anyresemblance

6th Day of Christmas

I have graduated from "oh real Christmas trees are so romantic", "it smells so delicious", "bugger, the branches are so floppy, the ornaments keep sliding off", "there are pine needles everywhere", "right, off to the tip as soon as it is open".  

In my minimal defence, I did tip it at the green waste to become garden mulch and I have left all the other decorations up but I will consider a real tree with more scepticism while I am living in this hellish inferno that is Australia.

This being a working day, I scored 3 parcels in delivery with delayed Christmas gifts including both tasteful and useful things.

The Samin Nosrat focaccia was overbaked (I didn't hear the timer while I was wrestling the Christmas tree) but the taste was phenomenal.  I had some with a sliced tomato for breakfast and then made a  cheat's gazpacho for lunch (one very ripe tomato, one clove garlic, one quarter of small red onion, half a Lebanese cucumber, 4 ice cubes, a giant slug of red wine vinegar, ditto olive oil, generous salt, pulse in mini food processor) and ate another chunk.  

 

 

Take a letter, Maria

The time I am spending at home is delightful.  Today, I tidied my desk which has been a disaster for 6 months.  It involved going to Officeworks to buy some more hanging files but my blood pressure has dropped significantly.  I also bought some ink for my fountain pen, found the Kaweco pen ganching gave me for Christmas some years ago and have written some thank you letters.  I am minded to give 52 letters another outing.  I reminded my daughter she had to thank someone for a gift.  She gave me a withering glance and said she had already texted the person but frankly that is a poor excuse for a thank you in my book which ideally involves a stamp and good paper.

Last night was so hot I didn't walk to dog until 9pm.  Obviously that was the neighbourhood vibe and I met lots of other people trudging the streets in the marginally cooler air.  I am sad that smokey skies are now the new normal.  The whole flipping country is on fire.  I found myself looking at property in Scotland, Ireland, Tasmania and other places with a lot of rain.

I find myself sick of all food so I made red cabbage and am planning on eating that with a baked potato tonight.  I cut up the last of the ham but the fridge is still full of chocolate.  I did watch the delightful Samin Nosrat making focaccia on this channel which has inspired me and I have the dough proving now for the next 14 hours.

I was going to take myself to Little Women today but it doesn't open until New Year's Day so I have to find an alternative.  Both girls are house sitting for people's pets so are out and about and I have full control of Netflix.

What day?

We're in that time when you have to count back to work out what the date is or what day of the week it is.  I'm sure everyone is heartily sick of hearing about how hot it is or how the sky is still full of smoke but both things are facts slowing me and the dog down.

I've had a couple of enjoyable days of ticking through my home tasks. I've put up the printers tray and found all the little ornaments, put up a painting, tidied my wardrobe and thrown yet more stuff out.

I had the house to myself last night as one kid was on a date and the other is house sitting for someone with air-conditioning in their bedroom.  After I dropped the kid in town, I drove back along the lake.  There were dozens of kangaroos come down to be closer to the water in the - slightly - cooler evening.  I lay on the sofa and finished the book I bought in Ohio which is set in Columbus.  I enjoyed it very much.

Today, Charlie and I did an early walk but it was still 30 degrees by 10am.  I went to look at a car which the older one is considering buying and then on to my 5th trip to Bunnings of the week where a helpful man colour matched a paint chip so I can do some tidying up.  After that I had an enjoyable Thai lunch with some work friends.  

I'm listening to Phillip Pullman's Sally Lockhart mysteries and enjoying the victorian setting and Anton Lesser reading.  I saw him play Romeo in Stratford a hundred years ago and he really is very good.  Jonathan Hyde was Mercutio in the same production and although he is better known as a character actor now, he was dangerously good looking and my teenage obsession.

Antsy

The kitchen is over run by ants.  I cleaned out the whole pantry yesterday morning to get rid of the little beasts.  They are not harmful and don't creep me out but you can't leave a speck without an army of them appearing.

This diligence on Christmas Day was rewarded with a good set of gifts including an off set spatula, the latest Diana Henry and a nice le creseut egg cup.

We did a long way through the woods with Charlie, had lunch out (nice food, sloooowwww service), skipped the dessert and went home and napped.  We spent the evening looking at old photos, the ones still in the envelopes from Boots or Easy Prints, to find the ones that never made the albums that the children had never seen.  

