Monday 28th December = Day 13
Monday was the day allocated for our final COVID test. We had requested the testers come to our place, as they had in the previous test, and so after breakfast we tried to phone and confirm. Both Dad and I tried a few numbers, however the only non-automated response (eventually I did talk to a human) told me that it was a public holiday and she didn’t think they did home testing on a public holiday, but wasn’t really sure!
We decided to wait until midday, in case the nurse turned up. After our leisurely start and breakfast (is there a theme here!) we got ourselves showered and dressed, and even put shoes on… how novel!
With one of the grocery shops, I had ordered a colour rinse for Victoria, so I applied that to her hair and then while we were waiting for it to work I had my shower. The ensuite beside our bedroom is pretty standard, and I actually chose this bedroom as this bathroom had a bath and those of you who know me well will know I do love a bath. It wasn’t quite the long deep bath I have at home, but hey, when you are in isolation you can’t be too fussy. The shower is over the bath, as is typical of bathrooms of this era.
You may be wondering where I am going with the detailed bathroom description. I could also go into the detail of how Victoria found a baby bird beside the pool the previous evening so that you understood why I happened to lean back and look out of the little window when I heard a bird squeaking…
End result is a very sore and bruised back of my left shoulder, a bruise on my hip and a sore base of my skull. I think I am very lucky not to have done a whole lot more damage! For information – I did not ‘have a fall’…. I slipped over. I am not old!
I can’t tell you how excited we were to go out in the cars. We attempted to go to a drive through testing centre, but as it was a public holiday it had closed at 11am, so continued onto the Flinders Medical Centre – a public hospital about 10km from here.
We donned our masks, parked the cars and then found our way to the testing centre where 30 or 40 other people were waiting in line. It took about an hour to get to the front of the queue. Normally waiting that long would frustrate me but given we were excited to be out and about, time passed quite quickly. On a scale of 0 to 10 (10 being terrible – think our last test), I would rate this as a 1 or 2. Not only was she gentle, but polite and kind also.
As many do post-Christmas, I have been thinking about all the ways you can use left over ham. Ham risotto is often a go-to for me, ham and mushroom pasta, ham quiche, ham and cheese omelette… the list goes on. For breakfast I made Croque Madame, which is pretty much a fancy ham and cheese sandwich, with a fried egg on top. I started by making a simple béchamel sauce, seasoned well with pepper and a little nutmeg, then generously flavoured it with lots of cheese – including the small piece of leftover camembert, some cheddar and a little parmesan. I fried some thickly sliced ham, buttered the bread and spread it with Dijon mustard; then built the sandwich by layering the ham, cheese sauce and some extra cheese. The whole sandwich went into a hot fry pan along with an egg, until it was golden on the outside and melted and warm on the inside.
Ham is also a great substitute for bacon on Oysters Kilpatrick. Unsurprisingly (given how many we had) there were still plenty of oysters left so I shucked a dozen and made Dad Oysters Kilpatrick for lunch entrée.
Lunch main was mussels marinière, using a 1kg cryovac pack of live mussels. I really love to keep mussels in the fridge for fabulous quick and easy meals such as this. They last a week or two and feel a bit special. On top of that they are usually only about $10 a kilo, which feeds 2-3 people so are not only tasty, but pretty good value.
I sautéed some diced onions, garlic and ginger, deglazed the pan with white wine, added half a jar of pasta sauce, generously sloshed in some tabasco (no fresh chillies), seasoned well and covered the pot till the sauce was reduced a little and bubbling well. I rinsed and debearded the mussels, then popped them in the sauce, covered the pot tightly with a lid and gave it a good shake. Mussels don’t take long to cook, less than two minutes was all they needed. Meanwhile, Pamela had used some leftover seedy long rolls to make garlic bread, perfect for slopping up the sauce.
After a late afternoon movie (Enola Holmes) we made home-made hamburgers for dinner and then after Victoria went to bed I decorated the kitchen table with some birthday greetings – in preparation for her birthday. I can’t believe I have a 28 year old daughter!
