Salt and corrosion

Finally, I am boosted! I was a little worried because, unlike last week, they hadn't sent me any reminders, but they had me on the list and happily jabbed me, so all's well.

Six more zucchini today.


January

24. If you could switch two movie/book/TV characters, what switch would lead to the most inappropriate movie/book/TV show?
Well, this is just asking for two wildly disparate characters, isn't it? How about Winnie the Pooh and Pennywise the Clown? Sauron and the man covered in saucepans from the Faraway Tree books? Dracula and Anne of Green Gables?

Sundry catch-ups

1. January books read

A light reading month. It was a long book and I was busy doing other stuff.

* Reynard the Fox - Anne Louise Avery (2020) ★ ★ ★ ★ 
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2. Friday Five: The year so far

1) How is your year going so far?
I can't believe we're one month in already. It's gone by in a blur.

( And so on )

3. Another of my sunset-coloured dahlias

A slightly different shade of pink than the last one.

I've spent a lot of time this year reading mid-century (as in last century) mystery novels. This week: yet another instance of a detective describing a criminal as "groovy", as in "having a consistent MO". That's the second time I've seen that, so I gather that was a perfectly cromulent usage. Also, in a book from 1949: the idea that a young woman wearing pyjamas was, if not outrageous, slightly unusual.

Supermarket update: the toilet paper supply is fine, as it has been for months, but the tinned fruit shelves are empty, Alistair's favourite treat, Party Mix, is unavailable, and there is a four-per-shopper limit on lobsters.

This week's Friday Five is about weather (ETA: for the City by the Sea):

1. How much rain do you get as a yearly average?
According to the Bureau of Meteorology site, it's 892.7mm (about 35 inches for the imperially-minded).

2. How much snow do you get as a yearly average?
Not a single flake. Plenty of hail. And wind. So much wind. But no snow. Ask me about humidity instead, because that's on the BoM site: our average relative humidity is 73%.

3. Too much sun or not enough?
Too much at the height of summer; probably just enough the rest of the year. (Oh, the BoM site has that too: average annual daily sun hours is 2,330.)

4. When was the last time you looked for shapes in the clouds?
That's not something I do, although I do like looking at clouds.

5. What was the worst weather event to hit your area in recent years?
We had a one-in-fifty year flood in October.

A good week, this week. Here in locked down Victoria, we had donut days, the first in months. Three days of double donuts, even: zero new cases, zero deaths.

Also this week, the City by the Sea took part in a trial for the new census website. So that was a bit of fun.

Also also this week, my permanent contract at work hasn't yet been finalised, but I seem to have been promoted up a grade. Permanent job and pay rise, if/when it eventually happens.

A random lady walking past while I was in the front garden said to me, over the fence, "I love walking past your garden, it's so wild and colourful." It does look good just now, with blue love-in-a-mist, red poppies and purple irises all jumbled together.

Today I made pecan shortbread, which was unimpressive, and used up some leftover wonton wrappers by filling them with strawberries and Nutella and frying them, which was delicious.

The downside of this week is that Alistair has coughed up furballs on three separate days, including one night when he jumped on my bed specifically to start coughing on my pillow. Fortunately I managed to get him onto the wooden floorboards in time.

October books read

A light reading month, this one. It took me ages to get into this and ages to finish and ages to get started on something new. A reading fog.

* Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures - Stephen Fry (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

Last day of the month, which means a late evening at work for me, running reports and rolling over variables once everyone else is done. Tonight I finished in time for The Masked Singer (Australian version), which is, unexpectedly, my mother's new favourite show. It is so unlike her, but then, it is weirdly hypnotic. Because it is filmed in Melbourne, currently under stage 4 restrictions, they are really leaning into the masks this year: not just the singers, but the backing dancers, the crew, the host (sometimes). The "audience" consists of stuffed toys and crew members dressed in animal costumes. One of the masked singers is a terrifying giant ventriloquist's dummy. It's like watching a fever dream. I keep thinking of when you see clips of old TV shows and wonder in amazement at what passed for entertainment back then, and how future generations are going to think the same about this. I don't think saying, "Well, there was a pandemic," is really going to explain it.

Anyway, they have had to halt production of it for a few weeks, as despite all the masks some of the dancers have tested positive to Covid-19. And because it is a self-aware show, I am 99% certain when they come back, someone is going to have to perform "Ironic".

I won't finish the book I'm currently reading tonight, so I can do this now:

August books read

* Underland - Robert Macfarlane (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Man Who Didn't Fly - Margot Bennett (1955) ★ ★ ★
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* The Unquiet Dead - Ausma Zehanat Khan (2017) ★ ★ ★
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* The Poisoned Chocolates Case - Anthony Berkeley (1929) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Near Witch - VE Schwab (2011) ★ ★
( Read more... )

Today is the first day of the Australian financial year, so... happy new Australian financial year!

June books read

* Death of a Busybody - George Bellairs (1942) ★ ★ ★
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* The Dead Shall Be Raised - George Bellairs (1942) ★ ★ ★ ;
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* Murder of a Quack - George Bellairs (1943) ★ ★ ★
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* Inspector Imanishi Investigates - Seichō Matsumoto (1961) (trans. Beth Cary, 2003) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The October Man - Ben Aaronovitch (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* One by One They Disappeared - Moray Dalton (1929) ★ ★ ★ ★
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(That is quite the cure-all.)

