Pre-rain bakery walk

The forecast for today was heavy rain and strong winds, beginning from late morning. The early morning was nice and sunny, so my wife and I made use of it to take Scully on a long walk to the bakery. There was a long queue of people waiting outside at socially distanced 1.5 metres intervals, and I joined on the back. I bought a loaf of black Russian rye bread, and my wife wanted to get a challah but they didn’t have any today, so I got a loaf of fig and walnut sourdough, which makes a delicious fruity toast.

For lunch today, I decided to use some leftover buttermilk from the other day when I made mushroom pancakes for dinner, and made myself chocolate pancakes with banana and bush honey.

Chocolate pancakes with banana and bush honey

Bush honey is a blend of honey from various Australian bush flowers, mostly various species of eucalyptus. It’s the name used when the bees visit a bunch of different species of tree and they can’t really be sure of what’s in it. I prefer a richer, more complex and toasty taste in honey, to light floral ones. I usually try to get honeys made from trees like stringybark, leatherwood, or grey gum, but they are not very common or easy to find. Most people seem to prefer lighter honeys from trees such as yellow box, blue gum, ironbark, or red box, which are often easier to find in shops. Bush honey is a richer, more “unrefined” blend than these, so it’s okay if I can’t get the more intense flavoured honeys that I prefer.

Now that I’m writing this, I’m curious about what sorts of honeys are common overseas, and which are the lighter flavoured ones and which ones the rich and complex types.

New content today:

Family lunch

Today was mostly about a family lunch at my wife’s mother’s place. We had six people (and Scully), and we had food delivered by my sister-in-law’s work, which is a catering company, doing home deliveries as a new venture during COVID restrictions that have cut back their usual business. The food they make is really good – mid to high-end restaurant quality, with some of it par-cooked so that you need to finish it off at home so that it’s freshly prepared when you eat it. There was plenty of it and it was delicious. Lamb moussaka, potato gnocchi with tomato, basil, and parmigiano, Greek salad, and for dessert an apple and blackberry crumble.

It was a big lunch, and after coming home we spent the rest of the day lazing about and having only a light snack for dinner.

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Cold and wet end to the week

It was cold and soggy today. The sort of day where you just want to stay inside with a hot drink and not get out of your slippers. Which I mostly managed, except for taking Scully out for a bit of an exercise mid-morning.

And heading out for Friday night dinner with my wife. We had arranged for our neighbour to look after Scully on a play date with Luna the poodle next door. Originally the plan was that we’d go out to a nice restaurant and sit indoors, which we can’t do with Scully, but my wife decided we should sit outside anyway given COVID. So we just went to a local burger place and ate on the benches outside. It was good though! And not too rainy, so the walk up and back was not bad.

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A day in hospital

Admission into hospital for my colonoscopy was scheduled for 7am this morning, so I had to get up at 6, so my wife could drive me there. After she had breakfast, and I took Scully out, since I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything. It was very cold out there this morning.

I was checked into the hospital on time at 7:00. I had to prepare and wait around until about 8:30 when they wheeled me in for the procedure and the anaesthetist put a cannula into my arm…. and next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery and the time was 9:15. The doctor told me it went fine, but he’s sent a bit of tissue off for biopsy just to make sure it’s not a problem. My wife picked me up and I was home in time to celebrate being able to eat again by walking up the street to get some pies!

This afternoon I worked on some Darths & Droids scripts.

And had a conversation (online) with friends that basically went like this:

Friend 1: I’m excited about the game show Only Connect coming to SBS Viceland. [It’s a British show that hasn’t been televised in Australia before.]
Friend 2: Why is a game show on a channel called “Viceland”? I assumed it was all crime dramas and stuff like that.
Me: There are other game shows on it. I always assumed the “Vice” referred to TV shows that are “guilty pleasures”.

I turned and asked my wife, “What do you think the Vice in SBS Viceland refers to?” I was thinking she’d support one or other of the aforementioned theories, and then we could do some statistics.

