CalifD, thanks for the Netflix recommendation. ‘Away’ is there so we’ll give it a try. I wish someone would develop an app that tells me which movies I’ve seen in my lifetime. Constantly starting something and then, about 15 minutes in, one of us realises we’ve already seen it! Did it again last night but couldn’t remember the ending so re-watched the whole thing.

Good luck to OH tomorrow. I came close to getting an appointment for my broken molar. The earliest they could see me was today, Friday (it was Monday then). But they wouldn’t book me a long enough slot to allow for the treatment until they’d first performed the exam and X-rays. Meaning, once again, I wouldn’t have been here long enough to get it treated. I can see their point of view, and they mine, but we can’t come to a suitable solution.

I asked about a temp. filling but was told they might last only 2 days or a week. Does anyone have experience with a temporary filling? – I’d have thought it would be good for some months so a good interim plan should I need a crown. I’m refusing X-rays as it’s all above gum level so I just need someone to look in my mouth, confirm I’ve broken off part of the molar and get on with it – temporary or permanent. Were I in that situation with a patient, I’d book them for the last appt. before lunch or the end of the working day.

Sorry, that became a big ramble about me – no pain. Your OH will be pain-free soon.

I read that arson is suspected in some of the Oregon fires.

LJ, yes, a heavy duty wooden rolling pin came with the boat. I’d been wondering what it was for, now I know. I don’t think you’re clutching at straws. Maybe this time, with more planning, you will get the exact tour that you originally wanted. Vaccines are looking promising – although you youngsters may have to wait a little longer to get one.

I wasn’t going to say until after Mr CalifD’s appointment but, now that you’ve mentioned it, it was a three-visit root canal treatment that ended in my losing the tooth and requiring an implant (due to the dentist not actually having performed the root canal at all but charging me for it anyway, then disappearing from sight for two years). I so wish we could get back to the BIDC in Bangkok. Although I have great faith in the clinic, I’m not so keen on travelling to Thailand right now.

Back, for part 2.

Anzac, how are you managing the changes in your diet? All that fibre and water settling? You still sound really busy. Is there an end-date to your project?

Calif, just read your post about your OH’s tooth. What terrible timing, and how unpleasant for him. Hope it’s being dealt with. I also read your detailed report about the fires, so sorry that my earlier post asked questions you’d already answered.

OH is suffering with his poor foot still. I’d geared up to go to the island tomorrow, after getting the editing back to the candidate, but at his appointment with the myotherapist yesterday she strongly recommended against walking on the sand…so we’ll postpone. I’m disappointed ….I feel the need for sun and sand. Still, not much of a sacrifice, when we think about what’s going on in the world, (not to mention his pain).

And LJ, nothing at all like your disappointment that the trip you’d planned for so long has been postponed. Hopefully next year ….these vaccines seem to be progressing quite quickly now. How hard though, to read the entries in your diary about where you would/should be now.

How is your neck Neil? Easing?

Thin have you had any indication how long it will be before you get OH’s visa application results?

Hello Penguin. How are things with you? Staying out of the woods? (I googled your wild boar ….a nasty beast, and not pretty, are they?) Any movement on your relocation?

HK good to read your post and congratulations for doing so well. Nice, isn’t it, to feel those clothes start to loosen.

OK time to end – Rosy is pulling at my hot water bottle and has already dragged her bed outside, and has tried to take the rug too.

Enjoy your Sunday all, where ever you are, whatever you are doing.

Good afternoon lovely people. I hope you are enjoying your Sunday and have some nice weather to cheer you.

Cinque, I have made savoury Indian flatbreads – I’ve just never thought of putting them into a waffle iron – not that I own one anyway! I do have both a large and small cast iron grill which fit on to the gas stove top, so I tend to make do with those. I think I’m going to have to get more inventive with the legume based flatbreads. I tend to be lazy and use lentil or besan flour, but there is no reason I can’t soak and then blend whole legumes – is that what you do, or do you cook them before processing into a waffle/flatbread mixture.
I am trying to imagine how you would spread butter ad vegemite over the undulating surface of that waffle.

Lindsay, I had a bit of an advantage on the cockatoo – I had a large walnut tree in the back yard at my previous house and every summer it would be crowded with white sulphur crested cockatoos, screeching at the top of their voices and eating all of the green unripened walnuts – and I do mean all. I saw many of them hiding behind the leaves as they munched on my walnuts. I was never sure whether the screeching was just friendly conversation, or arguments over who’d just pinched the best walnut from under someone else nose (or beak).

