Adulting: Sewing

My encounters with my sewing machine often have me tempted to throw it off a damn cliff. At the moment, it is not operational as it has a broken needle and it has had that broken needle for over two years now. Note to self, must find the spare needles to replace the broken needle.

It hasn’t been entirely out of operation the whole time I’ve had it. It’s done a bit of mending, it started making a dress that took me over a year to finish (on someone else’s machine), I’ve even made a quilt with it, though I’m pretty sure the recipient of that quilt had to make some “minor” adjustments so it would behave like a quilt because I didn’t actually know how to make a quilt when I did it. I still don’t know how to make a quilt.

Sewing was one of our subjects at school under the title of “Home Economics”. It’s funny because people are quite happy for life skills like cooking and sewing to be in the curriculum but reckon that budgeting and money management skills should be left up to the parents to teach and once upon a time budgeting and money management skills were taught but such time has passed since then that everyone has forgotten that fact.

I enjoyed sewing at school as mum was too petrified to let me near her machine (even though I was never tempted to throw mum’s machine off a cliff). We learned how to sew a zip, how to applique, tricks to hide our bodgy stitching. When I got to Charles Campbell Secondary in year 9/10 I continued to do sewing as a subject. I found a really pretty satin I planned on using to sew my project boxer shorts with but when it came to the crunch I didn’t have enough faith in myself to do a good job and used random cotton fabric the school supplied instead.

Sewing is a pretty useful skill. Some friends of mine are awesome sewers and some have even made things to sell at the markets. I used to love seeing what Sylvia Majentic would wear to the Katherine Races every year just to see what fabulous things she had made for the occasion. So why is it the majority of us don’t bother with sewing anymore?

Most people who cop a rip in their clothes turf them out, I’m usually no exception. However, what I do throw out gets a second life as a workshop rag first. Another friend of mine sews in patches of patterned fabric into her family’s ripped clothes when she mends them and it looks pretty cool.

We can’t rule out hand-sewing though. When I mend this is usually how I get it done. Especially when I used to mend my horses’ blanket after she’d shred it on the fence. Below is an example of a hand-sewn stitch to try on the next thing to mend. And remember how, in a previous blog, I talked about budgeting and spending on only essentials? If you think you’ll use it heaps, invest in a sewing machine. Prices range from $150 to $1000. Otherwise, a little sewing kit can be bought from a cheapo store for about $5.

A stitch guide can be found here at Homespun.net.au

A basic sewing kit manufactured by Habee Savers. The scissors are useless FYI.

An over stitch/whip stitch ended with a French knot to repair the hole in my sock.

Adulting: Cleaning

Your mum always nagged you to clean your room, right? Some mother’s definition of an unclean room is a few dirty clothes and objects on the floor. Some mother’s definition of an unclean room is mountains of dirty clothes, random cups and flatware, accompanied by cutlery, that now accommodates cockroaches, empty food packets and an over-flowing bin. My mother’s definition was the former but if your mother’s definition is the latter, then mate, you’re just gross and I’m not even going to apologise for that remark.

For some, one of the sucky things about being an adult is that out in the big, bad world your mum is not going to be there to pick up after you. You’ve got to do that shit yourself. Some people take it in their stride and allocate a few hours each weekend to get it done and because they do it regularly it’s not that bad. Some people have neighbours that hate them because the filth is spilling into the front yard.
 

I don’t mind cleaning, if I’m cleaning up after myself. I do mind cleaning if I’m cleaning up after other people. It makes me want to set their stuff on fire while I quietly rage inside my head that ‘I am no one’s maid, why the hell am I cleaning’ and politely comment out loud that some help would be nice.

There are some things I have learned about cleaning over the years though. Numero uno? Vinegar and bi-carb soda are your friends. They’re effective and they’re cheap.

Vinegar helps to remove soap scum, light calcium build-up and is great for cleaning windows and mirrors (accompanied by paper towel). Mixed with water (1 part vinegar, 3 parts water) it may also help deodorise if it is safe to do so on the material you’re trying it on.

