a newsbite

We are leaving for the interior tomorrow. Going to scout the Taieri River Catchment for possible locations that I can sample later in the summer. More on that at a later date. Have booked the car, and the tent. Rosalind has family on a farm near a small place called Hyde – they are our first port of call. By all accounts her brother and brother in law are quite eccentric. We look forward to meeting them. will be away for 3 nights. wont forget the camera. wont forget to use it.

I have two good recipe’s one is home made baked beans. This dish is actually fractionally cheaper than buying an equivalent amount of tinned beans and its miles tastier.

beans (soaked overnight), tomato sauce, tomato puree, sugar, (molasses if you have i don’t), stock, onion, garlic, chilli. Bake 3.5 hrs – low.

The other is a salad with silverbeet, spinach, sliced orange, walnuts, and broccoli. make a dressing from olive oil, lemon, cumin, cinnamon, and tumeric. Don’t overdo the spices it will taste bad. This salad is my own invention and I’m extremely pleased with myself. Ive never invented a salad before.

The lady Agnes will collaborate with for her post doc is a south African originally – from Durban. We went to go and watch a series of science films produced by the wildlife/science masters group (some were good, others not so. boet you would enjoy a course like that I think...) and bumped into her and her partner. They were extremely nice (anyone who accidentally buys a packet of dog biscuits in Hungary by mistake and eats them on the bus is ok in my book). Well they have a small farm or bit of land close to Dunedin and want me to house sit for them whilst they are away – from 11^th of Dec to 11 Jan. Will be nice to get out of the studio room in the middle of noisy town for a while. And he has kindly allowed me to use his landcruiser whilst I’m there.

Interestingly he (Dave) is from Kenya originally. I told him grandparents had a farm nr Thomsons falls and so on. His grandfather and father were hunters, must have been quite a big operation because they had a fleet of 25 landrovers. we had a good gripe about landrovers. For those of you who are familiar or interested his grandfather was Karen Blixens lover. anyway he seems to have knocked around a bit. spent a lot of time in SA around the cape.

Ive never been so popular before, must be because of Agnes. we went out to dinner the other night at some friends. They had a cracking house on a hill overlooking the sea – the swell was enormous. One of them is doing a bee keeping course. Agnes likes the idea, so I hope im not allergic

Well it was a short, efficient synopsis of the last few days. Grandma – got your Christmas letter! It was nice to get the news and a picture of grinning jenny. Boet will reply to your email as soon as I get a chance. its been hectic recently.