Darawank November 2012

November 2^nd, What a start to the month! Strong Southerly winds with overnight rain. I went to the Doctors this morning, after completing a course of antibiotics for my swollen left leg and he simply gave me another course of antibiotics to take.

November 3^rd, Terri and Patrick went to a 40^th Birthday Party for one of the Parks residents. It was a theme Party, so they came around to show off their costumes on their way (see photo). We were very impressed with their “1920’s” attire. I went out to check the crab trap and do some fishing. No crabs but I did land a 50cm flathead that I caught at the mouth of the creek, on the northern side of the Park.

November 4^th, We went around to Terri and Patrick’s after lunch and I helped Patrick to hook up his car to their new Caravan and to fit the towing hitch torsion bars, which the salesman provided but didn’t fit. I gave them a demo. on how to put their roll out awning up, knowing that when they get down to Dunleith Tourist Park to-morrow, at The Entrance, that Carole and Rob would be there to help them set up.

November 6^th, I had another Dr’s appointment this morning, so we went into Tuncurry and Val did some grocery shopping and we met up at the Local Pub, where we had the $9.50 Bistro Special for lunch, placed our bets on the Melbourne Cup and stayed to watch the race. My favourite is still running but Val got a good return for a long odds placed horse, so we had a very cheap day out in the final wash.

November 8^th, We drove to Taree today, only 25 minutes away by car. Val had to go to Spotlight and I had to go to BCF to exchange one of our damaged Coleman Chairs, for a replacement under warranty. Taree is our closest Town that has both those shops.

November 9^th, Off to see my Dr. today, having finished my 2^nd lot of antibiotics and as my ankle was still swollen, he sent me for an ultrasound. I drove to the ultrasound place in Forster and got taken straight away, without an appointment. The results were good, no clots or DVT problems, and the written report will be sent to the Dr’s.

November 11^th, Val has spent this weekend sewing up Stevens 8 metre long Table Runner, for a fund raising night Margaret and he are putting on, and we will post it off on Monday.

November 12^th, Finally we had good weather today, so I went out for a fish and came in with 3 flathead, 36, 37 and 54cm.

November 14^th, Went out for a fish and caught 2 flathead, 35 and 38cm. Didn’t feel like ironing out the 35cm one so gave it the blessing and released it back into the river, flathead are too ugly for “kiss and release”.

November 15^th, Joan and Robert arrived at lunchtime today, to spend a couple of days with us and booked into a Cabin. Robert and I went out for a fish but didn’t catch any keepers. We came in early as the wind came up again and Robert was keen to get started on a game of “Tiles”.

November 16^th, A few nights ago, Val cooked herself some fresh flathead fillets for dinner and gave me a bit to taste. I said, “That’s not bad, it didn’t have a fishy taste”, so she suggested that when we next have flathead that I try it instead of the usual steak. As we had visitors, tonight was flathead fillet night for dinner. This time she cooked the flathead fillets in panko crumbs, served with potatoes and salad and I did enjoy the meal. This is a major event in my life as I have never eaten any seafood. Greg rang tonight, mainly to tell me of his own personal major event, as he had for the first time in his life read a 600 page Book called “Ice Station” and thoroughly enjoyed it, then couldn’t believe my personal major event either.

November 17^th, Joan and Robert moved out of their Cabin this morning then came around to our Van for the rest of the day. The weather was shocking so we filled in the day playing Tiles till they left at 5pm. They wanted to get home before dark and they had a 2 hour journey.

November 18^th, We had very heavy overnight rain and it was overcast and showery today. In-between showers I was able to pump the water out of our boat, it was too much for bailing by hand. 

November 20^th, Went to see my Doctor this morning, he was happy with the progress of my leg swelling, so he checked my blood pressure, to make my visit worthwhile. He said “You have the blood pressure of a teenager”, it would be nice to feel like one! I went to the Chemist to pick up the compression stockings that I had ordered and we bought a “Circulation Booster”, as advertised on TV by Dawn Frazer, which both Val and myself can use. Val has had bad legs, Varicose veins etc, for years. We received Jessica and Annaliese’s Christmas gifts selections in today’s mail, so it’s off to the shops tomorrow.

November 21^st, We went to Forster Shopping Centre to start on the girls selections but we only have a Target Country Store there and they didn’t have all the items which were on the girls list. We will have to go to Taree tomorrow and hope they still have the “Sale” items we want, as it is finished today. We tried K-Mart for a few things but found they were much dearer than the BigW sale prices, but there is a BigW in Taree.