Bi-carb is great for stains as a paste (once again, if it is safe to do so on the material you’re trying it on), cleaning up cooking oil mess (make it into a paste) like that of the inside of an oven or rangehood filter, as a carpet cleaner/deodoriser (sprinkle it over the carpet about 5-10 minutes before you vacuum) and as a fridge deodoriser (keep a patty pan full in the back of a fridge to soak up weird smells).

If the calcium build-up in your bathroom or laundry is insane then hydrochloric acid is an adequate choice, however, wear a mask and gloves because that shit is nasty.

Got louvres? Wrap microfibre cloths around a set of tongs and fasten there with rubber bands to get in there properly.

Ceiling fans that don’t get a lot of use? Cover them with a pair of pantyhose to stop the dust from building up on them. Remove them when you want to use the fan and pop them in the wash.

Tops of shelves you’ve been ignoring? Layer newspaper or wrapping paper on top to collect the dust and change them every few months.

Best time to clean the shower? When you’re in it (remember to clear the drain of hair). Best time to clean your bath? Just after you get out but right before you pull the plug.

Mouldy walls? Fill a mop bucket with water, add about a teaspoon of clove oil (no more otherwise it won’t work) and clean the walls with a sponge mop.

Can’t be arsed doing the dishes? Rinse everything thoroughly, it’ll buy you one or two days until you have a sink load (at the most). Not doing the dishes straight away or not thoroughly rinsing runs the risk of attracting things like cockroaches, ants and mice.

Things that should be cleaned weekly? Bathroom, toilet, kitchen, floors, dusting and linen change (the dusting should always be done before doing the floors). Remember to vacuum inside the runners of doors and windows too.

Things that should be cleaned every few months? The fridge, pantry, ceiling fans, forgotten spaces (behind the fridge or washing machine, lamp shades, backs of cupboards), curtains (blinds come under dusting), other things I may have forgotten.

To keep on top of the laundry, before jumping into the shower every evening, strip off in the laundry (if it’s not outside like some NT homes) and chuck your dirty clothes straight in the machine then once the machine is full (two or three days later) wash them. Hang them out straight away. If you can’t and your machine is modern, set the delay function until you know you can hang it out. Someone who is too slow at hanging out their washing can be smelled a mile away. If you’ve got particularly grubby clothes and the machine has a soak function, use it. If it doesn’t have that function then use the laundry trough, that’s what it’s designed for (not to store crap in, storing stuff is for the cupboard underneath). There’s no need for fancy, branded soakers either. Lectric Washing Soda does the trick at half the price. It is the active ingredient we’re chasing after all.

Rounding up, the things essential to your cleaning arsenal:
Mop and bucket
Dustpan and banister brush set
Vacuum cleaner
Ordinary plastic bucket, gloves, mask
Steel wool, microfibre cloths, half scourer/half sponge combo, paper towel
Vinegar, bi-carb soda, draino and hydrochloric acid if you’re desperate
Bleach, toilet cleaner, disinfectant
Clove oil, eucalyptus oil
And the obvious laundry and dishwashing detergents

Yoo hoo! Your house is dirty!

Adulting: Loan Repayments

The banks aren’t likely to tell you this, but I will. You can mess with how much interest you get charged on a loan. It’s not that hard. It’s actually really simple. Followers of that Dave Ramsey bloke let me in on it through their own books.

Dave Ramsey’s way of getting it done is having an off-set account. This means that instead of getting paid into your regular account, you get paid into this off-set account which basically means your pay is going into your loan account. You withdraw from it as you need to cover essentials and leave the rest in there. Having such a huge amount of money going into the account each pay fortnight means less interest charged even though some of it is being pulled out to cover the cost of living.

There are two points that are essential to know however: It takes a huge amount of financial control/restraint/awesome budgeting to make this work so not all banks will offer this to every customer if they can see a borrowers track record on spending isn’t that great; there needs to be a basic understanding of how interest is calculated.

Interest is calculated monthly in arears. Simply, this means that the clever little calculators look back on how much your loan account had in it every day of the previous month (e.g. August) and on the first day of the next month (e.g. September 1^st) you get whacked in the face with the interest. So for every individual day that the amount owing has come down a bit, there’s less interest charged. Months with 31 days in it will always hurt interest-wise a little more than days with 30 or 28.  How interest is calculated also means that when it comes to making repayments it’s better to make them fortnightly or weekly rather than monthly.

