So, here I am again, starting at a reasonable time again (crikey! what’s wrong with me! I must be ill! 😉 ) We had a fair bit to get through today, but what with one thing and another, we got a fairly late start, so we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped to. Never mind, it wasn’t really a “matter of life and death”, so to speak… What we had intended to do was go over to Doncaster to pick up the rest of the pictures to be hung, call in at Bunny’s to get some stronger picture hanging hooks, because the ones that we did have were a bit “flimsy”, and some of our pictures are – to put it mildly – “pretty big”. Once we’d done all of that we had a bit of supermarket shopping to do, then we were going to come home, get out all the pictures, and “dot them around the house” (leaning against walls, etc.) just to see what we thought should go where. Of course, we don’t have all of our pictures – there’s still a hell of a lot of them in storage from when we moved to Doncaster, in 2007! We’re not going to have nearly enough room for them all, especially as most of the walls are going to end up covered in bookcases, but that’s exactly why we were going to do this “dot them around the house” exercise – so that we could pick out the best – or should I say, “the ones we couldn’t bear to part with”! There’s one print that’s always hung in our bedroom which we’re going to replace, because it was hanging in the full afternoon sun while we were in Doncaster, and over the years it’s become very faded and “sun-bleached” – it’s called “The Kiss“, by Gustav Klimt. The one that’s always hung in our bedroom has a plain, thin, black frame (a very minimalist post-modern style!) but I’d like to get something a little… nicer, this time – or at the very least, something that will “blend in” a little better with all the other frames that will be going up around it! So… first we went up to the Vermont South shopping centre, to check our P.O. Box, and my goodness! There was a MICA Ambulance, and Police cars… and blood on the ground! (a fair amount, and it looked fresh and very “wet”, too!) There were lots of people milling around, looking somber, and standing in small groups, “discussing” something of apparently great import – in other words, “lollygagging about”! When we got home this afternoon I had a look in The Age (online version), but there was nothing mentioned about any sort of “trouble” in Vermont South; maybe there’ll be something on the news tonight? So, yeah, we went up and checked the P.O. Box, gawked at the mess on the road, and went down to Bunny’s for the stronger hooks. Then we went off to Doncaster – gee, it looks so bare and, for some reason, old and tired – where we picked up the last of the pictures from there that we wanted to keep… Then we went off to do our supermarket shopping, up at the Coles/KMart Plaza thingy on the corner of Burwood Highway and Blackburn Road – because by that time it was after one o’clock, and there’s a Ferguson Plarre there where we thought we’d get lunch. And… uhhh… I was a naughty girl again! Julian hasn’t made up his mind yet as to whether he’ll make Hot Cross Buns this Easter, or if we’ll get them from elsewhere, so – just in case – I asked them there at Ferguson Plarre whether they made Hot Cross Buns or not, to which the gentleman serving us replied that yes, they did, but they didn’t make them until much closer to Easter (I suppose to give everyone a chance to get sick and tired of the HCB’s made by Coles, Woolworths, and other “assorted bakeries”, who’ve already been selling them for weeks – so that they’ll buy theirs instead!) but I forgot to ask them if they had, or if they made, Simnel Cakes… though I’d be extremely surprised if they didn’t – and anyway – I’m sure we’ll be up there again lots of times before Easter, so that I can order one from them (if they do make them! And if they don’t, I’ll cry!) Well, by the time we got home, it was after three o’clock, so we figured it was too late in the afternoon to start manhandling heavy picture frames around the house, so we collapsed into our chairs and had a cup of coffee instead! 🙂 I played a bit of WoW – mainly to get my “Followers” off on missions on my behalf – and then I started writing this! 🙂