She said, “It’s the second SBS channel. So Vice… second… you know, like Vice-President.”

🤔

So I turned to the trusty Internet and tried to find out what the “Vice” in SBS Viceland means. It turns out it’s none of those theories. Viceland used to be named SBS 2, but was rebranded to Viceland in partnership with the Canadian media company named Vice Media, which originally began in 1994 as a magazine named Voice of Montreal, which aimed at an alternative punk youth audience. The magazine changed owners in 1996, and the new owners renamed it which changed its name to Vice. Although Wikipedia doesn’t say why, I’m guessing because the word is similar to “voice”, but just sounds more edgy.

So, ultimately, SBS Viceland is named that for no good reason whatsoever. It’s almost a shame to learn that.

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Clear fluids and human rights

Today I’m fasting on clear fluids only, in preparation for tomorrow’s colonoscopy. I’ve been drinking lots of water, as well as some vegetable stock in hot water, and eating lime jelly (i.e. gelatine dessert). From midnight it’s not even water, until after the procedure tomorrow. Fortunately I’m booked in first thing in the morning, so should be able to eat by lunch time.

This morning I had my Ethics class. I managed to go around the students and name them all correctly as I marked off the roll, so that was a good achievement for me. Although truthfully a couple I only got by a process of elimination rather than remembering them explicitly.

We talked today about various human rights, and what life would be like if we didn’t have them, such as the right to medical care, or the right to vote. Generally the kids had good things to say, but the class was a bit disruptive today with lots of kids talking over the top of one another (and me). It was more difficult to get them back under control than it has been, and after the class I had a word with the teacher who normally has that room, and he said he’d chat to the offenders who I named. Hopefully next week will be a bit more smooth.

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Last meal…

Today was a pretty routine day. I took Scully for a walk, lost a tennis ball in the Harbour… on my very first throw as well. There’s a park I take her to next to the water, and the grass just runs up to an edge and then drops off into the water. I try to avoid having the ball roll off but I must have lost half a dozen balls in that water. And once it’s in, there’s no way to get it back (without a fishing net on a pole or getting very wet). So rather than have her chase the ball, I just had to run around and have her chase me to get some exercise.

I spent much of the rest of the day writing Darths & Droids comics, chatting with co-authors on our Discord server.

And I had my last meal… until Thursday. I’m into the final day of fasting before a colonoscopy on Thursday. I can’t eat anything on Wednesday, though I need to have lots of water and stuff with sugars and salts in it to stay hydrated.

So tonight for a last meal I made something a bit special for dinner. Pancakes with mushrooms. It sounds weird, I know, but I got the idea from a vegetarian restaurant we went to some time back. They had a dish that was a small stack of savoury pancakes, topped with a medley of fried mushrooms in a delicious sauce. It was delicious, and I’ve copied it and made a similar dish at home a few times. It fit within my pre-colonoscopy-week dietary restrictions and I decided it would be a nice treat.

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Chore Monday

My weekly grocery shopping seems to have migrated to Monday. I did an expedition this morning, and fir the first time I wore a facemask, after the supermarket issued a notice saying that they encouraged customers to wear masks while shopping. The COVID situation here in Sydney is not too bad at the moment, and masks have not really been common up to now, but with infections rampant in Melbourne and a stubborn few cases in Sydney, people have just been starting to take up wearing them in the last week or so.

After bringing the shopping home, I needed to get a package ready and then go up to the post office to mail it.

Then this afternoon I took Scully to the dog park. I believe I’ve mentioned before that other people who bring their dogs to the local park include Trent Zimmerman, federal MP for North Sydney, and former NSW Supreme Court Justice James Wood. Today I learnt that one of the women who frequently attends is the previous North Sydney Mayor (1995-2012) Genia McCaffery. Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned it, but another person who attends is TV journalist Ray Martin. I wonder if all dog parks attract so many people who are in the public eye.

