Cutting boards and other stuff.

Besides the tools (and lathe and bench saw and sanderI still mourn) one of the other pieces of bad advice the movers gave us was that we had to leave all untreated timber. You don't, you just need to declare it. (Same with most of the tools - just garden tools are a real issue) So among the things I didn't have was my overstock of cutting-boards. I was horrified by the price of the polycarbonate rubbish here, and ended up with some cutting sheets - which help to seperate meat, fish veg etc, but are only moderately useful for protecting your table, and two miserable little boards. We picked up a meat-cutting one at Bill's garage sale, and now I have 3 more thanks to Peter's container and workshop clearance. They're ALL better than any owned before, so some things do improve. I've got a circular polycarbonate one - 2 inches thick (I've broken them before. This one won't break in a hurry). Anyway, the Salon is now very full of dry goods - from 20 litres of cooking oil, to 142Kg of dog food...

It was very odd not to have the garage full of bits - working tools, wire, nuts bolts, screws, nails, fittings. A pile of scrap timber, scavenged from various things... But I've been gathering things in. Slowly, ever so slowly, you start to feel you've got 'stuff' if you need it. It's a very comforting feeling. They say it takes twenty years to catch up from emigrating... well, I hope I can cut it down to ten.

We've got mould...

Well mold (or mould depending on your spelling) - for making dive weights. Peter's container is finally here, and we went and gave him a hand to start unpacking - and with it lead and weighbelt mould. I am so glad we were able to borrow a belt from AJ for James to use, as James has already left! Getting anything to the island is a circus (and the clowns are not funny). Still it has been rather like Christmas, helping unpack, getting our oats, flour, rice and best of all, Polenta. It's bizarre that mielie meel (corn meal AKA polenta) is only available in little 300 gram sachets at a wicked price here. As we have porrige every morning (usually oats) it's a nice change. We now have 10Kg - by Finnegan's Wake standards (where M'fanjane used to order 'i-eighty' (80kgs) about once a month) about 3 days worth - probably last us a year. Freezer space is limited, but I might try putting 5kg in there. Anyway, some serious re-organisation is called for - wetsuits (I have yet another - almost pristine that Peter found at a garage sale, an a BC. Now an Octo, and I am rigged), dive gear, fishing gear, dry-goods and tools are starting to overwhelm me for lack of organising - anyway - when this book is done and I must do some serious organising. If real life lets me have long enough...

fish leather

Well, it was a day that started with 4 'roo (wallaby) - fortunately dead, from our wallaby shooter. So today has been rather taken up with butchery. I really really need more practice, as I am distressingly slow. Anyway we have dog tucker!

I made some rather tasty little patties for supper tonight - a minced a large leatherjacket and an abalone, the usual egg and breadcrumbs, and lots of fresh herbs, red onion, chili paste, and some ginger paste, light soy and pepper. They were good, very meaty and spicy - but what I wanted to say was that I did a good job of peeling the leatherjacket (which has a very thick skin with denticles - like shagreen - sharkskin - but thicker and is hard on knives if you don't peel it away from the fish first I was left with a very pretty patterned leathery skin about 14" by 10" (but split by a fin). I wondered about the possibility of making some fish-leather. It would make quite a hand-bag (a bit abrasive if the denticles stayed on. Ideal for combat and laddering your opponent's stockings in catfight when out clubbing), good for sword-handles, and for wallets for tight-wads (won't come out of your pocket, easily). Good for watchstraps...

How hard is leathermaking? My ex-boss did it to catfish, but he was rather secretive about it, and besides... he could make the elementary very very complicated.

Another small step

When we came to the island we started with one mobile, because one needed a number, for bureaucracy, but in reality there was no-one to call, and calls to those we knew would be in life-and-death disasters, back in South Africa. No point in a landline, we were going to move to a place of our own, and anyway, what did we need it for?

Very soon we realised one mobile phone was not much use as no, we did not go everywhere together, and the kids, when here, sometimes went off without us too. So we got a pay-as-you-go for me because I am not very good about having it with me or charging it. And gradually we settled into island life. Of course it was more expensive than we'd realised to move us and the animals and our stuff here, and the US Dollar fall against the Aus $ hasn't helped... so we're not moving any time soon. And from only having each other to call, 2-5 calls a day has become more-or-less the norm. And everyone - especially some of our more chatty friends - whinge at us about mobile rates. The bills were a lot higher than I enjoyed, especially when I was calling the various Unis and emigration about the kids' status. But even just over the December holidays, there were a lot more calls.

