Some nights it gets cold

My sympathy goes to those of you suffering through the cold winter in Melbourne. Our weather never really gets very cold, but since we’re used to high temperatures of 30 degrees most of the time, when the temperature drops to 25 degrees or below, we feel it cold. That usually only happens after dark. I have a blanket which I use on these nights as one sheet is not enough. If it drops down to 21 degrees, I need to fold my blanket so that it is double thickness, but it doesn’t cover my legs then.

One day it was rainy and overcast all day, and when it was shower time in the afternoon, I couldn’t face having a shower with cold water, which wouldn’t have had the chill taken off it by the sun that day, so we heated up some water and mixed it with cold and I had a nice warm shower. So far, it’s only been once that we’ve needed to do that.

Here are some photos that were taken on that same day later in the evening, when they had started a fire for warmth. I too, heated myself up next to the fire.

Even the dogs felt cool and appreciated the warmth of the fire.

Don’t burn the house down!!

This weekend was the first time we cooked/prepared all our meals in our haus kuk. Sara and I decided to only cook dinner and have an easy breakfast and lunch. I’m having muesli for all my weekend breakfasts, lunches will vary, but on Saturday I had a cheese and tomato sandwich – the first one I’ve had since I’ve been here!

We had stir-fry for dinner (my specialty!) and my famous banana crumble for dessert, cooked over the fire – it turned out well.

Anyway, now for the exciting part! I used the kerosene stove to prepare part of the banana crumble and turned it off when I had finished. After I cut up the vegies, I was ready to boil them, so I turned the kerosene stove on again and tried to light it. I had left some pressure in it from before, so too much kerosene was coming through and I had this massive flame coming up from the stove. It was getting really high and the flames were licking the plastic tarp covering. It was rather scary! I ended up getting some oven gloves and getting it out of the hauk kuk, tipped over on the ground and it managed to die. So that was a bit of an ordeal.

I had a second attempt, this time with the stove outside the haus kuk and I still had the same problems and lack of success. Then I went and asked for help, which resolved the problem as he got it lit for me. The next day when I had to light it again, I managed okay, so hopefully I’ve got that sorted now.