5 things – Monday, 14 September 2020

Weather-wise it’s been an ordinary week with a couple of our morning walks completed in the rain. There is, however, no such thing as bad walking weather, just the wrong clothes – unless it’s hot, that is – and I quite like walking in the rain. Besides, we need it and it was enough to fill the water tank again.

Other than that, let’s wrap the week up.

1.Exhaling

Aside from the usual day-jobbing, last week was spent getting ready for the RWA Annual General Meeting which I had to chair. My nerves were seriously off the scale and I spent most of the week with a little ball of anxiety churning away in my tummy. Anyways, it’s done. I felt so brain-dead yesterday afternoon that I curled up on the lounge in the TV room and watched the entire second series of The Split. If you haven’t seen series 1 (and I reckon I’ve watched it about 3 times) it’s playing on ABCiview (Australian audiences only) and is bound to be on one of the other streaming services.

2. Brunching

I’m not a big one for brunch; I love brunch food, but not so much brunch – it messes up the whole day from a routine perspective. Anyways, I caught up with some friends on a very rainy Friday morning at Hungry Feel Eating House in Buderim for brunch.

Just up Ballinger Hill from our place, we stop in every weekend to buy bread (they stock sourdough from Ten Acres which is one of the best bakers on the coast in my humble opinion) but this was the first time I’ve eaten there.

As far as possible everything is sourced from either Buderim or the greater Sunshine Coast region and the food is great. The pic below is my baked eggs – well worth combining brekky and lunch for.

3. Marketing

We buy all our fruit and veg for the week from Kawana Waters Farmer’s Market each Saturday – swapping our early morning walk for early morning market. (Side note, these pictures were taken at about 6.30am on Saturday just after a rainstorm – it’s usually busier than this End of side note.)

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This week we doubled up and checked out Yandina as well. It’s a different market. Yandina is a small country town in the Hinterland and this market, open from 6am each Saturday, is a destination market.

As well as produce stalls, there are plenty of food trucks, stalls selling hand-made/recycled/upcycled items, heaps of plant stalls and also some selling bric-a-brac.

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It was nice for a change, but we prefer the suppliers that we know and love at our usual market.

4. Not writing

I’ve written very few new words since March and none at all since the beginning of August. I’m not sure whether it’s been the added pressure of conference and annual reports etc etc with my volunteer role or whether it’s something else entirely. I can’t, however, afford to wait for the muse and now that conference/awards/AGM is over I need to finish Alice’s story.

5. Not baking

While I took a trip down memory lane and cooked my mother’s goulash the other night and baked a quick batch of scones yesterday morning, I haven’t really been in the kitchen – and that’s not a good thing for me. It could have something to do also with why I’m not writing – my best creative work comes when I’m walking a lot of steps and have my hands in flour. It calms my mind and at the moment my mind needs calming. Hey ho.

No Destination Kitchen this Saturday – instead we took a drive into the country to visit friends. They made a slow-cooked spiced corned beef that was pull apart fantastic. Apparently it had cooked for 12 hours! He also did a sticky date cake that was light and very tasty – and that I’ve requested the recipe for.

In case you missed it…

• I’m still posting week by week our 2018 road trip around France. For this week’s post, we were in Reims & took a ridiculously priced champagne tasting.
• I told you some fun facts about strawberries, where you can go to pick them on the Sunny Coast and what to do with them other than eat them. You’ll find it here.