So we've accepted reality and got a landline - dug out our 2 South African phones and the instrument John left here. Today - having web-contacted them Tuesday, had them call us on Friday... it's up and working today. B and I made our first calls.

I was out picking some tomatoes for supper when - great excitement - the phone rang. I came in post haste to find out just who had been our first caller.

It was a wrong number.

The return of the blue slug.

The writing proceeds apace, and other things jump up and intervene. We had a better night knowing James was safe - after Scottish dancing in the toxic hall (something nasty and chemical on the room divider screens and after a hot day it had half of us wheezing). Fortunately we won't be there again and are moving to the Sports club. I shall miss the Masonic lodge with 1959 picture of the Queen, but it is apparently in the throes of being sold, and the insurance (for liability) was crippling. I have to say I find the whole liability thing really strange. When the hell are you personally responsible? Fair enough Australia did a magnificent job with limiting damage and loss of life with Yasi - with one missing (who sounds like he was looking perhaps for a Darwin Award, but I don't know the whole story) and one dead from running a generator in a closed room (Darwin...) but with a catagory 5 extreme Cyclone - compared to South Africa's Demoina (which didn't even crack cyclone status by the time it hit SA - and still killed over 200 people)they did incredibly well. If you have a life that natural disaster follows around, maybe Australia is a good place to live...

Anyway, moving along, we have our blue slug back - I feel I should take a photo - at the moment we have 4 cars in the yard right now (one is actually ours) including a very smart Honda CRV. So instead I will show you a picture of a skink on some sheep-poo. Your lives are all immesurably richer for this, don't all thank me at once. It's a White's Skink. In the old South Africa they'd have probably given it a job on the Railways.

We've added some more plants to the veggie patches from Bill, but I just don't have the time for the labor of getting my two new round raised beds operating until this book is in. Likewise fishing. I turned down a trip today to get some words done. And on Monday our mate Peter's container comes in. I'd have gone spare if I was him - he's been sitting here waiting and waiting... he flies back to the big smoke, and it arrives within days. Inside are some bulk non-perishable food bits for us (flour, oats, ginger, rice, dogfood, lead) and another second-hand wetsuit and a BC and weightbelt mould. Now all I need is an octo... and some time to use it in. Well, we'll get there.

Anyway, back to the antics of Fionn and the black and white sheepdog.

Waiting...

Rather anxiously by now. No word of James arrival in South Africa (he left on monday at 7pm and it was an 18 hour flight, Singapore, Dohar, Johannesburg, and then a seperate flight to Durban. Last we heard he was safe in departures in Singapore. My sister mentioned -at the end of her last e-mail, that his flight had been delayed - but didn't say where or really when he'd be where. I'm sure he's fine, and old enough to look after himself. Parents just worry, I suppose. Only done about 2000 words today, as I keep checking the post and Skype. Barbs made some very good Damson plum jam today, and between Jamie and Nik and myself we successfully put a new power-unit fan in Nik's computer.

Bloomin 'ot

With cyclone Yasi threatening to engulf North Queensland, it seems rather selfish and childish to complain that it was a bit hot and humid here today - rather like Durban in December. It actually gave my computer a heat-seize - I took the cover off, cleane the fans and the cooling vanes and we've been fine. It didn't make writing fun though. We've taken the blue slug in to get some fairly major work done, and visited the sekrit salad supply :-) and got given some more lettuce, we also got some plums from other friends(heaven knows when I'll have preserving time) and some lovely red onions from someone else, and a bananabread. As I said to B with the sort of gifting-barter around here you can't say "caught 10 fish = 10 fish meals" but you might end up with all sorts of other things having ended up giving several friends fish. Some of it takes a fair amount of ingenuity to turn into meals but it does keep it from being boring, and usually ends upat more than the original 10. Still the heat is telling on the variety... we always have biscuits (cookies), but I just can't face baking right now, because it's too hot in the kitchen. Anyway, I did, despite friends dropping in and the heat and computer hassles get onwith the writing - a good session. Need to do a little more, and try and work early tomorrow in case it is hot again.