Thin, I’m glad you found a use for the inherited rolling pin. Franking I couldn’t picture you making pastry on a canal boat.

I saw a very cute sight on my morning walk. One front yard had has a blue heeler (still fairly young I think). As soon as it saw me it raced over with its teddy bear in its mouth! Too cute for words and clearly hoping I would play with it. I stopped for a little chat, but no play time.

Now that I’m back on 5:2 I have stopped weighing daily and am weighing weekly for the time being – I will eventually get back to monthly weighing, but not yet. The good news is that even though my weight jumped up to 78kg after last Sunday’s overindulgence, I was back to the mid 76s by yesterday morning. I’m having a very strict FD today so that I can enjoy my treat day tomorrow without guilt.
I am collecting my best friend in the morning and we’ll head up to Woodside (border town between the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley). There is a lovely shaded walking trail that will allow us to do a one hour walk and also a couple of good op shops to peruse. For lunch we are going to Avalon – a combined cafe and antique shop. Then after lunch we’ll head over to Mount Barker as there is a large nursery there that sells bulk plants for landscaping (everything from ground covers to nearly fully grown trees). I have some ideas on what I’m going to plant in my front and back garden beds, but I’d like to see what is available – it might help me rule some things in or out.

Take care all.

Evening all.

I had a good weekend, I took my boys out for a ride to see how they would cope. They managed 20 kilometres in just over an hour and a quarter without being too tired so that’s not too bad at all. I also got to have a look around a new proposed disc golf course in my suburb. So that would be great if they get that established. I got a bit more gardening stuff done so we’re pretty much ready for planting out in a couple of weeks when the weather is a bit more settled. I finished off the weekend with a family gathering to celebrate 4 birthdays that fall in September, so I’ll definitely be needing my Monday fast day tomorrow.

Well, Fast tomorrow and back to the grind. We’ll also find out if we’re going to move down to level 1 so fingers crossed.

Have a great day everyone

HK, hello again! Aren’t herons cool? Their patience reminds me of crocodiles. Your last comment definitely echoes those of others on these pages, although perhaps not mentioned for some time. I have a feeling workplace colleagues make good saboteurs. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Or, in our case, lack of pudding. After six years, no-one’s arguing with me about whether intermittent fasting is a good idea. I think it was CalifD who coined the response to skeptics who have a better plan, “… and how’s that working for you?”.

Neil, you’re turning your lads into workout machines just like their Dad.

Good morning, yes! I had an excellent fast day. Hooray for 5:2.

LJoyce,
Hooray for recovering from that weight spike so quickly, and I hope you are feeling great after your strict fast day.
I do hope your walk is as beautiful as it sounds.

Butter and vegemite skim nicely over the ridges of a waffle!
I remember first hearing about adai from you! And yes, ha, I’ve never heard of anyone else trying them in a waffle iron. It needs to be a batter though, to work in a waffle, not a flatbread.

Thin, thanks so much for your concern. Yes, it was weird to have no posts for a day. I seem to have a good day and then a worse day. Today is worse than yesterday but I still think I am getting better (I was crooker two days ago).
Sending fast day good wishes.

Neil, yay, I am so glad you are back to your usual active self.
Good wishes that you go to level 1. It seems likely, but fingers are crossed for you anyway. We are nicely on track to get to our next level too, so I have another set of fingers crossed for us.
Have an extra good fast day today. 4 birthdays will be a trick to negotiate!

Helen Kate, Oh dear, the reactions of friends to 5:2! Apart from the friend who introduced me to it, I mostly got complete disinterest but one friend gave me a serve, telling me I was starving myself and would end up fatter than ever, and a (dear) sister told me I might have anorexia (even though I wasn’t even into my healthy weight range at the time).

I was so delighted that I was losing weight, but no-one noticed for months until all of a sudden when everyone exclaimed… and then they got used to it and haven’t mentioned it again. It is one of the reasons I am still here after 5 years. It is the only place I can be with people who understand and can talk about it.

Thin, you are spot on, the proof is in the pudding.

Best wishes to everyone today.

Edit, Neil, ha, you are a pudding today. You will feel better tomorrow morning I hope. Don’t forget to drink lots of water.
It is looking like such a brilliant trip for father and son. This is what memories are made of. Hooray that he won’t be on a bike that is too small, that would be hard work.