Me being me though, I don’t do it this way. I do it my way. I get paid into my usual account (which isn’t with the same bank). When setting up the fortnightly automatic repayments out of my usual account I cringed when the number was $518. I asked my lending manager can that be changed, it’s doing my head in, it needs to be a number divisible by 5 so he bumped it up to $520. And then I thought ‘Upping it by $2 every fortnight is going to make f*** all of a difference’ so I logged on and changed it again… to $525, $7 more than what I’m supposed to repay. I didn’t stop there. As I said before, every day the loan has less money owing is a lower interest hit at the beginning of the next month. So next I scheduled $10 to automatically transfer over every Monday. That’s another $40 extra per month totalling $54 extra per month. As mentioned in the budgeting blog, the tax bill and council rates means I’ve had to put these extra repayments on hold for a while, just until I’m a bit more stable again. When I hook back in I’m going to change the extra payments from being on Mondays to being on Sundays and Tuesdays, still at $10 apiece. Which means I’ll go from $40 extra repayments to $80 extra repayments (totalling $94 per month extra).

How does this play out in the long run (which is where it is most important)? My loan is a 30 year loan. I’ve had this loan for 2 years and 1 month now which means I have 27 years and 11 months’ time limit left to pay it back. However, the estimated term of when I’ll have it paid off is 21 years and 6 months. That means I am over 6 years ahead on my repayments, I’ve achieved this in 2 years. Imagine how quickly you could pay off your own loan just by tweaking a few things!

Adulting: Cooking

I was 19 when I got to Legune Station in the Kimberley. I was very young, very naive. However, being out there made me grow up fast. Just as I was starting to get into the swing of things I got bucked off a horse, broke my back, spent four days in hospital, another month just lying in bed and that was it for me for the rest of the year. I came back to work onto light duties just as the camp were wrapping up mustering.

For the first part of the year our cook was actually a professional chef. I learned to like mushrooms because of his cooking. I learned from him how to chop certain veggies really quickly. Then he quit to go to Thailand. That sucked. The gardener got the interim job of cook until another one could be found. I learned to hate onions because of his cooking. Then we got this utter psycho (diagnosable psycho who wields pig-sticking knives and throws pots and pans at people) who was cook for about two weeks before he got fired. And then I was cook because I was on light duties. I hated it. Number one because I didn’t actually know how to cook. I continue to hate cooking because of all the preparation and cleaning involved and when I cooked for others I often felt like it was unappreciated. Now I’m on my own it’s much easier to peel back the corner of some plastic film and chuck it in the microwave.

Being shoved in the kitchen at 19 and being told to cook for 40 people was a bit daunting. At this point, I only knew how to cook pancakes, sausages, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, spaghetti bolognaise, some cakes and bacon the way I like it. Home economics at school taught me how to bake the cakes and it was my mum that taught me to cook the other things listed above. I was screwed. I was supposed to be able to whip up four meals a day and the only thing I could safely do was breakfast. What saved me was a dusty 1980’s reprint of Margaret Fulton’s first cookbook. That lady has no idea how much of a saving grace her cookbook was. She has no idea even that she taught me how to cook. Next thing you know I’m bashing out goulash, braised steak, stroganoff and biscuits.

Below are a few recipes that helped me survive cooking for big mobs of people or things that can be bulk cooked and frozen in portions.

GOULASH

1kg Diced beef
1 can Diced tomatoes
200mL Beef stock
1 Green capsicum, diced
1 Red capsicum, diced
1 Celery, diced
1 Onion, diced
1 tspn Paprika
1 tspn Cumin

Chuck it in the slow cooker in the morning on the auto setting, stirring it through thoroughly and it’ll be ready by dinner time. There’s enough in this recipe to feed a small crowd or portion it up and freeze it. Serve with mashed potatoes.

