One thing after another

"They're funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you're having them." A. A. Milne

I know it's been a long time without a post, but we are at last coming out of a long series of misadventures. The picture at left is much more cheerful than those misadventures have been although, fortunately for David and I, the worst of the misadventures have not been ours. So herewith the story of the last week and its unfortunate series of events, which are more or less over for us but not for our friends. With, of course, particular reference to food - even though food is not a central player here. I shall indeed probably have to work hard to get it into the saga. Plus thoughts on luck and chance related concepts to coincidence which I wrote about recently, but not quite.

This is where it all began, although we didn't know it at the time. Happy times. Joyful times in fact for this crowd of children - the children of our daughter-in-law's friends. The Sunday before last she threw a party to thank all the people who had helped her in her bid for local council election. An aim, alas not quite attained, but nevertheless I'm sure that some satisfaction had been achieved, and lessons learned for next time. I will come back to why it all started here.

Two days after this we set off with our friends for two nights at the RACV resort in Creswick in the Victorian goldfields, just a little north east of Ballarat and two hours drive away. It was cool but sunny and we anticipated a relaxing and entertaining three days exploring the countryside, and being looked after in relative luxury - not five star maybe, but almost.

The journey around the Melbourne ring road was, as always, unnerving - lots of traffic, which included many, many large trucks driving at speed although the rest of the drive was relatively calm, if tiring for the driver - David. For we had chosen to go in one car - a logical choice, but ultimately perhaps, a mistake. On arrival we were allotted our rooms by the very friendly staff, and here was I suppose our first disappointment - although it was not seen that way at the time - well only mildly - for our view was of the car park not the golf course. Witness this photo of the car below our balcony with its dream of sunny climes.

Nevertheless all was well. We had arrived, the weather was perfect for exploring, and we had bargain Domaine Chandon bubbly to celebrate, plus some mini quiches that I had made to consume for lunch. And so we set off for a walk around the nearby Creswick Lake, which I have to say curiously reminded me of the various beautiful lakes we had seen and explored in Canada's British Columbia many years ago. Maybe it was the pine trees.

And the track as it turned out was the scary thing, not the bears of which there were none of course, just ducks. The track was somewhat perilous - narrow, at times sloping precariously and criss-crossed by the exposed roots of the trees. Which now causes me to contemplate yet another aspect of chance - which plays a huge role in what is to come - accidents don't always occur where you might reasonably expect them to. I was mildly anxious about tripping and falling all the way around.

In spite of the difficulty of the track - for yes it was a track, not a path - we eventually made it all the way around to that calm green space on the other side where we began. And this is where, looking back, the series of misadventures truly began - a text on my phone from my daughter-in-law - "I have COVID". Oh dear poor Dionne, we thought but didn't worry too much for ourselves. It was such a lovely day and we felt relieved and proud of ourselves for having made the trek around the lake safely.

So back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before dinner - which was fine if not outstanding - although I have to remark on my glass of Blue Pyrenees Bone dry rosé which was very nice. I see they have it in Dan's for around $18.00

And so to an early bed after a day of anticipation and small joys - the ducks at the lake, the sense of achievement in getting there at all, and a sense of anticipation for a very pleasurable two days of rest and relaxation.

Come the morning however, all was not well, because David was feeling awful, which, if it hadn't been for Dionne's text I would have just put down to bad temper after a bad night's sleep. However, after breakfast he perked up and we did indeed put it down to poor sleep, although just to be on the safe side we agreed that a RAT test would be a good idea. So our first stop on our day's adventure was the village pharmacist for said test. Result - Negative. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and onwards to Daylesford for a very pleasant day out, which began with another lake walk - although this one was on a very well laid out path, so much more relaxing.

Halfway round we stop for a toilet break which place was surrounded by beautiful lavender. My friend, who cannot resist beautiful flowers, went close and was stung by a bee, but this was not enough, for as she stepped off the low wall she fell on to the hard ground and broke her wrist. Yes it was that obvious and that painful. I'm sure that she would approve of this quote from Lemony Snicket: “I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.”

For the thing about my friend is that she has a very long, list of medical and other issues over her lifetime - which I guess we could all put down to bad genes or somesuch - but they have been accompanied by very poor treatment, bad doctors, years of wrong treatment and so on, for which one can see no other reason than just pure bad luck. As with this fall.

