It’s been quite some time since I’ve put together a Friday Fragments post, let’s see if I remember how this goes!

Today has been the hottest day ever on record in Sydney, 45.8°C (114.4°F) at Observatory Hill in the city. My Twitter stream and Facebook newsfeed are full of screenshots of people’s weather apps and pics of car temperature readings, some showing as much as 47°C (116.6°F). We’ve dealt with this glorious weather by bringing the rabbits inside, closing all the blinds and curtains, cranking the air-con up and hiding. Except my husband, who has gone to the Big Day Out music festival. Madness.

The rabbits weren’t too pleased to be bundled inside into temporary accommodation, especially as the dog considers them to be some kind of live entertainment for her and likes to lie, just outside their enclosure, watching them.

Hot weather alternate accommodation

Caramel checking out the box while Tiny and Carrots keep watch and Toffee hides

Chubs and Fuzzles in the plastic hidey-hole

Tiny does not approve

Carrots, otherwise know as Adventure Bunny, saying hello to Clara

At one point they decided having the dog hanging around was all too much and took to playing a game of sardines in the one decent hiding spot. They ended up with 5 of them squeezed into the one box with only Carrots left out in the open.

My Dad is back at the rehab hospital having fully recovered from the lithium toxicity. His knee is also doing well, the physiotherapist has managed to get it bending to about 90 degrees.

TRIGGER WARNING for gory details for the next bit, skip if you’re squeamish.

The back story to this is that at 12:30am-ish on Dec 8th my father, who lives alone, fell in his bathroom and put his knee through a vent tile in the side of his bath. The tile smashed, sliced big flap of skin off his knee, broke his knee-cap and took a chunk out of his quadriceps tendon. He dragged himself to his bedroom to get his phone, rang my mum, and then to the lounge room to find the phone number for the building manager because, well, it seemed necessary at the time apparently (the carpet has NOT recovered despite two cleanings). Mum called the ambulance and went to Dad’s place and then to the hospital with him. I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t have to do that part.

Anyway, there was surgery and worry over whether there was enough blood supply to the flap of skin that had been sliced (there was) and uncertainty over whether the tendon repair, at 4cm shorter than before, would hold (so far so good). They got him back onto his feet at the hospital and then moved him to the rehab place on Dec 14th but Dad seemed to get weaker instead of stronger and increasingly confused and lost his appetite and his tremor got so bad he couldn’t feed himself and he couldn’t find words when he tried to speak and it was all very worrying. Then they tested his lithium levels (Dad’s bipolar, that’s why he’s on lithium) and went “OH! Sky high. That’s why.” and carted him back off to hospital on Jan 2nd to put him on a drip and flush it all out of him.

The walk-in wardrobe wall building has been plodding along, there’s a bit more gyprocking and tidying up to do on the inside and then we’ll be able to move my chest of drawers in there and tidy up our bedroom properly. We’ll probably leave the new windows installation, cornices, plastering, painting, skirting boards and architraves, and carpeting until we’ve finished all the other bits of the house, but at least the room will be functional.

Walk-in wardrobe wall almost finished

Adam and I began project Get the Budget Under Control this week (or, as I referred to it on Twitter, project Watch Every Penny and Be Mortified About How Much We Spend On Crap We Don’t Need), we’re recording every cent we spend so of course I took the kids clothes and back-to-school shopping the day after we began. I swear, after totaling up all the stuff she “absolutely definitely needed” Caitlin is not getting any more new clothes or stationery for at least 2 years. (To be fair slightly more than half of it was school uniforms and shoes which she did need.)

That’s all from me folks, if you’d like to read up on what other people have been getting up to this week then click through to Mrs4444′s place for lots more Friday Fragments.

I think I remembered to say thank you as I closed the front door and bolted for the back yard.

Caitlin followed me downstairs, and so did the dog. Fortunately we did have the presence of mind to close the back door behind us with Clara on the inside. Clara watched the following proceedings through the glass door with great interest.

The rabbits were indeed out out. All six of them. And two of them were on the wrong side of the back fence. There’s bushland over our back fence, and a precipitous drop to the creek, if they’d taken off down the hill there’d have been no way in hell of getting them back. Guess how glad I was that we’d decided to put a gate in the new back fence?

I asked Caitlin to remove the fence on the rabbit’s grass run so that there was nothing obstructing the opening leading back into their hutch area. I had this forlorn hope that they’d decide being chased around the yard was all too much and retreat to the safe space of their hutches. HA.

Wandering casually down the yard so as not to raise rabbit suspicions I immediately regretted my bare feet, the ground on the other side of the back fence was full of rocks and sticks and who knows what wildlife. (I tried really hard not to think about funnel web spiders.) I opened the back gate, walked up to Carrots who was relaxing in the shade along the back fence, and picked him up. Huh. Wasn’t expecting this to be so easy. Back through the gate and up towards the hutches. The grass run fence had not been moved out of the way. Carrots suddenly realised where this was going and exploded into a writhing, hand-shredding cloud of fur and claws. I dropped him.

