Camping in the Woods

Paddy, James and Clare went off into the wilderness to camp and fish for 2 days. They left after lunch yesterday, and we fetched them in time to wash and eat before going off to sing with the choir today.

They camped at a wonderful site, close to the beach, but sheltered in the trees, with a well used fire pit. It is a half an hour walk from where I am prepared to drive the car to, so Dave and I went along with a fresh loaf of bread at lunch time today, to help them carry back.

It appears that they had a good time, had fun camping out and cooking 'roo' over the open fire.

Paddy and Clare did a lot of hiking, but did not find the routes they were planning to climb, but James caught 3 Wrasse, 2 of very good size, so he is happy.

He and I minced them up for the cats tonight, who let us know, in no uncertain terms, that they much prefer their fish freshly minced, and not bulk minced and then frozen.

Empty Nest (training) syndrome

The boys and Clare have all gone up to the Docks to camp the night and climb from early. We'll pick them up tomorrow afternoon. I've been trying to write my talk for the digital publishing thingy. I only have 15 minutes and the truth is I could talk on the subject for 3 hours. But the house is very quiet...

I'm not looking forward to them leaving. Actually half the island isn't. The other half doesn't know them.

Hobart

Any readers who happen to be in Tassie and interested - I'm going to be at this workshop in Hobart Digital Publishing Primer Tuesday 13 July, 6pm - 8.30pm HOBART, and speaking the next day at Digital rights and licences: how would I get paid? Wednesday 14 July, 10am - 1pm Where I'll be talking about the Baen Webscriptions experience, about the Baen free library, about Jim Baen's Universe, and about the Save the Dragons venture.

http://www.tasmanianwriters.org/# for bookings etc.

The furry hot-waterbottle

Cats of course, want nothing more than to go into rooms they are not allowed into. Open the door to a cat-free zone and they're in faster than lightning that's been soaked in muttonbird oil for three weeks. If you leave the door open, belike they'll saunter out, leaving the hayfever/catfur allergy sufferer to cough and sneeze at the hair that doesn't follow them out.

Clare was all snuggly tucked up with a fur-covered hot-water bottle. Pink fur as it happens, but in the dark all fur is grey. She discovered that the door had been less than well closed and during the course of the night a kitty took a tour of her bed, letting her know that a certain cat was in who should be out (she's a great favorite with the cats, and usually seems to have at least one with her, but that room is a cat-free zone). So she sleepily put out the protesting pussy, and scrambled back into bed. And to her horror sat on a cat.

Which - if she'd had the light on, she'd have seen had pink fur :-)

The evil oven is dead, long live the oven

Or not. John's horrible old banger of a stove with which I have a hate-hate relationship has finally met its end, or at least the oven and one plate has, and one plate only works on hot. While fixing/replacing it is our landlord's problem, we still need a stove and as this is an expensive place to cook on electricity, I decided to sort out my too large for the kitchen gas stove, which has big good oven in which I could do bulk, and at least have an oven in the shed... Hmm. Our South African regulator doesn't fit. And we can't get one on island. So for now I have no oven. On the other hand we've just bought (but not collected) another deep freeze.

I cooked little wallaby and bacon kebabs with thyme, pepper and green sauce, and some crayfish for supper tonight.


Oh and Telstra, that wonderful company with the superb customer service and best store in the universe in Hobart's Eastland's mall... in some other very not-parallel Universe, decided to try threatening phone-calls today because, despite having my eventually got co-operation out of them by threatening them with the Telecoms Ombudsman (up to which point that had been the worst, least ethical and least helpful, least co-operative company in my experience of Australia, at which point they suddenly changed tune) and having made them refund me for the piece of non-working junk their bigpond arm had sold me, that I'd returned, been credited for... that they'd like to bill me for it (and I paid cash for it in first place!!!!!) So I quoted the relevant numbers of my current bill - which is up to date (it's the first one that I've not been in credit for - they got $8.10 - that's how badly they screwed up.) They're not exactly employing any rocket-scientists. They generously offered to continue the abusive phone-calls until I fixed their record-keeping problems for them (There are perhaps 20 pages of correspondence on this on their records, on file, linked to their account number available to them - but it's easier to make you look it up and explain it to them.) It took me a long time to get them to work out that they were re-opening a can of worms they'd created in first place. I do understand why everyone says 'telstra!' and rolls their eyes now.

Why am I picking up females?

There is a different season for male and female crays, and the female season has closed... So today my total catch was female (I caught 3). However James kept the honor of the family alive with his first Flinders cray. He swam back to the boat with it clutched tightly in both hands. It weighed 3.3kg.



That's the old South African KZN measure against it.

The guy we dived with kindly gave us one of his.


Only problem is our biggest pot - 12.5 litre



And B had a hard day cutting up two wallaby hindquarters we'd been given... So now the freezer is truely groaning. This is good... but I think we're going to need a bigger freezer.

Trying to do too much at once...

First the good news - all that B seems to have wrong with her is treatable with some more folate - I suspect it was more due to stress and the change in diet. We're all very relieved.

What with the kids here, good weather AND trying to do the first draft edit, and a rush on the proof-read of the short story in FANGS FOR THE MAMMARIES life has been a bit a bit too full. They all went off to Trousers Point and managed one more leatherjacket, and then squidding - and got 6, this evening without me, and without the camera. Sniff. Poor me. Still, we have done some other good things - the gate has real hinges, and while B doctored, and meals-on-wheels the wood shed has I think about a month's cut logs drying (just drying rain-wet off them - it's all old wood.) Clare did some morning brushcutter weilding, and we got the second carpet under the bookcases. The dogs enjoyed some roo (well, wallaby)-bones.

I've got a mint plant, finally, thanks to Rosemary (poor lady was rather bemused at us discussing the physics of the relative temperatures of heaven and hell. Um. Welcome to the Freer family and their idea of entertainment.) This, with the parsley makes for my simple version of salsa verde (there are as many recipes as there are pages in most novels) which is wonderful with fish and meat and for dipping fresh bread into.

And tomorrow some of us will go diving for crayfish. Maybe even me.