Easter Monday

The day started out well with a good sleep in. Friday, Sat and Sunday we were up at 6am as Lib worked. I was up briefly at 5am Monday. Pip came to our room and woke me as she does if she wants to go outside, and due to a muscle strain around my shoulder blade which troubled me all Sunday, I took 2 ibuprofen tablets and a cortisone with a cup of tea and a biscuit and peanut butter. You take these things with food and not on an empty stomach.

I went back to bed and slept till 9am then cooked Lib tomatoes on toast with fresh basil for breakfast. I picked a lot of tomatoes on Friday when I went out to Margeurita's to clear some room and turn ground over to plant broccoli seedlings she'd bought. The ones I cooked yesterday were cherry toms in a small frypan, done with as low heat as I could and left for some time so juice comes out and slowly thickens. They were delicious.

I was quietly busy right through Easter but at a leisurely pace. After a few hours at Margeurita's on Friday I picked some cherry laurel foliage around the town for an order of fifty bunches for Monday morning pick up. Saturday I finished the laurel picking and washed and graded all the tomatoes picked the previous day and generally tidied up round the house and rested. Sunday I picked bay foliage for an order for Tuesday (today) pick up and did an hour at Margeurita's pruning a photinia hedge before taking the laurel and the bay to the farm.

A florist who usually picks up on Fridays changed to late Monday because of Easter so Monday I set to pick her foliage as well as some variegated pitto for the bay lady. While I was doing the tomatoes for breakfast the phone rang and it was Meredith saying the herb and spice people wanted elderberry flowers which I pick in a creek bed in Emerald. It's difficult terrain getting down into the creek and I took gumboots as there's a lot of mud, but my foot sunk in the bank and I crashed to ground as I jumped the creek, missing the mud fortunately, but smashing the styrene box I was collecting the flowers in. I was carrying my pole and cutting head and a bottle of wine for the lady whose house adjoins the creek where I pick, and was unbalanced when my foot sank. I'm not trespassing but the people in the house have a vegie garden the other side of the creek and treat the creek as their own garden although it is council owned. The lady has talked to me on previous occasions, she doesn't mind me picking the flowers and I leave her a jar of honey on the path. Last time she said she had a good store of honey thanks so I suggested a bottle of red at which she was happy about although she said I needn't leave anything. The elderberry thing will be over soon till next summer but I'm more comfortable with a gesture of honey or wine than trudging through someone's space offering nothing in return. Goodwill goes a long way, possibly I'll be wanting the flowers next summer.

It was good to get home and watch Hawthorn get another flogging in the last quarter. Lib made meatballs for dinner which were great with Margeurita's sauce. She has a passion for making tomato sauce and she made me up a big batch of bottles which she gave me on Friday and will last us for many months.

My crook shoulder held up well and last night I gained relief from massaging myself with a hard spikey ball that Gord got from the physio. I have had a tight hip and discomfort for a couple of weeks as well. Rubbing the ball up and down my leg muscle and my arm and chest muscles seemed to really loosen me up, then I lay on my back and put the ball under hip first then the shoulder area, moving myself over the ball. It worked a treat, and may well save me seeking a masseur this week as was my intention.

Speaking of Gord, he went to lakes Entrance on Good Friday by himself and stayed till yesterday. He mowed the grass which hadn't been done for three months. Lib's sister Margaret who now lives in the Lakes house was away for Easter. It was very good of Gord to do that, he has a sense of responsibility to the slashing at Lakes and has his own mower down there and an old whipper snipper so we don't have to cart one up and back when we go. With our trip to New Zealand and general work and duties Lib and I have not been able to get down there and won't for a while. It was good to see Gord get back safe and sound after the Easter traffic. That's the first time he has done that by himself.

Another sleep in today, and for the first time since last week there is not the constant roar of motor bikes going up and down Launching Place Road. They all were out joyriding over Easter and it was like constant thunder. It says a lot about our society. I guess it's some form of escapism from the boredom and banality of city life, to dress up like a bikie and ride into the country and drink coffee at a village cafe instead of in the local mall or strip. It's the same just about every weekend except if the weather's wet, or very hot. Probably they head down the coast then.