April Wrap-Up

In a much quieter month than usual of course, due to the current pandemic, the month started with me baking a Walnut cake to take to the clinic to farewell one of our Doctors, on Wednesday 2nd.
I saw the recipe on Catarina's blog (who reblogged from another blogger) and thought it looked easy and delicious. Recipe at the bottom of post.

The pink moon - when the full moon was exactly opposite the Sun and closest to Earth, was visible just after sunset on Wednesday 8th.

My street and the pink moon in the distance

The Easter long weekend from Friday 10th to Monday 13th, was spent doing a bit of gardening enjoying the warm weather, and finishing off some furniture painting projects.

This sideboard will most probably take new door knobs as I'm not too fond of the original ones that I painted

This little rocking elephant was on the verge just two houses down from me, awaiting Verge Collection by our local council. I went to get it, glued its trunk, sanded and painted it. It's now ready for my grandkids to enjoy. They haven't seen it yet, I  hope they like it :)

Jose has taken over the cooking and shopping, but I made Rice Pudding for Easter lunch to go with the meat stew Jose cooked.

I've also found a great and quick recipe for Artisan bread and I've been baking it once a week.

This week I baked 3 loaves - 1 sourdough, and 2 artisan breads and dropped a Sourdough and 1/2 of one Artisan bread to friends of ours who live in a Retirement village.

In exchange I was given a bag of persimmons from their garden.

Preparing the bread

The 3 loaves I baked - 2 artisan and 1 sourdough

Bag of Persimmons given to me by our friends

Our passion fruit vine is full of fruit and just a few flowers still in bloom. They are so pretty aren't they?

At work a couple of the patients presented us with their home made Anzac biscuits, delicious Raspberry cup cakes, Lemon cup cakes and one gave us a $40 voucher from a nearby coffee shop. Some were accompanied by Thank you notes, which touched my heart.

The kind gestures didn't stop there, as one day when I arrived home from work I found a beautiful card in the post box written by a young mother of 2 who I met through the "Buy Nothing" facebook group, thanking me for the friendship, which left me quite emotional. 

She was the one who made my birthday cupcakes. I had sent her a photo of them on my table, which she now displayed in her postcard.  

One of these days I'll bake her a home-made bread to thank her for the beautiful gesture.

Anzac day was celebrated on Saturday 25th. Sadly this year the usual parade and festivities were cancelled, but a lot of people chose to stand on their driveways or balconies at 6am and light a candle while listening to "The last post".

Crown of poppies in my street, and flags and poppies at the Retirement village where my friends live

Because we had a long weekend, on Monday 27th, Jose and I picked olives from our small tree by the driveway in the front garden. We managed to pick 7kgs! Jose is now in charge of changing the water daily for 1 month, before they get prepared.

The new neighbours moved to their new hourse at the beginning of April, but with social distancing I haven't seen them.

Our olive tree by the driveway and you can see house next door.

When we were picking olives the magpies that live in the trees in the park across the road, came to our driveway to get some olives. They love walnuts, so I got a few and they would come close to me and eat them.

The friendly magpies eating walnuts

On Wednesday's I'm the one that closes the clinic, and as I came out into the car-park last week, I was greeted with this beautiful purple sky, the sun having just set.

Our cats, either because they are getting old, or maybe because we are spending more time at home have become quite clingy. Fluffy, our ginger cat, just wants to have his paws over Jose when he sits next to him, or if he decides to sit on my desk he will put his paws over the mouse or the keyboard and type away, or he decides to sleep on my hand.

Fluffy lying on my keyboard

Fluffy, Twiggy and Shelley

WALNUT CAKE

1 juicy orange (zest, juice and pulp)

1 measure plain yogurt 

1 measure of grated coconut

3 measures of flour

3 sugar measures (I used only 1 1/2 measures)

1/2 measure of oil

4 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tot of Port wine

2 teaspoons spoon cinnamon 

1/2 measure coarsely chopped walnuts

1. Turn the oven on to 180 C°, when preparation begins. 

2. Mix all the ingredients with a wooden spoon. It is not advisable to use an electric mixer.

3. Bake in a greased pan sprinkled with flour, and covered with parchment paper, during  30/40 minutes, depending of the oven.

4.  Test with a toothpick and if necessary, let it cook a little longer. 

Note: I used a cup as a measure for all ingredients. I only used 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and found it was sweet enough.
Enjoy 😃