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Solo Sunday

Solo Sunday in more ways than one. My wife took Scully and went to visit her mum today, and I used the time to sit down and rewatch Solo (a Star Wars story), in preparation for starting planning on converting it into a Darths & Droids story. Yes, we’re planning ahead that far now. I think it’s only my third time watching it through, and there were several plot points I’d forgotten about, so I’m glad I did it.

This evening I had a cooking emergency, precipitated by my habitual lack of mise en place (as mentioned in the last new Irregular Webcomic!). I started boiling up some pasta, intending to just throw some pesto from a jar onto it. The pasta was boiling away, when I went to the fridge to grab the pesto… and there was none. And no spare jar in the pantry (where there is usually a spare).

So suddenly I had 10 minutes to make a pasta sauce/topping. And working with the constraints that I’m currently on a restricted diet in preparation for a colonoscopy in a few days – no seeds, and nothing coloured red. So no tomatoes.

I quickly went into a cooking frenzy, chopping broccoli into tiny florets, frying it up in olive oil, adding pine nuts, fresh garlic, chili, and then shaving some parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top once it was done. I also added a squirt of lemon juice once it was all prepared and served. It turned out pretty well! Phew. Another triumph for No-mise-en-place-man!

In other news, I got an email from the organisers of the market where I have my stall, selling photography print. They have cancelled the markets for August and September (which would have been three markets), due to caution over COVID cases in Sydney. So that’s another two months without any face-to-face selling income or handing out business cards.

New content today:

Into August

This fine Saturday morning my wife and I took Scully on a long walk, dong a 5 kilometre loop from our place, past our favourite bakery where we got some sourdough bread. Scully got to meet a lot of dogs today, and we did some ball throwing and chasing down by the marina. A lot of people were out walking this morning, enjoying the sunshine.

It’s the first day of August and flowers are appearing all over the place. The magnolias started a few weeks ago, but now azaleas are coming out, and I expect cherry blossoms will be along soon. It really feels like the worst of winter is over and things are warming up for spring.

Back home, it was housework day, with vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom and shower to be done. I also checked on the car floor mats that I washed yesterday. They’ve been drying for over 24 hours now and they’re still noticeably wet. I’m hoping they’ll finally dry out overnight so we can put them back in the car tomorrow before my wife needs to use it.

This evening we watched another episode of the new Doctor Who‘s 9th season.It’s been so long that I only have vague memories of the episodes and can’t remember how the story unfolded, so it’s almost as good as watching it unspoiled.

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Late Games Night post

It’s Saturday morning already and this is a catch-up post for last night, when it was our fortnightly board games night. Again we played virtually, using Board Game Arena to begin with. I played games of Kingdomino, Downforce, 7 Wonders (several games), and 6 Nimmt, before we moved on to skribbl.io, which is essentially an online version of Pictionary. I didn’t win any of the games – which is pretty usual for me as some of my friends are much more competitive and thus motivated to be a lot more careful with their strategy. I did come second in one game of 7 Wonders, which I’m happy with.

On Friday morning I had a Zoom meeting with Standards Australia for the follow-up to the ISO Photography meeting I had back in June. This is to brief the Australian photography experts on what happened during the (virtual) New York meeting, as well as to deal with some local Australian photography standards business (such as officially adopting recent ISO amendments, etc).

After that I took Scully for a walk to the fish & chips shop, to get myself some fish & chips for lunch. Then I spent the afternoon cleaning the car after last weekend’s road trip. Since it rained heavily, and we had Scully in and out of the car, it was pretty dirty, with mud in various places inside the car, as well as on the exterior. For the first time I actually removed the floor mats and washed them with detergent and hosed them off.

And in other news, a COVID alert was issued for my local supermarket, for anyone who shopped there between 10:30 and 11am on Monday. I shopped there on Monday morning, and I was there around 10:30, although I can’t remember if I’d left before 10:30 or was there for a few minutes afterwards. So it’s possible I was there at the same time as someone who has since tested positive. Official advice is that the risk of transmission is low, and to monitor for symptoms, but not to self-isolate and test immediately. Still, it’s too close to home, and a bit scary.

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