I will not detail all that followed on from this fall - just a brief summary - a visit to Daylesford's small hospital where she was patched up with a plaster cast and a sling, a fast exit from hotel and a trip back to Melbourne - Box HIll hospital - more patching up and another heavy plaster, but a referral to a specialist she knew. An appointment in a few days and then an appointment for surgery. All too long, but promising. Then Thing 1 - David does have COVID and then so do I. Thing 2 - her specialist also has an accident and so cannot operate - what are the odds of that? - but she is handed over to a colleague which entails long trips into town for X-rays - why all that way for an X-ray one wonders. Then true disaster - she now has COVID and in spite of initial assurance that nevertheless the operation would take place the aneasthetist refuses to do it - or maybe it was the specialist. So now she has to wait another two weeks until COVID free. You would not believe the mishaps and disasters. And all to somebody who seems to almost attract them - which of course she doesn't.

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.” Lemony Snicket

When I was looking for suitable quotes on the topic of chance and luck I was somewhat appalled to find so many of them saying that there was no such thing as bad luck, and that we brought it all on ourselves. Things like 'the harder you work the luckier you become' - one of David's favourites I have to say. Tell that and similar to anyone who has suffered disasters, accidents and the like. Then there are the religous ones and the fate ones which is almost the same as religion. All part of God's plan sort of thing. But especially through my ongoing experience with these particular friends, I do think that some people are just unlucky, through no fault of their own. One is often, just in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is no way that you could foresee that this would be the case.

Meanwhile David and I have suffered COVID - as one does. Not well, but not really ill either. We take our antivirals and we rest, and are almost over it. So far one more member of our family has succumbed, but it passes.

I promised food entering into it, and it does in a few ways. The first is that we now have in our fridge lovely picnic food provided by our friends for a lunch we would have been eating shortly after the fall. Which is minor other than to note that my friend seems to think that some of it should be thrown away - packets of cold meat and cheese - even though these unopened packets have not reached their use by date. Which I guess just demonstrates different people's attitudes to such things. We shall return it all at some point and she can decide.

Another is this:

I have now made three batches of wild plum jam in spite of suffering slightly from COVID. Suffering enough to require me to rest at intervals in the process. For my main symptom has been tiredness, exhaustion. So why would I choose to do this now? Well the birds were hovering. Indeed one tree - the second batch, was surrounded by half-eaten plums and pips. My last batch - shown here in a laundry cupboard because there is no more room in the pantry - represents about half of the plums from that tree. I am now torn between leaving the rest for the birds, if they haven't already taken them or rescuing them to make more jam - or chutney ...

Do I need to really? Probably not but a tiny bit of me just cannot let free fruit go to waste even though we really should be looking after our wildlife. I shan't be doing anything about it today anyway. I'll leave it to fate perhaps and see if the birds have taken them all.

One last foodie thing - I now acknowledge that the freezer is my friend. On my two worst days I really did not feel like cooking dinner, and somewhat late in the day realised that I had meals in the freezer. And so one night we dined on pasties, and on another a smoked fish and asparagus pie. They were godsends. I really should reorganise my attitude to the freezer.

And one last disaster - in the rush to leave I somehow along the way - either there or on the journey - lost my most recently purchased and somewhat expensive reading glasses. I'm ashamed to say that this is a minor tragedy for me, even though I am fortunate enough to be able to say it's only money. And it is.

Maybe the lesson to be learnt from all of this is that 'all shall pass'. It's what you do with disastrous weeks like this rather than dwelling on it. So I'll leave you with three more sort of apposite quotes that I found along the way:

"But with your life you make a few bad decisions, get unlucky a few times, whatever, but you have to keep going, right?" Cecelia Ahern

"Don't grumble! Don't stew! Some critters are much-much, Oh, ever so much-much So muchly much-much more unlucky than you!" Dr. Seuss

Which is so sadly true - and in my case my sufferings are slight in comparison to my friend's, some of which were indirectly caused by myself - the COVID.

Margaret Atwood is here talking about writing of course, but I think it can be applied to life as well:

"So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what."

Apologies for probably boring you with this saga. There just seemed to be so many things, many of them totally unlikely, one after the other that I had to get it off my chest. Anyway I'm back to blogging. I really haven't felt like it all the last week.

THE PAST

November 27 - my father's birthday. A happy and cheerful man.

2023 - Pictures, words, irritations and detours

2022 - Classics are the classics for a reason

2021 - When is gin really gin?

2020 - Anitpasti - a first recipe from Elizabeth David

2019 - Lucky dip part two - Fancy and simple with scallops

2018 - Petits pois à la française

2017 - Tomato chilli jam

2016 - Flavoured salt