioned in my last post that we went to a specific area that my friend told me about to try and find tawny frogmouth but didn’t find any. Literally that night I’m lying in bed and I thought I could hear one?? They make like a MOOP MOOP MOOP MOOP sound. It sounded sooooo close and I got up to look out the window and I thought I saw something fly off.
So the next night I hear it again and Scott and I went outside to see where the sound was coming from and he was sitting up on our antenna!! He comes to our house almost every night! We call him Gawny the Tawny and I love him.
I became Australian! I wasn’t expecting my ceremony to be until at least January, and probably later because of lockdowns, but then I got an email that said they would be doing the ceremony by zoom in a couple weeks!
The mayor of our council talked a bit, and then we all said the pledge together, and then she said we could each introduce ourselves and say something about our journey to becoming Australian and what it meant to us to be Australian, which gave me a heart attack because I wasn’t prepared for public speaking.
Scott took the afternoon off and decorated the house, and cooked us kangaroo burgers for dinner, and the whole family gave me a gift card to get an Akubra hat. It feels so nice to have it done. I have already registered to vote and submitted my passport application!
The garden has not been going as well as last year at the same time point. It’s been COLD, so a lot of things didn’t sprout. It has also been WET, so everything that does sprout gets eaten by snails. It has also been WINDY, so everything is battered and bent over. I thought it was going to hail at one point so I ran out and put the laundry basket over my tomato seedlings!
At the moment the zucchinis look like maybe they are big enough to survive the snails, the salad stuff is growing fine, and the roma tomato seedlings look ok. The rest are pretty small and slow (chilis, beans), or still non-existant (herbs, eggplant!!).
I finally got to go back to the gym!!!! This is the thing that made me feel normal again. Also I swear I get like a 10% bonus in the gym. (Sophie says really it’s a 10% deficit in the garage.)
Oh and there was a couple weeks before the gyms were allowed to reopen that we were allowed to go to people’s houses so I got to at least train with Sophie in her garage a few times, which was great as well.
October #SMAJ was a day trip out to Warburton. We got delicious pies for lunch and then went for a walk along the O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail. It was nice to be out in nature but nothing super particular to photograph. On the way back there were like TEN kookaburras flying around and laughing at us! I have never seen or heard that many at the same time, it sounded crazy and chaotic!!
Apparently Scott helped build this bridge with the army in 2000.
Unpictured stuff… there is a lot because I keep forgetting to take pictures when I’m with other people. It takes so much more of my mental energy to remember how to socialise again.
My friend Steph moved to Canberra so we had a goodbye picnic. Well technically two side-by-side picnics because we were still only allowed to meet 1 friend outdoors at that point, lol.
Family dinner at Brett’s. We still can’t have fam dinner at Scott’s parents house because that is too many visitors. But if the house that we go to has more than 2 people that live there then it’s NOT too many visitors. Even though it is the exact same people. Get it? Haha. A couple more weeks and we should reach 90% double vaccinated and then I think the last few restrictions go away.
Went out for lunch with Ash and Charlie. Unfortunately we were up on a raised balcony and it was flipping freezing. But the company was nice.
Scott can play bowls again. He also got a pair of rollerblades and has been skating around parking garages.
We did N95 mask fit testing at work. About time eh? Apparently I have a very average shaped face because I passed the first 4 mask types that we tried.
Finally got to go to Costco and re-stock all our staples. And finally got to have a massage. I still haven’t been brave enough to go to any other stores though, it’s been bonkers busy everywhere.
Not the best month tbh. Still in lockdown. Everything still closed and still can’t see anyone. Although it was exciting when our radius doubled from 5km to 10km. :/
I still decided to take a week off from work, and Scott took a few days too. Even if we can’t really do anything it’s still nice to have a break from working. We spent the week cooking elaborate foods, doing a lot of crafts, watching ER.
Here is a bunch of jumbled pictures from the last month.
Making chicken wontons in my dumpling sweatshirt.
At home hotpot with leftover wontons, lots of mushrooms, tofu puffs (didn’t like them though), and veg. The broth was sooooo spicy.
Rice paper rolls with basa, mango, lots of veg, rice noodles, coriander and mint, with peanut dipping sauce.
I decided to paint the wall in the garage on my week off. I wasn’t sure how hard it was going to be so I kept my plan pretty simple. I kinda think it looks like a public library now though…. I’m not that happy with it. I might add a bit more to jazz it up a bit more maybe. Or maybe I’ll just paint over it and start again.
Scott’s parents sent us a card and some money to buy something to make us feel better. We decided to spent it on Caverna, a board game we have been wanting for a long time. It’s a bit like Agricola 2.0. I like it so far.
