97th BIRTHDAY

Yesterday, Saturday, was my aunt's 97th birthday.  She is the widow of my mother's youngest brother and the sole surviving member of that generation. She still lives at home and her eldest son has moved in to care for her.  She still enjoys her garden and greenhouse and likes to make sure it has been watered.  

I phoned her, in Wrexham, and had a long chat with her son (my second youngest cousin) and then a short chat with my aunt.  After she handed the phone back to her son I heard her ask "am I 21"  now that is the right attitude.

Back here, we put the clocks forward last night.  I am not in favour of daylight saving.  I prefer to get up early and get work done and then by the evening I am usually too tired to want to take advantage of any extra evening daylight.  Anyway, it has been a beautiful day and we have had a good day in the garden - sowing seeds, putting up frames to support the dahlias when they grow and moving some plants.  

Tomorrow is a special holiday for the Queen but the walking group will meet as usual weather permitting. We often have more people walking on a Public Holiday than a normal day.

VEGETARIANS LOOK AWAY

 We still have a couple of pieces from the last whole fillet steak we purchased but when I saw it on special again on Saturday we bought another one. There were not many left and I chose the smallest.  I have just trimmed and cut it into portions using my new toy, a vacuum sealer, to get it ready for the freezer.  We ended up with 9 packets with a mixture of 2 and 3 servings plus another 4 packets of off cuts for stir fries and enough for lunch today.  The portions are not large as we are not big meat eaters. I know it will be delicious.

TODAY'S CARTOON

 

We watched the funeral and procession "on demand" today as we were too tired to stay up last night.  The funeral was from 10 p.m. here and we had a busy day yesterday with an unexpected delivery of firewood that we duly put away in the shed so knew that we would most likely nod off if we tried to watch it live.

We still have more to see as we had appointments today - an 8.30 a.m. one for Doug at the skin clinic and both of us had podiatry appointments this afternoon.  One thing the British is good at is Pomp and Ceremony.  

REST IN PEACE YOUR MAJESTY.

SCULPTUREUM

 On Thursday we had our first trip away since Lockdown and made a two hour journey down to Matakana to visit the Sculptureum.  It is a private multi-million dollar collection and you can read about it here.  Anyway, we had an enjoyable drive going down the coast road via Mangawhai.

I particularly like this bronze

Me with Mark Twain

This chandelier is huge and is by the American Artist Dale Chihuly.  He would only sell it on the condition that one of his staff came with it and installed it.

This goat is made from table forks.

It is such an eclectic collection.  This was our third visit.  The others can be found by typing Sculptureum in the search box above.

FRUIT & VEGETABLES

I was just about out of avocados (I use them instead of butter on toast) so we went to the Growers' Market for the first time in a few weeks.

I was interested to see the prices of vegetables such as cauliflower and, although not as expensive as the supermarkets they were still expensive.  

I noticed these New South Wales Waratahs for sale at $3.00 each.  

I bought my avocados - $6.00 for nine.  They are seconds but will be very tasty.

We also bought a couple of plants - a Lavender and a perennial viola.

During Lockdown we had boxes of fruit and vegetables delivered by Taimahi Trust which gives work to people with disabilities.  They have just opened a retail shop almost next door to the Market so we went there.  There produce was excellent and extremely cheap so we bought pears, kumara, bananas and oranges. Even here the cauliflower was $8.00.

After a quick trip to the supermarket it was home for breakfast before 8 a.m. and then working in the garden after doing several loads of washing.  I picked another of the Romanesco cauliflower and some broccoli  clearing out their stems and adding to our compost.

TODAY'S CARTOON

 

Every time we shop things seems to be more expensive.  Vegetables have increased in price because of the storms we had earlier.  I am so pleased that our brassicas, in particular, have done well this year.  When I was in the Supermarket the other day white cauliflowers were $8.00 and coloured $10.00 way more than I would want to pay for them.

FOR ROSEMARY - HUMMINGBIRD CAKE RECIPE

 This is the recipe as I copied it. It is for cupcakes but there is mention of a cake as cooked by her mother at the bottom.  The recipe seems very forgiving.  I only used 250g of brown sugar.  When I made it a week or so ago I only had a 220g tin of pineapple.  I only use pineapple in juice not syrup.  The last one I made I was a bit short on banana but every time it has come out fine.  Obviously, the shape of tin would make a difference to the cooking time.  I always add a pinch of salt to my cakes.  I hope you make and enjoy it.