This pudding is off to do some sorting of old papers. Cheers all

Good afternoon all

I am absolutely exhausted right now – an hour of heavy digging in the garden will do that to me – thank goodness I have remedial massage booked tomorrow!
I’m getting the veggie bed ready for planting. I have seedlings in pots to grow them on a bit before they go into the ground. I’m planting less year as I usually overestimate how much I can crowd into the beds. I have cherry tomatoes (several varieties and colours), zucchini (the rarer yellow and white varieties), spinach and bush beans. I will put runner beans in later – once I’ve picked the broad bean crop (covered in flowers but not beans as yet). I am picking lots of snow peas and podded peas – very yummy to eat when freshly picked. I must admit none of the shelled peas make it to the pot because I just love them raw – such a treat when I’m used to using frozen peas.

Yesterday in the hills was lovely. Nice lunch (goulash pie & salad)and afternoon tea (apple spice muffin and a pot of tea). We had a lovely long walk through Woodside – it’s the only walk that we ever do that takes us past horses – makes a nice change from the dogs and cats I usually say hello to on my daily walks. The nursery we went to has absolutely masses of trees for sale and I was able to see the things I’d been considering. I got a much clearer idea of which choices to eliminate and which were the best options seeing the actual plants.
The crepe myrle that I planted in the front garden nearly 2 years ago is not doing well. It seems to keep adding more branches from the base and not growing taller – I think it’s going to end up as a shrub form, rather than a tree. I want a tree not a shrub so I’ve decided that its days are numbered, but I needed to make a better decision this time about what to replace it with. I’ve decided on a crab apple, because there are several varieties that have the right maximum size for my small garden, it also will give me a different feature each season – lot of spring blossom, then green leaves, autumn colour and bare in winter. The only decision left is whether to choose a traditional form or a grafted weeping form. The best time to plant will be next winter, so I have plenty of time to make up my mind.

The only drawback of having a “treats allowed” day yesterday is that I took it too far, with 3 hours of snacking instead of eating a proper dinner. I am doing a strict FD today and will need to be especially careful for the rest of the week too.

Take care all. Hope you are doing well.

I’m pleased, I only gained 200 grams so I’m still sitting under 90 kilos on 89.7 kilos. I was expecting a bigger rise than that after eating so much sugar on Sunday night.

Have a great day everyone.

Good morning all. How can it already be halfway through September?

Cali, those fires continue to sound dreadful. I hope you are ok. I said to a friend the other day that I was disappointed to hear we have a strong La Nina coming this spring/summer, meaning it will be wet and cool. We feel like we practically missed summer last year due to our 7 weeks in freezing Europe. My friend responded with ‘You missed NOTHING. All we did was sit in our house with the windows closed looking longingly out at our pool that we couldn’t swim in’. So that is what you must be experiencing now sadly

Betsy, the weight sure does go on SO much easier than it comes off. I had a good FD on Monday and an ok CD yesterday but the weekend EFS is still grimly hanging in there. FD today so hopefully tomorrow I will see a drop

I am so happy to hear that your ear infection has gone Cinque. Hooray to all the lovely things growing in your garden – and you too LJ. Mr Anzac has little pots of things everywhere (a bit like your place Neil) and it is lovely to go and check on everything every day. Our mint, oregano, sage and thyme are going gang-busters and everything else is coming along nicely. We have been having gorgeous sunny days in the low to mid twenties for a couple of weeks now and the seedlings are loving it

I can’t wait to hear about your lovely catch-up with your family and hearing about the excitement of unwrapping the many-layered present Cinque. May it happen soon

Yay to staying under the 90’s Neil. I hope to get there soon

Your day yesterday sounds simply lovely LJ. Don’t worry about the evening snacking, you’ll remediate it in a day or two. I found the same thing last weekend – having a nice lunch both days should have resulted in not needing anything for dinner but despite not being very hungry the boys wanted another large meal both days and of course I couldn’t resist. Silly really.

HK, I agree completely about how some people are disapproving about this WOL. Many say ‘but breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ but that science has pretty much been knocked on the head now. Anyway, surely whatever works to get the weight off has to be a good thing so long as you are including all the necessary nutrients. I’m so encouraged by your success and very happy that you have joined our little family here.

How are things going over in NZ Turn? We haven’t heard from you in a while.

With the warmer weather comes the flies so we can’t really leave the back screen door ajar during the day so Maxx can nose it open. So Mr Anzac and I become what we call monkey-butlers. Since writing this post I’ve had to get up four times to let Maxx in then out then in then out. He can’t seem to settle for his post-walk long snooze. Sigh. He loves the sun but gets too hot quickly then wants to come in and lie on the cool tiles.