November 22^nd, I went around to Terri and Patrick’s place this morning, as we had only spoken to them by phone since they came home from their Holiday, at The Entrance, last Monday. The weather hadn’t been great and Patrick had cut the sole of his foot on broken glass. It had taken 3 doctors visits so far in an effort to remove all the glass, but Patrick suspected that there was still more glass in his foot. To top off their Holiday woes, his car was scratched by a fallen tent post when his next door neighbour’s  annexe blew down, his awning ripped when he was rolling it up and he dented his rear bumper parking the Van when he arrived Home. Sadly, today, Patrick was advised that his Sister in-law from Woy Woy, who they had just visited last week, had passed away. Our thoughts are with them. We went to Taree after lunch to finish off our Christmas Shopping for the girls, only to find we couldn’t get it all. At least it was an outing for us.

November 23^rd, We went to Glendale Shopping Centre (at Newcastle) and picked up the last present we needed to complete our Christmas Shopping. We came home via Salamander Bay and enjoyed a browse around, noting the changes to the Shopping Centre, then stopped off at our Storage Shed to leave some stuff and pick up things we needed. We thought we had put our Christmas Lights in storage but they were not to be found. On our way home we decided that we must have stored them in Greg’s Garage and a quick phone call confirmed our suspicions. Val bought some apricots from The Farmers Markets at Glendale so made a batch of Apricot Jam, very delicious.

November 24^th, Val had a hankering to make something different for Christmas, so decided to make a Scottish black Bun, which she remembered from her childhood in Edinburgh. It is a heavy fruit cake, fully enclosed in a hard pastry case and is normally eaten at New Year. I can’t wait to try it out.

November 25^th, Brian rang today (Val’s brother in Brisbane) to let us know that he had emailed some photos of his Christmas Lights and it is spectacular. Definitely competition quality, but he won’t enter it, and gets bigger and better every year.

November 26^th, Steven rang today with his big news; he and Ed are buying an Apartment at Elizabeth Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and moving in together. We had a look at it online, its 3 bedrooms, newly renovated and very modern. My only news for today was that when I went out fishing, in the tinnie, I caught 2 flathead (Big Deal,eh!).

November 27^th, We had a quiet day but after dinner Val had the urge to try fishing off the riverside walkway and was overjoyed to pull in a 33cm flathead, just on dusk. Unfortunately that is undersize so had to go back into the River. Val went off for her shower while I continued to fish and I caught a 38cm flathead, definitely a keeper.

November 29^th, Unbelievable, this morning on checking the crab pot I had caught my first mud crab in our 6 week old $24 Mud Crab Pot. Then the fun started. Val had told Steven and Ed that she would save up crabs so that Ed could make “mud crab ?” at Christmas, so she wanted to freeze them cleaned but uncooked. I did as we do with ‘blue swimmers” and put the crab in the fridge to put it to sleep. Three hours later, when Val took the crab out of the fridge, it was still moving and menacing her with his nippers. The next step we thought was to tie the nipper arm up, as we had seen on a fishing program on TV. With me panicking and warning Val to be careful, with string slipping off the nipper arms, she eventually had this crab wrapped in string. Next step was to remove the shell and clean out the innards (sounds simple and straightforward). I had done this many times on “Blue swimmers” but I pointed out that some of the string was across the shell and I wouldn’t be able to remove it, so Val grabs the scissors and cut the offending strands, thereby releasing one of the nipper arms. So at my alarm and comment that it was still alive and slightly sedated, she grabbed the scissors like a dagger and plunged them into the underside of the crab, saying now it’s DEAD. Very hesitantly, I proceeded to remove the crab shell. Of course it didn’t come off like the cooked blue swimmer shell comes off, as it broke off a piece at a time. You can imagine the mess this poor crab was in. Val armed herself with the scissors again and cut off the 2 nipper arms after telling me that most of the good meat was in the nippers and this crab was too small to worry about the body and threw the carcass into the bin, nippers in freezer, job done. Val’s next comment to me was, look it up on Google! I am pleased to report that Google has saved the day and we now have complete instructions with pictures showing how to tie mud crabs, kill them mercifully (half an hour in the freezer) and advises that it is better to cook the crabs before you freeze them.

November 30^th, I caught a flathead this morning, put it in the fridge and filleted it late in the afternoon, as I needed it to bait the crab pot. So around 6.30pm (still daylight with daylight saving now on) I went and put the pot down, with the carcass and a tin of Val’s Tuna Slices in Oil with a few holes punched in it.

December 1^st, went out to check on the crab pot, around 8.30am and couldn’t believe; some “LOW LIFE” //%%##^^**@@**!!!’” has stolen my trap. Why do they have to steal a low cost item, readily available at any fishing tackle shop, I’ll never understand and they must also be fishermen, unbelievable.