Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival

*sniiiiiffff* ah, can you smell that? That my friends is the unmistakable aroma of roses and horse shit, or if you are from around here: Spring Racing Carnival. Some of you may hear these three words and literally jizz your panties with the thought of crowds and booze and betting and high heels and the hot summer sun. I, however, detest the words. It is not only my slight dislike for the hot outdoors, my inability to wear heels for more than a few hours, my lack of money, my lack of betting know-how, nor my distaste for large crowds of australians drinking in one place. It is more the memories that haunt me. The memories of that fateful Spring where I stupidly agreed to work as an Ice-Cream vendor at the Melbourne Cup.


I suppose teenage stupidity and money lust were to blame... or maybe I had sniffed one too many gluesticks. Whatever the case, the fact still remains that it was one of the most horrible experiences of my working life. This repressed memory has been locked up tight folks, and now that I start to think about it, a few details are coming back. I must have been in high school still, as I recall a few people from my year level being roped in also. We didn't know what to expect, we were promised the world during that morning newsletter announcement...

On the first day I turned up at the deserted grounds wearing my black leather shoes, black pants and t-shirt. Thankfully the catering company were kind enough to provide me with an oversized black polo-shirt and a fashionable cap. Once looking the part, the sexy part that is, I was partnered up with the class clown and briefed on the day's proceedings. Basically we were to take an Ice-Cream cart (one on wheels with an umbrella) and pick any spot we like to stand for the whooooooole day and sell ice creams. Oh and the best part: we got to wear bum-bags!! awesome :
So out we went with the promise of a packed lunch and a lunch break down the track. Now, this was an unnaturally hot Spring, unlike this current one, I remember it being nearly 40 degrees! This is not one of my 'exaggerations' either, it was actually super hot in the sun in all those black clothes and i got a burnt nose despite my fashionable cap. The part we found out on the day was that we didn't actually earn the amount we were told, we could earn UP TO that amount as we were working on commission! So we actually made a lot of money that day - the class clown was a great entertainer and the more drunk everyone got, and the more shoes that ended up in hands, the more ice-creams we seemed to sell.
The second day, however, was not so great. I was partnered with the biggest douchebag imaginable, and someone stole our chuppa chup display as a form of protest against our overpriced wares, and threw them into the surging crowd of outstretched hands like the fire-truck santa that used to drive around my suburb on Christmas morning. On a side note, that was amazing! We would hear the siren and bolt outside to scramble for lollies on the grass, and would see children emerge from houses who we didn't know existed.

Amazing. Anyway, back to the story. I remember on that second day, I heard more complaints about overpriced $3.90 Magnums than ever before. These days they probably cost that much anyway. I also remember some paraletic guy raging to me that Souvalakis were being sold for $12! TWELVE DOLLARS!! I'm pretty sure I've ordered a lamb shish with tabouli and cheese and cooked onion or whatever brings the price up to that amount these days. Scary. I think on that hot awful day I earned only $30. I don't even remember if there was a third day - if there was I didn't go back.

These days when my friends start getting excited about the races, I get sweaty and self conscious and start feeling like I am being swarmed by people and see chuppa chups raining down from the sky, burying me. And then some drunk lady with no shoes grabs me and tells me how the line for the toilet was so long that she pissed herself. Maybe one day I will grow up and actually think that buying a new outfit (complete with hat), overpriced food and drink, losing my bets, getting burnt, sore feet, and being surrounded by drunk bogans and scrags (yes, i said it: scrags), and then having to get a train home is the epitome of a 'nice day out'. Maybe. But I doubt it. Maybe if i got a VIP invite and was in a special tent with free everything rubbing shoulders with Melbourne's best F- grade celebs I would have a better experience. Maybe.

what is this fucking list that she keeps talking about?!?!?!

