on a bread roll

Something I have learnt this week: do not collect the eggs and then get distracted weeding the garden. Because not long afterwards, the crunch in my pocket was a too late reminder.

I planted the yellow climbing rose yesterday. Pictures sometime. But it is in the area where we sit on summer evenings and on sunny weekend mornings throughout the year.

Last night I went to a talk put on by the West Coast Horticultural Society. Flash name for the local garden club. Met many friendly fellow gardeners. Today Fionn and I went to the Daltons promotion event at the garden shop and made a mini garden in a planter bag for him. I also got my blueberry plant repotted into a much bigger pot for free and Fionn and I chose winter vegetables for his garden. I grabbed sage and leeks while I was there.

Tonight the four of us went out to a work do and had a truly lovely evening. Of all the places I have worked, here in smallwettown has been home to the workplace which is most welcoming and embracing of our whole family.

I'm back on the breadmaking lark again. This afternoon I made rye bread which had taken several days and just now I have pulled a country loaf out of the oven. Both using rye sourdough, although the second loaf used wheat flour for much of the mixture. Andrew Whitley's book is teaching me a lot. The use of metric weights and of grams rather than millilitres is a pain though given that I don't have electronic scales. So there is a fair bit of guestimating in my measuring. Whitley says these loaves keep very well. If that turns out to be the case, then I could make a lot of our bread for the week in the weekend. Or even do the sourdough parts in the weekend and have a big baking day on Monday. I'm ignoring the white flour recipes for the moment as I currently have 20 kilos of rye and purple wheat and otane wheat flour to bake with.

News of the recession both internationally and domestically continues to roll in. I'm very grateful for our chooks and for our vege garden. We are revising our plans for a holiday next summer in favour of saving for when our car (currently 18 years old) needs replacing. I'd much much prefer to be paying cash than negotiating to pay interest on a loan for a car which will be worth less and less each year.