Quacka, Intesha, Crazy, Penguin, G’day – hi to you all and hope you are doing ok. Would love to hear from you

Have a superb day friends 🙂

Dear all

I am having a good FD today, due to having thought it out a bit beforehand – which I know many of you have advised doing. I had a late lunch of thin rice biscuits and sardines, and I’ve cooked a dal and some brown rice, and have hard-boiled a couple of eggs, so that I can put together something small but tasty for a late dinner. I’ve decided to aim to stay between 600 and 700 on FDs. I think I sleep better than if I only have 500. Also I am not in a hurry to lose more weight, though I am hoping the stomach will whittle down a bit more.

I was interested to read your thoughts about the attitudes of friends, Thin and Cinque. Thin, being retired I luckily don’t have to deal with workplace saboteurs – ‘the evil donut-bringers’ as the Happier Podcast calls them.

Neil, how good to be planning a bike trip with a son. My brother has three sons, all in their twenties now, and he did a hiking trip with each one of them when they had turned 18 – and in your beautiful country, Neil, down the bottom of the south island. So good to have special father-son times.

Cinque, I am very glad that your ear has cleared up at last. I agree with you that the attitude of most friends is disinterest, but like you I have one person who clearly disapproves and thinks I will damage myself in some way. Luckily I have a couple of friends who are supportive, and have also discovered one who practises it off and on herself.

But it is certainly good to have this group where people are interested in the topic, and you can learn from the experiences of others, and just not feel on your own with it. I don’t know if I would still be on it still, after two months, if I didn’t have the context of this group. And also the encouragement of the scales and the comfortable jeans!

Anzac, it’s great that you are so much more comfortable now in the digestive department. And you are right about how many people still push the myth that breakfast is essential. And I think we people on this WOL are more conscious of nutrients than most.

I love your description of you and Mr Anzac being turned into monkey-butlers by Maxx!

My daughter and her partner over in Sydney have recently got a puppy who they absolutely adore. They are planning to drive over to Adelaide in November and are prepared to quarantine if necessary. I am so looking forward to seeing my girl after all these Covid months, and it will be great to meet little Giles.

LJoyce, your day in the hills sounded really good – nature and horses and good food and a nursery. I think crab apples are wonderful trees, beautiful in all seasons.

Betsylee, it is very tough on all you Victorians. It’s good that you now have a bubble – and have other ways too of seeing people. Important for us people who live alone. Great that you’ve now ordered books on-line. It’s sad not to be able to browse in a bookshop, but there is a particular thrill in finding that package on the doorstep. I hope your meeting with the supervisor goes well tomorrow. What are you doing your thesis on?

Cali, Cinque’s cartoon shows pretty much how it feels to us over here watching what you people are going through over there. It’s terrible, and we can only wish you well, as we brace up for our own fire season.

Best wishes to all
Helen Kate

Morning all.

Good to hear from you Penguin, and that the scan results are positive. Hope the next 12 weeks of chemo goes well

Cali, can I endorse Penguin’s comment ..a dreadful situation in California and so very worrying. Hope you are okay.

HelenKate what a lovely newsy post. Different people have different attitudes to this WOL, and oddly, I’ve found, it’s the slim people in my circle (mostly work colleagues) who pooh-pooh it. Chubsters like me seem quite open to something that’s obviously successful. And actually, there’s so much evidence now about time restricted eating and fasting that I don’t hear the comment as often any more. Wonderful, your daughter will visit very soon. Will she be able to stay long?

Cinque, Betsy, more good news on infections today, though sadly more lives lost.
Betsy good luck with your meeting with your supervisors? Do you enjoy the meetings, and come away feeling inspired to push on? With bookshops closed, I find Booktopia a good online option. I was a Book Depository fan, but now try to support Australian businesses. Good fast turnaround, and often cheaper than Book Depository, which compensates for the postage.

Cinque I’m glad your ear infection is gone, and you are feeling brighter. Not long now til you can see your precious girls. What a celebration that will be!

Ah Anzac, those up-down-up-downs to let Maxx out. Think of him as your own personal trainer. Rose has taken to a comfy two-seater my Dad built, in the courtyard. When it gets too hot on the seat, she relocates to the cool pavers under it. But at night, she’s in, she’s out, she’s in, she’s out. Her favourite new ‘take’ is my phone. When I followed her out last night she was standing on the top of the courtyard steps, in the pitch black, phone held in her jaws by the cover, only visible because the phone had switched on.

