Winter

Today is our first official day of winter. By some coincidence today was the first day that I felt just a little cold. When I got home from work this afternoon my brain was sending messages to my body: Hibernate. Who was I to argue? 40 winks later I got up, played ball with Jassy, pottered in the garage, hung out some laundry and put on a new load. Nothing inspired.

And I was still cold.

So I went for a shower, washed with my home made soap and put my fleecy PJ's on. Now I am hot because it isn't really cold. In fact this part of the world rarely gets cold by northern hemisphere standards so we have to pretend.

I decided to put a homebrew on. New Zealands finest. I have a healthy respect for produce of those islands over the ditch since we were there in March. For my money Black Rock makes the best homebrew beer mix on the market. Yes, you pay a few dollars more but it is worth it. My plan is to make a Radler beer, something else I discovered in New Zealand. All I need to do is put a dollop of lime cordial in at the bottling stage. That's the plan anyway.

Then I hit a snag. We are off on holidays at the end of next week, right about the time the beer will need bottling. I don't want to be bottling beer the night before I go away. So, I wisely put it all away and I will start the brew on the weekend. That way it can ferment away while we are on hols.

This morning I did something immensely satisfying. On my drive to work is listened to a report, complete with interviews, about a horse riding school for the disabled on the north side of Brisbane that got washed away in last weeks Queensland floods. They lost two horses, all of their equipment, all the fences, the stables and their administration building. Of the horses that survived, several are injured. What a sad story, they are getting a lot of support from the local community but getting back to normal will take time. I looked them up when I got to work and phoned the lady I heard in the interview, had a chat, got the bank deposit details and when I got off the phone I logged onto my bank and made a donation to help them get back on their feet. I suspect a number of other people would have done the same.

Anyway, it made my day.