I think Caitlin had also managed to lay hands on a rabbit with similar results, which was why the fence hadn’t been moved. There was a moment or two of heightened emotion on both our parts and I explained that we really needed not to panic and that I could only deal with the one crisis right now so meltdowns would have to wait. We moved the fence out of the way and went back to bunny stalking.

My neighbour on the other side watched us from his back deck and very kindly offered to help “though, I don’t know, how do you catch bunnies?” “Very slowly.” I thanked him but said I thought too many people would make things worse, visions of bunnies bolting into the bush running through my head. I’m not actually sure how long he stayed watching us, I was a little preoccupied.

It’s all kind of blurred in my memory into an endless slow casual walk around the yard, approaching bunnies who lay looking perfectly relaxed and happy, willing to savour every moment of repose even with people feet within mere inches of their resting spot, right up to the point where said person began to bend at the waist at which they’d launch into a few quick bounds, take themselves out of reach, nibble a few more plants, dig a bit more hole and then flop back down ready to repeat the dance.

There were at least 3 other instances of caught rabbit turning into little ball of uncontainable fur and claws before I perfected the escape-proof grip. Caitlin was delegated to lock-em-in-the-hutch duty after one such event, leaving the actual capturing to me.

While trying to watch where I was walking and keep my eyes on all six rabbits at once and wincing at every stick that poked into my poor feet I found myself thinking “rats, I should have grabbed the camera.” Though FSM knows what I thought I was going to be taking pictures of. Perhaps I should have made one of the kids video me, I’m sure it would have been highly amusing.

By the end of it all I’d miraculously retrieved 3 rabbits from beyond the back fence, two by catching them and one who went back to the yard because this stupid human just wouldn’t leave him/her (I forget who did what exactly) alone to dig holes and lie in the shade in peace. We did a lot of heading them off at the pass as they started to explore the side passage with the wire gate with big holes that would have given them access to the front yard and the street. Caitlin had the job of flushing them out from under the big bush behind their hutches. I’m not sure how long the whole business took us, but it felt like AGES.

Tiny, Carrots and Chubs were caught when they left their launch from repose a little too late, they all put up a mighty fight against being returned to the hutches. Fuzzles had a brain failure and took refuge in the spare small hutch that we had sitting outside the main enclosure (I’d opened its ramp just in case one of them was dumb enough). Toffee thought she was safe lying under the garden bench near the back fence and allowed me to give her a head rub, and Caramel eventually gave up and went back in to the hutch enclosure of his own accord – he was the last one outside.

Once all the prisoners were in lockdown the guards were able to let the repressed emotions take over. There was a tear or two, and venting on the internet. And a constant stream of Great Escape jokes from Dad who arrived home just a few minutes after the drama was all done.

They look so cute and innocent.

Tiny

Carrots

Chubs and Fuzzles

Caramel and Toffee

But they’re evil buggers. This was the stuff of trauma I tell you! I have scars.

Battle scars from the great bunny escape of 2013

I ordered pizza for dinner, it seemed justified.

The backyard was finished – topsoil and plants in the garden beds.

Adam and David built the shed, the garden beds were mulched and the lawn was laid

Clara approved of the new lawn

We bought some outdoor furniture

And moved the rabbits down from the back deck

Work began on the downstairs rebuilding with a doorway being cut between our bedroom and the old study.

Before the wall

Under construction

Achievement unlocked: bedroom privacy!

We’d been working to a deadline to get the sofabed moved downstairs into what is now Tom and my study and the gym.

We needed to move the sofa bed because our new lounges were coming.

This brings us to the end of November, at which point I decreed that building stuff could now wait till after Christmas.

Christmas happened, apparently it’s mostly about food.

And then we were back to pulling bits of the house apart. The wall between our bedroom and Adam’s study now has double sliding doors installed in it, they’ll mostly stay open but can be closed over if Adam needs to work late or one of us needs to get up early and doesn’t want to disturb the other too much.

And, bringing us up to today’s activities, the wall for our walk-in wardrobe is also under construction.

It feels like we’re getting there, the house is certainly a lot more pleasant to live in now than it has been for many years, but there’ll be more updates to come over the next few months at least.

The kids were a little bit sceptical about the likelihood of enjoying the play tonight, their reaction on being told what their Christmas present would be had been somewhat lacking in enthusiasm. They’d all been very polite though and not let on about their lack of excitement to Grandma, well trained you see.

We were seeing the first preview of the show, so were warned to expect a few rough edges and reminded to be a kind and generous audience, though I don’t think anyone needed much prompting on that score. Giggles and guffaws aplenty came from both adults and kids in the audience, I particularly enjoyed a very infectious giggler who was clearly having the time of their life and Peter’s first appearance on stage being greeted with a excited gasp of “Peter Pan!” from one young audience member.

I’m not going to tell you much about how the play was staged because a lot of the fun came from the surprises and cleverness in the way things were done. All the action took place in the Darling children’s bedroom with furniture, toys and bedding being appropriated as props and scenery in all sorts of inventive ways. The cast looked as though they were having a ball, it was very much like watching a bunch of kids playing make believe games and captured beautifully the joy of letting your imagination run wild.

