The Shortest Day

Wellington's weather is mild compared to many parts of the World. It doesn't get freezing cold in winter or boiling hot in summer. Wellington is very windy.

Here, at 5.15pm on the shortest day of winter it is 9C. Sunrise was at 7.47 this morning and the sun recently set at 4.58pm. There has been some wind and light rain is expected overnight.

Last winter I tried growing cauliflower and broccoli without any success. This year I have spinach and rainbow chard happily supplying me with luscious leaves.

My biggest joy and suprise is the broad beans. You see, I was a month late sowing their seeds. After their sitting under the soil in a huff for several weeks I now have 17 little bean shoots, each a couple of inches tall. Every single seed has sprouted!


While the worst of our winter is yet to come - dampness, rain and winds from the Antarctic that endeavour to slice thorough you - I have glorious broad beans (fava beans) to look forward to come spring.

Zebby is snuggled under his quilty on the bed - his place of security and peace. He is loudly purrrrrumbling away to himself in happiness.

Christchurch shaken up again

Today poor Christchurch was rocked by two big after shocks - a 5.5 at 1.00pm and a 6.0 at 2.20pm.

So, once more the schools are closed, the sewerage system is out and everyone needs to boil their water before use. The lines staff have been busy however at least 20,000 homes are still without power.

All is fine here in Wellington - but poor Christchurch, when will it end?

Update: The second quake measured 6.3, the same as the 22 February one.

To reassure you all..

..I have not been spirited away by the pixies...

Work is keeping my mind very busy as I delve into the depths of the debt and general ledger stuff on the computer system. Ha, I'll work it out before this work computer system has a chance to confuse me further.

Other stuff has had my thoughts and caring stuff busy, and Zebby is an ever present love and danger -often both at once. It is lovely that he wants to help me during my bouts of insomnia - only purring very loudly in my right ear at 3.00am ain't a help (warming up his right hind paw in my ear is also an "awakener" for me).

Added issue - just now loading down, up, sideways or backwards of photos aint working. All will be sorted some time this year.

But please don't worry - Mickle is still in the blogosphere, reading your blog posts and still working on explaining and writing up in a helpful manner the Mickle Ginger-beer making method, experimenting with it and, of course, drinking the results.

And Zebby Cat is okay - just tolerating me heading off to work 2 or 3 days a week, waking me up when ever he feels like it, and still delivering many purrs and happy, affectionate huggles and demands for head scritches (and, of course, for FOOD)

Our month of May in NZ was on average 2.5 degrees centigrade above average, which is a lot. Many trees which should show bare branches by now are still clinging to green leaves.

This includes the giantly huge tree magnolia down in the Botanic Gardens which is always the first of these trees bearing the most primative of tree flowers, giving a glorious display of pink leaves/petals in early August. The other magnolias are already completely bare of leaves, ready to bloom after the giant usually does - best guess at which will be out flowering first in August?

Otherwise the start of Winter here means still lots of green trees and shrubs in my excuse for a garden, and a very squelchy "lawn" to walk over to empty out His Nibs' litter tray (am building a wee kitty litter mountain for later use as mulch) and to clean out and top up the bird bath.

My spinach and rainbow chard plants are providing wonderful, luscious leaves - and will continue right through winter. Snails aren't the challenge - is still the caterpillars from those pesky white "cabbage" butterflies.

Sending care and huggles, Mickle and ...... a sound asleep Zebby Cat

I've been Linuxed!

Laptop #2 is unwell on its Windows side, so it will be heading up to Tauranga to dear Dad for him to mutter over and also check its Linux operating system too. In the meantime I'm back on my original PC, fully rebuilt, souped up and running on Linux.

This had been a massive learning curve which is good for my brain*. Tonight I finally managed to upload and save photos from my camera (woohoo) so am back in full-on blogging mode.

Above is a shot of my darling Zebster from Summer. Right now he is snuggled under his quilty and dreaming of Summer and raw lamb for dinner, bless the lad.

So, next on offer will be Mickle style Ginger Beer - now I can post the photos.

(* the little grey brain cells are already ticking over with the system data issues I have to solve at work - Linux will keep them running at the same rate when I'm at home!)

The Bagel recipe

Hello all, here is a link to the bagel recipe . It makes 6 bagels however it can easily be doubled, tripled etc...

Rather than rolling the piece of dough into a snake and joining the ends, like in the recipe, I used my dear Dad's method - form it into a bun shape then poke a hole through the middle with your thumb and index finger.

These bagels freeze very well, tasting fresh when thawed, and good spilt and toasted. And I'm thinking little mini bagels with a yummy filling would make great finger food.

I'll be making more soon to have for lunch at work. Happy Baking and Eating!

A few steps forward, a sideways lurch then a leap back....

Now I'm having problems with this newer laptop. I stopped with it on Friday so the swearing didn't happen until Saturday. I will do my best with blogging but all is currently only running in "safe mode" for the windows operating system. Will find an experienced, reliable and safe service here to fix it all.

I also have a Linux system on this laptop which is working fine - only it doesn't have all the apps that Dad had set up in Windows, knowing that I was trying to stay compatible with Work while enjoying the best of of the (far better) freeware that he uses.

Will do my best and avoid swearing at the beast now it is Easter Sunday.

On the plus side I have a boned and butterflied (by self) leg of local, grass fed spring* lamb in the fridge marinating in a mix of garlic, fresh rosemary, lemon zest, freshly ground black pepper, olive oil and a little lemon juice that I rubbed into the outer and inner surfaces. * I bought it back in September and have kept it frozen until now. This wont take long at all to roast for Sunday night dinner for myself and for Zebby - he loves lamb!

Happy Easter to you all, Mickle and Zebby - xxxxxx and zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zz zzzzzzzzzz

I'm still here, Folks

I have been busy with things like making ginger beer (the photo below is of a Mickle ginger beer "bug"). But also with some changes - I'm back working part time at the job I love as it really tests my brain, and keeps the grey cells ticking over.




I became well enough to work again late last year but unfortunately my workplace had truely nowhere to put me as they had a team in processing claims for the Earthquake Commission from the September 2010 Christchurch quake.

So I did some baking .....


These are sante biscuits (cookies), basically a chocolate chip biscuit but made using chocolate chopped from a block (the recipe originally used chocolate from sante bars, hence the biscuit's name).

Poor Christchurch had another rumble on December 26th, and then the really damaging aftershock on February 20th. In March I tentatively approached that place I had worked in previously ...... well ....... I'm back there.

In between times I also came across a very easy recipe for plain bagels. These are super delicious both warm from the oven and munched upon the next day.




And, of course, I continued to share my life with Zebby Cat, tending to his needs that include covering him up fully coz of his inability to get all of himself beneath his battered quilty.



The recipes will follow in later posts but, you know, I didn't have to share the any of the results with meat-eater Zebby at all!