Citrus, Sunday and such stories

 So, one of the list items for the new house is room for citrus.

One of the houses that I looked at yesterday HAD established citrus trees!

There are 2 wishlist items that have yet to be met, one achievable the other to be determined.

Image- fruit in a grapefruit tree, starting to colour against the green of the leaves and the blue of the sky. The thick brown branches are dancing highlights of this shot. Ha! You can't unsee it!

Which is absolutely terrible, Muriel.

Our citrus here is definitely on track. I did a wander around this morning, and visited the lovely Ruby in the middle - to the left - of the back garden.

Image is exactly as described above. Well mowed lawn (thanks V) so clockwise from top neighbours tree, lighter in colour our bamboo and the honey gem acacia, to top right spite lilli pilli (in our yard, involved a favour and two long gone neighbours), on the very edge an iron bark, Hills Hoist, old sandpit come compost pile, a wheelbarrow, buckets, bags of stuff and omg 😱 old icecream containers repurposed as compost tubs. Oops, I am embarassed! To the front a garden bed filled with pots, above it a straw covered bed, the asparagus bed, an orange tree with more than 2 - the hitherto annual record - an an old piece of gym equipment that has been a volleyball net, shade cloth drape and garden ornament for years. And then on the left, Ruby Grapefruit.

Edited to note the Creamy Frangipani - at least 45 years old if not older.

This year is the first year she is fruiting from the Western side. The buyer may have also bought himself a bumper crop, as it is still a way from ripe. I found out the hard way by trying to juice the one that broke into my hand when checking them this morning. One step past facelift!

Image - has this branch got a King Julian vibe or is it just me?

Still, spare a thought for my Dad - he got the truly too early pruned fruit and tried to marmalade it with some lemon juice that he had in the fridge.

Now, one of the amazing team of carers that we have is a girl - woman - I went to school with (she will always be Farrah Fawcett Majors of my primary days) has this formidable no-nonsense nurse mother who was a recipient of a jar. He got it back with a review. There were medicinal suggestions for it.

Dad told me that they were all going over the hill this morning.

"Who" I said thinking that he was talking about the cattle but it was mortality talking. 

I have also been in contact with my mother's sister of late and she told me that she wouldn't be around forever - then she told me of her theory that you inherit your genes from one parent OR the other. And her side was Aunt S, who lived to 100. So maybe less than 17 years.

Image - one gorgeous black cat s-t-r-e-t-ch-ing next to Kryton, our robot vacuum.

We also had book club - I had a sudden realisation Thursday that today was the last Sunday of the month and nothing was going to happen unless I made it and enough enthusiastic folk (just) gathered and hatched a plan.

I made soft spring rolls with miso-glazed tofu on some and avocado on some and they were divine. Everyone had eaten (?) so I have all lunches sorted for work this week.

Image - isn't it terrible, I can't even attribute this properly as it was some facebooky thing. Please come forward if you know where I got it from. Newspaper clipping : curdled milk, of a peculiar kind, made after a Bulgarian recipe and called "yaghurt", is now a Parisian fad and is believed to be a remedy against growing old. A correspondent who has tried it, says he would prefer to die young.

Our fridge seems to be getting fuller everyday. There seems to be a tsunami of jars coming forward crowding the leftovers forward.

Anyone else got that problem?