Minus four last night started the day of with a bit of a zing in the air - the lettuce survived under their hay, and emerged to enjoy the glorious sunshine of the day. They are back in hiding now as there is more to come tonight according to the forecast (and the clear blue skies).

There was about 0.1mm in the gauge this morning, but whether it was yesterday's mizzle or this morning's frost giving condensation is anyone's guess.

The dentist called to reschedule my appointment by an hour which is good as visitors are now looming for Thursday afternoon so I should now be able to get home in time to greet them.

Quilting today was a bit of chaos as three, count them, three, of the members brought children with them. Fortunately all were well behaved or I think I would have left. I am working on a bag at present. It has four outside pockets which are supposed to have gollywog appliques on them. Now, I don't know about you, but it is one thing to do quilting, it is quite another thing to be one of those quilting ladies whose possessions are covered in twee teddies, gollywogs and daisies.

So I hunted around and have found four rather lovely line drawings of various grain crops that I am stitching to adorn the pockets. I am using the actual stitching to quilt the layers of the pockets together. Done in soft natural tones on tea-dyed calico. They should look a lot better and more 'me' than the original designs.

Tomorrow's quilting is being relocated to Brighton (well, Teatree, actually) at the home of one of our Tuesday regulars. Once a month some of us go to her place, but this will be my first visit. Not sure how organised things are there, so am just taking the hand-stitching with me so I can curl up in a corner and work without getting in anyone's way.

The geese are getting a little above themselves at present, since they got their pond, and tried to have a go at me while I had my head in the chook shed collecting eggs. Fortunately I spotted their approach and turned round and stood up, which gave them second thoughts. I hope they are not building a nest under the shed - will have to have a closer look. They have also been harrassing the hens (hence the Welsummer on day-release yesterday), so I have to assume they are working their way steadily up to breeding - but by golly they are taking their time and making a heck of a racket about it. Will have to prioritise finishing off the fencing so they can spend their days in the other half of the orchard, and maybe set up a couple of potential nests for them there so the hens can have a bit of peace and quiet.

Despite the gentle sound of rain being audible every time I woke last night, there were only 4.7 mm in the gauge this morning. And anything that fell after that has barely registered at all. Probably a good thing as tomorrow a hard frost is due and frozen water gives a slightly false reading I suspect.

I have scurried out and covered over the new lettuce with some hay so it does not turn up its (barely established) toes in the morning, chased the welsummer who decided she wanted to stay out overnight but did not have the sense to put herself to bed (so was sitting on the ground at the entrance to the woodshed when I went down), and generally established things so it is a cosy morning.

The pantry now has two doors, both hung on the appropriate side and with a handle so I can get them open again. One is slightly lower than the other, but you know - there is only so much you can do ...

I baked a walnut loaf in the silicon loaf tin and, as I suspected, the sides warped out so that it is rather an odd shape. To add insult to injury, the cake stuck on the way out, so the bottom remained in the container - though these things were supposed to be magically non-stick. Well, that one is going in the 'rubbish that may come in handy' pile, and will probably be consigned to providing a mould when and if I ever get bees and they produce enough wax for me to need somewhere to put it.

Still no word from Chch, so presumably all is still a bit of a bumpy ride. May email HO and see if they have anything more coherent to report.

Was checking the forecast this morning when my eye was caught by a comment about damaging winds heading for Christchurch. I was only on reading the article I became aware that they have had a big one over there and that much of what I knew is now in ruins. Have made several attempts to contact friends to no avail, but no doubt they have more important things to deal with at present. Catching up on the status of various parts of the City's heritage kept me busy for much of the morning with the result not much got done today. I did manage to get a rain reading at around the right time - 9.7mm, after which it settled for a slow mizzle for much of the day, and a bit more of a dump shortly after I decided to start chainsawing wood (not a good idea with an electric chainsaw, in the rain, so that stopped fairly promptly).

I planned a Sunday roast today - a belly of lamb from the freezer which I boned out, rolled and stuffed. Disappointingly small quantities of fat in it, so it was not as nice as it could have been, but there is sufficient for sandwiches tomorrow. Shadow was happy to deal with the bones.

It is actually surprisingly soggy around here at present - quite like old times. And many of the bulbs are showing buds - some of which are even showing a bit of colour. So it will presumably be an early spring and lots of lovely blossoms to look forward to.

A rainy day here today - 5 mm overnight, and a bit more this afternoon. Only 0.5 during the day though despite perpetual drizzle.

So I stayed inside and sorted out a bit more of the kitchen. tomorrow if the weather persists I will hang the odd door and possibly even fit handles to them - that would be exciting wouldn't it. I also plan to cook a belly of lamb that has been lurking in the freezer for too long. I will stuff it with breadcrumbs and whatever herbs and such I can find, then roll it and bake it and see what happens.

Washed some of the new cookware and tea-dyed some of the calico which I will need for the project I am currently working on at quilting. Signal is playing merry hell tonight so will post this while I have the chance...

