Cap in hand...

Hmm. we're out of cap, so this is at slow-speed, but we only have to survive it until Monday - not worth increasing (and paying for it) now. I'm hoping to go to sea tomorrow, Barbs being well enough to leave home alone. Norm went off and set a longline and got a big snapper, and a big gummy on Wednesday, as well as - on lures some Aussie salmon, some pike and 'yellowtail' which could either be yellowtail kingfish Seriola lalandi or Yellowtain scad - Trachurus novaezelandiae (I may not have spelled these right - it's been a long time OK, and looking up stuff right now is hard. Both edible, one very much more so.

Our fish stocks are a bit depleted, so I really would love to add some, and a change is always good. So lets hope for some decent weather.

On other news the zucchini avalanche continues to mount. If all the tomatoes come through, then we will drown in tomatoes, but at least they can be dried and preserved and are useful. We've only got a few coming through now, and disaster could strike. Potatoes I have so far harvested around 20 Kg, maybe a bit more, and probably have about that in the ground again, and am about to start another planting. Carrots are getting to the 'too big I need to plant more', 1 carrot did our carrot salad tonight. I have lots of spring onions and some leeks coming through to make up for my feeble onion crop, Next year I need to quintuple the onion planting. The success from seed was rubbish though, and almost all of these were grown from seedlings. On for me exciting news, the one melon plant looks like it might do something really weird - have melons. I have grown two melons and watermelon since I've been been here - all together about boule ball for watermelon, and small lady's fists for the melons. Not much of a yield, but when you eat what you grow, these become very special. And then because they're seasonal, for some stuff you get VERY sick of it. Zucchini, the monster most people fear to name...

There's sweetcorn coming, green beans, and possibly some capsicums, and parsnips, oysterplant, and a selection of squashes and pumpkins, gerkin-cuckes to pickle, and of course sliverbeet, the reliable one. Beets too, but I need to plant more rows. There are more Cape gooseberries to harvest and jam... I need another life to garden, one to fish and one to shoot, and another to cook, and about 3 to write...

Yes, the easy life.

home

Barbs is home - she had a chest infection which of course can be all sorts of other nasty things when your chest hurts. So right to take precautions. And I needed to age 400 years. There isn't a lot of other exciting news, except I have my invalid home. That's enough for me.

Ok I am sitting here drinking some of Bill's excellent stout, which will tell the astute several things. 1)Barbs is not home. She's in the island hospital, with what we hope is a chest infection. At the moment she seems very cheerful and feeling a bit better. If you're on death's door the flying doctor takes you away to the big hospital on the mainland. 2)The heat has broken. Stout earlier would be not a great idea. 3)Work just isn't with me right now. I'm not a big beer drinker, but this is very good (I like the taste, but it makes me wee - which if you have my bladder -a mass of scar-tissue from bird Schistosomiasis -- my little gift from fish-farming, not stretchy is just not worth the visits to the convenience every half pint.

I took Peter for his first ever dive this this morning - while my wife was passing out on the doctor's surgery floor, which was a lot of fun than dealing with that would have been, although it was It brought home the fact the that you need to reach your kids to use goggles and a snorkel early. Trust me, it's much harder later. Anyway, I think he enjoyed himself a lot, and I take a great deal of pleasure in the enjoyment of others in things I love. He saw some fish, an eel/pipefish and a small flathead

And now to feed dogs and do some work if I can.

Welly-boot castaway

It's been a month, tomorrow, since we applied for citizenship. Barbs has her interview notification... I still haven't heard. I guess we won't be going together which is a disappointment, besides leaving me to face the dangers of Lonnie on my own. It's these big cities, y'know, and they insist on you being disarmed first, without a pocket-knife. What am I going to do if I need cut some bailing twine, or put an injured wallaby out of its misery? Anyway, I'll cope with it when I must, just glad to be out here where things are still civilized. It was interesting to see some article about how to survive if your plane crashes on the atoll of a desert island. The 'expert' said your first choice item should be welly boots (presumably from one of these trick lists -pick the most important.) To protect your feet from the coral and to act as water-buckets. Obviously feller never tried swimming to the shore in them. Of course I always have my welly boots in my hand-luggage although I don't have something else on my tootsies. I just love these experts. A knife might be really useful but that's the one thing you won't have.

The temperatures have been skyrocketing, as has the humidity, to extent I have hope for the eggplant and the sugar is going like it did in Durban - slightly gooey. I dug up 20kg of spuds, and reckon I lost that in sweat today. It's horrible weather to try and write, fortunately it doesn't last very long.

Anyway baby potato salad (eggs, spring onions, mayo and really lovely little spuds), with spicy wallaby rissoles, and a tangy coconut, chili, gangal, and tamarind sauce. With tall glasses of cold pastis to replace some of that fluid.