 

Family strife

We have accomplished a lot in the past three days:

• assembled an Ikea desk for daughter with only a minimum of arguing (we did the drawers wrong but worked out how to hack it without having to disassemble the whole fracking thing)
• received IKEA delivery of wardrobe for other kid and two billy bookcases
• wisely organised someone from airtasker to do the wardrobe assembly
• took an experienced tradie 2 hours to do the above and he then threw in putting up the curtain rail for free.  I gave him a giant tip
• assembled three billy bookcases with ease (having done 3 on my own 12 months ago, doing them with two people is a doddle)
• unpacked all the books (finally)
• took all the cardboard to the tip
• finally put the new loose covers on the sofa (excellent and highly recommend these people if you are in the market for new covers on standard high street retailer sofas)
• collapsed all the boxes from moving and returned them to the storage company for a  partial refund

I am not convinced I have equity in my Christmas shopping but am trying not to panic buy something to address this.  A cash equivalent would probably be more welcome.

The oldest rearranged the cook book shelf to group by author.  BTW, I am a big Jamie Oliver fan but the veg book is depressing not least for that awful phrase "plant based" meals.  If you want vegetables that excite you, Ottolenghi is a much better bet.  Also, please note my very battered Madhur Jaffrey and her Middle Eastern Vegetarian cooking which I have owned since 1984 is still inspiring.

 

Mission accomplished

Work is done and I am on holiday for 16 days.  

I got to the office at 6.30am yesterday and spent the day chasing approvals and doing the work that two other people left undone and wondering why people make everything more complicated that it has to be.  I deferred my hair appointment twice but in the end dashed out at 4.30, connected to wifi from the hairdresser and finished everything by 6pm.  

I then got pizza and we watched another episode of His Dark Materials.

Despite being so tired and it being hot, I woke at 4am and just got up at 5 and wrapped Christmas presents.  I was at Bunning's at 7 to buy cable extensions, did a huge fruit and veg shop at the markets, went to Coles and was still home by 9am.

I ate 3 very ripe figs and a piece of toast for breakfast but might need to have a little nap later.  The fridge is looking very joyful.

Wish you were here

Work is frantic so instead of a blog post here is a photo of my dog in the snow.  With the heavy smoke from bushfires shrouding our city, it is nice to think about cold air.

Deck the halls

I'm going out a limb and saying the Christmas tree I purchased on the weekend has little to commend it other than smelling nice.  I am feeling super cranky about stupid Australian conifers with droopy branches that shed their ornaments at the slightest breeze.

 

I'm making a list

1. I got an upgrade on the way home and snored for ten hours.  
2. I went from -7C to 34C.  
3. I still have a cough which is annoying as I pride myself on the rarity of me getting sick.
4. I wrote my Christmas cards but still have to get to the post office to buy stamps.
5. I made my kid a birthday cake - a chocolate Swiss roll with chocolate mousse.  It was a bit of disaster in terms of its roll but it tasted good.  Too chocolate for me but a loving gesture nonetheless.  Also, genoise sponge is kind of tasteless, I think.
6. I went to Ikea and bought two turntables for the pantry which have revolutionised access to many things.
7. I made fennel gratin and ate it for dinner with a green salad.
8. I watched Virgin River which is truly awful but I was so tired I didn't want to waste my viewing on something I needed to pay attention to.
9. I bought a Christmas tree but haven't decorated it as am giving the branches time to settle in.
10. I love my new robo-vac and, even better, the dog ignores it.

 

 

Splendid

The only consolation of having disrupted sleep is that I am hoping I will quickly slot back into Australian sleep patterns.  Yesterday was torture.  I felt like I could lay my head on the desk and start snoring right in the middle of a very technical discussion.  As the least technical person in the room, kubernetes makes me lose the will to live.  Added to that, back home we have a flurry of work coming in to respond to.  I get that the client wants to clear their in tray before Christmas but that means flicking it to poor vendor to have to work all over the holidays.  

One bright spark was a flurry of snow which had my Vietnamese born colleague giddy with excitement.  He made us troop down to the car park so he could take photos of us in the snow.  

In better news, I went to Target last night after getting off the phone to Australia and spent an enjoyable hour perusing the Magnolia homewares and buying Ghirardelli Christmas chocolate stuff.  I also managed to race into Barnes and Noble and buy two books for less than I would pay for one in Australia.  It made me recall when I did business travel 15 years ago, I spent a lot of time in Barnes and Noble buying American Girl stuff and craft stuff for the girls, none of which was available in Australia and all of which was loved by them.

This morning I woke at 4am but instead of feeling miserable, I got up and washed my hair and packed and drove to Starbucks for their 5am opening so I actually feel ok instead of hollow eyed with exhaustion.  I saw this ice creamery.  There is something splendidly cheering about the word splendid.