February – May 2022

Well it has been a while since I last posted an update – whoops! Not a great deal happened in February other than getting the kids organised and settled back at school. I don’t do well in the summer heat and then it was the torrential rain keeping me in. And then on the 14th March, after a lovely weekend away at Bribie and a long over due massage I fell down the stairs. I ended up with a detached ligament and avulsion fracture. After 2 weeks in a moon boot I graduated to an ankle brace. I’ve had that on pretty constantly for the past 4 weeks and I’m *supposed* to have it on for another 2 but it’s starting to get pretty uncomfortable so I’m going to see if I can get away with strapping it instead.

So for the rest of March and most of April I haven’t been doing much at all as I was couch bound and under strict instructions from Mr T to actually rest. I did get all the Marvel movies watched though… plus Cranford, River Cottage Australia, Sense and Sensibility (two versions), Sanditon, Lark Rise to Candleford, a bunch of Doctor Who and cooking shows. Since then I have slowly been getting back to my shade houses though – they were a bit of a disaster after the rain and me not being able to get down to water them. Mr T did water a bit, but he was also doing everything around the house, for the kids and looking after me, plus his own fulltime job. Anyway they are almost looking back to their semi-tidy state and I have also managed to start propagating some more plants. Which is good because my stall is a bit bare at the moment!

One thing I have been doing (apart from when I was couch-bound) is looking at our food waste and trying to minimise what we throw out. I bought some Tupperware Vent Smart containers and they seemed to have helped. I’m not exactly sure if it’s the fact that the veg/fruit is lasting longer, or I can see what we have more easily and actually use it before it goes off. And I’ve been trying to make the most of leftovers, even small bits of veg or meat that might not be enough for a lunch on their own – they can be thrown into a soup, frittata, fried rice, or savoury pancake. I think I’ll have to do a separate post of these ideas so when I get distracted by something else and forget, I can refer back to it!

I prefer the savoury pancakes to frittata as they aren’t as “eggy”. I add a bit of Chinese 5 spice to the batter and have them with soy. Very handy for me to have in the freezer for an easy breakfast. So I am pretty happy with that side of things – it not only cuts down on food waste but also saves money and fits in with the idea of trying to live more lightly on the earth. And thinking about ways of using up leftovers and preventing waste is very satisfying. I am itching to get back into the garden though after a long hiatus.

I mentioned earlier that I watched River Cottage Australia and that has me inspired a little. That and the cooler weather! I have some garlic ready to be planted (I already had it in this time last year, but I’ve heard most plant around ANZAC day so I should be fine) and have planned out what else I want to plant just now. I do have to make sure that I don’t overdo it as my ankle is still far from healed, so I’ll need to take it a bit slowly and rely on Mr T a fair bit. I’ve also been following Self Sufficient Me on Facebook/You Tube a bit. He’s up in the same climate as I am so it’s good to see what works for him. One of the things I like about his approach is that you don’t have to be (and probably can’t) be self sufficient in *everything* but just try for self sufficiency in some things. Oh and I treated myself to the book Costa’s World for added inspiration.

So the above was all written at the end of April – it’s now coming to the end of May and I still haven’t posted it! The rains have come back, we seem to get one or two dry days and then rain again. Our dryer is getting a workout which isn’t great but there’s no way I can dry 6 people’s worth of clothes without it, so I’m grateful to have the option! I am mobile now, no more ankle brace, but I’ve got a fair bit of rehab to do. I was hoping to start walking but the rain is interfering with that a bit! Oh and I’ve had a bit of a think about something I want to do in the second half of the year, and I’ll post about that soon 🙂 And hopefully I won’t leave it as long between updates again!