Visitations

Friday was the day Mr Barnes and his bunch decided to put in a visit. No problems there. Really. Except the usual "I've got to be in three places at once" nonsense, of course. But that was fixed by the Barnesm clan taking their time to arrive, which meant Elder Son could attend his best friend's birthday party and I could run the thousand errands, etc. Good thing.

I ran up a nasi goreng meal, but to make up for that (not that I think nasi goreng isn't splendid - and it was - but it's a way of getting rid of stuff in your fridge, after all) I also baked a cheesecake and put a blueberry-bourbon topping on it. That was good.

Mr Barnesm's 'Weapon Against Society' rapidly discovered the joys of country living... particularly the arsekicking ginormous playset, which is seeing some serious usage. Oh, and the trampoline, yep. Meanwhile, Mr B and I tucked into some truly amazing single malt whisky from the Lark distillery. At 58% they call it "cask strength". I just call it stunning. Seriously: one of the best single malts I have ever tasted. I'll be hitting that stuff again, for sure.

Today I trotted down in the morning to run the pump, and took Clan Barnesm with me on the off-chance the platypus would co-operate. It did. Young Weapon trundled out onto the little swimming dock and stood there, staring, just five metres away from a very placid wild platypus grooving about on the water surface. The critter dived, then surfaced again, and swam around obligingly. Very nice, thank you.

We zipped into Launceston for the day - delivering Grace the Med Student to the airport, and getting in a bit of Christmas shopping. Also some culture, apparently. We took in "Boys Own McBeth", which wasn't exactly what I expected, but was reasonably entertaining despite that. The boys liked it, anyhow. And on the way home, travelling over a dirt road between plantations of trees, we came across the single biggest echidna I've yet seen in Tas. He sauntered across the road and up the embankment while we watched, and I pointed out to the young Weapon that he had now seen two of the world's three remaining monotreme species in a single day. (The third is the Long-Nosed Echidna, restricted to New Guinea.)

That's the kind of thing that means something to the young Weapon, which is all to the good.

I'm now preparing twice-cooked potatoes and a charcoal lamb roast and a green salad. Hopefully will finish the evening with a good meal, and a rousing game of Arkham Horror. Maybe. If the kids ever come inside from that freaknormous playset.