LJ, Cinque, good work on the vegetables. It is quite wonderful, to watch the garden grow, and then be able to pick and eat its bounty. (I loved your Robin pic for Penguin…lovely).

It’s been a busy week – I got my PhD off on Monday, and was trashed for fully 24 hours. Then I got the call from my dear DIL … could we have the little one? DIL is a teacher and up to her ears in marking on what should have been her day off. Miss 2.4 year old was delightful, but no chance of doing the dozens of things that have been piling up. We have Miss 4 later today while DD finishes a big assignment, and then babysitting against for DS tomorrow night when he surprises his wife with a night out to mark the end of semester. More babysitting than usual – but terrific to be with the little ones, and to help out too

LJ just read about your lovely day in the hills. What a beautiful picture you paint. Good choice, the crab apple (I googled it). Nice, for a tree to have seasons. Gosh, I remember when you planted that crepe myrtle. I recall thinking it must be a good tree for your climate … here in the subtropics, they tend to go a bit crazy.

Thin, yes, OH has been through the wars, but he is like one of those weighted fairground dolls. Knock it over, up it springs. His foot strangely enough is one of the worst, in the sense that it is changing his (our) lifestyle and habits. We don’t walk together anymore. Some days he doesn’t come to the fields to run Rosy. No beach for a while. Because it’s a combination of things (gout, plantar fasciitis, shortened gait) his thigh muscle has tightened, so on and on it goes. BUT….the myotherapist is convinced she can resolve it, so we are feeling optimistic.

Neil, well done on staying under the 90. You must have found a sweet spot with exercise/food intake. Long may it last.

I am resolutely staying away from discussion about my progress, just for the minute. I am finding it hard to get back into the swing. I do well for a while, then not. I’ll get my mojo back, once life settles a bit. One thing I don’t falter on though is TRE. I NEVER eat within 12 hours of finishing the night before. Sometimes it’s only 14 hours, and not the 16 I aim for, but I am totally rigid on at least that aspect.

What a long rambly post. Hello to all I’ve missed including Turn, Quacka, G’day, Intesha……stay well all.

Afternoon all

Penguin, good news on the cancer front, I will you well for the coming cycle of chemo. Hopefully your body will handle it as well as it has so far.

Good luck with the Thursday fast Cinque. Hopefully you’ll have a nice smooth one today.

Good luck with getting your fasting Mojo back Lindsay. Sometimes we have to try something different to our progress to start ticking back over again.

HK, Dal is the best for fast days isn’t it, filling, full of fiber and protein. Which tracks did you brother do with his lads? I’ve done quite a few of them and I’ve done a few overnight ones with my boys. They did the first one with me when they were only 8 or 9 years old down to the Mavora Lakes.

Betsy, good luck for your meeting. I hope it goes well.

Anzac, Ha, butler for animals, it’s like that for our cat too. Even though we’ve got a cat door she still insists on making us open the door for her.

Turn, are you about? (Ha see what I did there) It was the Roxburgh dam lodge you used to own wasn’t it? I tried to book a room at that for our cycle trip but you may or may not be pleased to know it was completely booked out, so it seems to be thriving. We’ll have to stay in Roxburgh itself and do a trip up to the dam and back on one of the days.

Well I’d better go for my gym session. My boy will be pleased to see me tonight because I’ve just picked up his new bike so no doubt he’ll be super keen to take it out for a spin

Have a great day everyone.

Friday in Melbourne, day after fast day and oo didn’t I enjoy my breakfast. 🙂
And yes, Miso the cat enjoyed her whiskas.

Neil, I hope the spin on the new bike was all your boy hoped it would be.

Cali, so glad to read your news, although hard to hear the fire news. There is unusual fire danger currently, right up at the top of Australia around Darwin and the Kimberley’s, but the forecasters think this year will be a wet one for Australia, and that usually means we don’t have the bad fires, so hopefully we have a year to recover before we face another bad fire season. We will see.

Enjoy checking out the oilskin coats, I am sure you will find some modern designs that have the look and function you want, without being so high maintenance.
Ha yes, the Australian slang is much stronger away from the big cities. A Place to Call Home was another very popular series that I didn’t watch, haha.
One I do watch and love is Rosehaven. Very sweet humour. You might like it, if it comes available to you. Not much slang though.