I bet that's what you're all thinking hey? Well sirs and ladies, for those who cannot be bothered to go back a few pages, here is the list I created to keep life interesting and productive, and to do a few things I have talked about for ages with people:

I have completed only 2 items so far, oh brother! I have written 3 out of 12 poems (shit I need to do the October one!), and have cooked 19 new dishes out of 52! I also have a half finished garden and half finished pergola. I bought a $5 custard apple to try eating but it wasn't ripe so I am waiting until they are more in season. Probs should do some research hey? I have tentative plans to smoke the Shisha and am still trying to think of an interesting place to have a picnic - ideas??  I have until June 30 2011 to complete everything. my god.

I know some of you offered to participate in a few of these with me, sooooo if you read this please get me motivated to tick off some more items! Woot woot!

NEW BLOG FASHION: F-F-F-FASHION

Well hey there you little rascals! Did you notice my new look blog?? Josh sure seems to like it:



He was actually yawning, but it kinda looks like he is screaming. Besides he ALWAYS says "Oh em gee, HOT!" all the time, especially every time he sees me. If you know him, then you know i am not lying. And if you don't know him then just believe everything I say ^_^ Umm.... OK here are some creepy doll photos I found on my computer that you may like to see.

This one lives at my friend's house and photo bombs a lot of photos. a lot.

I saw this at the Daylesford Mill Market. Sexual Predator sailor, complete with dimples

Don't know why there are wings... or muscles...??

So I don't really know what to say... this post was 100% not planned out. I'll think of something good later I promise!!! I love how I can make my pictures huge now, expect lots of big close-ups :D

Oh, if you are new to this blog try clicking on a few things in the "tag cloud" on the right, which I have aptly named "How to find stuff good", and you will surely find something interesting in there! Oh and a belated HELLO to my newest follower, and now Elite member of society by decree of ME, Clare! Very exciting stuff, folks!! On a scale of strangers to close friends/relatives Clare is somewhere in the middle- which is a first for my followers list! She's a friend of a friend who I used to see most mornings on the train or at gigs but I didn't really know who she was, and because I am a bit socially awkward I never said anything. Recently we spoke for the first time and she complimented me and my bag - remember the one that died recently? Very kind! And now here she is! YAY FOR CLARE! ^_^

more DIY updates - shabby chic (shit) mirror

Herrooo! It occured to me that I have lots of un-addressed topics on here. Ages ago I decided I wanted everything WHITE!!! I have lots of found or donated furniture and it was all different wood stains and the combination of all of those stains was staining my eyeballs RED! So i mentioned the kitchen stools, here is the mirror before:

Yes, it was pretty nice in the first place, but my nature is to destroy. Destruction is the greatest form of creation as they say! So I planned to try my hand at some DIY shabby chic. Maki calls it "Shabby shit"... clearly it's not his prefered decor! I didn't want to take a photo earlier because I hadn't removed all of the tape from the mirror and i hadn't cleaned it. But then I thought "fuck it" and took a picture or 3 last night!

You may notice some purple tape remenants as well as some heinous smudging near the top of the mirror. I do not apologise for these things, nor do I apologise for the fact that I am wearing TRACKIES ie. my cooking/lounging clothes in the photo. Bogan. I know. Hey, we're among friends here aren't we? I'm comfortable with you, this blog is like a sleepover that you can't leave. I've cracked it and gone crying to my parents, and for some reason they can't get hold of your parents so you have to stay. Most awkward sleepover ever. Then it turns out your parents didn't like you and made a suicide pact after they dropped you off, and left you to my family in their will because they thought my parents seemed as though they had it pretty figured out. Now we are siblings. LOVE ME!!!!

dish 19) Ravioli

Heya! Last night I made another batch of soya bean burgers (extra thick this time) as well as some BEEF RAVIOLI:

And promptly froze them for later consumption! Every time i make fresh pasta, there is always a bit that doesn't work out. I threw away a third of the dough as it wasn't rolling through the machine. Stupid dough! The rest look really good, and I can't wait to eat them!! WOOOO!!

my first macaroon

I was walking around le Victoria Market on Friday in my lunchbreak, and I saw these at the French bakery:

How could I resist?? I didn't even see the chocolate ones in the back until I checked the photo later, as these bright ones had me hypnotised! I'd never had a macaroon before- even though they are on my list of things to cook and i had pretty much already decided i loved them. I went with a safe option just in case... strawberry with strawberry white gold creme:

How pretty are they?! I'm pretty sure it was $2.70 or $2.90 but it was worth it. It was really nice, but the thought of the sugar still makes my teeth hurt. I have sensitive teeth *blush* I want to be able to make these purely for the pleasure of doing so... but i don't know if mine would be as nice, or if they would just taste like egg white and sugar...? Hmmm

the missy / chester conundrum

Things have not been improving. This is Chester (cat) and Missy (dog) in January on their first meeting...

