Sunday organisation

This morning we went to our new aquatic centre and had a wonderful time. What a perfect way to pretend it isn't winter. The design of our aquatic centre, which local people have fundraised for for longer than we have lived on the Coast, is excellent. I think we will be spending most Sunday mornings in the pool.

As is the case for working mummies everywhere, Sunday is also about organisation. The idea of it all got too much and I went to bed with the Sunday paper for part of the afternoon. Upon rising from my slumber, I admired progress in the tree hut. Fionn fancies having running water and a basin in it! At the moment, he observed to Favourite Handyman, it is like a house that really poor people live in.

I lightly dug over part of the old chook run and then spread mushroom compost over the top. Fionn (aged 6) and I planted out six cabbage and six broccoli seedlings. He is somewhat outraged that I have planted 'his' garden with garlic already, without consulting him. I offered him another spot, this time a distinct bed, about 1 x 1.5 metres. Ooh yes, and he would like to grow poppies, sunflowers and dahlias. He has heard someone talk about dahlias and fancies trying them. I think it is the wrong time of year for planting them and they may rot in the spot I have given him anyway. But sunflowers we will do and I will investigate poppy options. I am going to plant jerusalem artichokes on the compost bed (will relocate the compost pile) near the tree hut where we can all enjoy the sunflower-like flowers and then eat the hidden bounty in winter.

I have got borlotti beans cooking as I type, ready to be turned into something yummy during the week, with some to go in the freezer. Lamb bones and veges are in the slow cooker making stock. I looked at the supermarket meat options today and couldn't find any of them worth buying. There is the usual scary stuff with supermarket chickens and our closest supermarket only stocks standard issue abused chicken meat. Pretty much the same story for pork. The lamb will have been raised in better conditions than the poultry or pork, but the standard of butchering and the eye watering prices stopped me from buying a lamb roast. Come pay day I'll be out at Jonesy's buying his much better quality meat. I plan to take some recipes out to him and see if he can organise and cut the meat so I can have a go at increasing my meat recipe repertoire.

On Friday I made Nina's superb muesli slice: 6 C rolled oats, 1 C yoghurt, 1C brown sugar, 2 tins (400g each) of sweetened condensed milk, 240gm melted butter, 1 C flour and additions of whatever nuts, seeds, dried fruits you fancy. Bake in greased or lined tins equivalent to two 20 x 20cm tins for 50 minutes at 180 degrees celsius. Some of the slice is in our tummies, some went to a friend with a newborn baby and the rest is in the freezer so I can take out one piece per day for Fionn's school lunch.

I have committed myself to what feels like 85 extra meetings and other events this week and thus I still lack the organisation necessary to keep us in decent home made meals for the duration. Perhaps inspiration and a beautiful flow of cooking on low or no work days and providing leftovers for the extra busy days will come to me tomorrow.

One of the extra things I will be doing is sitting on a raffle table for our local primary school. This coming Saturday is Gala Day, our all in one mammoth fundraiser for the year. The children do lots of creating and competing as part of the special day and the parents and wider community do lots of gifting, buying and admiring. On Tuesday and Friday we have a slot at the local supermarket selling raffles and in the process advertising the gala. I've been learning about the Epilepsy Foundation's fundraising issues today. Chilling stuff. I'm getting more and more focused on and enthusiastic about local initiatives this year. National organisations seem to have such gaps between stated mission and actual practice.

On Tuesday I will sit on the raffle table, on Friday night I will make a pork dish in my slow cooker and on the gala day itself I will collect my cousin Mary who has been baking for the gala since the school began in 1958. Mary will drop off her baking while I can still drive her up the too steep driveway and I will drop off my pork dish still in its slow cooker and get cracking being the face painting money collector, face prepper and encourager as children choose who they want to 'be'. On Thursday I will be at a Blackball Working Class History Project meeting. Apparently we now have the building consent for our museum so it will be an exciting meeting finally moving onto the next practical stage of the building, which we want to have open for Labour Weekend in October. All the other extra things are work meetings. I like my job, but that doesn't quite stretch to looking forward to three extra work meetings in one week.

I can see that I'm blogging at personal diary keeping level at the moment and I thought when I changed blogs from Sandra's Garden to Letters from Wetville that I would change that. Alack and alas, this is what is falling out of my head and onto my fingertips at the moment. I'm disillusioned with pretty much everything about national politics. There are some small changes in terms of running cooperatives locally which I am watching with some excitement - night classes and one of our two remaining butcheries in the district - but both are too early to comment on in any detail. Then there is the photo thing. One day. One day. One day I will know where our camera is, how to transfer photos from it to my computer and I will join the ranks of garden bloggers who illustrate their posts. One day.

Comments

A six year old thinking about the hygiene in the treehouse. I'm impressed!
Mary said…
Interesting about the epilepsy foundation, isn't it. I have a blanket policy of not donating to telemarketers, whatever the cause. I donate instead direct to organisations. Not as much as I should though. Hope to remedy this in the next few months (starting with our postponed school donation! Now there's another issue!).
Sandra said…
Could be hygiene Tania. Or it could be the prospect of putting your thumb over the tap to make it squirt everywhere. Or a ready supply of water in order to wage watergun war on those below...

Mary I have the same policy on telemarketers. Our school donation isn't paid yet either. It will be at some point, although for this week, I think I am doing plenty enough for the school coffers.

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