Travel insurance

 Our trip is booked and deposit paid, flights are booked and fully paid. We did this about three months ago so I thought I should organize travel insurance.

When we were working overseas, we always used the same company. We never had the misfortune to have to use the insurance but a mate did, had been happy with service he got and he had recommended that company to us.

They have always been our go to for travel insurance.

However with my diabeties, I knew I would have to declare that. Well, I didnt quite understand the legalese on their website. I was asked if I wanted tk send a message, yes, I did. Warren told me that I should have just rung them. Good idea except there was no phone numbers.

Oh, live chat come up, okay I"ll do that. I was told to go the medical page and fill in the information. Could not tell me if I could be covered but she could get someone to ring me the next day.

Three hours of mucking with this that I wont be back. Warren did some reseach with other companies, some were as much as $2000. We didnt pay that much and thankfully we are now covered for our travel.

Oh, not sure if I received a call from the old company, there was a call but I dont anwser unless i know how it is. I did get an email from them saying that as I gad talked to the live chat then my query would have been resolved. They obsviously did not read my commenrs about their service.

Savory toast/lunch

 I find the worst meal of the day is lunch, what to have/make.

Sometimes its easy, left overs for the night before dinner.

I try to avoid sandwiches because of Warren's gluten intolerance which does limit choices.

Today I was thinking of making Warrens favourite which is banana and cheese toasted sandwich.

I looked in the fridge, it was almost full as it was shopping day yesterday. I saw one lonely rasher of bacon, half a spring onion and quarter of a red caps.

Light bulb moment I would make savoury toast. When I was a kid growing up in a country town, there were often things happening at night at ths local hall and it was bring a plate for supper. Many cakes, cup cakes slices etc mainly sweet stuff. I used to beg mum to make something savoury and often she would make savoury toast alongside of the sponge cake that she usually made to take.

So diced fine was the onion, bacon and red pepper, add an egg plus the last of the grated parm cheese. Just three slices of bread left in a packet, so spread the mixture over the bread and into the airfryer for ten minutes.

Didnt take a photo as the mixed doubles was on TV and it was a tie breaker so had to hurry to see the rest of that.

Tennis blanket

 Lots of tennis being played in Australia at the moment which means lots of crocheting for me.

Our last stitch that we learnt at crocheting was single crochet then a double crochet done in two colours. The discussion was, was it better to carry the wool or cut and start the second colour. I liked the look of it but I didnt want to do either of the options so I made my own rules.

I did a long chain then stitch up one side and around the other before using the secobd colour. I used contrasting colours.

It is just off the hook and needs to be blocked to pull it into shape. Its about 40 inches by 60inches. Its quite dense, heavy and warm. I did get a bit sick of it as it was slow going. I finished it off with two balls done in ordinary granny stitch.

The second blanket was much quicker and measures 50cms by 50cms.

I put a border on this obe which I dont usually. 

No more blankets for now, I bought a pattern book a couple years ago with 15 animal toys in it. I did make a couple of toys from it and I want to make some others so starting from the back, I am on my second mouse.

The Ginger Factory

 Its school holidays and already they are winding down so I invited my daughter to a girls only lunch date thinking we would meet about halfway between us. But she suggested going north to the ginger factory about 70 kms from my place, she would pick me up and drive.

Oh boy, it was school holidays and the place was packed, only obe tabke available so we made a beeline for it. I love their ginger scones served with ginger jam and cream, thinking that we would have half each only to discover that she doesnt share my love of ginger.

The cafe is surrounded by big trees and palms, it does have a roof and also huge fans to move the air around. Lunch was pretty good, we had ordered a grazing plate and a poke bowl plus my scone. 

Then we walked the gardens, which has been quite a small area but it has been extended and now is a great ramble especialy for kids as through the trees are dotted cut outs of dragons and dinasoars.

We were particularly taken by an art display of colourful umbrellas.

Several lanes had these hanging above

Cool through the nature walk with different flowering  bushes. A small train goes through the park and then there are some shops on the side. We didnt shop as we didnt want or need anything. A pleasant way to spend a few hours.

Meatless Monday

 Not often we have a meatless meal but I saw this on one of the cooking shows and decided to give it a go.

It was called a mushroom pie. Five ingredients.

As usual I did change the recipe a bit!

So first cook off onions and mushrooms, they didnt give out quanties but it looked like about three onions and maybe 500gms of mushrooms.  The pie bit was a flat bread and they wet it with water and put it into a pie dish that had been lined with baking paper. Next went in some ricotta cheese and spread over the bottom, add in the mushroom and onion mixture. The flat bread came up the sides a little and was molded over but it didnt cover the whole top. Oven for forty minutes, that seems a long time to me as everything was actually cooked. Served with a dollop of ricotta.

I had some of the ingredients so I set to work. 

No onions so I did have a couple of spring onions and half a can of sweet corn, did have mushrooms.  Cooked them.

No flat bread but there were a couple of wraps so prepared the tin. No ricotta but some tofu in the fridge. Whizzed up a red pepper, garlic and the tofu with some olive oil to take the place of the ricotta. Red pepper was getting a little past its prime so cut and threw in with the mushrooms. The wrap only covered the base of the baking tin so I added anither wrap on top, pierced a few holes and added some parm cheese, only baked it for 20 minutes.

This was left over. The wrap on top went crispy with the parm cheese. Followed the recipe to a T, at least I had mushrooms! 

Todays lunch was left over musroom pie in scrambled eggs. We didnt eat the bottom wrap. Def would make again with proper flat bread, not as many onions are orginal recipe used.

Board game

 Warren decided to make a game for when we hosted Christmas. He went to Totworld and luckily thet had trivia questions so that was the biggie out of the way.  We found small animals which he glued to bottle tops making the tokens. The rest he did himself.

Its upside down on the table. Needed a couple of tweaks but it was good fun and took roughly ninety minutes to play, cant remember who won. The questions were all Australian trivia , so some of us learnt a thing or two as well. The questions had three possible answers so didnt need to think too hard just pick 1,2 or 3.