Gates

Blogger had a crash last night and I wasn't prepared to say out of bed for it to come back up -
People herd cows down the roads here. It's that sort of place. They close gates onto the road to stop them losing cows into other farms and people's gardens. That makes sense. However a gate which is always left open being suddenly closed... is a bit of a shock - especially when it is a rusty brown gate in heavy mottled shadows. Back where I come from I was raised to the idea that you always left gates as you found them. If they were open, they were open for a reason, and if they closed they were closed for a reason. Like telling your neighbours if you putting a fire in, it was politeness mixed with wisdom and made for good neighbours. Heh, I wonder if I would come across as too damned strife-causing by half if I put 'a please OPEN the gate' sign on it? (which is a lot politer than I felt about it after nearly hitting it. I'm not the first or the closest - the gate is seriously bowed from the outside.) The gate merely leads onto our driveway - 100 metres of fenced track, leading to another gate - keeping the dogs close to the house and far from the road and passing cars or cows. A pain in the butt if you're herding cows and they wander in there, but not a problem to us. It's open for a good reason. Grumble. Okay so it's been a lousy day's writing and I'm grumpy.

I made 'simnel buns' dough in the in the bread maker, and baked them in a hurry before going into town. No sausage sizzles Ian. A good day for the local shops though. When I came back I needed to put on pizza dough as we'd promised our landlord a pizza... only no paddle in the bread-maker (the last time we ended up searching the tip for our bag, to the paddle discover it home). The paddle was obviously in a bun. Ten fat buns prepared against visitors, lunch or freezing for a busy day. Delicate probing with a skewer followed along with much muttering.
And no paddle.
Panic.
It was in the sink, inside a cup-measure.

Anyway, it's a bit late to send out on the highways and byways but after all that panic, our pizza guest didn't show. Ah well, I dare say we'll worry it down. We had a some Anzac buicuit sampling visitors earlier :-) I spared them the holey buns.

I got my list of panels for Aussiecon. Let's see, I requested to be on with four people. Three are on panels I offered to be on, which are not full. The fourth is not listed at all. The Baen slideshow (as I think the token local - albeit new local - I want to be there) is at the same time as my reading. One of my four panels is after we have left. Oh well. Onward. I am sure I'll meet interesting people and have a good con, despite these little things.