Covid day nine.

 I took Lucy for a short walk last night and had a good sleep, waking at 5am.

Showered dressed and ready for a longer walk by 7am. Got 500 metres from home and realised that I wouldn't be able to walk the distance that I had planned, we did just over a kilometre. I did two loads of washing then back to bed for a 40 minute sleep.

In all I had three naps today, I think there tablets that I am taking are making me drowsy but I need them to be able to sleep at night.

Coughing has lessened but I still need lozenges to keep it at bay at times. Supposed to be going back to class tomorrow but not sure if I will feel like driving there, will probably give it a miss.

Covid day four/five

 Well, I thought I had mild symptoms but as the days go by, still feeling blah. Sleep seems to be the key and we have done a lot of that. Watching the Davis Cup tennis on TV a couple of days ago but it was easy to rest the eyes and snooze as well.

Panadol, decongestants and soothers have been centre stage. Good to have a healthy pantry and fridge not that there is much eating happening.

The last two nights I have had trouble sleeping due to coughing.  I do feel as though I am almost though it. Warren says that he is practically back to normal and thought his test was clear this morning only for the positive line to appear after a few minutes. I am about 12 hours behind him so looking forward to tomorrow when I will take a test.

Son and grandson offered to come and shop for us which we didn't need anyway, they are currently mowing the lawns. It's weird that they are outside and we are in but can't afford to get closer. Even though we have been vaccinated covid is not much fun at all.

New crochet stitch

 It's called mosaic and it quite effective, we were asked to bring along four different colours, I chose white lemon yellow and salmon/orange. It was done with two of each going from light to dark.

I liked it but when one of the ladies suggested just one row and then any colour, I decided to do that. I pick up quite a bit of wool from op shops, usually only one ball of part thereof and it would good to make scrappy blanket doing this.

This is as far as I have got, it's 60cms square. Having covid, not really feeling like doing much at the moment but the brain is thinking about the next colours so that must mean I am on the mend. It's quite dense and thick and as our tutor always says, it's easy. It is actually and do while watching TV, no counting!

Covid day two

 Warren has always said that it wasn't a amatter of if we catch Covic but when.

Out to dinner with friends on Saturday night and he tested positive on Sunday morning. We cancelled everything for the week just in case as it was the closest we had been to a covid case. Monday morning we tested and it was negative.

I washed the bedclothes, not the usual day and disinfected our room. Warren felt a bit off in the afternoon and at 5pm, he tested positive. I was fine but started getting cold like symptoms overnight, sure enough got two lines on the covid test.

Warren had arranged a telehealth call to get the antivirus meds, I drove him to the chemist as his muscles were sore, he said he felt like he had been battered with a baseball bat. After a 30 minute wait, I was grateful that it was only 4 KMs toget home.  Panadol and bed for both of us.

Funny that our symptoms are different, his is muscles soreness, mine are cough, sneeze and congestion with a high temp as well. We got up for a couple of hours before heading back to bed at 6.30pm.

Warren walked Lucy this morning only a short walk and said that when he came past the shops he wondered he would make it home. He slept for an hour after. I got up and had a shower but after washing and drying myself, I didn't have the energy to get dressed. I did finally get dressed about 20 minutes later. The word that comes to mind is weary, that's what we both feel like but today is better than yesterday, not by much though.

I made scrambled eggs for lunch, felt good to eat something. Tonight we are back in bed by 7pm. Lack of energy is the main thing but we will get through it.

Our friend ended up in hospital but did get released today.

Train to the Gold Coast

 The Gold coast has a light rail which opened about six years ago. We had always said that we should go down and ride it.

We had the following Friday or Tuesday after Mousetrap free and the weather was not too hot.

Friday it was, we caught the train here, changed in Brisbane, went as far as we could then changed to the light rail. Both trains took about fifty minutes and the light rail about twenty minutes.

Got off at Main beach and it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but we followed some people and in two blocks we were in the middle a couple of streets with wall to wall cafes and stores. 

