This weekend flew by and I didn’t think I had achieved a whole lot, but when I look at the action items list everything has been crossed off! This is possibly unprecedented, or an indication that the list was not very comprehensive.

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Yesterday evening we went to the ducks first game at the SCG for the year. Poor Joe/Frank wasn’t feeling well, so it was Don, Bessie and I.

I particularly love the crowd watching as we have some quite interesting characters surrounding us. Over the years we’ve developed very detailed back-stories for them – which are unlikely to have any basis in reality.

Unfortunately I spent the last quarter being anxious about the drive home. The car park is barely-controlled chaos and I have to cross a stream of horrendous traffic to get out. It’s never actually as bad as I think it will be – ridiculous to let it spoil my enjoyment, but such is my brain at times.

Why drive instead of public transport? Slightly cheaper, infinitely more comfortable plus 20 min return journey vs roughly an hour (quite often longer). As an old lady I no longer have tolerance for such things.

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NewKitty had an appointment with the vet this morning for her annual vaccinations and she was really not very enthusiastic about it. There was much, much yowling.

You may recall NewKitty has some intestinal issues which particularly manifest themselves when she eats dried food. This means we really try to limit the amount of dry she eats, but have to give her some occasionally in an attempt to stave off tooth decay. It is a delicate balance. Unfortunately the occasional dry food does not seem to have worked so well and it appears she might need more teeth removed.

Now she’s on a special diet for 6 weeks to see what is what with her innards. The challenge here will be to prevent her from eating BabyKitty’s food after she has finished her own. Already we have them on separate floors for meals!

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Today has been all about domesticity, fresh produce acquisition and bottling bears. We’re on our second (or is it third?) week of avoiding a big supermarket shop which is pleasing, though probably loads more expensive doing it piecemeal.

Tonight we’re having steak, guinness and cheese pie. Because I am a complete pastry snob, I made the pastry rather than using suggested pre-packaged.

And I just burned my knee on the oven – yes really – when putting the pie in. I think this has taken my clumsiness to unforeseen heights! Owwwww!

Much later … pie was amazingly good. I think we needed slightly fattier beef and have annotated the recipe accordingly. Possibly the best pastry I’ve made. My pastry is always good (if i do say so myself), but this was super-fabulous. I used my standard go-to puff pastry recipe, so possibly lightly scoring the top made the difference?

Now there’s a cassoulet in the oven for a 5:2 dinner during the week.

I was planning to make an ice-cream base later, but possibly might collapse in a heap instead!

Much, much later … ice-cream base (chocolate silk) made! The custard split and I managed to repair it with a bowl of ice and a whisk.

AND I started another bottle of vanilla extract, this time with Mexican vanilla beans I found on sale last week at Herbies – the previous efforts were with Tahitian vanilla. I’m very interested to see the difference.

Achieving is me!