Wrapping up the Rest of January

 I’ve covered most of the other things we got up to during January, but how did I go with my other goals?

READ A BOOK

Yes, just one.  Scrublands by Chris Hammer. I really enjoyed it.  I have a few of his books sitting on the shelf.  This is the first of a series.  I have book number three, but not the next in the series.  I may have to pop into the library to see if it is there.  He has another series, and once again, I don’t have them all.  I think I’d like to work my way through them.

TRY A NEW RECIPE

Yes, I made some zucchini roll ups.  Basically, put a bed of passata, or in my case cook up some tomatoes, onions, garlic and herbs, in the base of baking tray.  Cut ribbons of zuccchini and steam until limp and then roll them up with a mix of ricotta, Parmesan, garlic, egg and herbs in the middle.  Place on the tomato base, drizzle with a bit more tomato and sprinkle with grated cheese.  Bake for half an hour.  I found the filling was really messy to put in the roll ups, so as an afterthought, just hollowed out another zucchini and filled it with the remaining filling.  That worked.  Anyway, it was rather delicious and I will make it again, just using the hollowed out zucchini, or maybe roll up the zucchini ribbons without the filling, leaving a hole in the middle and spoon in the filling.

USE THE CARAVAN

As expected, that didn’t happen.  It is too busy at this time of year and the garden needs attention.

HAVE A FUN DAY OUT 

We had a couple of those, including the bonus of having a motorcycle ride for one of them.

Having a look back, I realise I haven’t shared our second day out, so will do now.

Our local State Government MP every now and then mentions small businesses in the area that he has visited on his Facebook page.  Recently, he mentioned a garden centre cafe at the little village of Neville.  That wasn’t what I was expecting to read.  We knew that the pub out there had recently reopened and it is on our wish list to visit one day, but this looked rather lovely.  Therefore, we took a nice lazy Sunday drive a couple of weeks ago.

The cafe itself is rather small, with most seating outside…… on elaborate lounges and armchairs.

We sat at a dining table.  There were a few little silky bantams wandering around.  They were very friendly, especially if there was a little tit bit thrown their way.

Our lunch was a simple wrap each, half eaten here, and I had a rather lovely, cooling iced tea.

There was a nice garden centre area as well, but we didn’t need anything,  I did like the birdhouses around the garden. 

It was a lovely place to visit and enjoy some time.  I’m very pleased to have read about it.

Of course, we couldn’t go straight home, as it was a lovely day and we had plenty of time.  Therefore, we wended our way across to Carcoar via some small country lanes.

Carcoar is a pretty little village and has featured in a few movies of late.  We just had a short walk up and down the street before continuing on our way.

Next stop was Carcoar Dam.  It is a popular place to go camping and skiing.

You can drive across the dam wall, taking you to yet another small country lane. We then found our way back to Blayney, before heading home.

This shows where we went.  It was about 150kms.  A nice way to spend the day.

Just one more thing that I want to share.  Mick is enjoying playing lawn bowls and had got involved in their working bees to maintain the grounds.  It is a really old club and out the front there is a fountain.  Apparently it hasn’t been working for at least ten years.  Mick asked if they would mind if he got it up and running.

Here it is before, with the top section already removed by Mick. The bottom water section was full of rocks and mud.  The pump didn’t work.

After a day  playing in the shed to get the pump fixed and then a few days to clean everything out and hook up the pump it is now fully functional.  

His next project is to get the garden around it tidied up.  He has made a small start, but will work on it more once the weather is more conducive to planting.