Minced fish and other dark delights

If you're a cat, that is. As a human I am less convinced. Of course the hairy hound from Budapest AKA Roland is also very partial to fish. Nothing like a big fishy slobber to make you feel loved.
We turned some of the wrasse from yesterday into preparatory pet food in the freezer through one of the old fashioned hand mincers - it actually worked really well as the bones either get minced or stay behind. We must have 3 weeks of catfood ready. Yesterday I got to 100K in the book, and we celebrated the lovely weather and that and the Queen's birthday by a trip to 'the docks' which is a remote cliff completely without any docks/dogs/docs in sight. It was a lovely family outing as B said - James and I dived for a bit. Despite the rubber layers the water was serious sinus burn cold - only bit not rubber-coated. It was cold but crystal clear and barely a ripple in sight. We swam into a huge shoal of Australian Salmon and failed utterly to spear any fish with the hand-spear (I didn't take the gun, which I regretted). I speared a leather-jacket (triggerfish) in my determination to spear something... only they're... well, the skin is so tough I didn't penetrate! So we swam on, looking for Abalone, and utterly failing to call B and Pads to come catch these blessed Salmon (B and Pads were catching wrasse, which are now kitty-nubbins, barring the two we had in a green Thai curry tonight. Paddy who doesn't really do curry loved until he had a mouthful of wine - an error of judgement - which burned all the way down.) Anyway we eventually got 2 abalone - could have tried harder I guess, but we'd been swimming around for two hours and I was fairly cold. James decided to check on the Aussie Salmon, before we fished for them... and met a large grey something (probably a shark feeding on them) and got out very rapidly onto the little island and water-walked across to the shore. We tried fishing there anyway, but all I got was a big a big blue-head wrasse. I left James and B to go on fishing and went climbing with Pads. Ergo - the dwarf picture. I've done a lot more trad leading than the boys so I somehow got talked into onsighting a route next to the described one. The climb started delightfully - gentle gradient, pinch-grips and high friction and got steadily steeper, and ended some 30 metres on, with a water-etched granite groove - a little arpeggio of moves on crystals and tiny pinches. Eissh... not much in the way of runners. I ended up in a very wide straddle trying to place a wedge and got cramp. Newton was right, but experience with runner-placement stopped any tragedy beyond a scraped elbow. I had to go up twice more, fiddling out runners in very dodgey micro cracks before trying the thrutch and wobble to the top, and reached up and found a glorious hidden jug-handled hold, big enough to tie the Queen Mary to. So all was well that ended well. The climb is relatively easy and will do well as beginner route, now I know that the roundness at the top hides a wonderful hold.

There is nothing like the absence of dying in the meeting of man and cliff to leave you feeling uplifted...

or lifted up anyway. My arms and hands are still stiff, but it was good to feel alive and doing things.

Paddy went to Sing Australia in the evening, and it was a windless night and we hoped for some floundering - but were played false by James's tum. So we came home and I did some work.

We did it together!

Today was really bright and sunshiny early on, so we got all packed up and drove 40kms north to a beach called 'The Docks' that has rock climbing.

First Dave and James went off snorkeling while Paddy and I fished. We caught 5 Wrasse that were big enough to keep, and must have put back about 20 that were too small. I swear we were catching the same fish again and again. Dave and James came back with 2 abalone and we had a lunch break, which I was needing by then.

Then Dave had a quick fish, just to prove he could catch a bigger Wrasse than we could, and then he and Paddy had a climb, using 'trad' gear. Dave led, and we heard their triumphant yells as they topped out echoing across the bay.


They both returned to the car safely where James and I, having caught a fish each, were resting.

It was a day of sun, cloud and then more sun, with a spectacular sunset to finish it off. But it was fantastic to be out and about with the boys again, and I certainly enjoyed the day. We sang all the way home, so the wallaby were scared off the road, and we got back without hitting any. (Touch wood, we haven't hit one yet!)