This time last week I was itching to get out. This week: not so much. We've had three days of window-rattling, brain-hurting, howling gales. I took Alistair out before, at his insistence. Once out, he put his ears down flat and ran up every tree in a wind-induced mania.

Tonight I braved the elements to pick up what has become our regular fortnightly restaurant takeaway. Tonight we decided to order from a traditional bistro, having classic chicken Kievs and roast vegetables; good, but not as good as the gourmet pizzas from last fortnight. (I haven't yet had the warm chocolate fudge brownie for dessert, but it smells amazing.) The restaurant was interesting: it's all takeaway and delivery now, so they've pushed all the tables to the centre of the room with the chairs on top, and taken all the pictures and mirrors off the wall and leant them against the tables. Maybe they're planning to paint?

April books read

Knitting ate into a lot of my reading time this month.

* Around the World in 80 Trees - Jonathan Drori (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Thirteen Clocks - James Thurber (1950) ★ ★ ★
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Hello, f-list. New job is going well. I think. Seems to be. I haven't accidentally set fire to the building or anything, so let's call it positive. It involves a lot more looking at a computer screen than my previous jobs, so I'm doing less of that at home to give the old eyes a rest. Which means I have a month's worth of words jotted down that should have been entries. Let's do this.

Chester
One night a few weeks ago there was a knock on the door just before midnight. That's never good, is it? I opened it to Brian Next Door, who said, "You haven't seen Chester, have you? Someone opened the gate and he got out." Chester is Next Door's little terrier, very old now, mostly blind and arthritic. He's run over here other times he's escaped, so I helped Brian search the garden, but we didn't find anything. I felt terrible thinking about him lost and lonely in the night; Next Doors would feel worse.

The next morning as I was heading off to work, Next Door's car pulled into their driveway. Brian got out of the passenger side and waved to me, holding up Chester so I could see his wagging tail. Kim got out of the driver's seat and came over to the fence. "He found his way home then?" I said.

"No, we had a call from the vet on the highway at half-past seven. Someone picked him up on the highway last night and dropped him to the vet this morning and they got our number off his chip."

So that ended a lot better than it could have.

Extra day
It's a leap year, and there was a lot of fuss about 29 February, the extra day. What did I do with my extra day? I had two naps. I had a cold, you see. An actual cold, which has been going around the City by the Sea, and not the novel coronavirus. (Although it could be *A* coronavirus, said my mother helpfully, there's lots of them.) It was all over quickly, but I do feel robbed of my extra day.

The unwanted guest
Mister Alistair Cat was sitting outside in the potted bay tree when I shut up the house last night. I turned off all the lights and went to bed. Five minutes later I heard PADPADPADPADPAD as he trotted up the passage. So far, so normal... but something wasn't right. He normally meows, I thought, and turned the light on to find out why he was being uncharacteristically quiet, just in time to see him come through the doorway with a mouthful of mouse. I said, "No!" and he dropped the mouse, which turned out to be still alive. It ran into one of my slippers; he jumped on it; it ran behind the open door; he sat at the end of the door and settled down to watch. The mouse ran under the door, down the passage and into my mother's room. Alistair stayed where he was, convinced the mouse was still behind the door.

I woke my mother and we searched her room unsuccessfully for the mouse. No help at all from Alistair, who was still staring behind the door when I finally went to bed.

That will do for today. Tomorrow (or whenever): updates on flowers, soaps and knitting.

February books read

* Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor (1971) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Provence - Katrina Nannestad (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Lucerne - Katrina Nannestad (2019) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* With a Bare Bodkin - Cyril Hare (1946) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Death Walks the Woods - Cyril Hare (1954) ★ ★ ★
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* The Wind Blows Death - Cyril Hare (1949) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Tenant for Death - Cyril Hare (1937) ★ ★ ★
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Happy new year, f-list.

The apocalypse is happening everywhere but the City by the Sea, which is a little pocket of pleasant weather, blue skies and a cool sea breeze. Yesterday as the fires elsewhere worsened, I made a cake and pottered about in the garden. Today we can smell smoke from, well, everywhere, but I went to the New Year Market in Port Fairy and bought a new sun hat. It all seems disconnected from the devastation on the news.

December books read

* Double Entry: How the merchants of Venice shaped the modern world - Jane Gleeson-White (2011) ★ ★
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* The Little Broomstick - Mary Stewart (1971) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* Death on the Riviera - John Bude (1952) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Glass of Lead and Gold - Cornelia Funke (2018) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Cornish Coast Murder - John Bude (1935) ★ ★ ★
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* The Murders Near Mapleton - Brian Flynn (1929) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* Antidote to Venom - Freeman Wills Croft (1938) ★ ★
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I didn't get around to reading a Cartland to end the year, although I did sample a chapter of one on my Kindle. The heroine was called Kezia Falcon and her brother was Sir Peregrine. That is, Sir Peregrine Falcon. As if that wasn't enough nonsense, Peregrine and Kezia decide to pretend to be married in order to sell a necklace to a French marquis. I mean... obviously I will be returning to this at a later date, because it promises to be splendid.

Sir Peregrine Falcon though. She must have been running out of names.

It started raining while I was going for my lunch time walk today, so I took shelter in a book shop. A women in front of me, walking with a small girl, had the same idea. In the window of the book shop was a cardboard cutout of Bluey. The little girl said, "There's Bluey!" She and her mum disappeared into the children's section, from where I heard: "There's Bluey again!" Followed shortly by: "Bluey!" So I gather Bluey is all the rage among the junior set just now.