Change of Plans

   I had my day planned out - ironing, hair shampoo and cut the front grass, bridge in the afternoon - but a phone call from Elliot changed all that. They wanted to come over for lunch and a swim, and it would be their last chance before they went back to school. So I quickly switched on the pool heater, found someone else to take my place at the Bridge table and scooted out to pick up a loaf of bread and some cheese.

   They enjoyed their last fling in the pool and left by 2:00 p.m. I had a quick nap then picked some rhubarb as I wanted to make a cake to take to tennis tomorrow. Once the cake was in the oven I relaxed with my book until Ahmet (my window cleaner) arrived to trim some trees that were encroaching on my eaves troughs. That should hold them back for another year or so. Now I just need to get Steve to come over to cut down the nearly dead mountain ash in the front. It is looking very sad and has to go.

   I also cut the front grass - it was badly in need of a trim and looks much better although there are still lots of brown patches. After that I needed another swim and the water was still beautifully warm from the afternoon. I don't think I will have the heater on again this year.

    Still eating leftovers. I had some rhubarb left from the cake and I stewed it with brown sugar and Marsala wine - it was delicious!

   

A Quiet Sunday

Got home from tennis this morning hot and tired although we just played for about an hour, and went straight in the pool. Stan and I came back from a 4-0 deficit to win in the tiebreak, against Kathy and Iona, so we were quite pleased with ourselves!

    The rest of the day has been very quiet, snoozing or reading, but I did bake another batch of sugar cookies as the grandkids now expect them whenever they visit.

Dinner on the Barbie

   A tasty dinner tonight - chicken drumsticks, corn and mushrooms cooked outdoors.

   I left the leaves on the corn as the last time I barbecued it "naked" it got rather charred. This time it was just right although some of the silk was difficult to remove.

  

   

A Cleared Freezer

   I just have a small freezer above my fridge but it does hold quite a lot on two shelves and sometimes I can't find stuff or forget what's in there. But today it is virtually empty!

   There's half a loaf of bread, one roll of puff pastry and some pitas and that's it. I defrosted a piece of fish for tonight's dinner and, as I was using a roll of the  puff pastry to make a fish pie, I also defrosted some sausages for sausage rolls with the extra pastry. A couple of sausages went in to the fridge for breakfast tomorrow. Now I can fill the freezer with  whatever's on offer at the grocery store at my next shop. However, it is a good feeling to have it almost bare today.

   I also did a big garden clean up, removing all the self-seeding sweet pea plants as the seed pods have popped. As well, a whole bunch of dandelions which were easy to pull up after yesterday's rain. This took me about an hour by which time I was ready for a swim. It's still very hot. I played tennis this morning, requiring another swim, and watched a tennis match in the afternoon, so it has been a busy day.

The fish pie containing lots of vegetables, and the sausage rolls. Having the oven on made the kitchen very warm, even with the A/C on, so I had the overhead fan going as well. It's still 30C outside at 7:30 p.m.!