Commentary: September 2020 Archives

Canberra has escaped relatively unscathed from COVID-19 (so far).  We had a spate of cases right in the beginning, but almost all of them were from returning overseas travellers and their close contacts.  There was a single case in June from a diplomat returning from overseas.  And in July there was a few linked to a family returning from Melbourne during their spike in cases.

Life for us hasn't changed too much.  As I said at the beginning, for us it just meant seeing less of our friends and not eating out as much.  As those restrictions were lifted some months ago, we have been able to catch up with friends more often, and we've been out for meals more often.

We're mostly doing our shopping fortnightly so we don't need to go to the shops as often.  We've done some shopping at the markets and I get most of our milk and orange juice (and beer!) from Chris's.  And our last two big Coles shops have been delivered, so we haven't set foot in Coles in over two months.

I think I'm about the same weight as pre covid.  I would normally eat lunches at the food court every day so that hasn't been happening, but I would also get quite a bit more walking in.  I'm still going for a short walk at lunch every day and seeing three or four groups of magpies.  Lunches are either leftovers or noodles or toast or whatever.  Not terribly healthy.

Our work drinks are still closed, although that may change soon.  During the six months of the lock down we drank through eight cases of Corona beer.  In the last couple of months the guys that have been in the office have gone up to the Pot Belly for Thursday drinks.  While it's good and all, it's *very* expensive compared to drinking at home, or even at work.

We've been encouraged to come into work to work more often.  Which is a shame because I could happily work from home and *never* go into the office.  But they won't let us do that.  So on Thursday I went into work - for only the third time since March - and exactly six months to the day that I started working from home.  I'll probably go in once a week to start with, unless we get an outbreak here.

Travelwise, the trip to Europe with Mum got postponed two years.  I found it somewhat ironic that the whole reason the Passion Play in Oberammergau came to be was because of a plague.  And this year they had to cancel (postpone).  Because of a plague.

Our cruise next year has finally been called off.  But again this one has been postponed a year.  Let's just hope there's a vaccine developed in the next year otherwise even then things will be in doubt.

We missed out on going to Tasmania for Stu's 50th, but did have a nice long weekend in Tumut which was really nice.

How's everyone else's lockdowns going?

Early on in the year the sweetie decided he wanted to go to Tasmania for his 50th birthday.  We'd go down for a long weekend and just have a nice quiet weekend in Hobart.

Then Covid-19 happened. 

We couldn't plan anything in advance.  We couldn't even guarantee we'd be allowed across the border into NSW much more than a few weeks in advance.  So we sat on the idea and wondered what we might be able to do or where we might be able to go.

Then in early August Lorraine Elliot of Not Quite Nigella blogged about her trip to Tumut, Tumbarumba, Gundagai and Yass, including a visit to the Tumut River Brewing Company.  I thought a brewery tour and a weekend in Tumut sounded like a great idea and suggested it to the sweetie.  He thought it sounded like a great idea too.  The Sunday before we planned to go down I called up to see if tours would even be running (because, covid), and they were, and got ourselves booked in.  I didn't book accommodation until the day we left, because I didn't want to have to go through the drama of cancelling if one of us got sick in the intervening time.

We took the slow way to Tumut on the Saturday, via Adaminaby, snow and dams.

Sunday morning we visited Blowering Dam and the Tumut lookout before walking up to the pub.

The brewery itself is setup in an old store building, and the pub is setup next door in what used to be a tyre store.  Out the front all the tables are full of people enjoying lunch and a beer in the glorious late winter day.

There's a hand santising station out the front, setup like a beer tap!

Inside is full of comfy couches, and the day's live performance act, Toby Mobbs, is getting setup.

We enquire about our tour booking.  It seemed to have gone astray, however there's two other groups for a tour booked, so we pay and go in to sit down.  There's a couple of different options you can get - the tour; tour and tasting; or tour, tasting and meal.  We opt for the latter - tour, tasting and meal.  This includes the talk by Tim Martin, one of the owners, four 7oz tasters, and a burger or mini pizza.  All for $35.  Absolutely excellent value!!

We start with a pint of Full Grunt and enjoy drinking a beer in front of all the equipment.

While we're waiting, we have a look around.  There's the processing tanks, as well a series of fermenting tanks.

On the other end of the building are the stores of grains and hops, and cans ready for canning.  The canners come and setup in the middle of the floor and can on the spot.

On one side is a keg cleaning? filling? both? station

12:30pm rolls around and Tim gets started on his story.  Two guys have a dream to make great beer.  They all live happily ever after.

Not quite!

The story has been going on for years, and has been one drama and set back and battle after another, over and over and over again.  Which is such a shame, because they do in fact make great beer, and the brewery is an amazing thing for Tumut to have going for it.  

We have a couple of breaks during the talk (once you break that seal.. ;) ), and we get started on our tasters.  You get four tasters each, so the sweetie and I worked our way through eight different beers.