EASY CURRY

500gm Diced Beef
1 can Coconut cream
2 potatoes, diced
1 ½ cup Peas
2 Carrots, diced
1 heaped tbsn Curry powder

Mix the curry powder and coconut in a bowl before pouring it over the rest of the ingredients and stirring it through. Chuck it in the slow cooker on auto in the morning and by dinner it’ll be ready. This recipe will get you through a couple of nights. Serve with rice.

 

ANZAC BISCUITS

1 cup Plain flour
1 cup Rolled oats
1 cup Brown sugar
½ cup Coconut
125g Butter
2 tbsn Golden syrup
½ tspn Bi-carb soda

Mix the flour, oats, sugar and coconut together. Melt the butter in a saucepan then add the golden syrup, a dash of water and stir in the bi-carb. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and roll into balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Put it in the oven at 175 deg for about 15-20mins.

Adulting: Fixed and Variable Interest Rates

In shopping around for a loan, so far we’ve looked at interest rates and comparison rates. Now we’re going to look at variable and fixed interest rates. Seems quite obvious doesn’t it? A fixed interest rate stays the same amount for the term stipulated on a loan (usually 5 years) and a variable rate can go up and down.

Interest rates, especially variable interest rates are not exclusively determined by the bank providing the loan. It’s the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) that plays the biggest role in determining interest rates nationwide for one of their primary goals is to keep Australia’s economic welfare stable; there is a set target that they must achieve and maintain. When determining an interest the RBA looks at the activity over the previous month of overnight loans and the interest rate of those overnight loans in the money market; this is the cash rate. The RBA board meets on the first Tuesday of every month (except January) to determine the cash rate. Their decision is effective from the next day.

So, to keep the cash rate where it needs to be sometimes the RBA dishes out money to the banks like “Here, have all the money, we have too much!” and the banks respond by going “Hey, we don’t need that much money. Hey, Sheeples! We’ve got some money you might want. We’re almost giving it away”. And if the RBA is tightening the belt they’re like “No banks, bugger all money for you!” The banks’ response is “If the RBA won’t give us the money, we’re gonna take it from the Sheeples through higher interest rates!” This behaviour correlates directly back to those overnight loans and the cash rate target mentioned before.

Want to learn more about the RBA? Check it out here.

A fixed rate can change if the bank feels inclined to pass an interest rate drop onto its borrowers but your repayments don’t change and overall you’re protected from an interest rate increase though there are certain options that might not be available to you. Variable rates however, you’re at the mercy of the bank and your repayment amounts can vary according to the interest rate. Banks often offer more flexible terms for variable rate borrowers, however, the uncertainty of knowing what your repayments will be can make budgeting difficult.

Once again, shop around, find the deal that’s right for you and your situation. And as boring is at may seem, pay attention to what the news says about decisions made by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Once you’ve got a loan it affects you! Especially if you’ve chosen a loan with a variable interest rate.

 

 

Adulting: Interest and Comparison Rates

If you wanted to buy a house, getting a home loan is the number one way to go about it. There are very few people who can pay for a house upfront. Well done to those who can. However, let’s be realistic here. Most of us struggle to put enough away for a deposit let alone put enough away to purchase a house outright.

If you have got enough money together and are ready to look for a bank to take out a loan with then you are probably shopping around for the best interest rates. You’ll notice that there is an interest rate advertised in big, bold letters and then another which is comparatively sized as fine print. That big, bold interest rate might look enticing but it’s the little one tucked away to the side that you’ve got to actually pay attention to. This is called a Comparison Rate.

The big, bold interest rate indicates how much interest you’ll pay on the loan amount. The Comparison Rate shows the true cost of the loan. This is because most banks will apply any fees and charges to the loan and apply interest to them as well. So when looking for a home loan you need to look at both. Ideally a Comparison Rate should be of a very similar number to the interest rate. Smaller banks like Bendigo Bank are more likely to have interest rates and Comparative Rates that are similar. Bigger banks, like Westpac, the number can differ quite a lot. It might not look like much when comparing the columns now, but the long-running impact of the difference could determine how quickly you can pay the debt off and if you can afford that debt at all.