Have Geeks, will travel

Well, the boys are in demand for more than their now famous Saveloy boiling skills, (tested to near destruction at the market), now being called to sort out DVDs and computers. In theory they were going to fish Emita and stop and do some geek-work at some friends up there, while I continued to deal with Hekate and Constantinople. However in the fashion of such things the trip to the beach never quite got there. I fed them on bangers and mash with my home-made rollmops and the gerkins made of my cucumbers. It appears I can do that again, but the roll-mops are rather hard. Any bright ideas on how to stop vinegar making fish chewy appreciated. I need to do another batch.

Pat's river mouth

Found another little gem of a spot about two km away, at edge of the airfield for those looking on Google earth. I'd had enough of spending another beautiful day at my desk slowly making progress so we went to look at another potential flounder place - which has fantastic views of the mountain.



James spotted the clams - in thick exposed beds mostly tiny, but we picked out the better ones for having with pasta.

And sundown over the flats was stunning.

Well B's been Wheeling-and-Mealing (meals-on-wheels) to some of our more senior citizens, and John and his son have been around for 'tea' and we've sampled the Lark single malt, (which was really excellent, with hints of apple - appropriate to the apple Isle - but may have more to do with the wood used. Very good though! And we were so warmed we had some of the liquer on ice-cream which was truly scrumptious. I've pushed the book on to 95K. The boys are still a bit Jet-lagged and have collapsed. Tomorrow they go to work on a stall at the fair/market thing. Island life continues...

Up with the Lark

Well, after a brief (I hope) re-run of the Saveloy-lurgy-from-hell (really opens the sluices at both ends - to put it in Monty-Python speak) I'm back - on a diet of rice and chicken breast and yuk yoghurt for a few days... I got some anti-nausea stuff and a charming little sample bottle from the Doc. Anyway, enough of these delights. Everyone else seems OK which is a relief.

We go another postal surprise welcome to Australia gift today which will warm the cockles of my cold hard heart. Whiskey does that to me. And single malt does it better, and this to be truly original is Tassie-made Whiskey from Lark Distillery. Despite me being on baby-food and fragility we tasted the Slainte liquer. B and James pronounced it superb, and picked up hints of aniseed and honey. I'm not a sweet drink person but I did like it. When I feel slightly less like death warmed over I'm going to taste the single malt. An incentive to recovery!

All together now...

We're all here. B is quite sore but back home. We won't know the results for some time but the haematologist was competent and re-assuring. I was underslept with zero focus (surprise) and the lads jetlagged so we took a long walk.



All the way to the little river that comes in next to airport, and past some very tasty looking turkeys (I love fish. Love seafood. but I want a little more bird and meat in our diet. B and I have been talking about the need for some form of firearm, because it seems that they are not really jumping into the cooking-pot all by themselves. In SOuth Africa that involved a million hurdles, and there really was little opportunity unless you were rich or well-connected or a large landowner... none of which described us too well. So we never bothered. Here it is different. I'm a forager. I will do what is necessary. I thought we'd probably trade stuff 9as we did back in SA - It's early days yet of course, and we're still building networks of people to swap things with.)

Then we went down to the point where the black swans were gliding on the water. See those dirty marks on the lens? Those are elegant swans on the calm sea. I really need a slightly better camera to get those sort of pics - on that list of things we need someday. Ah well. We got this far.



And then we walked back with strange grinding noises - aka Paddy's back-bone and belly-button rubbing on each other. The pic of the boys in a windcut arch on the sandy track next to the beach, where we saw the oystercatchers (I am trying to teach Pads all the few birds I know so that if a certain august personage gets here he can point knowledgably at birds and say 'Green swan. Black rosella. Oystercatcher pie...')



Paddy spent the afternoon writing a programme to calculate the minimum number of moves 'Knights'(a little chess-type logic boardgame) can be done in. Other people might just try and do it in the fewest and count moves... (the programme is fiendishly complex, and James crashed and snoozed, and I spent the intervening time trying to stay awake and work, to fetch B when she flew in, failing, and then racing the plane to the airfield.
I won.
Just.