Well, it has been a funny old week really. Weather wise we have been all over the place, cool at the beginning then up to a wonderful 28 degrees on Thursday - 34 in the house. It is still fairly quiet at work with not many tourists about, so different from two years ago.
Derek was doing a Vodaphone course on the new IOS for Apple iPhones on Friday and they finally believed him when he said he couldn't get there for first thing Friday by plane so they flew him out on Thursday night with one days' notice (it was only 13 degrees in Wellington!!!)
So Friday I spent the day at home planting out all the plants I have grown from seed, putting in all the tomatoes etc. It took me hours then I showered, got changed and while drying my hair, got a text from Derek to say he may not get out of Wellington due to fog!
Ten minutes later he was on the plane and off home via Christchurch so I headed on off up the Gorge to meet him off the plane at Queenstown. It was a gorgeous evening too. There was a huge event going on at the new Highland place here, an 101 laps of the track with saloon cars which I had been listening to all day because the wind was in the wrong direction! There were some fabulous cars in Cromwell that day though, if you are a petrol head as they call them here, you would have loved it.
Anyway I got to Queenstown, just settled down at the Wakatipu lakefront to wait for the plane to come in when I got a call from Derek to say 'Sorry am stuck in Christchurch' as the plane he was connecting with couldn't wait any longer and took off five minutes before they landed! @%&^%%@@$ I didn't swear honest!!!
I had to watch the fireworks from Cromwell marina on my own from the bedroom window which is a shame. Mind you it was so windy I don't know whether we would have gone down there together if Derek had been home, glorious day though.
So poor Derek had to spend the night at the airport hotel courtesy of Air New Zealand (stayed there with Julie and Mike many moons ago) - then to top it all they said in order to get him back relatively early on Saturday he would have to be back at the airport by 7 to catch the morning plane to Auckland (so back to the north island again to go even further up the north island than he started!!!) then transfer on to Queenstown. So I eventually picked him up again at midday on Saturday, so good to see him only 18 hours late.
So understandably Derek was pretty tired yesterday afternoon and as it was another very warm day, we just 'lolled' about for the most part. I had made a bolognaise the day before so I didn't even have to cook really, just warm up. We did pop to the shops for some ice cream though, just vanilla, as I had a jar of spiced plums in the cupboard which I did earlier in the year and thought it needed to be eaten (well, I'll be making some more soon) so we had them warmed up over the ice cream - yum!
Today is warm again, shorts and T-shirt time but a little dull so after speaking to Phoebe this morning -
One of the locals was there with all his dogs who had just been for a swim in the lake, the dogs not him, and they were all very excitedly getting into the back of his Yute. They were very wet and smelly! the dogs not him not that I got that close!
So I digress!
Set temperature of oven to 220c
Peel and boil enough pumpkin/squash to fill a quarter cup when mashed then put;
60grams soft butter and
1/4 cup of caster sugar
in a bowl and cream together. Add the mashed pumpkin then add
1 egg and mix
Sift in to the same bowl
2 1/2 cups of SR Flour and
1/4 tsp salt. Add up to
1/2 cup of milk - just depends on how wet the pumpkin is
The mixture just comes together but don't beat it, FOLD it together
Then a weird thing, take the dough out of the bowl and kneed it on a board for a little while (we don't normally do this to scone mixture), roll it out to 2cm thickness and cut - I made 8 rounds altogether
Bake for 15 minutes
Yummy honestly.
And because I needed the pumpkin I made soup too - not out of a cook book but veggies that are left lying about - using and finely cut
2 carrots/2 sticks celery/one large onion/1 orange kumara (sweet potato)/1/4 of a pumpkin/2 cloves garlic crushed/1/4 inch of grated ginger/half a red chilli/salt and pepper
Put into a large pan with oil and a knob of butter and 'sweat' over a medium heat so that the veggies don't burn, about 10 minutes
Then add 2 cups of hot chicken stock and cook for 10 minutes
Then add half a tin of creamed coconut (save the remainder for a Thai chicken curry for tomorrow along with leftover roast chicken that I cooked later)
And cook until veggies are soft, about another 10 minutes
Add lots of coriander and WHIZZ in a blender until smooth
Do hope you find a nice new job soon Deb Z and you find what you are looking for but just enjoy that 'down' time while you can. And I hope that all was OK with your son Cyril.
Thinking of you all - TTFN and lots of love xxxx