Scott trying to attract birds?
We were trying to find tawny frogmouth but all we found were a lot of rainbow lorikeets and mynas.
I fell off my bike. By biking straight into the boom gate at work. It really hurt.
However the Dees winning the Grand Final cheered me up after my accident. It was a great game. We started off strong in the first quarter, then the Dogs pulled ahead in the second quarter creating some tension, then part way through the third quarter the Dees kicked approximately 1000 goals and absolutely dominated for the rest of the game. By mid way through the fourth quarter we actually could relax because we were so far ahead.
Of course I’m sad that we couldn’t go to the game either here or in Perth. I’m really hoping that they are still good next year and we can actually go and experience the excitement in real life. The games should have great crowd atmosphere next year with all the Melbourne supporters coming out of hibernation.
The fam sent us an awesome charcuterie box for the game.
What I thought was going to happen when Maxy hoisted the cup with Goody after the win. (Or that Goody’s arm would get ripped out of its socket.)
I sewed myself an apron because I splash food on myself while cooking all the time.
I ordered a cheapy weaving loom off ebay for fun. It is pretty relaxing to use and works up way faster than a lot of my other types of craft hobbies. Dunno if it’s my new favourite thing or anything but it’s alright. Anyone need any coasters?
Nice flowers on a walk around our neighbourhood.
SITTING IS ILLEGAL.
Scott figured out how to crochet adorable baby hats! He has a new project in mind but the yarn is backordered and the postal system is paralyzed at the moment so it might not happen for a while.
Other unpictured stuff:
we planted some of our summer crops: carrots, zucchini, herbs, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, chinese eggplant, beans, chilis. It’s all started ok except the eggplant still hasn’t sprouted.
I did an online trivia night with my internet friends. It was fun. We won.
Still squatting a lot in the garage. Strength program is going pretty well.
I actually got called in to work. My third time in three years, lol, super different than my old job!! I just need to get called in three more times and then I can buy myself the RF 100-400mm lens I have my eye on. Might take three more years….
We attempted another cheese. Feta this time. It sorta worked…
Heat milk, add calcium chloride, culture, and rennet. Cover and leave in a water bath for 90 minutes.Cut the curd into 1 cm cubes. Let sit for another hour. Then gently stir the curds every 5 minutes for the next 30 minutes.Scoop the curds into moulds. I added some fresh rosemary to the round one. Cover and let drain for 3 hours.
This is where we started to have problems. After 3 hours I tried to get one of the blocks out of the mould and it disintegrated in my hand. So I scooped it back into the mould and we let it sit for another 3 hours or so.
But it was still too soft. So again I consulted cheesemaking reddit and they said it was possibly because our house was too cold and the cheese cooled down before it could knit properly. They said I could just leave it for another day and see if it solidified more by then.
Isn’t it weird that you can leave dairy products out at room temperature for apparently very long periods of time and not get sick/die?? (I think so.)
So finally after TWENTY FOUR HOURS of draining it was semi-solid. So we tipped them out of the moulds.
According to the instructions that I am reading now, we were supposed to let the de-moulded feta sit on a mat to drain for another 12 hours and I’m not sure we actually did that. Maybe that was part of the softness problem?
Feta ready for brining.Feta brining in a 12% brine solution. Which we later reduced because we found it too salty.
End result: tastes ok, but it’s very soft feta. It jiggles! Not really good for like, salad, but it’s fine in cooked things.
Scott’s spinach, pine nut and feta ravioli made with spinach from the garden and homemade pasta. Good job Scott!!
We were supposed to let the cheddar dry out on a mat for a week, flipping it twice a day. It started out ok but then suddenly developed a lot of black and white mould spots. I consulted cheesemaking reddit and they told me our house is too humid. I suppose we already knew that but didn’t realise it would be such a problem. They said we could scrape off the mould and continue on.
Waxed cheddar. Waxing was… an ordeal. Ask Scott about it. Then we just left it on a shelf for 5 more weeks. Sometimes a few drops of liquid would come out of it. Probably not a very good sign…
Finally this weekend we cut it open. It looked ok!! Not quite normal cheddar texture, more like havarti.. but I was just relieved that it wasn’t a puddle of slime inside. There was a little more liquid around the edges in some spots. Scott read that that is indeed a bad thing.
Unfortunately it tastes pretty gross. It starts out kind of ok but then finishes yuck. Kind of acidic/sour, and bitter. We ate a few pieces but then didn’t want any more.
We re-sealed the big chunks again but I have a feeling it’s not going to improve anything.