We had not realised it was Remembrance Day but in the street, they played the Last post and most people stood for the minutes silence. I was surprised to see that 5he ones who didn't were around our age.

Enjoyed our lunch then made our way back to the station, the light rail seems to go every few minutes so not long to wait.

We were home again by 4pm

Light rail

On the light rail, smaller than the train

Dogs on the street.

The Mousetrap

 When I was at high school, we studied one of the Agatha Christie books. Well I was hooked and I think I have read all of her novels several times over.

The Mousetrap was the longest running play in West end London, not sure if it is still playing. When I went to London, it had been going for 39 years and that was over 30 years ago.

Anyway, the play was coming to Brisbane and I bought tickets for a Wednesday matinee, cheapest tickets but, I know that in that theatre, you can see and hear wherever you are seated.

Set in rural England in a boarding house, it's of course a who dun it and at the end the audience is sworn to secrecy about the outcome.

We went by train, had lunch and then made our way to the Playhouse, very good day out.

No photos allowed while play is on, I took this at half time.

Eats in the mountains

 I wanted to go and have lunch at the beach while the weather was nice. Checking out our options as well as the tides. Lunch time shown that the tides would be out and so we would only be able to see mud flats.

Change of plan, we will go inland up in the hills.

Now, are we having morning tea or lunch,? It's Sunday so could be busy, maybe we will go early to avoid the crowds at lunch. 

The cafe is just off the side of the road up to one of the Glasshouse mountains, no real car park but there is a pull off area. We had to park down the lot a bit as there were a dozen or so motor bikes parked out the front. Queue to order and then told there was a forty minute wait. 

Nice scenery.

Good coffee.

If it was a 40 min wait, it went quickly

Warren surprised me with the order, eggs Benny and strawberry cheesecake, we shared.

A vintage car even made it up the hill.

Rained on the way home so pleased we went early.

It's November

 That means national novel writing month, nano for short.

I had tossed around a few ideas and didn't sign on until Monday 31 Oct, still not sure if my idea had enough legs to make it to 50,000 words.

First day and we were out in the morning, dropped into a cafe on the way home for lunch. Finally sat down at the computer to start my thirteenth novel. It took me three hours to get 1100 words down, needed 1665 a day. I had emptied my emails, read some stuff and bought gifts online.

In previous years I had started slow and then built up to about 2k words a day so no need for concern. Wednesday was much the same with only 900 or so written.

Thursday is my crochet day so after lunch I sat down, read over what Ihad written and realised that is wasn't very good, all conversation. Then I had a light bulb moment, I didn't have to do it so shut the computer down and walked out of the study, feeling a weight off my shoulders. Definitely done for this year, maybe nano is finished for me for all time time will tell.

Rick Stein

 Flipping around the TV channels, we settled on a cooking show of Rick Stein, he was in France.

I forget what he called this dish but it was very simple, although he has his kitchen elf, Valerie do the prep, he just put it together at the end.

It consisted of tomatoes, eggplant and pastry. We had just picked a mountain of cherry tomatoes from our couple of bushes. I love eggplant so a short trip to the shops for pastry and a couple of egg plants and I was all set. Unfortunately I didn't have a Valerie and had to do it all myself although I did ask for help when it came to flipping it over

Tomatoes and eggplant sliced and cooked slowly in the air fryer.

Layered into casserole dish with a sheet of pastry on top.

Then it needed to be upended and served with the pastry on the bottom, quite a strong taste and filling, would have been better with some sour cream on top. Next time.

Purple season

 October brings the Jacaranda out in flower, I almost missed it this year.

After many wet Mondays and having to resort to cafes, last week was a park day with a Jacaranda in the distance. It had almost finished flowering. One of our group, Lesley to the right

Smells of spring

 Walking Lucy the other day we came through an alleyway and the smell was very strong.

Jasmine on one side 

Gardinia on the other, I only took one pic, Lucy was on a mission to get home once she gets into the alley as it's her breakfast time after she gets home.