Home again

Yet again I’ve just got back from visiting my dad in Gippsland. His partner is currently working over WA for the mines & he’s a bit lonely all by himself! (not counting muffy dog, of course).

The night before I left, I started on some additional medication & I not only slept solidly through all my alarms that day, but I woke up with only one hour to get dressed, made up & ready, & finish packing instead of 3 1/2 hours. It was nothing short of miraculous that I made the bus at all :D.

For the first three or so days, my new meds made me so doped up that when I later thought about the first full day there, I wasn’t quite sure if I’d dreamt it or not. It’s sort of funny because my dad and I were both sort of similarly medicated & not always functioning quite right, although at least my dad wasn’t having dizzy spells J I found our dysfunction, (both physically and mentally) amusing, anyway. (Dad, if you read this, no offence is intended ;) ).

I spent a bit of time trying to organise our family history, dad got all the information together for me & I tried to organise it enough so we could at least give it out to the rest of the rellies. One branch we’ve got going back to the 1700s, which is really cool J. (Here I again point out how much significance I place on family & roots J).

Here are some holiday highlights: Thanks to Dad’s employer, I spent a lot of time

eating the pastries, etc. he’d brought home. Not to mention all the chocolate, icecream, biscuits and home-grown fruit & vegies I ate :). Let’s just say I didn’t come home skinnier…..

mmmm, berries, icecream & more!!

There was an abundance of silverbeet in the garden & I made this bee-yootiful delicious pasta sauce with mushrooms & cream. We both loved that one! The recipe, roughly was:

Chop1 Big bunch of silverbeet, microwave, covered, for 7-12 minutes, until almost soggy.

Dice two garlic cloves & 2 medium onions, fry in LOTS of olive oil (1/2 cup full at least! Hey, it’s olive oil, your arteries won’t mind so much!) in a really big fry pan or a large pot, until softened.

Add 500g mushrooms, cook until mushrooms are softened & coated in oil mixture.

Add silverbeet to pan/pot, add more crushed garlic (used jar stuff this time), ½ tsp ground pepper, 2tsp ground coriander, 2tsp ground cumin, cook, stirring, for few minutes until mixed well. Reduce heat to low, add 200 - 300ml cream & cook over low heat, stirring regularly, until cream has partly evaporated, mixture is not so runny & silverbeet is nicely cooked. Mix in 1/2 cup or more grated cheese before serving.

Serve with little pasta tubes (the ones like fat, short macaroni or half penne noodles!!).

Finishing burning off one of the patches of scrub down by the dam. It didn’t take off like it did when he’d started it, before I came. At least then I didn’t worry too much about the possibility of having to drag dad out from the burning blackberry bushes.

We had those gale-force winds when I was there & as dad was on night shift, muffy followed me around for hours, scared of all the noise, wanting to be picked up every time I stood still. When we went out on the verandah to get wood for the fire, I wouldn’t have been surprised if muffy had blown away, like Toto. I thought the roof was going to come off at one stage, it was so gusty. Dad later reassured me that that house had some special design feature involving beams and the foundation slabs that meant it was more secure than most houses, roof-wind-wise.

Nice bush trip

& evidence of winds

Muffy the dog kept me company when dad was working (nightshift) & I woke almost every morning to a muffy-face leaning over me, very happy to see me awake. I have my suspicions that face-licking was involved to make this happen. She spent (snoring) every night but one in my bed as well.

Hammock time (I did fall on my head the first time I tried to get in. Haven’t actually been that klutzy before!!).

Big breath, I'll finish these adventures later: to be continued!