Post 429 Bookended by lunches.

There were plenty of birds present at the beach on Wednesday when our quarterly lunch group met at HNLY restaurant.   My order of Yellow Fin Whiting got messed up - maybe I said 'tuna' when I ordered (quite possible), maybe the waitress got it wrong. In any case I ended up with battered fish and chips, which I enjoyed!.

  

It really was a lovely day at the beach - pleasant breeze, sunny without being too hot. 

The birds were enjoying it.

I finished the second bag-from-jeans and have started on the third.  As usual, there is more in the blog link.

I spent a few hours organising my new furniture.  My books are now in some sort of order and findable. I have sorted and labelled the containers in the sewing room cupboard. I still have the files in the filing drawers to cull, sort and label.  I had planned to do it yesterday but when I couldn't find a tube of ointment in the bathroom, I was distracted into cleaning out and reorganising the bathroom drawers and cupboards.  Definitely on a roll!

After the files I have to tackle the boxes of papers and folders of  knitting and embroidery notes in the spare bedroom - and my family history archives. 

Sunday was book club and we had a very productive and engaging time sharing our reading.  It's stimulating, supportive and sustaining. Outside the home in which we met there was a jacaranda tree laden with inspiring seed pods.

I'm the book chooser for next month and have chosen three books called A Spoonful of Murder.  I began with one by JM Hall, a UK school deputy principal whose recently published first novel was recommended of Prof. Pat Thomson who has worked with him. While I was trying to source a copy in Australia I came across the same title by Robin Stevens and another by Connie Stevens, so got all of them. It will, I think be an interesting exercise.

Over the weekend I also made my first pot of soup for the year. It's a variation on those my mother made - the Christmas ham bone defrosted, swede, turnip, parsnip, carrots, pulses, tomato and celery. There's a lot of it! It will help boost my vegetable intake this week. 

I've had a few challenges in the last few days. The cover of my mini iPad is disintegrating. The Officeworks replacement I bought yesterday after much discussion with staff  turned out not to fit.  This morning one of the 5 cords in my 180cmx250cm bedroom blind broke, producing a kind of hernia in the blind, and there was no signal on my Vergola controller so I couldn't open it. I find all of this stressful, but took a deep breath, returned the iPad cover (easy, no hassle), ordered another one from Apple online,  and made phone calls to Vergola and to a repairer of blinds. One impact of Covid is that such businesses are short of staff and take longer to respond and to deliver.

Someone is now coming to collect the blind next Monday and the Vergola people are scheduling a service visit - all organised before  11.45 a.m. when a friend picked up me and a kitchen chair, and drove us to Nairne, in the Adelaide Hills to visit another friend who had prepared a delicious, healthy lunch of cold rolls, soup and lemon drizzle cake with strawberries. The chair matches others she has. We had a brilliant time - relaxed, loving, renewing, nurturing. I came home feeling renewed and very connected. 💪.

I didn't take photos in the Hills, where autumn is very much on display, but this is the evidence around the corner from my apartment. Lovely pleasant days in Adelaide.

Although it appears from this post that I am a 'Lady who Lunches', I, and most of my family and friends, are still operating 'from an abundance of caution' - avoiding crowds and events, wearing masks indoors in social settings, eating outside, monitoring ventilation, socially distancing. Covid cases are slowly increasing in Adelaide, as are hospitalisations and deaths. Schools returned today with masks mandated, although they are not mandated more generally. I've just refused an invitation to a 70th birthday bash.  With only one kidney, even with 4 vaccinations, I will do as much as I can to avoid any contact with Covid.  

For the most part, I am sticking to my knitting and embroidery.