Post 124: Mostly dinner

Today's post is short. Although I had a fairly busy day, I didn't think to take photos.


Just as I finished my breakfast I caught the Noisy Miner out of the corner of my eye - back to sample the Aeonium flower. I managed to take a photo, but it was through the fly wire screen, so pretty terrible. It's a shame, because it was a clear view of the bird.

I didn't see the doves at all today, but then, I was busy shopping or in the kitchen.

The kids were coming here after school. Although I had bought the main ingredients for dinner yesterday, I had bread to get and some sort of savoury snack for after school. Frewville is the place for these and, inevitably I bought a number of other things.

I made eggplant parmigiana, potato and bacon and roasted chicken Marylands.

I had intended to take a photo, but forgot. It worked quite well.


In the evening I concentrated on the Muncaster Orange. I was falling asleep by the end so there is a bit of tidying to do tomorrow, as well as the centre.  I think this week I should be able to work consistently on this. It's lovely to work on.

South Australia had three cases of Corona Virus identified today after 28 days of no cases. The three are a family in hotel quarantine after returning to Adelaide from India - so not community transmission. Victoria is having a hard time with localised outbreaks and massive hotspot testing regime. They had 75 cases identified today.  They are doing a great job of testing and isolating. Mobile testing vans are parking at the ends of streets in hotspot suburbs and 800 testers are going door to door to ask people to take a test.  They are running short of contact tracers and South Australia has sent a team to help.  Here's hoping they
get on top of it. They should - it's a very concerted team effort.

Post 107 Pilates!

It was a big day today - my first Pilates class since 21 February. I had a couple of visits from Myrtle and Turtle before I left for my class. The Noisy Miner put in an appearance and once again, the doves left. The miner did not show any interest in the seed - but explored the red flowers on the balcony.

The doves were back and acting in concert once the miner had gone.











It was good to be back at Pilates. The studio is set up with half the usual equipment and everything is regularly wiped down. I had fairly low-key exercises but I'm very tired.

I did my balance exercises looking out the window at the fig tree in the garden. The leaves are largely fallen from the tree - but there are figs on the branches. I've had a couple of abundant fig trees - but never one that had figs on it after the leaves had fallen. Others in the group had stories of plants behaving in ways that are out of season.

I needed some milk so went to North Adelaide Village.  On the way home I stopped off at the General Havelock Hotel to see if they had a vacant outside table for lunch. It was by now just after 2pm. They found me a table. They only had 3 tables  in this outside section available for use and one was free.


I very much enjoyed my garfish - and the glass of wine.

There were a few more diners inside and about 6 more outside around the corner. 

They had very clear distancing processes marked.


Back at home I was able to do quite a bit of knitting - finishing both a green and a blue band. Three bands make up one pattern so I now have 5 complete patterns. The instructions are for 8 complete patterns, or 51 inches. I now have 31 inches.

It is going to be very warm as it's knitted in the round and so double thickness. It's looking pretty good now it has a bit of length. Still a few days work in it though.

Our Premier announced our borders will open up to national traffic at the end of the month and venues will be able to take higher numbers - but only within the limits of 4 square metres per person. It isn't going to make much difference to what I do.

I had quite a busy day for this Covid-affected time. I might need to sleep in tomorrow morning! 

Post 71: Friends

First up today is the mystery of  the plant on my balcony that a friend suggested was a the Lachenalia, unusually flowering in Autumn. Another friend contacted me this morning to suggest it is in fact a Aloe.  I've checked it out and it is Aloe ciliaris. Many thanks to both friends for their help. I love the way information gets shared in the blogging community.














I had another identification challenge when a new bird came to investigate my balcony (Yes, that is two photos of the one bird). It ate a few grains of seed, but not many.  This, I think is because it feeds on insects and worms and there were none on offer.

This is a magpie lark or peewee. It is a smaller relative of the piping shrike, or white-backed crow shrike, which appears as the emblem on the South Australian flag, but has never been officially declared the State bird,

It had a good explore of the balcony before taking off.

My two doves have settled into a daily routine. The smaller, (I'm assuming femaile) waits on the edge of the roof, calling for me to get up in the morning. More often than not she stays there while I throw down some seed and comes for some of it as soon as I go inside. She returns several times during the day. The larger (I'm assuming male) comes around midday for his share. 


My songbird embroidery was not quite dry this morning, so I set to work to make what I could of the bag without it. I got the back, sides and bottom of the bag machined, the handles and the lining. 







By early afternoon the blocked piece was dry, so I added it in and completed the job. I had to do a bit of adjustment to the lining.

Here it is in all it's splendour.










I realised as I blocked it that a red thread had run. I managed to prevent disaster, but have been slowly and carefully removing the offending thread - the over-dyed Mossipots that I was so pleased with. I haven't removed it all, but may do so.


It's a decent bag.



The news from Jennifer in hospital in Perth is pretty good. Her two tests for Covid19 infection were negative. Jennifer has her piece of get-out-of-jail paper! The tracheotomy is out. She can speak softly and croakily, but should not be doing too much of it. She stood up beside her bed several times and a physio is helping her sit in a chair. Tomorrow she moves to a respiratory ward where she will have a physio program. Doctors are saying 4 more weeks in hospital. Susan can visit her tomorrow - her first visitor since she went into hospital a month ago today. I don't have exact dates, but I think she has been in ICU for close on 24 days and with a respirator for probably 20. She has been the longest time of any patient in the Royal Perth Hospital Covid ICU. She's alive, standing, sitting - even speaking - and Covid-free.

I had bubbles tonight to celebrate, quietly, while enjoying a Live Stitch with Phillipa and Laura Turnbull and  3 of my fellow Stratford retreaters. Phillipa was in Cumbria, Laura in Spain, Genevieve in Brussels, Margaret in Brisbane and Tamara in California. There was lots to talk about. Those who are working are stretched, keeping families and fellow workers well and operational in addition to their own work. It's easy to make no time for your own sanity. No one expects this to be over soon. We all have at least one piece of stitching going and lots of stitching hopes and dreams.  There was more talking than stitching but I did tack papers to 30 I inch hexies. It lasted two hours instead of one - and worth every minute.

This is my tribe. Not all of it - but a vital part. To borrow a term from a local funeral company advertisement, it nourishes the soul.

This post is  a bit short on photographs. Two parcels were successfully delivered to me today. One contained two cooler-weather tops and the other a book. I had forgotten I had ordered it, second-hand from England. It's the Martha Grimes detective novel set in Stratford around the Black Swan Inn, where Melody and I had a drink on our second day in the town, before the retreat began. It's years since I read it The book isn't available electronically in Australia, because of historical publishing agreements and it's out of print, so I ordered a second-hand print copy

How appropriate that it should arrive today!

So much to be thankful for.