Finger food Friday, a long standing tradition in our household, has been moved aside temporarily. The tradition of finger-food on Friday nights started during our working lives as a way to mark the transition from the working week to the week-end. Fish & chips, hamburgers, pizzas, nachos, or tapas have been common, with the rule that generally that the food will be home made. We came to enjoy our Finger-food Friday’s so much that we’ve kept it up even after retirement.

Covid-19 has changed some of our routines, for how long is anyone’s guess. With intra-state area closures in place it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to have our usual winter escape to the warm sun in the top end. Not being able to escape the cold, it seems like a good idea to make some changes to our routine that embrace it instead. What better way to embrace the cold than to relax with a nice glass of red, or a glass of warm, spicy, mulled wine while gazing at the flickering flames of a fire. Finger food Friday’s have been temporarily shunted aside to make way instead for fire pit Friday’s (providing it’s not raining).

We have a nice little place for our portable fire ring, and we have a camp oven. Our State visitor restrictions lifted from one to ten people this week, which means we can now share our camp fire, and camp oven dinner with friends too. We don’t have space for ten people to meet the outdoor social distancing rules (1.5 metres between), but we can legally space up to six people around our fire. This week we invited three friends around, and the camp oven dinner was to be a hearty beef in red wine stew with chunky vegetables and home made pull apart bread rolls.

Ok. now’s a good time to confess – I forgot to take photos! The photos above have been pilfered from other fire pit nights. Our guests were very kind, and seemed to enjoy this weeks stew, I’m a bit more critical though, and have to admit I haven’t perfected cooking yet in a camp oven on a back yard, portable fire pit. I manage well enough using the fire pits in campgrounds with their anchored hooks that allow the camp oven to suspend above the flames, and to swing out of the way of the flames altogether if the camp oven gets to hot. I also manage very well in a big fire on the open ground when I can rake hot coals to the side of the main fire.

For the stews I use gravy beef, which when cooked slowly at the right temperature makes a rich, flavoursome, melt in your mouth stew. The meat in the one pictured above cooked to quickly, and lacked that melt in mouth result of perfectly cooked gravy beef. Additionally, I added the chunky vegetables a little to late, and the carrots weren’t perfectly tender like they should be in well cooked stew. This week we tried using heat beads while cooking, and added the wood for the fire as soon as the cooking was done. I think we’re on track to get it right, but we still need to slow down the cooking to get the flavour that will only develop with a slow, gentle simmer over several hours. A few less coals I think will do it.

We had planned to have our usual toasted marshmallows, and S’mores afterwards. But one of our guest surprised us with the most delicious honeycomb cheesecake. Our other guests cooked us some lovely mini quiches and sausage rolls to start us off for the night. Between the lovely pastries to start, Paul’s pull apart home made rolls, and that, oh so delicious, cheesecake, who needed a perfectly cooked stew anyway.

Recently I had been thinking that in the coming years my blue garden would most likely have to go. The blue garden, consisting of a lacy, blue plumbago, surrounded by a solid border of blue agapanthus, was planted approximately three years ago. It had been slow to take off, but had a growth spurt this summer reaching almost perfect size by around February with masses of gorgeous blue blooms that almost obscured the fence. By the end of March it was growing so rapidly that it was requiring constant pruning to keep it confined to it’s allotted space.

With the speed it was growing, it was becoming clear that constant pruning would be needed to keep it manageable in years to come. Also, earlier this year the surrounding white stones that enhanced the blue perfectly had become a bit grubby with an accumulation of fallen leaves and other bits and pieces of garden debris. It took almost a week to lift and clean the stones. I figured that by the time the stones were due for their next clean, the plumbago would most likely be needing constant trimming to keep it from overwhelming it’s space. That would be the time for us to consider a garden makeover.

With Covid-19 restrictions keeping us within the confines of our own home boundaries, it seemed like to good an opportunity not to bring the garden overhaul forward by a year or two. Initially we considered artificial turf, but after a bit of research we quickly went off that idea. Apparently, even though maintaining real grass requires water and fertiliser it is still far more environmentally friendly than artificial turf. By the time our research told us Synthetic wasn’t the way for us to go, the picture of our back garden with a small expanse of soft, green turf had embedded in our minds. Three weeks ago we decided that now was a great opportunity to commence the inevitable changes, however with real, soft leafed sapphire buffalo grass instead of the anticipated fake stuff.

We still wanted our raised vegetable beds. First we removed the plumbago along with a couple of other plants. The agapanthus have been moved to the front garden. Next the raised garden beds were dismantled and moved to the back fence line. The newly planted seeds are up, and it won’t be long until we’re again eating homegrown silverbeet, lettuce and coriander. The bulk of the paving has been lifted and stored to be re-purposed later, with the paving under the verandah remaining in place. We raked in a good amount of decayed manure into the sandy base, and levelled the site. Then Paul dug the trenches and laid the reticulation.

Next came the laying of the turf, and fitting and testing the sprinklers.

