It is so different!

We have had a Tsunami warning, but are too high, and too far from the coast to be in danger, but my heart goes out to all the people whose homes or lives are in danger.

In South Africa, if someone went into your car while you were parked it was to steal. The handbag, the radio, the spare tyre, whatever. Here, on Flinders, I forgot to lock the car while we were parked on the main street for 2 hours this morning, and when I got into the drivers seat I very nearly squashed a bag of tomatoes! Someone had left them on the seat for us. I drove home with a whole new realisation, that we are in a new world, and I am grateful all over again that we are safe here.

Thunder

The day dawned... or rather didn't... more like it crept in like a sullen teenager who just got in from that all night party and is now pretending unsuccessfully that they're not tired and bad-tempered. This day came with ill-tempered rumbles and little squalls of rain, that turned into thunder and lightning and a sheeting downpour. Just perfect for not switching on the computer and getting down to work (yesterday 2.1K - today should have been better). And storm followed storm. So I read Peter Mayle's Year in Provence and made B breakfast in bed, and tried not to be too much like a sulky teen myself. I had a baking session, hoping against hope that the stove would be struck by lightning and blow up. We're evolving a lovely hate-hate relationship that stove and I. Yes, I had tinfoil in the vast crack created by the ill-fitting oven door. My absolutely never-fail recommend to non-cooks Matthews's ginger biscuits are pictured below. They are square. They are floppy. Neither of these are their natural state.

Eventually the rain stopped - after lunch - and Barbs went out to start her cutting and I to try and get wordflow going... And then the rain started again. Barbs assures me the cavorting around was perfectly normal mowing and the mentions of 'Thor' were jutht in referenth to her blithters... So we have more rain, which is a good thing as long as the lightning stays away. It's nasty out there and that makes work more attractive. There is something to be said for being warm and dry with hot choc and floppy cookies.

Goatfish and grass-cutting

I've been trying to get the writing pace on the book up onto the plane (books are very like boats - once the story get moving fast enough they skim along almost above the level of stuff you have push through. Go slow and it takes an unwarranted amount of effort to write at all. What is unforgivably worse -- for me -- is that it makes turgid reading.) So after our 'weekend' of hard fishing yesterday, I stuck to the desk most of today, and B went off to 'furrin parts' - Lady Barron. It is nearly 25 km away and to hear some of the locals talk about it you'd swear New York was closer, and Mars not quite as alien (ooh they're strange down there! heh. Not.). B returned with a brush-cutter which we'll try as a mower so long. She's not as dangerous with that as the chainsaw but, my friends, always treat a lady who can weild a chaisaw like that with extreme politeness. She was out in the heat today giving it a test run. I heard it yowl in protest but B repressed it well, and broke it to harness. Next step, the hayfield... uh lawn. It's greening up. The island looks a bit like South Africa in midwinter in high summer here, and of course is a lovely green most of the rest of the year.

My only break really has been to look up goatfish (red mullet) -- picture of beardy above, and wonder if I believe the beggars that say it's good eating. We'll try it of course. I turned some of the smoked pike from yesterday into smoked pike, grated zucchini, beet-root leaves and spring onion fritters (all garden stuff) - which were actually exceptional. I bound it with egg and flour (about a 1/3 cup) and fried them. We had them with Inge's tomato chutney and baked caliban... uh Coliban potatoes. Color me unimpressed with these. They're very floury. Must be good for something but not great baked.

And then after supper we had another quick go at the squid. Whitemark is a wild place, people drive down to the pier... and drive away. Still we met chatted to few more people, learned a little more. B got one squid, and we were given another trevalley by another fisherman. If he didn't want it, I certainly did!
And the sky gave a another curse-of-artist sunset (if you painted it, all the veiwers would say 'how fake')

I can so fish!

Having been on 3 squid catching expeditions, and watched the others catch, while my jig came back empty, I decided that my role was to run with the net, when necessary, and be supportive. Well, last night I caught a big squid, quite big enough to make up for all the ones who got away. And boy, did I dance a jig on the jetty! Luckily Dave was the only person around to see.

Then this morning we rose with the dawn, not too bad on the clock due to daylight saving, and went to fish, again off the jetty. I caught a big Pike, or Snook, or at least big by my standards. (Certainly the biggest fish I have ever landed.) Picture the scene. I am wearing gumboots, denims, 2 jackets, and a woolly hat jumping around yelling "Bring the net! It is huge! You take it! It is huge!"

Despite all the noise, the fish did not take fright, Dave made me take the rod, and he got it safely into the net. Which proves that our son, James, is wrong. You can take a net with you and still catch fish! Unfortunately, we are not fond of the taste of the pike, but smoked they are delicious, so Dave has now the extra work of preparing it!

He, of course, caught 3 fish, 2 silver trevally, that we were actually targeting, and a goat fish. It is red and has a beard, what more can I say?

At least I am not a total passenger in this new lifestyle of ours, and mine was the biggest!

Ovens and their doors

Last night Dave made a delicious 3/4 course meal for our landlord and his mother. We were all forced to eat an amazing amount of a variety of foods, from smoked 'clam', home grown zucchini, herb bread, island Lamb and his very special chocolate pecan nut pie. It was a super evening with lots of laughs. John brought a friends homemade Pinot Noir wine, which was soft and pale and gentle and a great aid to conversation. (He insisted on sticking to beer, I wonder why?)

But that set us up well for today, when we had to go into the Community Centre, (i.e. Hospital) so they could take our blood, just as a baseline, so if we get sick they know what we were like before? Ummm. Still, the main problem was we were not allowed to eat or drink first! But we had had enough supper to carry us through to coffee afterwards, or almost anyway.

There are still a few left overs for us to have for lunch today. So at least we can make up for the blood lost. But any excuse will do!

Long Point

We drove out to Long point under an arch of paperbarks and ti-trees to have supper with Geoff, who has been re-habilitating an old dairy farm. While a local dairy would be a good thing, this area is really not suited to it, sandy and low (nowhere higher than 7 metres above sea-level - Long Point is not quite sandspit of quartzite reef that hasn't quite made it to being an island yet, and therefore shelters a partially enclosed shallow bay of maybe 600 metres at its mouth and maybe twice that at its widest - and about 2km long. It's very tidal, principally seagrass environment, and a great habitat for birds. We spotted roughly 20 oystercatchers huddled together - very unusual - but we had squalls of rain a howling wind - not really perfect for an evening explore.



We'll go back at low tide and brave the mud so I can fully explore the wet part. Anyway, we had fire-grilled steaks inbetween the rain-squalls, red wine and a discussion on Hannibal and the elephant of surprise. Still, the silence and isolation and sheer darkness of a wet night and the call to me.

A mention of sheep

We're going out to supper tonight - an adventure for us. I'll hopefully have a few pictures of Long Point to post, although the weather has been iffy - showers of rain, and a bit of wind. Had a long chat at the doctor's rooms with someone in the sheep-hairdessing trade. I was quite unaware they used hair straitening tongs and mirrors, and was really surprised at blow-drying part... heh. I really didn't know that they went to some effort to keep the wool clean, or that sheep in bad weather turn their butts to the weather and keep walking... which means they freeze against the fence, even if there is shelter to windward. We're -I hope - going to get to keeping some of the creatures. So we try to absorb what we can. But will we ever be able to afford that amount of hair-gel?