Best wishes to Mr Cali, I hope that last tooth root comes out nicely. Fingers crossed.

Well, I am going to finish this and get up, and you know what that means… 3 things to put away. off I go.

Best wishes all.

Good morning friends

Just a quick one to apologise for being absent for a few days. Work is crazy and stressful and guess what? I’ve realised that stress brings on some tummy pain from the diverticulitis (I assume).

I will catch up on your lovely posts later and reply after taking the pooch for his walk. I did think about you and Rosy this morning Lindsay as Maxx decided 5.40am was a good time to wake Mum up for a play and when I walked into the loungeroom I saw that Mr Anzac had left his glasses and the t.v. remote on the side table and his smelly old shoes on the floor. I thought about what state they would have been in just a few months ago and realised we have come a long way. That said, while I was typing just now I heard a shuffle in the spare bedroom and then in flounced the fur angel with his tail up high, prancing around happily with my thong (flip flop) in his mouth. So there – pride cometh before a fall once again. Lol

Morning all
A lovely lazy Sunday. Washing on, showers threatening, but rain is rain at the moment, so no complaints.

Oh Cinque, hope that ear infection fades away quickly. Are you taking anything for it?

Cali, your coat sounds divine. Back in the day, before international travel was just a distant memory, I occasionally took lovely pieces up to Vietnam, to have them rejuvenated for a very reasonable price, by very good tailors. Nice to keep your coat – one day you will wear it again.

Anzac, a rubber thong (apologies for those international friends who are now dealing with unintended images …as Anzac says, it’s a flip flop in your parts of the world) is such a temptation. Our little girls put their shoes in a big bin high out of Rosy’s reach, or in the top drawer of our kitchen benches. Rosy is getting better …but shoes are shoes.

cali, back to crepe myrtles…there are different types. Ours in the back garden has multi stems from the base – it was the tall tree type, that we’ve cut back numerous times. We also have one in the walled garden off the ensuite …it’s a miniature version, which my dad gave me maybe 40 years ago and it never goes more than the 2 metres of the wall (although I do lightly prune it in winter).

Having a lovely day to myself today, although a day with the children is never something I grumble over. I had Miss 4 again on Friday (DD had to put some finishing touches to her big assignment), then last night she and the girls took OH and me for a fish and chip supper in the park. It was daylight when we arrived ….a dog park and a lovely playground adjacent, so I ran Rose while OH pushed the girls on the swings waiting for DD to collect dinner. By then it was dark and there were no lights, so we ate by the light of our phones..a really fun night. Miss 4 has white blond hair and is almost translucent, so she was like a little ghost running around.

I finally finished clearing out my bedroom cupboards and drawers, and am feeling pretty pleased with the result. Mind you, I would have to live to 110 to wear them all …that part makes me quite ashamed. So another big bundle of nice things to go to the Sallies, meaning I’ll just need to get to 100. Gosh what a job…I finished the final vacuum just as we were due to leave

Cinque and Betsy, I am just shocked at the clowns who think demonstrating for ‘freedom’ is the answer to the lockdown. Do they not see the numbers declining, which seems to indicate the measures, hard hard though they are, are the right way to go for the moment?

Neil, where are you? Off on a marathon bike ride?

Thin, hope the appointment goes well. Where to after Birmingham?

Hello Penguin. You okay? Sending good wishes.

bye for now all – off to the grocery shop, then perhaps the nursery for some seedlings.

Enjoy the rest of Sunday.

Thank you all for the good wishes.

The weather has been kind to us this week, dry, warm, mostly sunny. It should remain dry for a few days but the temperature is going down – 29C last week, 14 C this coming week. We are pretty much on top of the garden.

Around here we have a system called “Freecycle” – we put on line items we want to give away or need. I put an office desk on line yesterday evening and had the first taker about 20 minutes later, followed by a decorators table, which went as quickly. The unlikeliest things go – 6 black plastic dustbins (previously used for forcing Rhubarb) and half a dozen wooden palettes on which we had received deliveries. The guy collecting the palettes intends to turn them into rustic wine racks and sell them.

I made bead this morning, it has now risen to the level that I should give it the second kneading and put it in the tins. Some of it will be made into small pizzas, OH having reminded me that I haven’t done that lately.

Morning all

We have freecycle over here, it’s good for getting rid of stuff you don’t want without having to worry about carting it off somewhere yourself, but I think it encourages people who have hoarding issues. We had one person in our city who was an absolute hoarder and eventually they got evicted because of the health nuisance, and when they cleaned up the property they took 42 rubbish skips of junk out of their property.

