Watching TV

Dear Readers,

I am a little ashamed to tell you that we do watch a lot of TV these days compared to normal times. Hubby has discovered a channel that shows train programmes almost every night. I guess they are running out of cooking programmes and home improvement programmes and buying-houses programmes to show and now have to be a little bit more innovative.

We have also had a few people over for a meal since that is allowed now. In NSW you can have five different people from different households. We decided to go for a raclette which means you only have to make a salad and boil potatoes and buy raclette cheese and charcuterie and cornichons, and you have a great meal.

Oh, I almost forgot, you also have to have a nice white wine with it. Preferably a wine from Savoy but since that is a little hard to come by here, it can be a nice Pinot Gris or Sauvignon Blanc.

The big square in the middle is the actual raclette machine. It
heats up and each person puts his/her cheese section in it, in
 their separate little dish, and it melts from the heat coming
from the top of the machine. When it is melted you pour it
over your potato.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it but sometimes you are not so lucky. When we lived in Grenoble hubby rang home one day and said that he was bringing home a visiting colleague for dinner. Raclette is an easy solution when you don't feel like cooking so that's what we had. Sadly the guest, whom I had never met before and therefore didn't know much about, was a lactose-intolerant vegan teetotaller. Oh well, I hope he enjoyed the salad and boiled potatoes.

I must show you one of the bushes in our garden that is now in full bloom. It is a camelia and it makes me think of hubby's fortieth birthday. Our garden in France was pretty barren and we were very happy to be given such an exotic bush by our neighbours. There was a lot of talking and suggesting and discussing about where to plant it. Finally it was given a nice shady protected spot with special soil brought in and it seemed happy there. We treated it as our baby.

Now this one here in our Australian garden is exactly the same colour and nothing seems to bother it. Give it rain, storm, a full day's sunshine, and it seems to be doing great. Even better than its sister in France and it is not even a native Australian plant.

I leave you now with a little thought from a local church. We have a little giggle every time we pass by. Who makes up these little sayings!