HUMMINGBIRD CAKES

 

Cupcakes:

270g brown sugar
400g Healtheries wheat and gluten free baking mix
1/2t cinnamon
1t baking soda
1 tin 439g crushed pineapple in syrup – drained
50g coconut
350g (peeled weight) ripe bananas – mashed
1/2c walnuts – roughly chopped
3 eggs – lightly beaten
280ml canola oil

 

 

Sift flour, spice and baking soda into a large bowl. Add sugar, coconut and walnuts. Mix well. Add drained pineapple, banana, eggs and oil. Stir to combine – don’t over-mix. Place 1/4c mixture into each greased muffin tin. Bake at 180*C for 20-25 minutes . Allow to stand in muffin trays for 10 minutes after cooking. Ice when cool, if desired.

Icing

100g cream cheese
50g unsalted butter, softened
1t vanilla essence
225g icing sugar

Beat all ingredients together until smooth and creamy.

Note from my Mum: Sometimes I use this recipe to make a delicious cake. Bake it for 50 minutes, or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

Today I picked some of our New South Wales Waratahs.   I have three in a vase, have given 3 to a new neighbour across the road and will give 3 to our lovely next-door neighbour.

A bucket full of flowers

Today's vegetable harvest plus the first few carrots.

HUMMINGBIRD CAKE

After our walk on Friday I made another Hummingbird cake.  I felt that there was slightly too much mixture in the tin with my previous one so bought some small tins. I do like the larger tin which I have had for 30 - 40 years as it makes two good sized rectangular cakes.  The mix looks slightly unusual being gluten free.

The cakes look a bit dark but it must have been the light as they were not overcooked.

Delicious with some cream cheese icing.  The other two are in the deep freeze.

It still made quite deep cakes so next time I might use two of the small tins. 

RIVER WALK

On Friday we did another of our favourite walks (a 5 minute drive from home) walking alongside the river from A.H. Reed Park to the Whangarei Falls and back.  It was a lovely day and we enjoyed the sound of the river as we walked.

This old chestnut tree coming into leaf.

Looking down at the river from the swing bridge.

Whangarei Falls

The old chestnut in the distance on our return.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II

 Even though she had been looking frail it was still a shock to wake to the news of the Queen's death early this morning.  

We put the television on for the news and saw our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern talking.  She was asked about finding out about the Queen's death and said that she was woken in the early hours by a Policeman shining a torch in her bedroom.  

Everyone who spoke of having met the Queen mentioned how down to earth she was and her sense of humour.  She will be a great loss to the whole world.  She worked right to the end having only just received the outgoing and incoming Prime Ministers of Great Britain.

Every so often there is talk of New Zealand becoming a Republic and this conversation will, obviously, crop up again.  I do hope that the final decision is to keep the Monarchy.

So now Prince Charles is King Charles III - he has spent his whole life in preparation for this moment.  I still remember watching him on a balcony with his Aunt and Grandmother watching his mother being crowned and now it is his turn.

It is the end of an Era.  May she Rest in Peace.

TOTARA PARKLANDS WALK

 This is a walk we have done several times with the Parkinson's group.  It is close to home and, as I had to collect a repeat prescription from the Chemist in Kamo, we decided to do it on the way home.  It is a lovely sunny day but there is snow further down the island and in the South Island so the wind is quite cold but it was sheltered walking alongside the stream.  

We didn't look at our watches when we started our walk so are not sure how long we took but we were in no hurry and did the full distance of the walk - first to the end at Gillingham Road then as far as it goes in the other direction and back along the street.  

When we got to the Gillingham Road end I looked down and there was a patch of clover.  Both my late mother and I used to collect 4 leaf clovers as we always seemed to find them whenever we looked at a clover patch and the first leaf I looked at was a four leafed clover.  

I decided to put it in my old Pitmans shorthand book and what should I find but an old leaf from many years ago.

HARVEST

The vegetable garden has done really well this year and we just harvested our first Italian Precoce Broccoli although it is also called Romanesco cauliflower here.  Either way, we are very pleased with the crop - there will be another five to harvest.  The purple broccoli are also doing well and I have been harvesting the odd side shoot .  We have also been harvesting broccoli, pak choi, chard and spinach.

It is Father's Day today and Doug's youngest daughter has just been here for a meal (roast chicken).  Next Sunday is Doug's birthday and he had requested that I cook roast Lamb but his daughter wants to take us to a cafe at the Town Basin for a meal so that will be nice.

SPRING

The first day of Spring although not particularly warm.  We have actually had a warmer than usual winter and Doug has released about 450 Monarch Butterflies they have continued to emerge all through winter.  

Today there was this newly emerged butterfly on a banana leaf.