Kazza the Blank One

Monday.  26th.  Backdating.  Frustration and grumpiness at work *all day*.  Finished up day 25 labelling (which I should have done on the weekend).  In the end labelled 261 photos in the evening, so mostly caught up to where I wanted to be.

Tuesday.  Not much better day than Monday.  Ended up worse, and feeling depressed cause I suck and noone likes me.  Had leftover pasta bake for dinner (and got a yuk taste of anchovies).  Backed up my computer but didn't do any photo labelling.  Did jigsaw and played 2048 for the first time in a couple of years.  Even got up to 4096.

Wednesday.  Woke up at 3:23 and never got back to sleep.  So it was a zombie day.  Couldn't really concentrate on anything, not helped by people interrupting every five seconds.  Doc Oc pizzas and wine for dinner.  Started watching Queen: Days of Our Lives (2011).

Thursday.  Slept quite a bit better (went to bed at 20:30), other than being awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night cause of hurty.  In what world is a monthly cycle 21 days???  FFS.  Ok day.  Mulled wine at drinks for a Christmas in July night.

Then met up with EffanC and R&F at Hachiko for dinner which was lovely.

It was a lovely night and a great reminder that I do have some pretty great friends.

Friday.  Ok day.  Knocked off work a little early but then spent the evening prepping for tomorrow - for the club Christmas in July.  Struggled to get onto the butcher to order the pork - firstly couldn't find a phone number online, ended up having to resort to Yellow Pages.  But then they wouldn't answer the phone :(  Then I started stressing about fitting CRD into the car with all the foods and gear.  Sigh.  Finished the first episode of Queen: Days of Our Lives, and started episode two.  

My little patch of floriade is sprouting!

Saturday.  Headed out early and did the shopping for dinner.  Finished the Coles shop quite quickly, then headed back to the butcher.  Turns out their phone handset was broken which is why they weren't answering.  Luckily was able to get enough pork.  Then picked up CRD and headed out to the club.  Set everything up and took a photo of all the food.

First up was getting the lamb ready and into the slow cooker.  I'd never done lamb like this in the slow cooker so had no idea how it would turn out.  It actually turned out really well - lovely and moist.  

I had to wash pretty much everything before I started.  All the cooking gear was covered in white dust.  And I literally had to leave the kitchen a couple of times while other people wandered in and started fussing around and washing things up.  I actually can't concentrate with people buzzing about, super stressful.

Then I prepped all the pork - just oil and salt.

Then made a couple of epic potato bakes.

I also made up a sweet potato salad, and some lactose-free roast potatoes

The oven is the slowest oven in the world, so I probably should have left the foil off a lot longer on the potatoes

I delegated making the roast turkeys in the bbq.  So we had a bain-marie full of pork, the slow cooker full of lamb, and another bain-marie with the turkey.  The pork and lamb turned out beautifully, but the crackling didn't work so well (slowest oven in the world) and the turkey was over done on the bottom (really need a better way to do it than on the barbeque).

I also made a big batch of gravy, and a pot of apple sauce

There was also a big pot of peas/corn/carrots.

Had a couple of helpers to serve it all up.  It was quite well received .. phew!!

Chris brought these great little puddings

And Tab brought puddings and pavlovas and fruit and ice cream.

Then there were some very noisy games so I went and hid because it was all too loud.  Later went out and had some whiskey and rum in the sun room.  This whiskey smelt like peanut butter and tasted like butterscotch schnapps.  Yum!  And the Master Mary rum tasted like Christmas.

Then loud people came out, so I went to bed.

Sadly after really concentrating on the food all afternoon and evening, I really didn't feel like I caught up properly with anyone.  I actually only sat down at the table for a few minutes to scoff my dinner.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well.  Went up to finish cleaning up and packing up.  Found out the cause of all the white powder around the kitchen - mice had been getting into the corn flour and tracking it all around.  I even saw a couple of mice running around the shelves.  I threw out anything that had mouse holes, which was all the corn flour and some of the regular flour.  Anything open but with no evidence of mouse activity I brought home to reassess.  And anything unopened and still sealed with no holes I put into a sealable plastic container. 

They pulled the pergola down while I was cooking on Saturday 

Then came home after dropping off CRD.  But it was still nearly lunch time by the time we got home, and I was my usual Sunday-after-a-club-event-depressed because of the lack of time at home on the weekend.  I did manage to clean out a shelf in the pantry and water change all the downstairs fish tanks and download photos, but not blog.  Used up some of the mince I cooked last weekend with some One Pan Dinner.