And this is them last week (after living together for a few days). As you can see, Missy LOVES chester, but he is not interested. She only wants to lick his face or butt-hole constantly.. what's wrong with that?!

But you can't get mad at her for too long for being cheeky, cos before you know it she is curled up on your bed looking at you with those puppy dog eyes...

Even the day that she chewed Maki's sunglasses up and got into my dirty clothes pile and cleaned my undies for me... thanks Missy... 'Preciate it.

dish 17 AND 18) Steak & Guinness pie AND Yakitori

Wow, I have now done 18 Dishes out of 52... I am feeling pretty good about that, pretty good indeed :) In Nagambie I took my favourite Jamie Oliver Cookbook along and lazily flipped through it on Monday while listening to the Beatles outside by the river. It was so relaxing!...............................4e;foiejw Oops, i just fell asleep, i was remembering the relaxation..

Anyway I made a shortlist of recipes that I wanted to cook and Josh picked which one sounded the most tempting to him. It was Steak and Guinness Pie, or as Jamie calls it in his rather wordy title fashion: Steak, Guinness and cheese pie with a puff pastry lid.



It was meant to go black in the slow cooking process but mine didn't :( frown. It was super dooper hot body delicious though :)



As I have a habit of doing, I didn't read the whole method before I started cooking which lead to some... minor complications. After we got back from the supermarket and started chopping ingredients I saw that the pie didn't actually need a total of 1.5 hours in the oven.. It needed 1.5 hours, THEN a stir, THEN another hour, THEN the puff pastry is added and it needs another 45mins. Did I mention that we were meant to be driving back home after dinner on Monday night?? Well we were. I was picturing us packing up at 10pm and getting to bed in the wee hours, then crawling out of the house for work/uni on Tuesday. No thanks. So Josh immediately decided he could skip his lecture on Tuesday morning and I spoke to my boss who said he would be happy for me to take another day off :) Woot woot! So the next thing you know, Josh is popping the champagne cork and as we needed something to distract us from the gorgeous smells of rosemary and onions and beef filling the cabin, we put "UP" on, which made me cry 3 times. Good thing Josh thinks it's cute that I get emotional over movies ^_^ Our extended holiday came to an abrupt end when Josh realised he had an optometrist appointment at 1pm back at home... so we had to set our alarms for like 8am or something loco and pack and clean and drive away. Poo.

The 18th dish in my new repertoire is the Japanese dish YAKITORI!! I love this dish! My first CONSCIOUS memory of Yakitori was when I went to Japan with Josh for our 3 year anniversary in March 2008. We were walking back to our hotel from late night drinking at 2am, and we saw the yakitori vendor selling his delicious heaven sticks for a few hundred yen a pop.

Those 4 lanterns say Ya - Ki - To - Ri. How coool! So basically Yakitori is like a meat skewer with a sticky sweet/soy sauce which is charcoal grilled. The name Yakitori is, like many Japanese dish names, very literal and derivative. 'Yaki' means 'to grill' and 'Tori' is chicken. Traditionally you will see yakitori made of offal like hearts, skins, intestines, tails etc but the most western friendly version is Tori Niku (tori= chicken and niku= meat) which is just nice thigh meat on skewers. That's the one I tried :) When I say that this night was my first conscious experience, it's because I have a terrible memory and may have absentmindedly eaten in on some Japanese excursion durng high school or duting my Yr 11 Japanese exchange holiday. I like to imagine I didn't and my first brush with this dish was in Japan with Josh :)

So I have been wanting to make this for some time now, and finally decided to make it a few nights back. I gathered my ingredients and made a thick and glossy sauce...

