Drifting through life

When I was very young, mum often made cakes and puddings for afternoon teas and for sweets after dinner. We were on a tight budget, so these cheap treats were a good way to fill small tummies when the breadwinner got the largest portion of the main meals. Often enough, sweets,(dessert) was a slice of bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, or jam and cream. Half of our backyard was a giant veggie patch too. I remember planting radish seeds along with carrots because the radishes would be ready first and as we pulled them we'd be making room for the carrots to mature. The puddings were often a chocolate custard with sprinkles, or a semolina made thick enough to set, with sprinkles.  Lemon sago pudding with custard was a favourite too and I still like it. Or canned fruit with custard. Most often would be cake. Mum would make a basic butter cake mixture, pour it into a slab tin, top it with sliced apples or plums, sprinkle the whole thing with sugar and bake it. There ...

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday! The day for your googled giggle that gets you over the hump that is Wednesday and sliding down into the weekend. fish cakes!  Mine are usually crumbed and fried and eaten with chips, (fries) but this works well too. Cute aren't they?

After spending a fair amount of time hanging around at bus stops yesterday, I made it to the dentist. I didn't have an appointment, I was hoping he could just fit me in between patients for a quick smoothing of the rough edges and then I'd make an appointment for a proper filling. Well, none of that happened. I got there just after the clinic opened, to find my dentist wasn't even beginning work until 10am. So I sat down with my kindle and read until I was almost asleep, then got called in. Dr M took a look at the molar and said smoothing the rough edges wouldn't do at all. There are so many old fillings already in the tooth, smoothing would just leave them all exposed and unstable. So he filled the whole side with a temporary filling, to stop it from ripping chunks out of my tongue*, then we discussed options. Best option? Remove all the old fillings, insert a couple of stabilising pins, then build up a new filling to the original tooth size. I've had a too...

Early Sunday morning I was reading the paper, drinking coffee, eating chocolate....suddenly....crunch...what??   This is plain milk chocolate, nothing should be crunching. Well of course it was another one of my teeth, the whole side of a molar just broke away from all the fillings and I have a rough edge scraping the dickens out of my tongue. So I'm off to the dentist again.  I'm not in pain, apart from the rough edge scraping my tongue, so that's one good thing at least. And I have good news .....I found a package of tomato seeds at my daughter's house, plant by date stamped on them was 2008, so of course I brought them home and planted them. I only planted half the packet, so far ten have germinated, and my mini capsicums are showing tiny specks of green in the potting mix too, as is one lonely mini cucumber. Some of those seeds are stamped 'plant before 2010 and 2011' and I was going to give them all one more week to show signs of life, I actual...

Welcome back to Sunday Selections! This once-a- week-meme was originally begun by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs. Kim spends more time writing at The Shake these days. The rules are very simple:- 1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title 2. link back to me, River , somewhere in your post 3. leave me a comment so that I know you've joined in and can come over and see what you've posted. 4. hop on over to The Elephant’s Child to see more of her wonderful photos. Kath and Andrew often join in as well, although Kath has been quite busy lately and unable to join us. There are several other participants now though: Jackie K at Working Through It Gillie at Random Thoughts From Abroad I usually go with a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week I'm continuing with some photos of the gardens surrounding ...

I'm serious . they're way too yummy. keep them for yourself. (give the kids a celery stick, or something...)

On Wednesday’s, Delores, from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls “Words for Wednesday” . She puts up a selection of six words which we then use in a short story, or a poem. I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story. It’s a fun challenge…why not join in? This week's words are: 1. crow 2. evening 3. mist 4. rapid 5. blazing 6. emerge Here is my story: It had been a long evening and Emma was just about to climb into bed, when the crow living in the big gum tree began cawing and clattering his beak, then flew down onto her window sill and continued his racket.  Emma got out of bed to close her window, then noticed the blazing red of what she thought was a full moon rising through the mist . She watched it for a moment as the crow continued cawing and clattering at her. It seemed unusually large and red....wait, what was that smell? Smoke? Yes, it was. What Emma thought was mist was in fact smoke and it was thickenin...

Some time ago, along with her weekly six word challenge, Delores gave us a sentence prompt. "follow the path of ice to the land of frozen dreams" I wrote it down, along with several other Delores had given us over the weeks, and then forgot about it. I found that page in my notebook yesterday and wrote this>>>> Follow The Path Of Ice To The Land Of Frozen Dreams Mandy wriggled and squirmed in her sleep, she'd rolled around so much in falling asleep, the quilt was wrapped around her like a cocoon. In her dream she felt as if she were being sucked down into a whirlpool. Down and down, feeling colder the further down she went. With a bump, Mandy fell out of the whirlpool onto a glittery field of ice cubes, divided by a solidly frozen path of ice that had a sign shaped like a pointing finger. It pointed down the path and Mandy thought, "well, I might as well go this way, there doesn't seem to be any other way to go." She trod care...

Has everyone seen the advertisement for Freeview TV, where the woman is singing "The Best Things In Life Are Free"?  I love it! I don't care about the Freeview part, TV is TV is TV...but the song.... I LOVE the song. I turn up the volume every time it comes on. If you haven't seen it you can probably find it on you tube, so do yourself a favour and have a listen. I know it is an old song and has been done by others over the years, but this version has me dancing in my seat and singing along.

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday! The day for your googled giggle that gets you over the hump that is Wednesday and sliding down into the weekend. so this is where all that litigation trouble started!

You all know what I'm talking about? Those annoying little flies, smaller than a regular house fly, that travel around in packs and descend on unsuspecting people sitting at bus stops. Or anywhere. For several years, bush flies haven't been in the city in large numbers, some years I haven't seen any at all. But this year, they're back. And zooming in on faces, arms, necks, settling on clothing. People everywhere are walking (or sitting) and swishing their arms or hands around every few seconds to brush away the flies. If there is a breeze, things aren't so bad, but a still day brings them out in droves. It reminds me of childhood in Port Pirie, where people gathered in the streets for a gabfest would have a veritable army of tiny flies hitch hiking on their backs. Children tore small leafy twigs off street trees and used them to swish away flies as they walked. These irritating little buggers are the reason swagmen wore hats with swinging corks tied around t...