I hope you enjoyed your bread Penguin, home-made pizza is the best. I’m working on landscaping our section and eventually I want to have a big seating area down by our gardens and build a bbq and pizza oven. If we do that we’ll be having the home made pizzas a lot more often.

Cali, how are the fires in your area now? Are they starting to bring them under control? I heard last week that because of the fires, Oregon had the worst air quality in the world and it was worsening effects for people that were suffering from covid.

Thin, a 40 minute bike ride = 9 hours of cruising? It must be 40 minutes for an Olympic cyclist 😉

Lindsay, I’m still here but I’m heading off with my boy next Monday to ride the Clutha Gold trail I did by myself last year. I’m doing it in 4 days with him so we don’t have to ride as far each day. We’re going to have the backpackers in Roxburgh all to ourselves. I contacted them to see if they had any room available and they said they weren’t opening until October (they are in a orchard area and usually only open when the growing season starts) I said that it was a pity because we were going to be there on the 29th September so we miss out by two days. The guy said they would be happy to open up a couple of days early for us 😀

Cinque, that sounds pretty good. I managed to get my kids to actually enjoy brussels sprouts yesterday. I fried them up with a couple of rashers of bacon and a pile of mushrooms and then added a teaspoon of garlic butter at the end, they disappeared off their plates pretty quickly.

Anzac, I hope your workload eases off this week.

I had a good weekend, the weather was beautiful so I plenty of frisbee golf, had a nice dinner out, and I got our garden completely finished and ready to plant. So we’ll start getting things in the ground over the next couple of weeks. We picked up some new Asian greens to try this year, we picked up some punnets of Mizuna and Tatsoi so hopefully they’ll grow ok.

Have a great day everyone

Hi everyone,

So lovely to see you all here!!!

I have responded to Covid by slipping back into my early years ME/CFS solo cocoon at home. Well this time not quite solo with Mr Merry here too, retired not working away. I’ve rarely looked at emails except to scan for close family emails every few days.

Today my intuition was saying click on that email and it was Penguin! I’m so happy for you and relieved to see you are both doing well during this very strange and scary year. I’ve been praying for you both.

Thin – you and the pilot also. So good to see you here too! I thought you had sailed/glided off into the English countryside and no longer posting. I’ll have to catch up on your adventures,

CaliD – I’ve been praying for you too over there with all you are contending with this year. My son and daughter-in-law are there too.

I’ve spent years in forced personal ‘almost lockdown’ and I just went straight back to it easily. At the time I was too unwell to keep in contact with anyone and that pattern re-asserted itself in this isolation also. On the day we went into voluntary isolation we had spent some time with the immediate family of the person who was very sadly one of the first cases and the first Covid death in our area. They had spent a long time with that person (days) and later on I needed a Covid test, negative thankfully. I’ve had every intention of keeping in touch but after that I just reverted into hibernation mode.

So… having done too much eating of the wrong sort of carbs for me, and chocolate!, I’m now 71.8kgs this morning, reaching a high of 72.3kgs a few weeks ago, and now bouncing between 70.5 and 72. I also dropped the plot on keeping up my rehab and stretching excercised that started with a bung knee just before iso and not going to a gym. The knee is still a bit dodgy and the other one sometimes complains in protest, but I’m getting there.

On the food side I’ve been growing vegies and herbs, and I grow various lettuces really well, though they’re probably foolproof. My tiny tomatoes had hundreds of flowers but no fruit so haven’t sorted that yet.

Anyway, I’ll see you again later in the day!
Hugs to everyone,
Merry

Neil, I should clarify, that 9 hours of cruising included the locks, they can take around 20 minutes each.

I tend to agree about encouraging hoarders. In Perth, we had council verge pickups twice a year. It was an opportunity to remove all the junk from your shed and transfer it to your neighbour’s shed. I put a lot of free items on gumtree when we sold our house. Within minutes, our street became a car park with people who couldn’t speak any English except to say, ‘Free Stuff, Free Stuff?’. When we asked which of the advertised items they were after, they kept up the mantra. They didn’t care what they loaded up as long as it was free. Once couple emptied a box of tiling spacers all over our garage to inspect and, trying to fit them together, clearly having no idea what they were, took them anyway. On the other hand, I agree CalifD and penguin, it’s great that items get recycled in such a way.