Using a website like Canstar can be useful in narrowing down a home loan that is right for you. Avoid being fooled by fancy interest rates and feel-good advertisements because at the end of the day it’s the terms of your loan and the Comparison Rates that can make or break your dream.

Adulting: Budgeting

Remember when 5c used to get a few lollies in the store? 5c doesn't get you feck all anymore... Your teeth says you don't need any more fecking lollies anymore. Your bank account agrees.

Budgeting sounds like such a bad, unwanted word that could easily provoke the rolling of the eyes of cynics and those who struggle with the responsibilities of adulthood. However, all attitudes aside, it’s necessary. Budgets aren’t just for businesses.

So where does one start? First, assess what one’s income is and what one’s expenditures and financial obligations are. Financial obligations, such as loans and rent, must be met as a priority and ideally banks and rental agencies prefer that repayments and rents be automatically deducted from the account that pay goes in to in an effort to ensure that they’re going to get what they’re owed.

Expenditures must be split into two categories: essentials and luxuries. Essentials are food, fuel, phone bill, insurance and other bills (like medical, mechanical, car rego and incidentals like birthday or Christmas presents for immediate family or partner). Luxuries are alcohol (yes, seriously), unnecessary clothes, unnecessary things, beauty products and treatments, take away, lunches and dinners out, concerts, recreational drugs (if you’re that way inclined) etc. You get my drift. If you can easily live without it, if it’s not necessary to your survival as a human in the modern world then it is a luxury.

I’m not saying luxuries should be ruled out completely, however, they must be reined in. They are luxuries after all. Massive budget restrictions of my own means I recently missed out on the ballet and the opera coming to town. I was devastated but feelings should not get in the way of priorities. Self-control is key, letting yourself have small luxuries means you don’t feel like you’re entirely missing out. I allow myself $40 a fortnight. This caters to a pay day lunch with colleagues and anything else that may crop up in the fortnight I might want to enjoy.

Earlier in the year, 35-year-old millionaire Tim Gurner (who also happens to just scrape in as a millennial himself) pissed off a lot of fellow millennials by saying that millennials have too big an issue with wasteful spending to be able to crack the home buyer’s market. What he used to get his point across was avocados and take away coffees. He has a point, these things add up and could mean an extra $50 per week saved, though people then hated him for dissing avocado consumption, never mind that he was only using them as an example. The message he was trying to put it out was that it’s all about sacrifice.

My own self-control hasn’t always had a stellar record. For example, a month ago I bought a handheld GPS for $150. I am still copping it on the chin and have not financially recovered from making that purchase one month later. This is exacerbated by the fact that my exorbitant tax bill (which keeps a dole bludger on a stolen bicycle idle on the job market for an entire month) and my council rates have both come in at the same time.

Hello? Are you still there? I know this is insanely boring, however, it is insanely important.

There’s a financial guru out there on the interwebs called David Ramsey (Google him and his methods and you’ll be able to find people willing to share their own experience). He makes big bucks teaching people how to manage their money. I was frugal and on a budget before I came across him, however, he has some clever ways of getting people to curb their spending and lifestyles. One method, which has been adopted by a friend of mine, uses an envelope system. I track all my expenses in a notebook, his envelope system puts an emotional twist on it.

Once your automatic deductions are taken from your account on pay day, withdraw what’s left, leaving behind $20-$30 to save, and put it in a variety of envelopes. Each envelope is allocated an amount and a purpose e.g.: $200 for groceries in one envelope, $160 for fuel in another envelope. This means that at any time that money is spent on a non-allocated purpose there’s the emotional set back of having to hand over that cash rather than mindlessly swiping this and pay-waving that. The intention is that you cringe and feel guilty about spending on something that isn’t a necessity… and it works. I like my notebook because I stare at the cost of something I’ve bought that I might not necessarily have needed and tears well in my eyes because I’m less likely to save that fortnight.

If your expenses are more than your income then the budget needs to be looked at it in minute detail. Are you trying to afford a lifestyle when you can barely afford life? Knowing my tax bill and council rates were coming I cancelled my pet insurance for Dog and stopped the extra repayments I was making on my home loan. I was informed about my employer’s deal with Microsoft for their Home Use Program and applied that so I could cancel my Microsoft Office subscription. Doing these three things meant $90 less in expenses per month. If you do go over budget, carry that figure across to the next fortnight by deducting it from your budget. Avoid writing it off by saying “I’ll do better next fortnight” because no, if you give yourself that rein, it will become an unhealthy financial habit and all this won’t be worth it.