We all came out of the theatre with grins on our faces, Tom (11) and Caitlin (14) said it was great and even David (15) conceded “well, that was all right.” (He confessed he’d been expecting to find himself snoring but I’d spotted him laughing a few times during the play, so I don’t think I’d have believed him if he’d said he hadn’t enjoyed it!)

Belvoir St’s website says

Parents, bring your children. Children, bring your parents. Grandparents, bring everyone!

and I reckon they’ve got that right.

So far I have shared my fruit mince pie recipe and linked to a post by gyzym on consuming media critically.

Anyway, this should go some way towards covering the “how” of the “write more” part of my New Year’s resolutions.

Tom had been campaigning for a beach visit for several days, this morning he got up and dressed in his swimmers, apparently our “yeah, ok, maybe, I don’t know” of the night before was good enough for him. So after I’d been to visit Dad in hospital (nasty knee injury before Christmas now followed by lithium toxicity being diagnosed in the last couple of days, just to make things interesting, might blog more details at some point) and then come home to sit on the lounge and breathe deeply for a while, we gave in to the inevitable and went to Avalon Beach.

Only Tom swam.

I think Caitlin and David were a little bit bored.

Adam wisely went to look at water and rocks instead of sitting next to the silly siblings.

It’s quite nice water and rocks.

Then we had fish and chips for dinner and went home.

The End.

For quite some years I’ve said I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I seem to have changed my mind this year because I went and tweeted the following:

New Year resolutions, or perhaps ongoing hopes: sleep more, read more (books rather than websites), write more and spend less. How? Not sure

So here I am writing something, and when I hit publish I’m going to get right on to that sleeping thing.

Happy New Year everyone, may it bring good things to you all.

UPDATE on the update: The song is now finished and we did another recording, Caitlin has decreed it “good enough” to share (I suspect she’d had enough of me pointing a camera at her) so no more bunnies unless you go visit my channel on YouTube

For quite some time now Caitlin has been filling notebooks with song lyrics. I have been a very good mum and refrained from begging to read them or trying to make her sing her songs to me but the suspense has been killing me.

Last night she announced that she had something to sing for us. Here it is, her first foray into singer/songwriter territory.

(can’t see the embedded video? Click here)

I didn’t follow a recipe as such, more like I looked up 3 conflicting recipes and dredged up memories of how I used to make it back when I still lived with my parents and then Nanny Ogged* the process. Then someone asked me for the recipe, so clearly I was going to have to do it again, only writing it down as I went this time.

Which I did tonight, and I made this, it was also good.

Here’s how:

Preheat the oven to 160°C
Lightly grease a baking dish with butter.
Put it inside another baking dish that’s half-filled with water (or you can do that bit at the end if you like, either way works)
Sprinkle sultanas over the bottom of the dish, if you like lots use lots, if not don’t.

Lightly butter enough slices of bread and cut them into quarters (in this case it was 7) to fill the baking dish till it looks like this:

Next up is the custard, I used 300mL of cream, 900mL of milk, 3 eggs, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar and 1/2 a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Whisk them all up and pour over the bread. Poke the bread down into the mixture and then let it stand for a few minutes until the bread has soaked it up. Sprinkle the top with a dessert spoonful or so of demerara sugar.

Pop the nested baking dishes into the oven. Keep an eye on it, if the top is browning too much before the custard sets then turn the oven down. I turned it down to 150°C after 30 minutes. The custard is set when the bread all puffs up, but sticking a knife into the middle and having a look is a good way to tell too. After an hour the custard had just set and the top was well browned. Cooking smaller quantities is easier when it comes to getting it cooked through without burning the top.

I then took the pud to my mum’s place where a roast pork dinner was waiting for us, this also explains the large quantity, I was cooking for 7 of us and could have served 8 easily from this dish.

Eat up!

If you’re lucky 2 of your kids will decide it’s not for them and there’ll be leftovers for tomorrow night.

*a bit of this, some of that, some more of that, splosh, splish, ok, that looks about right… (There’s a Nanny Ogg cookbook, one day I will cook some of the more interesting sounding dishes in it.)

Ingredients list you can actually make sense of

sultanas – enough to cover the base of dish
lightly buttered bread slices cut into quarters – I used 7 slices
3 eggs
300mL of cream
900mL of milk
3 tablespoons of caster sugar
1/2 a teaspoon of ground nutmeg
demerara sugar

Short version of the method

Preheat the oven to 160°C
Lightly grease a baking dish with butter.
Put it inside another baking dish that’s half-filled with water
Sprinkle sultanas over the bottom of the dish
Put the bread pieces in the baking dish, butter side up in a single-ish overlapping layer
Whisk eggs, cream, milk, caster sugar and nutmeg together and pour over the bread
Allow to sit and soak for a few minutes
Sprinkle with demerara sugar
Bake in the oven until the top is browned and the custard is set
(30 min at 160°C then 30 min at 150°C in this case)