Then Josh beautifully skewered the meat and spring onions for me. I found out that sometimes they use 2 skewers to thread the meat and spring onions on to stop everything from rotating on the stick during the grilling process. But this recipe didn't say that :P

Here is the finished pile (drooooooooooooooooooool)

And then we put it all together in this bento box:

And stuffed our everloving faces. I still have heaps of rice and stuff so I'm thinking of making some sushi! I ave never made Inside out sushi before so maybe I could do that :) WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

my relaxing weekend away

Firstly, awww, look at this egg I saw at Josh's mum's house on Saturday morning, how cute!


Anyway so despite the title, the weekend didn't start out that relaxing really. On Saturday I was tired and hadn't eaten anything still by 2pm-ish and was driving with Josh to Nagambie, when I suddenly felt the crazies set in. If I'm tired or hungry I can really act like a baby. Fo real. I can't even remember what I was being dramatic over. I think i was annoyed firstly at the scattered rain, which was torrential one moment and nothing the next, and the fact that my wipers were making that squeaky noise almost every time, regardless of all the rain. I was also trying to eat my roll, drive, use wipers and indicators in the Tulla freeway roadworks and I think Josh was trying to tell me something with the music loud and his mouth full of food. That might have done it. But once we got there at about 4.30pm I had a nap on the couch and was 100% after 15 mins. Poor Josh :)

The whole weekend was pretty much all about food - just the way I like it! Due to the serene setting and lack of distractions, you consequently have a limited number of things to do so you use meals to break up the day. It. was. amazing. ....Statement. We bought bags and bags of food and drink with us, and just thought we could take it home if we didnt eat it. We didn't even get close to finishing it! On Saturday night Josh wanted to make that Jamie Oliver Crispy Sticky chicken recipe again, so we had that with some salad and wine and watched about 3 episodes of Futurama with the directors commentary on. It's really interesting listening! We had healthy fruit and cereal breakfasts and then stuffed ourselves stupid for the rest of the waking hours. Cheese platters, chips, lollies - you name it, we ate it. On Sunday we went for a drive to Shepparton and got some new shoes (which i forgot to take photos of) and also did the obligatory SPC factory visit. I got a slab of Bundaberg "Peachee" and lots of those delicous Baxters Chutneys. That place is coco loco. We were too hungry to wait for our lunch plans so we got some KFC chips for the drive back. Gotta love drive-thru car chips!Yeah so we got dressed up and visited the local Tahbilk Winery to pick up a jar of the beautiful Purbrick & Crawford tomato and chili relish they sell, and got some late afternoon lunch at the Wetlands cafe there:




I had the herb encrusted salmon on a beetroot, carrot and herb salad. Josh had the beef with broccolini and a potato filled with its own potato mash. They were both so delicious. After that i'm pretty sure we went back to the cabin for a nap. I was so deep in my food coma that it was a bit of a blur. Seeing as we ate our lunch at about 4pm or something we ended up picking at a cheese platter and salad at around 10pm. That was a cool dinner :)

We also went into Nagambie town as I wanted to visit the antique shop where I got my kitchen hutch... but i saw it was under new ownership. I laughed because my dad had swiped 2 cheap souvenir bells from there on seperate occasions to give to me as a joke (he has a strange sense of humour and is rapidly becoming a full blown clepto). I told him that the bells were the lynchpin and he put the owners under. He didn't seem very upset, maybe only a little for the fact that his running joke was now over. The new owners had a table outside of $1 nick nacs and I got this:

This just reminded me of my family because when I was growing up, every cut or burn called for some Menthol Camphor. I showed this to my dad and he was pumped and his eyes went all glossy. He told me that his dad used to work for Watkins as a door-to-door salesman - I can't believe I never knew! I said he could keep the tin or give it to my nana as a gift. I will have to keep my eyes open for more cos I'd like to have one for myself :) The writing on the back is funny, it recommends use of menthol camphor for almost everything you can think of including cuts, burns, colds, rectal irritation, frostbite, non-venomous insect bites and they say it's also great after shaving. Hilarious.

