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Sat, Apr. 21st, 2018 10:07 pmK SO FUNNY STORY. Every time I've been on the computer since the last update, it's been to write. The previous chapter I finished before this current awesome run was in April last year. I'm now halfway through the fifth in less than a month, and holy shit balls I love it. You'll remember my last update, a month ago, was about how I'd finally forced myself to work out was happening in this mess of a book, and wishing to do the cliché writer thing and go to coffee shops to do the writings. I've so totally been doing that. That very week, the weather was GORGEOUS, so every day after work I took my laptop down to the beach, picked a café with a power point and, ideally, a view of the beach, and wrote. I've spent entire weekend days down at Brighton and Glenelg, just writing, and it's been magnificent. That's honestly been most of what's been happening.
Easter happened, though! With the traditional Oakbank races, where we open with a champagne breakfast and continue the day from there. I've found my calling with the veggies and they were so good. I got lots of comments :D I had fennel, carrots, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, red onion and half a clove of garlic each, all roasted on the barbecue. I had an awesome oil I made up for them, too, made up of about a quarter oil from a sundried tomatoes jar, a quarter of my own chilli oil I've previously made, tablespoon each of paprika, rosemary, oregano and thyme, couple of cloves of grated garlic and a few chopped up sundried tomatoes, then topped the jar up with olive oil. It was soooooo good, especially the roasted garlic in the middle, and the steak Dad did (also on the barbie) had such an amazing gutsy sauce with it, aww yeah. There's just something about having barbecued gourmet food outside, even though this was just the most perfect weather day we've ever had for Oakbank, there's still that rustic outdoorsiness of it all that makes food taste even better and gutsier.
Also some horses ran past every now and then.
The previous weekend, when the weather was more autumny and Mum and I were having coffee and talking about options for my very dead garden, Mum just suddenly sat up and went, 'Ooh! Gran has wooden crates in the shed!' So we quickly checked with Dad's brother to make sure they didn't want them, then that very day we headed down to Gran's and obtained said crates. They're just perfect. Also grabbed a whole lot of bricks to stand them on and carted them up to my place to dump in the back garden in anticipation.
The rest of the Easter weekend, so Sunday and Monday, Mum came over and we implemented the crates. Hacked up the weed mat of the pallets to get the dirt out, which was so horribly dry and dusty because they just weren't working. I lined the new wooden crates with more weed mat while mum filled them up with a mix of dirt, soil wetter and dynamic lifter. We got most of them done on Sunday, but had an impromptu call from Colin on Saturday to go to theirs for dinner that Sunday. In truth we's both had enough of them by that point anyway, so woo! Easy out.
Dinner was awesome crispy skinned barbecue pork with Laura's roasted veggies and incredible three-layered cake 8D I ate well Easter weekend.
Monday we finished off the boxes and went PLANT SHOPPING WHEEEEEEE. God it's fun. The fruits of our labour. Some of the plants down the far end will grow to around 1.5m tall so they'll make a gorgeous little jungle down that end.
Last couple of weekends have been the writing thing, then this weekend, well 8D I've decided to take a week of leave. It's Anzac Day on Wednesday, which is a really messy day for a public holiday, so I'm taking four days of annual leave for a nine-day holiday, hell yeah. I've never taken leave purely to take a break and still hang around Adelaide not doing anything, so this is just delightful. Theoretically, boss will text me on Tuesday to tell me if it's gotten busy and I'll be needed on Thursday and Friday, but given that a pretty serious chunk of our clients will probably be doing the same thing, I don't think that's likely to happen.
So through the week while I was at work, Mum came up and deposited ten slabs of slate at my back door, also from Gran's, so today I laid those down the services end of the garden, under the washing line and in front of the tank and hot water service. I also planted a few more of the alpine pratia, which is the little green blobs in the ground to be my ground cover. They're just loving the warm weather right now, just about doubled in size since those photos were taken. Now I've got dirt laid down in the ground in place of that horrible sand I was recommended before, I reckon I'll give the baby's tears another shot down where the slate is, cos it likes growing between rocks. This time, the garden will live, just you watch!
Tomorrow, trip to the art gallery with the whole family, first for lunch, then to see the Musée D'Orsay exhibition, which I'm super excited for. It's an exhibition of impressionists, like Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet... Impressionism is probably my favourite historical art movement so this will be awesome.