Some of the others got the Full Grunt burger and were raving about it, so for lunch we got one of those, and a mini pizza.  I wasn't quite concentrating when I went to order the food - I should have gotten something a bit more adventurous than pepperoni ;)  Sadly the sweetie had eaten half the burger before I got a chance to get a photo!

After telling the story of how the brewery came to be, Tim then went into the details of the beer making process, explaning the whole thing from start to finish, and how they use locally sourced ingredients where possible.  Did I mention this brewery is great for the local area? :)

And if you want to know about the bubble wrap marks on the side of the vats, you'll have to go and take a tour to hear the story!

After the tour is done, we head back out into the lounge.  We grab another pint each and listen to the last couple of songs by Toby Mobbs.

His last song of the day is "Three Cities" about "coming from" three cities - Albury-Wodonga and Wagga Wagga.  

I also have a bit of a wander round the pub.  

The bottle wall is amazing.  There's all sorts of historic bottles and cans there, and it was cool to try and pick ones I'd had.

We had a thoroughly lovely afternoon there, and it was a great way to spend Stu's 50th (even tho that was the next day, shh! ;) ).

The next morning on our way out of town we dropped in to pick up a mixed case of beer.  You can buy them individually, or in four packs, six packs or cases.  We opted for six different four packs, as the four packs were already bound and easy to pick up.

Tim saw us there and brought out a small glass of a sour that's nearly ready for canning.  It was very refreshing - it will be good in summer!

I truly hope Tim gets a "happily ever after" - he's put in sooo much effort!!

PS, as I started writing this this afternoon I was chatting to Tony, and he said Tim? or someone from TRBC was at Herbert's just down the road!  Today!!  And I missed it!!!  Gahh!!!!  They also tapped their 50 Shades of Purple last night, I'm going to have to get down there to try it!!

In early 2017 we bought an Electrolux Ergorapido cordless vacuum cleaner.  It didn't get used much for the first six months, but then I started doing a couple of rooms every weekday morning before work and once I got into the routine the whole house would get vacuumed every week.  This changed my life.  Before that the house would go months between vacuums because I *hated* dragging the barrel vacuum cleaner around, and the attachment to catch dust outside the main cleaner never fitted properly so you'd be vacuuming along and suddenly the whole head would fall off.  Drove me nuts.  What I did hate about the new Electrolux was the rolly brush on the head.  I knew before we even bought it that it would just get tangled in my hair.  Stu promised he would clean it out for me, but that happened very rarely, and a couple of times the motor got jammed.  The second time recently David was around for and decided this meant it should be replaced.  So he got me a Dyson v7 origin for my birthday!

So how do they compare?

I find the Electrolux more comfortable to use.  The action is a bit more natural.  It has a nice flexible head on it so gets around corners easily.  And it has a nice light on the front so you can see even in a darkened room.  With the Dyson you have to hold it like a gun and keep the trigger squeezed for it to run which makes it all a bit more awkward.  Going mostly straight is fine, but going around corners can be quite difficult.  Also, if you lift the head off the floor it snaps open fully extended, and you really have to push it down to get it back onto the ground.  The Dyson's head is also a bit higher so doesn't get under things quite as well.  Although when it can get under it can go further, because it lays completely flat past the head.  The Electrolux gets wider and wider as it goes up so can't keep going under things for very long.

The Dyson is definitely more powerful and does a much better job of sucking stuff out of corners, and heavier items that the Electrolux would just not manage.  Which, yanno, is the whole reason for a vacuum cleaner, so it's a winner there.

The Dyson has a max fill line on the barrel, but that assumes that the barrel is sitting horizontal.  When you're using it, it's usually greater than 45 degrees on its side, so dust accumulates in the front of it, much higher than the fill line.  Stoopid.  

Emptying the Electrolux was always a bit of a pain.  You pulled off the collector barrel which was easy enough, but then you had to pull out the filter and sort of shake it around to get the dust out.  The Dyson is a lot easier, but you really have to be careful to get it over the bin, otherwise dust goes everywhere.  And when you snap it shut, dust goes everywhere.  I've had to vacuum around the bin just to collect it all - several times.  

No word yet on battery life.  The Electrolux still seemed to be going strong after three years and would easily do several rooms without even getting down to one bar.  The Dyson says it will go for 30 minutes (vs the Electrolux at 45 minutes) so hopefully it'll still manage to do a couple of rooms as the battery ages.

Finally, the Dyson is a lot quieter than the Electrolux which is super nice on my sensitive ears, and is less disturbing for Stu as well.

I'll take the Electrolux out to the club for general usage out there.  There is a vacuum cleaner out there which works pretty well, but did I mention I hate dragging around barrel vacuum cleaners?  The cordless will mean the place will get vacuumed more regularly, even if I have to get the bits of twigs and bark from the fireplace with a dustpan and broom ;)