Chaos, wind and weddings

Phew. Sorry, the blog has suffered from an influx of family and the chaos of organising the wedding. Medical disasters - Clare's mum is just post-op, and had the wound decidely got infected, and we had to turn to the our local Doctors for rescue from what could have been real catastrophe, sorting houses, feeding people (on cream. It's a Flinders island thing) endlessly, Clare washing up just as endlessly (it's her displacement activity, methinks. Very useful). Oh and a few power failures. Today we got the next influx of Longden-clan and had an interesting time in persuit of their hire cars (turns out they were booked for tomorrow) and dinner for 11 to be cooked...
And a little flower painting.


I believe this called 'watercolour'.

Anyway, tomorrow seems set to be running around like headless chickens and panicking... well, that or following a schedule, with impeccable precision. Which do YOU think is more likely?

Paddy and Clare are getting married

You're all allowed to be informed now :-)

My eldest son, Paddy, is getting married to Clare, here on the island on the 14th. The weather has thus been the worst possible for 25 years, and is set to continue thus. None-the-less it will a very happy day.

I hope you'll all send me congratualtory messages to read out the wedding :-)

A wond'rous bird is the pelican

One good tern deserves another...


Ok I now have B's cold in ernest and am off to bed. But the weather was only moderately bad today, so the kids got out - Pads and Clare climbing at Emita,



James and Alanna fishing at North-East River.




Alanna caught five salmon to James and I two each (Ok so mine were on a fly rod with a tiny spinner... which made things ... interesting. But she showed us up nicely)

We had quite a lot of close contact with the pelicans... who decided we were an aid to fishing.


Or an aide anyway.





and a passing wombat

Looking at the flowers...

Well, the flours anyway - I've been browsing my favorite florist... flour supply, the Hindustan Imports site for some more interesting flour and other odd products to spice up our Island lives. The big trouble for me (as an adventurous cook) is they assume that their customers are all familiar with the products. So if they list Besan flour or Atta flour... I have to look them up. And not all of their products are even in Wikipedia (duruka, palusami, podi flour?). Then of course I have to start on just what do you use them for. So anyone wishing to advise me on which I need in my life and why, I'd be delighted.

It's been raining and blowing and cold and miserable - ideal for guests, and Barbs has been out of bed, showing just how effective I am at this husbandly foot down thing. Anyway, a noisy game of UNO is proceeding in the lounge, the fire is burning and I will proceed on supper shortly.

Planes in the night.

I walked out yesterday evening (in the dark about 6.30) in the howling wind and driving rain to open the gate for Barbs. In the sky was a plane - visible by the three questing spotlights on it's wings - it was flying very slowly, heading into the wind, turning left and right - obviously trying to see landmarks - such as the lights of Whitemark (not a big town, or that well-lit up). I stood and watched like a paralysed man at an impending train-wreck. They came lower and as a car came down the road straight towards them - they must have been 300 feet up by this time, seemed to gain confidence and flew on. Barbs arrived a little later, and was passed by the island ambulance, so I think it could have been the flying doctor. They took off again shortly after (in truly atrocious weather). I can't tell you how much we Islanders love and respect that service. That weather would have meant stay here and die, once. We're very isolated here, without the planes. The once a week ferry did not make it across last night, as the weather is too bad to sail. So long-life milk is the order of the day, but compared to not having a flying ambulance service, that's irrelevant. The weather is bad enough to give us our longest power failure since we've been here, about 3 hours. Barbs is in bed with a fevery cold so I'm being mum and dad, and so I'd better get back to it.

If you can't take the heat...

Stay out of the car...

It's been a busy few days, and I've battled to find time for the blog, family, a little work, a lot of cooking. So the Blog has suffered. Anyway, there is a minor lull now so some catch-up. James and Alanna arrived, got whisked to Scottish dancing after a trivial 48 hours awake. It's a great help for dancing. I had pot-roasted some roo-shank which came out very well, tender and rather like a cross between an ostrich and a turkey drumstick in appearance. The next day as the weather had played ball with us, had me taking them some morning fishing at Fotheringate, with rather a lot of wrasse to carry back, a quick stop at Trousers point,


home, a very hurried roll, and kids and dive gear in ute and off to Cave beach for a low tide dive. This a was very disapointing as a dive (murky water) but wonderful as an excercise in bondage, or at least getting into wetsuits. Alanna had never used a snorkel before so it is plain that women are not trained how to be in trouble, as us men are, where we learn to use snorkels from a very early age, or perish miserably. I had not been aware, previously of this lack. (I guess I've been using a snorkel (both to dive and survive) for so long I'd forgotten how intimidating it is to breath face under water. She did get it though, although it was a cold and not very exciting learning curve. Still, clare discovered the joy of built-in hoods on wetsuits, so some good came of it. Then I had to rush about and make pizza, before the board-game evening. As Alanna comes from little land-locked Zimbabwe it was a chance to try her on some of the topping seafoods as well as a An opportunity to try (as an entrée) some of the large South Australia prawns we got from Alan and Annie. I'd rate them every bit as good as Mozambique prawns (in Moz, fresh), if not better. Our little tryer didn't like squide tentacle much but thought Abalone was quite nice, a bit like chicken ;-). Heh. Terry Pratchett is so right (everything tastes a bit like chicken if you are hungry enough). Then we went out into the wilds of Whitemark, clubbing... well, to play board-games at the CWA rooms. It's much the same thing really, just clubbing is quieter. We played Cranium. Some people do not know what country Mecca is in... ;-).

Then Saturday we went off fishing off East Kangaroo, and Alanna had her first experience of catching flathead and getting soaked. Us getting soaked and not the flathead, which were moderately recalcitrant, but we got a few.


So we had some tea on the beach admired the pelicans who were so much better at fishing than we were,


and we came home to do dinner for 13... Well, we only had to do starters. It was one of those quiet demure evenings, as you can imagine.

This morning we had to trundle the mob to church in Lady Barron, and Alanna started feeling sick (no, really, nothing to do with the sermon) so B ran her home in Peter's van... and turned around and had it overheat in great glurbering clouds of steam - in the cab as it's a van, and hence B had to stop and vacate.(Hence the title). So we had to mount a rescue, and later Bill and I went out to examine. With added water it drove fine, getting to mid-range on the gauge as we got home. Unfortunately it was gurgling when we got home and Bill opened it up... And despite the cloth... it erupted, a lot hotter than the gauge indicated And it's a van. ie inside the cab...

I think we have a head-gasket problem at best. And the way I work: you borrow it and break it, you fix it or replace it.

Heh. My life does seem to move from one expensive chaos and disaster to the next... Ah well. Onward!