Anyway on Monday I wanted to have a carboot picnic somewhere weird to tick off the list item "have a picnic in a strange location" but we couldn't think of anything good enough so instead I taught Josh how to drive my manual car and do hill startrs and everything...

.... all so that he could reverse it up to the view of the river and we could just eat lunch next to the cabin and watch the water flow by. We had leftover sticky chicken on rolls and some beer and chips. Very relaxing day...

I also painted my nails...

And watched lots of movies while Josh did his Uni Assignments like a good student. We watched "UP" and I cried about 3 times... hahahaa! What a sad/happy movie that was! Oh and also I made a delicious new dish which i will post about very very soon!! I didn't really take many photos, I was too busy laying on the couch or on the grass by the water enjoying the quiet :)

*sigh* I want to go back!

Sangria Fiesta

~Hey Thurr~

Well I feel like I am powering through these 52 new recipes but at the same time feel as though I am running out of time!! I am confident that I will make it... but I haven't been doing many of my other list items really! I'm a total noob at this accomplishing a million goals at once thing! Speaking of noobs, you always know a Melbourne noob when they push the button at the lights in the CBD... they are automatic... der! Anyway. After making burgers, pizza dough and felafels on the weekend I was a bit unsure what to do next. I invited some friends for dinner last night who just got back from Europe and I figured I could use all those felafels I made (and froze) and we could have a nice fresh/healthy dinner. Here is the menu, courtesy of Maki and Hayden:

Fourth course never eventuated, and there was no stabbing involved with the tabouleh BUT it was a nice dinner nonetheless! Here is the picture I took of the felafels last weekend - before i oven baked them:

YUM. I oven baked them and squashed them a little. I deep fried a few to see what they would be like but they were really oily and they shrunk in size. Not a fan. I'll leave the deep frying to the professionals at Shwarama *respect*. Oh and here's some nice tabouleh i whipped up:

Here is a rather blurry photo of the finished wrap - I think I had one too many sangrias and couldn't hold the camera straight :)

And the Pièce de résistance... THE SANGRIA:

Also YUM! I found a recipe online and changed it a tad- it's definately not traditional but it was delicious! It was 1 bottle of red wine, 1 bottle of lemonade, 1 sliced orange, 1/2 sliced lemon, 1.2 sliced lime, 1 sliced punnet of strawberries, 1 sliced apple, and a splash of tequila. Other recipes suggest ginger ale, orange juice and other things, but i kept it fairly simple.

My love heart ice cubes ^_^ Speaking of love hearts, check out this little face:

This is Missy - my mum's puppy. We are minding her while their house is getting finished. Mum is currently living in a tent in the backyard - and hopefully hasn't been washed away in this weather!! Don't think I am a terrible daughter - I have offered her couch space but the stubborn lady refuses and says all is well. So I have had missy for 2 days now, and already I feel the attachment growing. I looked at this photo and a big smile spread across my face. I love animals. From the rare visits I had with Missy I thought she was an untrained little brat, plus i held a grudge against her for ripping my stockings, but she is actually sweet and responds well to commands and always wants cuddles. Always. The only thing I have to keep saying is "NO LICKING!" cos she has so much love to share and wants to lick everyone! I felt bad putting her outside today in this 14C rainy weather but i also didn't want to get home and find a nice big puddle or smelly poo on the carpet. I'm horrible, I know. She absolutley LOVES chester, she just wants to lick his face when she sees him, but he is more of a chilled out guy, nice and slow paced, so he doesn't know what to do. She just circles him licking his face and he backs away or falls over. I should film it, it's cute. I'm a sucker for animals - remember my plans for a rabbit and chooks are still on the cards!! :)

Anyway, I'm sure I will have some good updates next week as Josh and I are going away to Nagambie for the weekend! I'll do some washing and shopping tomorrow morning and then we're off from 1pm and get back Monday night!! WEE-hooooo! I will look up some recipes to make while we are there. I'm thinking some bread might go down a treat!!

oh what a night!

why hello there! Care for a story? Well first let me give you a synopsis:

Jade Kelly takes us on a magical and fearsome journey in which we see her scale barbed wire fences and run through paddocks with a flashlight and a box of Whiskas cat food in the frantic search for her beloved cat Chester.

