Tenterfield

This week I went up to Tenterfield on a quick bush fire relief trip. It's quite a few weeks since fire tore through the New England district so most people have received their relief grants and this weeks service was about providing service to the few left navigating the system.
Instead of 6-8 hour days in a packed Recovery Centre, the multi-agency team spent 2-3 hours in each location, seeing only 1-6 people at each location. It was a relaxed team with not a lot to do but I was impressed that the government guy organising us said it was vital support for the few who still needed access to recovery services.

You probably can't see the barbed wire on top of this fence but it's there. I wondered if there was a gaol I'd never heard of but no, this is the showground.

Outside the Tentefield Railway Museum

Tenterfield Saddler, immortalised in song by Peter Allen. The shop was owned by his grandfather and is still open a few hours a day.

A road side rest stop. The little shelter had a large fire place in the back and there was a composting toilet about 50m down the road. We set up here for a few hours and saw a few people who had suffered large losses. 
Bluff Rock in the back ground was the site of an aboriginal massacre, acknowledged with a stone and plaque telling the story.

A scene on "tourist drive 7"

Also on tourist drive 7

Sunnyside Community Hall was another place we worked from. Built in 1902 and obviously well loved.

Tourist Drive 7 passed through farmland where the cattle were allowed to wander across the road. These girls and calves looked at the car with mild interest.

The view from "Mount Mackenzie Lookout" 

There has been rain since the fire so the usual charred look of the fire ground is softened by fresh grass.

The Railway Museum was shut so I took the photo from the gate. 

I saw quite a few goats when I took a drive up over the Queensland border. I'm not sure if they were feral.

The motel we stayed in was rather lovely with well tended gardens and a tasteful dining room. The service was great, too.

"Steinbrook Hall" was another community hall we operated from. Super rustic and super hot  under the metal roof but the verandah on the back had a cool breeze blowing so we sat there. There was much discussion of steak and beer.

The historic cork tree on the edge of Tenterfield. It was a very large tree and quite beautiful.

Kangaroos at Glenlyon Dam

The 1974 Childrens Book of the Year was "The Nargun and the Stars" I must have read it sometime later and don't really remember the book except that it must have described this kind of granite outcrop particularly well because I never fail to think of the book when I see these rocks. 

A lovely old church now operating as a real estate office.

Back to the dam.

The old manse next to the church.

This baby burger and his mates were very interested in me. And very, very cute.

 

I have a busy week of work coming up, plus a dentist appointment, sleep specialist and Milly needs vaccinations before she goes to board while I take the Indian Pacific across the continent. I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time and now the time is almost here!

I'd love to send a post card if you'd like one. I'll probably pop them in the post sometime after Christmas so hit me up!

taikylie at yahoo dot com dot au

Scotch Eggs

 After John posted his story about the "Scotch Egg Incident" I decided it was high time I tried a scotch egg.

I'm the kind of cook who dislikes doing pretty much anything in batches (except maybe Anzac Biscuits) but I couldn't find anywhere to buy scotch eggs so I decided I'd have to make my own.

I'm also the kind of cook who never makes anything to the recipe but as the scotch eggs were something new to me I fully intended to follow a recipe.

Until I went to the butchers and thought a couple of disemboweled Italian sausages would be a nice addition to the sausage mince in the recipe.

I brought the mince home and put it in the freezer but somehow the sausages languished in the fridge and had to be given to Milly who thought they were delicious.

So, I was back to the sausage mince and eggs. I wrapped the eggs in mince (plus salt & pepper, cumin, paprika and powdered garlic) It was going better than expected and then there was an opportunity to watch tv with Caitlin so I ditched the idea of crumbing the eggs and just put them in the oven without the crumbs. At this point the Scotch egg afficianados are probably pulling hair out in horror.

They worked out to be acceptable but not amazing. I think a better quality mince would have made a huge difference and I still think Italian sausages would be a good addition.

When asked if I would do it again, I said no but on second thoughts, they probably deserve to be done better.

I've finished nearly all of the small amount of Christmas shopping I'm going to do. My car passed it's safety inspection which I was a little concerned about so I don't have to worry about that for another year and just this morning I finished writing a sermon I've been battling with for over a week. It's nice to be asked to preach and I enjoy researching and mulling over a topic.

The lead up to years end is looking busy and I'm a little bit ragey already so if I get over stretched or under appreciated things could take a dive........

I need to drag myself from the knife edge but I'm unsure how to do it. I still have stuff to learn, it seems.

Snapshot

 I miss the days when I blogged more regularly but somehow it seems that the less I blog, the more fussy I become about what is a good topic. And so it's a catch 22 where I edit new ideas out of existence and don't blog and then become even harsher with the editing!

In the absence of  anything more significant to say, let me give you a dot point run down of what's current:

Reading: The Kindness Revolution

Wearing: pink hair and thrifted gems

Eating: Portugese tarts

Watching: Hoof Doctor videos (weirdly fascinating)

Cooking: roasted parsnip

Dreaming: of travel 

Craving: chocolate 

Enjoying: coolish weather before summer hits hard

Playing: Wordle and Waffle