It will hurt taking a good, hard look at your own expenses if you know there are a few too many times where you’ve been careless (did you really need that fishing rod?). Though it especially helps if you have a goal to work towards like paying off the car, saving for a holiday or saving for a house deposit. Once those goals have been achieved, set another goal. The forming of a diamond cannot be achieved without extreme pressure, a financial goal cannot be achieved without the same rigorous efforts.

 

Adulting: Introduction

Normally my blogs are somewhat entertaining as I stumble through adult life. Annoyingly, adult life contains so many responsibilities it makes us wants to go back to kindergarten and get our hands messy in finger painting again. We can think through our to-do list and do one thing on it then binge watch our favourite TV show until our to-do list becomes a vague, niggling feeling in the back of our minds. “Adulting is hard” has become a slogan for so many under the age of 35. “Adulting being hard” means having to work full-time is hard (many people would rather work from home in a specialist niche if it was financially viable). Raising kids is hard (I don’t know this personally, however, the impression most parents have given me have indicated that it’s not only stressful but it’s frustrating and scary too). Figuring out what to eat every day or even cooking is hard (this is how processed and fast foods have become such hugely consumed foods). Keeping up with the bills is hard. There need be no explanation of the last one.

With a focus geared more toward financial literacy than anything else, the next few blogs will give a bit of an insight, without delving too deep into my personal affairs, of how I deal with that horrid reality of “adulting”.

 

Achieve

My bank account has gone ouch and my sweat has poured as I’ve just finished building a kit dog cage, with a little bit of help from Roddy and Jewels, for the pooch. Safe from wild dogs and with way more room to move than being on the chain (which she and I both hated anyway) she had better appreciate it! It’s by no means great. It still requires shade cloth, a moated bowl for her tucker, milk crates or a plastic pallet for the kennel to sit on… Oh yes, the kennel. The one that had me realising that I should have put it inside the cage before I put the chain link on but the realisation came too late. Lucky I didn’t give away that old gate Mookster gave me mid last year. I may need to enlist the help of some tall people to get it over the top instead. Wink, wink.
Also on the list of things achieved is the “planting” of my pumpkin seedlings. Planted on the Saturday, 5 are dead, 13 are dying and 3 are amazingly alive. It’s only Monday so as predicted by nearly everyone, including myself, my gardening “skills” are radiant. There will be some survivors though because I put them aside for a friend to put in the garden of her new home.
I finally cut off the tops of six old chemical drums to use as blocks once filled with concrete to sit my future shipping container on. Their hobbies include blowing across the flat during storms and filling with rainwater.
I’ve christened my new spray unit by spraying weeds along the front of my block. This was followed by a lovely drive through six foot high, seeded black spear grass to inspect the dam. It appears from the comfort of my air conditioned car that it has water in it.
Future achievements may include, but are not limited to, finishing the keyhole garden, constructing a Tigger version of a Warrka Water tower (google it), finish pulling out the old fence, finish spraying before the weeds begin to flower, have the boundary slashed (since now I can’t afford to buy my own tow-behind slasher because my car is falling apart), plant my fruit trees before they die (they’re already showing signs of a zinc deficiency) and to regularly look back upon this list to keep myself accountable.
So this is where I leave you for the time being, as the dark of the night and the storm approaches, doing bugger all in my cruddy, little caravan, procrastinating at the simple task of feeding myself some dinner. Farewell!

NB: Dinner didn’t happen.

Eat

Most people don’t realise I cook with a billy can on hexamine tablets for dinner. I will probably die from aluminium poisoning. My anti-perspirant also contains aluminium. I’m okay with that.
Back to the point, what do I eat?
If I’m lazy or late getting back to the block I crack open a canned stew or baked beans or drive through McDonalds. If I’m back before 6pm I scrounge around hoarded ingredients in my fridge that better serves as a pantry. The staples generally are rice and pasta and more recently cous cous and pulses. Potatoes are purchased if I’m guaranteed to spend more than a few days out on the block (this goes for pumpkin and tomato too).

