DAY 8 – 23rd December

Who remembers the lamb ads of the 80s? This ad was one of my favourites (can you have a favourite ad?! ) Naomi Watts became famous after this, from memory.

Yesterday’s grocery order included a butterflied lamb leg. It arrived along with a few other essentials like cooked and green prawns, local red wine and Murray river sea salt (I’ve never spent so much on groceries!). The leg was smaller than ordered, and pre-marinated which I also don’t remember ordering. Pamela and I divided our cooking duties into meat and vegetables. I choose cooking the meat – so heated the rather dodgy looking BBQ while Pamela took to chopping. slicing, boiling and roasting the large array of vegetables that came in our ‘seasonal mixed box’ a couple of days ago.

Given the lamb’s small size, I also barbequed a couple of chicken breasts. There were no measurement on the BBQ knobs, and only one of the two burners actually worked, but I gave it a good preheating and popped the lamb on, closing the lid quickly so as not to let the heat escape.

The lamb became slightly charred on the outside (in a good way) so I took it off and wrapped it in foil while I cooked the chicken. I’m sure you are all well aware of the need to rest meat, but can I say a full 30 minutes is longer than I would normally rest meat for, and I’m glad I did. It was perfectly pink all the way through and meltingly tender. I found some gravox in the cupboard and made a gravy, adding the lamb’s resting juices. Pamela’s delicious vegetable array included broccoli and cauliflower mornay, roast carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato and potatoes, plus some buttered green beans. I would definitely give up meeting Tom Cruise for this, yummo!

Earlier in the day, I lazily arose from bed after 8am. I have finally started the book Victoria selected for me from the large range that’s here in the AirBNB. I accidentally ordered bacon twice, so we started the day with scrambled eggs, bacon and tomato.

It’s amazing how busy you can be when there’s nowhere to go! Pamela did an amazing job tidying up all the cupboards and fridges, Braden made a slice, I shucked some oysters, Dad cleaned the pool, Dave finished the first draft of his epic novel and Victoria spent most of the day answering the door and collecting parcels 😉

One such knock at the door was SA Health, fully PPE’d. There is a lot to be said for skilled nasal swabbing, can I say! Having had two tests over recent days, there’s a very big difference between being gentle and not 🙁 Results were back less than eight hours later, all negative thankfully!

During the afternoon, it finally got warm enough for a few of us to swim. The pool toys we have ordered haven’t arrived yet, but it turns out Braden can catch cherries in his mouth like a seal 🙂 Dad and I tried out some of the aqua-aerobics exercises we have been researching, although I now have slightly pink shoulders so will need to remember to use sunscreen next time.

It doesn’t get dark here till after 9pm, so our leisurely dinner pretty much finished out ISO Day 8, enjoyed alongside a very lovely glass of local red. Hmmm. There’s no rush for this to finish, is there?