Merry, welcome back. I hope you’re soon back into the ‘positive Merry’ swing of things. What a scare with the family who sadly experienced the covid death. We know of no-one who’s had it, let alone died from it. I’m assuming from your post that Mr M. is well with his medical issues now behind him.

Cinque, I hope you’re feeling better soon and pleased that you had a good FD. I did too.

CalifD, yes, we’ll watch some more of ‘Away’. I haven’t seen ‘McLeod’s Daughters’.

Autumn is with us. A cooler misty morning and eight large Pheasants sitting on my garden wall.

Penguin, I’ll see your 8 pheasant and raise you five. Just counted 13 walking through a field. This morning, we’ve also seen a lapwing, a pochard, a great egret and two little egret. A good day for bird spotting it seems.

Hi everyone, thanks for the welcomes back. Good to be back!!!!

Penguin, I envy you the pheasants on the fence! I’ve been reading back and I’m up to 2nd September on your posts. (It’s 12.25am and bedtime is past) Heck, what a year you’ve had!! I hadn’t realised you’d been back to the hospital rounds and with the added months of chemo. So up to Sept 2nd you seem to be handling chemo reasonably well, which is at least something good about something yucky. How odd to be now having to keep the calories up, but I can imagine you’d use up calories fast. Penguin is seriously tall. I’m sure Cinque and I can come up with lots of suggestions for how to survive a long term in a house sanely if you need more suggestions, but it seems you’ve quickly sussed out the most precious, which is just to enjoy the small delights of each day – the birds, the changing weather, the rain on leaves then sparkling in the sun, and doing some gardening is very spiritually, emotionally healing as well as the other benefits. Any good positive chemicals flowing through the brain help keep the body in a better healing state.

So in the earlier bits of lockdown you had me looking up and listening to crumhorns, German reed pipes and gittens(sp ?) and wondering just how many languages you are partially or fully competent in. I can manage “she she” in Mandarin, and that’s about it other than the basic tourist questions in Japanese, Russian, Spanish, French and really that was the courtesies, numbers to 10, where is the loo please, ordering lunch and when people asked waiters why a single lady was having the menu del dias at lunch , horrors, on her own, an airbnb host kindly taught me to say -“I’m from Australia. My husband is a peregrino, walking with his brother, and I am meeting him in Santiago de Compostela.” Other than that it was learning various English accents and when to use “you’ll” and “all you’ll”.

So, by 2nd September you hadn’t sold or bought your new house yet, and it must be weird doing those things through the craziness we’re all collectively living through. I remember the view across your veggie garden to the church steeple, and I’m imagining those many drawings and paintings. Have you done them in multiple styles, colour systems etc? The Japanese one is interesting. It uses colours close by on the colour wheel as part of the same colour so instead of say, using what we think of as complementary colours they will put purple and orange with red, because purple is on one side of red and orange the other, blue also goes with purple and also green; various shades of each. What can look a little odd at first is quite systematic.

Must toddle off to bed now.
Stay well, my friend, and I’ll catch up on 2nd Sept – tomorrow. Love to Mrs Penquin too.

Merry

Our morning mist was probably pretty close to Thin’s fog, but it burned off quickly and gave us a sunny and warm day. Tomorrow will be cooler. The Pheasants disappeared with the mist, to the relief of the visiting cats who find birds that big to be intimidating.

Thin, I would have been annoyed. I have had many dogs and frequently preferred them to people, but they had to behave.

Merry, as part of the house move prep my collection of weird instruments has largely gone, but I am learning – it seems that if I dispose of something I want it again a week later. Over the years I have learned the languages I needed when I needed them, and lost them when I stopped using them. I now try to stay fluent in German and improve my Portuguese, Norwegian and French. It helps to keep my brain functioning during the various lock-downs.

A quick bath and then to watch my favourite TV programme – “Only Connect”.

Good afternoon all from a lovely sunny Sydney. 27 degrees

I’ve been able to catch up on your posts and will respond when I can. I worked practically all weekend so woke up yesterday with about as much enthusiasm about facing another stressful week as a fatigued slug. Oh well….bills to be paid and fur-children to feed

I am happy that I have managed to avoid over-eating due to the stress. In fact after peaking at 91.7 kilos a couple of weeks ago I am down to 90.5 and tantalisingly close to the 80’s again.

I can’t do proper FD’s when work is like this but I’m keeping to around 1000 calories every week day and it is working.

Gah, another meeting coming up so must run. Take care all