In a screaming heap.

G'Day , Yes! I'm falling in a screaming heap. My diet is out the window. I have been eating naughty things and last night I made a batch of golden syrup dumplings and had one of them with a scoop of ice cream. Very yummy though. It hasn't shown up on the scales yet but if I keep slacking off like this it certainly will. My excuse? I'm female and mother nature does not want me to be skinny and it is bloody hard work resisting temptation after a shit day. Pete loves golden syrup dumplings, they are an old fashioned favorite. Gooey and sticky, yummy and fattening. Probably not much nutritional value apart from filling you up. Here is the recipe in case you haven't had them. Let me share my sin with you!
Syrup; 1 1/2 cups water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoon margarine, 1 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup. Put in big pot and bring to boil.
1Tablespoon of margarine or butter, 1 cup self raising flour,1 beaten egg, milk to mix into a soft dough.
Rub margarine into the flour. add egg then enough milk to make into a soft dough.
Put desert spoons of dough into boiling syrup turn to low heat and cook with the lid on for 20 minutes. Can be served hot or cold with cream or ice cream. I like them hot best. Makes about 6 dumplings. Good cold weather comfort food, not that it's cold here at the moment.
Golden syrup is good stuff, but I don't know if they have it in other countries. It's basically a honey like partly refined sugar and is part of australian folk lore. A bit like treacle but sweeter and not as dark. It's good in cooking and just by itself on bread with butter, and when out camping it is known as cocky's joy if you spread it on damper cooked in the camp fire. Its also a key ingredient in Anzac biscuits. They are a biscuit that was sent over seas to soldiers fighting in the first world war by red cross ladies and family, made of oats etc , I like them thin and crunchy but other people reckon they should be soft and thick. How they turn out depends on how long you cook them and if you sneak in a bit extra butter and syrup to make them go thin and crunchy. A.n.z.a.c. stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Golden syrup is also great in the bottom of the pudding basin if you make a steamed pudding instead of using jam. The company is probably owned by some one from overseas nowadays like most Aussie things are because other places like America buy up the things that are successful or lots of things can be manufactured cheaper overseas. America even owns the rights to our most famous folk song "Waltzing Matilda" which was at one time thrown around as a contender for our national anthem. I think choosing it was dumb anyway because it's a song about a swaggie (an itinerant in old Aussie slang) who was caught stealing a sheep and then committing suicide by drowning because he got caught. Yes you may laugh but there was quite a bit of support for the idea! Not really my idea of something that I as an Aussie wants to be remembered for in other countries.
Its starting to get darker in the mornings here now. This morning when I left to go to work at 6.20 it was quite dark but about a week ago the sun was already low in the sky and it was light. I guess it will soon be cooling down and autumn will be here. On my last days off I spent a bit of time working in my garden weeding, fertilizing and swapping plants around, I also sprayed soil wetter around ready for some rain when it comes. My soil becomes water repellent when it dries out in the hot weather and severely limits what I can grow successfully without wasting heaps of water on, so I need lots of mulch etc to try to hold it all together. I also chopped out a big monstrea plant that I reckoned could be the cause of my favorite Mr Lincoln rose being so sick and sorry looking. The poor second flowering blooms, are about a quarter of their normal size and drying out before they get much of a chance to bloom, despite my watering carefully. Anyway I covered the bed with dolomite and horse manure and soaked it. I also have a gorgeous velvety dark purple clematis in that bed which should benefit from the treatment. We did have a light shower of rain this morning though nothing exciting and still nothing to show that there might be an end to the drought in sight.
My poor old Freddie dog is 16 years old and I think he is starting to down hill fast. I bathed and gave him a haircut a few days ago and he is very skinny now and getting wobbly on his feet and is almost blind. He's a dear old thing. What is 7 times 16 years? When he was younger I said he was the puppy that never grew up as he was always full of enthusiasm and bright and bouncy and ready for a game with his tennis ball and frisbee, or a walk, and he loved to bite the water from the hose or sprinkler as it flowed out. He is a poodle mixture and we got him when he was very tiny because he lost his mother on the road. She was a pure bred show dog. He was in a box outside the local farm produce depot with a sign "free to good home", he has been a great friend, he loves me and thinks I'm his mother. I will miss him when he goes as I think things are almost to the point where it is cruel to keep him any longer. I remember a childhood rhyme.
I had a little Poodle dog
A poodle dog was he
He lifted up his poodle leg
and poodled over me................ not my darling Freddie.
We named him Freddie because there was a song around on the radio at the time "I'm too sexy" by a pommie group called "Right said Fred" so we called him woof said Fred. I liked it at the time.
Anyway it's late so it's bed time. Good night.