Rice: I have attempts at risotto using stock cubes, dehydrated peas and parmesan. Or paella using a can of diced tomato, a mini can of diced capsicum and a mini can of corn kernels.

Pasta: Napolitana was a staple which included a can of diced tomato and heaps of parmesan. Macaroni and cheese is always a favourite, from a packet, occasionally with a small can of tuna thrown in to bulk it up. Future recipes may include pumpkin pasta which includes tomato and parmesan.

Pulses: Tomato Lentil Curry happened a couple of times, with pumpkin thrown in for good measure. On the horizon is a non-descript soup.

Cous Cous: Moroccan cous cous was on the menu last night of which only half was eaten as I put too much spice in though I did add one of those kiddie sultana and dried apple packets to give a more authentic taste. Pumpkin and cous cous tagine is on the cards.

Potatoes: Feeling lazy? That’s fine. Punish oneself by peeling and cleaning a spud (I buy the dirty spuds for out here as they preserve slightly better) and dicing it. Boiled with some dehydrated peas, a small can of buttered mushrooms is added to the mix and disappointment ensues with my lacklustre dinner. I can’t even give that a name. Otherwise it’s a mock potato bake which is basically a potato sliced thinly, boiled, then poured over with UHT thickened cream and parmesan.

Why no camp oven? Because I’m frigging lazy. I don’t want to dig a hole. I don’t want to light a fire. I don’t want to fill a hole with the coals from a fire I didn’t want to light. I don’t want to spend money on buying a camp oven.
Why no meat? No refrigeration and I make up for the meat factor in canned meals, lunch at work and McDonalds.
Why no fresh veggies other than pumpkin, potato and tomato? See “Why no meat?”. Tomatoes are stored at work and brought out as needed.
Why don’t I get a little gas stove? I don’t want one. They blow up and I don’t want one. I see no sense in spending large amounts of money on a temporary situation. That money is better spent paying for light fittings and door handles and such.
Are there other foods in the fridge? Yes. Though I just uninspiringly stare at these. Deb mashed potato is part of this equation. Raspberry cordial is not stared at, it is drunk. Ingredients that aid in the baking and icing of cakes are stared at. I wonder why they are there.

Wheel

The wheel has undeniably been the most important invention of the human species. Some may argue that no, it was the iPhone. Those people are silly. Without the wheel, civilisation would have never been built and the iPhone never invented. So it all lies with the invention the wheel and how fantastic that individual, who realised its potential, was. For one wheel has dragged me out of the mire and up the hill and to my shitty caravan. Yes, I’m back on the block.
For the best part of five months I’ve managed to avoid the hole via house sitting which itself hasn’t been without adventures. I’ve even headed to the big smoke a few times during those months and stayed in the comfort of a hotel and a B & B. But nothing gets the wooden spoon like fighting your way through months’ worth of cobwebs to find your bed covered in dirt, dead insects and gecko presents. Dog is quite happy about the situation. She gets to run around and hunt for grasshoppers and sleep all day and run some more. My current native pervert is a blue-winged kookaburra who flies about while Thor slams his hammer above Pine Creek and the Douglas Daly.
While procrastinating getting out of an invention that is carried along by four wheels that sometimes get stuck and needing another four wheels to get out and then another four wheels again to get completely out (google a bloke called Kor Blund, he has a fantastic song about this very situation) I thanked the heavens, no, not really, thanked my Dad for buying me a little wheel for my birthday. This little wheel means I don’t have to get my four wheels stuck again through laziness over the issue of having to walk somewhere inundated with stuff. This little wheel fit nicely onto my wheelbarrow of which the original wheel perished some time ago leaving a garden bed half built.
With the new lease on life on the wheelbarrow I can now push my crap uphill to the camp rather than lug and drag it all. Then I can bring it back down the hill empty so I can push it back uphill full of more crap. So thank you to the inventor of the wheel and thanks even more to my Dad for gifting me one.