Life isn’t really that different for retirees living under an imposed level three pandemic lock down. We’ve still been able to source supplies for projects, and the restrictions on personal movement throughout the state has meant we can really get productive with our time on the home front. Our garden looks so much bigger now with its newly laid lawn. Of course, although I claim it to be a joint project, Paul has done 99% of the work. I’ve just supervised (and made coffee). It was the 40th year anniversary on 26th April since Paul and I first ‘became an item’ (I think that’s the term used today). I think he’s still a keeper!

I promise myself every week that I’m going to get back into blog writing. The week passes, and still no posts to publish. A new week begins, and another promise to myself, only to be yet another broken promise by the weeks end.

I did a small writers course many years ago. Two things stuck in my mind from that course, firstly, “if you want to be a writer, you first must be a reader”. The second thing was, “if you want to be a writer, you must write”. I can hear those sentences in my mind as clearly today as when I heard them then.

Sounds pretty simple, and basic doesn’t it. I rarely read of late, and I rarely write. Week after week goes by with barely a page in a book turned. Very few of the much loved blogs that I used read avidly even get opened. As for blog writing, I start a draft every now and again, but become so overwhelmed with the feeling that I have either nothing to say, or so much I want to say that condensing it into a blog is impossible. The writing quickly becomes a jumbled mish-mash of almost incoherent words.

Something I realised many years ago, in the days of letter writing, was that it’s much easier to write letters to someone if you write them often. If to much time goes by between letters all those little things that make up one’s life seem to become unimportant with the passage of time, and don’t seem worthy of a mention. Without the little things there’s rarely anything left to say. Momentous happenings in people’s lives are, fortunately, few and far between. I say fortunately, as if life was full of momentous happenings we’d no doubt never get time to read, or to write. How stressful would our lives be if day after day was filled with only momentous happenings.

I’m finding it the same with blog writing. Frequent writing about the little things that happen day to day is easy. Trying to condense lots of little things, or to pick just one or two little things out of the months that have gone by is an impossible task.

So, this weeks promise to myself. I must read both blogs and books, starting today. And I must write. As always I notice that when a lot of time goes by between blogs, the posts initially don’t seem to flow well. But if I’m to get my writing mojo back, I’m going to have to get through the writing rapids of tumultuous waters until I reach the calm flow of putting words together comes again. Providing I make good on my promises, I’ll get there.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m paranoid. In fact I’m a bit of a fatalist, believing that what will be, will be, so there’s no point in getting paranoid. In the big scheme of things there’s nothing I can do. In my little world though, which is becoming smaller by the day. I am listening, and I am trying to follow the guidelines. I am doing my best to self isolate. (Yes, this is another post about Coronavirus).

Reading between the lines is sometimes difficult, and often we read into things more (or less), than is actually there. I’m reading between the lines, and I hope what I’m seeing there is completely wrong.

Here’s how I see it.

Deciphering between the facts, and the fake news isn’t easy. We all have a duty to keep ourselves informed, and to follow the recommendations, but the recommendations change daily, sometimes hourly. It’s hard to keep up. The following fact though is un-disputable:

Coronavirus is a pandemic, it’s killing people, and it’s on the rise – fast!

Governments all over the world have declared a State of Emergency, giving them powers to implement laws rapidly in response to the developing crisis. First come the guidelines, then when they are either not followed, or aren’t having the desired effect, the guidelines, or even stricter guidelines, become law.

Time frames for the virus to peak, and then begin to decline are hinted at. Some say six months, others indicate the end of June. I’m sure you’ve heard a few possibles that could be added to that. Clearly, without a crystal ball these dates are any bodies guess. My thoughts are the governments are tossing the idea of an end time frame into our minds to try and prevent despair from setting in. I do hope the dates are somewhere near to correct, but from reading between the lines I suspect those time frames are only going to signify the end of the beginning, and I think the government knows that too.

Here’s what’s happening in our little corner of the world – the lines I’m reading between to make that assumption:

Our state government of WA has ordered the closure of Rottnest Island, our holiday island. The reason is so as the island can be used for an isolation area for those in need of it, or/and for an enforced isolation area for those who aren’t abiding by the self isolating laws. A whole island……

I believe as I’m writing this that our premier and state government are in negotiations with hotels to re-purpose the buildings as medical facilities. WOW!! Now, that to me sounds like a seriously huge number of patients that are expected. So, we can clearly find the buildings, that just leaves the problem of the medical staff to man the buildings, and the medical equipment to use. We clearly haven’t got enough of either. No-one in the world has.

We’re being told how important it is to distance from everyone. It hasn’t been working in other countries, and now several countries appear to be putting a limit of two on any gathering. There can be no social gatherings, no funerals, no weddings, and no birthday parties. Apparently these distancing measures are to flatten the curve.

My thoughts are that the idea if flattening the curve isn’t going to make Coronavirus disappear, it’s only going to postpone the inevitable. It’s a way of buying time. Time to re-purpose buildings to use as medical facilities, time to manufacture more masks, more protective clothing, more ventilators, and time to train more medical staff. I think the end of June, or the end of six months, is the time the governments are hoping to buy so as the world has a chance of caring for its sick and dying. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to everything. I think the beginning has barely begun yet! Unless a cure or vaccine miraculously appears, I think we’re in for a long ride.