Food stuffz: last night, neither of us had any dinner – we were still too full from lunch, so we just had a cup of coffee while we watched television. We had lunch today at Ferguson Plarre – Julian had a large sausage roll (with a little sachet of tomato sauce) a Red Velvet Cup Cake, and a Cappuccino… I was torn between having a Tiddly Oggie, or the large “Gourmet Spinach and Cheese Roll” (which was just a teeny bit smaller than the large sausage roll that Julian had) I love Tiddly Oggies, but I ended up opting for the “Gourmet Spinach and Cheese Roll”, as I’d had something almost similar yesterday for lunch, and I hadn’t been at all impressed with it and I wanted to compare them… Well, I can tell you that the “Gourmet Spinach and Cheese Roll”, made by Ferguson Plarre, was somewhere in the region of 3000% better than the lump of soggy, saltless pastry, filled with spinach and not very much fetta, that I had yesterday! I also had a Ferguson Plarre Hedgehog slice, which while extremely good – and which I would gladly have every day, if I thought I could get away with it weight-wise – just wasn’t in the race to compete against that absolutely luscious, delectable, dee–vine, cake I had yesterday, with the caramel, and the chocolate cream, and the thick, sticky, gooey, chocolate frosting! *sigh* Tonight we’re having veal cutlets, with boiled potatoes, sugar snap peas, and (I presume) half a tomato. The method of cooking the veal cutlets is thus: first, you pound the hell out of them – they should end up being about three to four millimeters (yes, that’s “millimeters”!) thick. Cut the veal into suitable sizes for cooking – the pounding will stretch them quite a bit, and they could end up too big for your frying pan, but do remember that the pieces will shrink a fair bit while cooking! Next, you dip them into well seasoned plain flour – no egg wash, just the seasoned flour, pressing each side firmly in the flour to get it well coated. Set the floured veal on a large plate, making sure that each one is lying completely flat, and that none of them overlap (or they’ll stick together, and then they’ll be a right mess and won’t cook properly!) Squeeze a couple of lemons and keep the juice close to the stove – these cutlets don’t take long to cook! Heat some butter in a frying pan, and when the butter begins to “bubble” a bit – but before it burns – gently slide in as many cutlets as will fit comfortably into the pan. When cooked on the bottom – gently lift one edge with a spatula – if the flour’s gently browned, it’s time to turn the cutlet! Once you’ve turned the cutlets, pour some lemon juice over the top of each cutlet, and cook for about the same amount of time as you cooked the first side (remember! Check underneath to see how the browning is going! You want a sort-of a cappuccino-froth brown, not a dark caramel brown!) When cooked, serve immediately with vegetables of your choice 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. Was surprising, considering what I ate yesterday, and the fact that I’m on those nasty little fluid retaining pills! I went down three points! From 63.3kg to 63.0kg! To quote someone who was once famous (or should that be “infamous”? 😉 ) “Please explain!” Anyway, today’s lunch should probably take me well back into the 63 kilogram zone, if not into the 64 kilogram zone! So why am I doing this, “dicing with weight” dance? Well, I have to know what I can and can’t eat – what will take me up too much, and what I can get away with, if I don’t do it too often. In other words, I’m learning to eat all over again – what’s safe, and what’s not… Everything is being noted and stored – recorded here in this blog, and noted down for future reference. I wonder what I’ll go up to tomorrow? We’ll just have to weight and see, I guess…
Tomorrow is Sunday, and our day for Frolicking in Draenor – where hopefully I’ll be able to “earn” some more “supplies” in order to send my Followers out to win me more supplies, with which I can then build up my Garrison! I have references to read about how to go about it which I haven’t read yet – but I will! I’ll be sure to let you all know if we managed to get ourselves killed or not, and how many times we had to cough up gold for repairs to our armor after we’d died, and then on Monday, now that we have all the pictures under the one roof (except for the ones still in storage!) we’ll start depositing them around the house, so that we can see where we want what! I’m actually quite looking forward to that! 🙂 And really, that’s about it from me again this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow night – find out how our cutlets turned out, and how we went in Draenor! I’m sure there’ll be heaps to tell you, so don’t miss out on all the news from this side of the black stump! 😉 Until tomorrow night then, please try very hard to bee good, remember that crying doesn’t indicate that you’re weak – since birth, it has been a sign that you’re alive – and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 