Not Happy

19 of them. in the house yard. Chase them and they vault over the garden fence from a standing start; they don't even clip their hooves as they go over. One even jumped the grid. Geez.

On a happier note, the kids are making their way home together. It's going to be a fun weekend.

This Weekend

The last weekend of Winter, phew; it wasn't so bad. A heater, an electric blanket and a fluffy dressing gown (and special green blanket) kept me warm throughout.

The weekend has flown by. Meg came home Friday night and went for a new hair arrangement on Sat morning.

Poofy likes it so much he kissed her.

She arrived bearing gifts from Melbourne, purchased from two of my favourite shops - kikki k and typo. These will be put to good use in this year's 365 journal.

Peppie went to a goat farm to "get in kid". She has lots of new friends - 12 sheep, 15 goats and a calf. She's in a paddock of oats. We figure she's probably forgotten us already as she lies lazily on her side, nibbling the oats and wondering who those creatures were that she used to live with who never gave her food like this.

My car came home with an unbuckled door and a new ugly racing stripe. I'll be looking out for beasts more carefully from now on.

We went to a little party last night for an 8 year old boy. We had fondue for dessert. Actually, Meg had a lot of fondue for dessert. We spent half the night texting pictures to Drew.

I rode today after a 3 day enforced layover. I hurt my left foot last Thursday whilst interval training a little too enthusiastically. I woke up very early Friday morning with a throbbing foot that I could hardly dare to put weight on. I took myself off to the doctor who told me that no, I didn't have a stress fracture, I'd probably just burst some blood vessels in the ball of my foot and to "leave the interval training to the 20 year olds". Harumph! I may have over-reacted been overly worried about the injury bruising but I was terrified pretty worried that my bike ride was in jeopardy. However, after today's ride I know that I'll be on the start line on the 8th.

It was a brilliant day to ride. There were wedgetail eagles, protective plovers, cockatoos, kookaburras, magpies, peewees, cross, wild cats, dead roos, bruce springsteen, jimmy barnes and lots of sunshine. I rode along singing and thinking and totally enjoyed it, even the 5 quarry hills. 

After my ride we went to the farm and did some pruning, Gibbo style. 

Upon our arrival we discovered that he had lit the bonfire of previously pruned trees that Drew had dragged to the pile. I asked him why he'd lit it up - "because boys men like to burn things and blow shit up" (but that last bit is another story best kept for another time).

We now have the main garden cleaned out of old woody and dead trees and plants. It sure has opened it up. Next weekend we will grind the stumps and hopefully mulch; then I'll start to plan out the garden setting. Megan helped. Sort of.

Here's Meg helping again.

Meg made more macaroons, this time to celebrate the eventual arrival of new baby Brayden Carter F. He sure took his time getting here.

And so the weekend is done. It was busy, we did lots of things but there was someone missing. I'll eat a macaron for you Drewy. Maybe I'll even have two. 

There's That Hat Again!

This time it's Kenny's turn - Meg is at FND - Family Night Dinner - and captured this:

Check this out - isn't it awesome?

Can't Wait

It's here! Arrived yesterday! My bike ride kit! I've done much more inside training this year, lots of interval training 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off - I have my ugly face on when I get to the end but it feels great and I can tell that I'm getting fitter.

I'm happy with my number too - it has an 8 in it - what a beautiful number - and the other two digits add to 8 - good fortune!! Bodes well for a good ride! I was happy with last year's number too - 365 - how appropriate considering my epic 365 book.

I've had a look at the elevation maps in the guide book; there's a few nasty looking inclines on a few days but if I can get through the mean looking one on the first day I think I'll be ok.

I turn 50 the day the we ride into Hervey Bay; it's only a 57km day, mostly flat with a "Half Way There Beach Party" that night. The campsite is on the Esplanade and the next day is Rest Day.

50. Geez. How did that happen?

Macaron Queen Strikes Again

Meg is Cooking Too

Meg is in Tba cooking up a storm too. Tomorrow is a fundraiser day at her work for RSPCA so she's made....macarons of course. She is becoming more adventurous with her flavours - this one is caramel with choc/nut topping. Apparently she "smashed it out of the "mighty fine" (censored) ballpark" which would indicate that she was pretty happy with the result!

Drew was impressed too, although he showed his admiration in slightly less colourful terms than Meg!

Chocolate Caramel...

Feeling Industrious

I decided on Friday (just as I finished the last of the home made relish) that I'd do a bit of cooking on the weekend. The kids weren't coming home, Gibbo would be playing cricket, work was nearly up to date (with just the R&D stuff to make some sense of) and all I had to achieve was a ride, a bit of food shopping and some work at the farm.

Saturday we went to the farm; Gibbo fenced while I sprayed. I listened to and danced my way through two hours of songs on my ancient iPod - an original mini that came out so long ago I can't even remember! (I just googled it - released in 2004 but I think it was 2005 that they hit Australia). Meg was in Grade 12 and Drew was in Grade 7. I was in my early 40's and Gibbo was years off reaching 40!!! Geez Louise!! The kids have had several new models since then but I've stuck to old faithful (iPod and husband)!

After lunch I went for a ride; just 23km but into a wicked headwind on the way out which of course made me fly home. I did some intervals on the way back and worked hard then went off to Newton's Hill and rode up twice - 350m at 11% gradient. I made Gibbo come with me to stand guard at the top to let me know if anything was coming over the hill - it's a narrow road that has a long crest. He doesn't think I should do that anymore; thinks it's a bit dangerous - but at least I feel confident that I'll be able to handle the hills on the ride. I just need to keep getting miles into my legs between now and Sept 8. That idea wasn't helped during the week when the goat and I had another disagreement. She won again, this time by hitting me right on the hip bone. It hurt like crap and I think she hit a nerve because everything on my left side zinged all day and I skipped exercising altogether.

Last night we had Green and Gold wagyu for dinner with combination fried rice. We sat on the couch and watched NZ beat us in the rugby again; I fell asleep.

This morning Gibbo left early for Buderim for cricket; they are into the final. I spent the morning in the kitchen making tomato relish and strawberry jam. 1kg of tomatoes yielded 4 little jars of thicker than last time relish and 1/2kg of strawberries yielded two small jars. Just perfect quantities for us. The jam set so well I think I'll have to cut it with a knife!

I'm yet to make the home made lemonade using the lemons from the farm tree. That's a job for this afternoon. When I was last in Brisbane I had an incredibly fresh tasting lemonade/rosemary drink so I'm going to try to copy it.

I didn't have enough tomatoes from the home garden so had to buy some shop ones.

It's pretty thick!!