Intrigued? Thought not. Haha. Anywhom I will tell you the story nonetheless. Last night started out as normal as any other night. I arrived home and complained about being hungry while i stood alternatingly in front of the fridge and pantry thinking of what to make for dinner. I had gotten one step further than usual... this time I knew vaguely what I wanted: Japanese. I couldn't be bothered going to the supermarket to buy fancy things so I improvised. I cooked up some rice, made a quick salad, got a can of tuna, defrosted 3 Gyoza from the batch I made, and got out a block of dry tofu I had bought that day. Here's what I ended up with:



It was amazing. I am a huge fan of tofu cooked in this way. I made a quick marinade of white miso, mirin and sesame oil and rubbed it all over, then put it on the grill pan. The little black lines were simply the charred marinade, and it was delicious! Maki tried some and said it tasted like a big pancake. It was yum! After I ate Maki suggested we go for a quick walk before Bear Grylls started at 8.30pm, so we got on our walking shoes and set off. Only problem was that Chester started following us. Usually he gets scared after a while and turns back and goes home. This time he followed us further than ever before.

There is a park at the end of the street, and usually he doesn't like going in. This time, maybe because there were 2 of us, he followed us all the way in about 20 meters behind meowing because he was frightened, then a dog saw him and charged. Instead of the normal cat reaction of "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE QUICK!!" He just crouched down and watched the dog run at him and circle him barking. I yelled out but he didn't react. The owner sauntered over and explained that 'Nitro' wouldn't hurt a fly. They had this weird mexican standoff where the both just lay staring at each other. The owner thought it was really funny because his dog was wagging it's tail indicating it wanted to play, but Chester was not reacting at all. He said that his dog thought Chester was a dog too.

We kept walking and thought Chester would turn back, but he kept coming, his little bell jingling. It was soon to the point where he had followed us so far that we couldn't be bothered cutting our walk short just to take him home - we should have done that ages ago if we were going to do it at all. So we decided we'd just keep walking and he could follow his scent backwards and go home as he had done before, albeit over a shorter distance. After a while he stopped following and we climbed through a fence and did a lap of the school oval then walked back home waiting to see him rolling around in the yard at 8.30pm - perfectly timed to watch Bear Grylls from my lap.

This wasn't so. He was nowhere. So we grabbed torches and his cat food box and set off again. We got aaaall the way to the schoolground again and saw this weird tent/rubbish pile thing and 2 shiny little eyes staring back at us from a distance. We thought it might be him so i shook the cat food box again (this is a proven way of communicating with him) and heard his bell jingling. 'What a relief!' i thought, 'He can hear us now, he will come over here and we can go home!'. WRONG. The problem was he was fenced in this paddock by a barbed wire fence, with that and a canal seperating us from him. We crossed the bridge over the canal and Maki jumped the fence abandoning his flashlight. I was standing there trying to light his way and illuminate Chester's eyes so we could keep track of him. Mel called me because Maki had left his phone at home and was meant to let her in so she could pick up something. I told her what was going on, and said I had the spare key to the house with me and that we wouldn't be long. I was wrong.

Eventually Maki got Chester and carried him back to the fence, and when they were about 1 meter away a noise spooked Chester and he used Maki's neck as a starting block and took off back into the paddock. Maki tried for another 10 minutes to get him from the tall weeds near the fence but there were dogs barking and he was freaked out by everything- including us. We got another near success when we coaxed him to about 5 meters from the fence and then this band of Mauri teens came along. One on a bike, one with a flashlight, another had a girl on his shoulders, and then there were a few others playing music from their phone and singing and laughing. Chester ran off again as they approached. Maki asked them nicely to keep it down as we were trying to find a scared cat. "Sorry bru" one said. "Shh, they're trying ta find tha ket!" another said.