For the rest of the week, the weather is still ridiculous (29 on Monday at the end of April? What is this madness?) so I'll be going to the beach, sitting in the garden, might book a massage, have breakfast at disgustingly hipster cafés, going to see movies... it's gonna be awesome.
Also the Crows beat Sydney last night in Sydney with literally half the team, including pretty much the whole midfield, out with injury. I'd written them off so hard I didn't even tip them, but they WON. I'm so proud! A truly glorious start to my week off.
Easter happened, though! With the traditional Oakbank races, where we open with a champagne breakfast and continue the day from there. I've found my calling with the veggies and they were so good. I got lots of comments :D I had fennel, carrots, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, red onion and half a clove of garlic each, all roasted on the barbecue. I had an awesome oil I made up for them, too, made up of about a quarter oil from a sundried tomatoes jar, a quarter of my own chilli oil I've previously made, tablespoon each of paprika, rosemary, oregano and thyme, couple of cloves of grated garlic and a few chopped up sundried tomatoes, then topped the jar up with olive oil. It was soooooo good, especially the roasted garlic in the middle, and the steak Dad did (also on the barbie) had such an amazing gutsy sauce with it, aww yeah. There's just something about having barbecued gourmet food outside, even though this was just the most perfect weather day we've ever had for Oakbank, there's still that rustic outdoorsiness of it all that makes food taste even better and gutsier.
Also some horses ran past every now and then.
The previous weekend, when the weather was more autumny and Mum and I were having coffee and talking about options for my very dead garden, Mum just suddenly sat up and went, 'Ooh! Gran has wooden crates in the shed!' So we quickly checked with Dad's brother to make sure they didn't want them, then that very day we headed down to Gran's and obtained said crates. They're just perfect. Also grabbed a whole lot of bricks to stand them on and carted them up to my place to dump in the back garden in anticipation.
The rest of the Easter weekend, so Sunday and Monday, Mum came over and we implemented the crates. Hacked up the weed mat of the pallets to get the dirt out, which was so horribly dry and dusty because they just weren't working. I lined the new wooden crates with more weed mat while mum filled them up with a mix of dirt, soil wetter and dynamic lifter. We got most of them done on Sunday, but had an impromptu call from Colin on Saturday to go to theirs for dinner that Sunday. In truth we's both had enough of them by that point anyway, so woo! Easy out.
Dinner was awesome crispy skinned barbecue pork with Laura's roasted veggies and incredible three-layered cake 8D I ate well Easter weekend.
Monday we finished off the boxes and went PLANT SHOPPING WHEEEEEEE. God it's fun. The fruits of our labour. Some of the plants down the far end will grow to around 1.5m tall so they'll make a gorgeous little jungle down that end.
Last couple of weekends have been the writing thing, then this weekend, well 8D I've decided to take a week of leave. It's Anzac Day on Wednesday, which is a really messy day for a public holiday, so I'm taking four days of annual leave for a nine-day holiday, hell yeah. I've never taken leave purely to take a break and still hang around Adelaide not doing anything, so this is just delightful. Theoretically, boss will text me on Tuesday to tell me if it's gotten busy and I'll be needed on Thursday and Friday, but given that a pretty serious chunk of our clients will probably be doing the same thing, I don't think that's likely to happen.
So through the week while I was at work, Mum came up and deposited ten slabs of slate at my back door, also from Gran's, so today I laid those down the services end of the garden, under the washing line and in front of the tank and hot water service. I also planted a few more of the alpine pratia, which is the little green blobs in the ground to be my ground cover. They're just loving the warm weather right now, just about doubled in size since those photos were taken. Now I've got dirt laid down in the ground in place of that horrible sand I was recommended before, I reckon I'll give the baby's tears another shot down where the slate is, cos it likes growing between rocks. This time, the garden will live, just you watch!
Tomorrow, trip to the art gallery with the whole family, first for lunch, then to see the Musée D'Orsay exhibition, which I'm super excited for. It's an exhibition of impressionists, like Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet... Impressionism is probably my favourite historical art movement so this will be awesome.
For the rest of the week, the weather is still ridiculous (29 on Monday at the end of April? What is this madness?) so I'll be going to the beach, sitting in the garden, might book a massage, have breakfast at disgustingly hipster cafés, going to see movies... it's gonna be awesome.
Also the Crows beat Sydney last night in Sydney with literally half the team, including pretty much the whole midfield, out with injury. I'd written them off so hard I didn't even tip them, but they WON. I'm so proud! A truly glorious start to my week off.
