Family lunch

A Sunday Lunch of special requests; rice noodle rolls for me, rice porridge for Yin, fried chicken for Jesse.

Organising the cooking tasks

Dogs aren't allowed in the kitchen. Never. But they can watch.

Rice noodle rolls

Cabbage and asparagus

Rice porridge with John Dory, dried beancurd and other goodies

Rice porridge toppings - preserved eggs

and crisp, deep fried you tee

Some tasting goes on.

It's good.

Yin's special fried chicken, always served at the boys' birthdays.

Lunch

It takes all morning to make, but it's well worth it.

now frost

Each night this week has been colder than the last - 2 degrees below zero, 3 degrees below - I'm wrapping up my aloe vera  plants in old, woollen doggy rugs to keep them alive overnight.
The washing is snap frozen on the line and the dog sniffs his water bucket in a worried way and comes back inside to drink. He doesn't know what to make of the ice in his water  bucket.

I love this weather. It's so sharp and sparkling. I've got woolly socks and jumpers and gloves, and with the days beginning to lengthen again, the dog and I catch the dawn as we crackle over frozen grass and leaves on our morning walk. No wind.  It is foggy and mysterious when we set off, and I love that too.

Bare foot weather

 

Breakfasting in the gum tree in the park 

Egrets visiting again across the road. The grass is just humming with insects now.

This evening I went barefoot walking the dogs. My feet were happy on asphalt and cement and grass and warm, dry clay.