After it seemed Maki was having trouble again, I slid my phone, keys, flashlight, and cat food under the fence and climbed up and over. I got pricked by the barbed wire (luckily it was old and dull) and it ripped a few holes in my newish bonds track pants. I traded places with Maki and went after Chester, he just kept walking away from me. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and could almost hear the victory bells ringing as I walked back to the fence with him seemingly calm. Well, he was calm until Maki climbed back over the chain fence and the noise freaked him out. I had to clamp his front paws in my hand and crush his body to mine as he was trying to buck out of my grip. Maki was over and beckoned me to the end of the fence where there was a small gap enough for a cat to be passed through. I lost hold of him 3 times standing in that corner, grabbing him by a fistful of skin and fur each time to drag him back. First time by the scruff, then his back, then his side. I have never handled him so roughly before and didn't really even realise what I was doing to him, or what he was doing to me with his claws. Eventually i got him under control and threw him through the gap. He was going too crazy for Maki to grab him. He hit the ground running and bolted off into the night with Maki in hot pursuit. I suddenly found myself on the wrong side of the fence with both flashlights... again. I went up and over, tearing a few more holes in my butt, and could only blindly guess which direction they went. Luckily it was towards home. Chester seemed to kind of know the right way to go...

I snuck back through the gap in the other barbed wire fence on the other side of the bridge and walked back along the canal toward home. I heard Maki's voice about 1/3 of the way along. He was crouched beside a mass of tangled vine which had been growing on someone's back fence and taken it down many years ago. Chester had cleverly got himself nestled right in the middle of the tangled mess and was meowing for assistance. It was then that I saw the blood all over my hands and felt the stinging for the first time. We crouched there panting for a few minutes trying to get Chester to come toward our voices. Maki went home with the spare key to let Mel in because we had kept her waiting in our driveway for ages, thinking we'd be back soon. I was now alone with both flashlights and no communication with Maki as he didn't have his phone. Chester's meows seemed to be getting closer after about 5-10 minutes of me coaxing him toward me, and finally he stuck his head out to sniff my finger and i grabbed him by the scruff HARD and drabbed his limp body out. Cats freeze up when you grab them like that, it's strange. I thought for sure he would claw my face off and run off again but I think he had calmed down a bit seeing as we were away from cars and barking dogs. I held him against me and pocketed the flashlights and was awkwardly carrying the cat food too. I could have just left the stuff there and gone back for it, but nooo I always do things the hard way. I was praying that he didn't get spooked and bolt so i quickly called Mel to tell her I found him and was on my way back.

I was almost near the park when Maki appeared out of the dark and grabbed the food and a torch so I could clutch Chester with both hands. He could hear cars near the park and was trying to get away again. I was giving him the old "Don't you dare pull this shit now, not again!" lecture. Part of me thought if I let him get away he would follow us home seeing as he knew the park...but then I visualised him up a tree and clutched him harder. I could tell that he knew his location when we emerged from the park and stepped into our quiet street. I had his belly against my chest, back legs sprawled like a frog and had his head and front paws clamped down to my shoulder. Once we got inside and into the light, I put him down and watched as he casually strolled to his food bowl and had a feast of water and Whiskas which we had been shaking in his face for the past hour or so. While i inspected my wounds:

and looked for the dettol, he just lay down and didn't move for a while:

Does this look like a traumatised cat to you? No, not really... more tired. I worried that I had hurt his body by manhandling him, squashing his paws, grabbing his fur and skin, crushing him against me etc.. but he wasn't reacting when i pressed on his legs and back testing for pain. Also he had crazy dandruff all over his back from where i was grabbing him, and it was allll over my clothes, as well as half of his fur. So new rule in the house: Next time you go for a walk, lock Chester INSIDE! Little crazy cat. Needless to say, I slept like the dead and this morning got some strange looks on the train as my scratches and slices were still bright red :O

dish 15) pizza from scratch

yoyoyo!! So on the weekend, I also made pizza from scratch on Sunday evening! That, obviously, involves making the dough from scratch. So i did. Here are some shots:

Those are Josh's hands you see there! I made the dough and he assembled the pizza once the dough had risen. It was very but I do like a thinner pizza. I guess practice makes perfect! Now i want to make bread! I don't know if i have ever made bread before... WOOHOO!