It was another glorious sunny day here today - pity about the cold wind. With a new injury in my jaw I decided that wind was probably not my friend so have spent a fair bit of the day indoors despite the lovely weather. Yesterday, before the dentist called I had popped on a second load of washing and was about to set off into Oatlands to dry the flannel sheets at the laundromat. But it got done this morning instead, and i lashed out and did a load of my tops as well. Was sitting quietly in front of the laundromat when a car on the other side of the street moved and I realised there was a garage sale going on over the road.So I popped over, expecting the usual tat, and discovered that in fact the owner of the house basically had every thing up for sale. She had moved out the things she wanted to keep and everything else was up for grabs.

So I squeezed my purchases in around the dog, the laundry, the sewing machine, the partially loaded tip run, the dog, cat and chook food still in the car from yesterday and came home laden with stuff.

I have a phone table (one of those 1980s jobs with a vinyl upholstered seat built in alongside a desktop, with drawer under and sliding doors below the seat and cabinet. Heaps of space to store the phone book (always a problem), a note pad and pencils etc for taking messages and space underneath for whatever strikes my fancy (probably newspapers required for lighting the fire).

In addition I have a large carton of cookware, mainly baking trays of various descriptions for cookies, cakelets etc, and two of these are those silicon floppy jobs that i have eyed with deep suspicion when confronted with them in fancy cookware displays. So I will get to find out if they work, without actually having to buy some. All of these, and the thin plastic boxes in the carton, will need a good wash, as the cook, as she aged, was less successful in getting them clean. But they are good quality so I am thrilled.

What else? a Stoneware bread crock (useful for making sauer kraut) and a couple of smaller stoneware pots for storing cooking salt and such like in. And a milk jug. I think that is about it.

Also picked up some oil of cloves in case my tooth starts aching in the weekend when there is no recourse to pharmacies or other aid.

Then home to unpack the car thoroughly, fold and put away the washing (including the third load that had been drying successfully on the airing rack), stash and pick over my goodies, and then sit back and relax (on the principle that I deserved a treat after yesterday's traumas).

Went to the kitchen counter this afternoon and the view really is quite lovely - I just wanted to get stuck in a start cooking, but no such luck as yet. Still, the microwave had a bit of a whirl for the first time since the UK, and it was great to be able to heat up a meal without making more dishes than were entirely necessary ...

four mm last night, which compares favourably with the 1.6 mm recorded at Tunnack, which is the reading i have previously been dependent on.

The dentist called again today. Offered me a free extraction this afternoon (well, not free, I did have to pay for the darn thing). Now what they fail to tell you before they remove half your upper jaw, and leave you dripping blood out the side of your mouth in the supermarket carpark (probably a fairly familiar sight at Rosny Park, regardless I suspect)is that it is a really bad idea to smoke after this operation. Like for 24 hours. So you get to have a sore jaw, stress, no cigarettes, and no options for chomping on carrots or celery (the usual panacea) because you have a hole in your mouth over and above the quantity allocated by nature....

Still, it is raining. I have an external hard drive to fix the back-up problem for the computer before i have a go at fixing up a potentially computer-death-inducing problem on it. And probably only another five hours (slight exageration) to copy over my C;\ drive.

So I bought some jubes and some liquorice allsorts (which may produce their own interesting side effects to distract me from the lack of nicotine), a tin of lemonade to suck on in case I felt faint from blood loss driving home, and about three years supply of jelly, fruit in jelly, fruit in syrup, greek yoghurt, and 20 metres of calico to wrap around me as my shroud if I die, lol. Actually that latter is just a handy stand-by stockpile of an incredibly versatile fabric that will provide pudding cloths, bags for smoked meats, for drying herbs, for quilting, curtains and curtain linings, cushion linings, you name it. And 20 metres for $40 seemed a pretty good idea to me. Spotlight is the place to go girls, the upholstery section - rolls of it with a blue paper strip around one end.

Forgot to mention - o.5mm last night.

The dentist called today offering me a 10 minute appointment this afternoon, just to have a look at the tooth and tell me what I already know. So I concluded I would rather not drive all the way to Hobart for 10 minutes to find out my fate, and so am back on the wait list for an extraction (aargh!!). Not looking forward to either the process or the idea of driving home afterward. Will hope for a mid-morning appt so I can go to my friend's house in Geilston Bay for a sit down for a few hours before driving home.

I bought a rain gauge a few days ago and installed it the day before yesterday. Last night it rained! I got 4.7mm - how exciting to know exactly what i am getting. This afternoon's rain was 0.4mm which was not quite so exciting. You apparently take the reading at 9 every morning and record on today's date (even though most of it could feasibly have fallen the previous day, so I have written it down in pencil on the form so I can rub it out when I get a photocopier to copy it for me several times for future year's records.

The hens laid four eggs today - which after yesterday's seven was a bit of a let-down. And the geese have finally discovered their wading pool. Which means i now have to fill it up again - I had given up on them finding it so have not bothered to keep it topped up.

Hopefully I will have a plumber here by the end of the week to fit the gas fittings for the oven and to give me a hand putting its legs on (the electrician just shoved it roughly into position without even peeling off the protective plastic - apparently not part of his job description ...).

Tonight I am having some Nichols Chicken scrolls, heated in the oven which will be nice. And they will be accompanied by some freshly picked brussels sprouts I think, and some mash.