Beach House on a Budget in White Arum Lilies

After all the drama of a major storm when we were between roofs, creating more damage than that caused by the leaks we were trying to get rid of, by replacing the old roof. You'd think the saga of the new roof would be now well and truly put to bed.  Well if you were thinking that, you'd be very wrong.

Mr Beach House rang me with tones of panic in his voice on Friday afternoon.  The general gist of the conversation went some thing like this.

Him: Did you put that $$$ into the superannuation fund? Read retirement fund if you are from the US.

Me: Yes, you said you had enough to honour the cheque?

Him: Well I did but now we don't have enough money to pay for the roof or run the business for a month until I get paid in 30 days for that order I delivered today.  Why the hell did you send that cheque?

Me: Errr Hmm because you said to!

And so it went on.

Although at that point I would have rather been a character in this painting, I reassured him that with a little fiddling I could scrounge together an amount which almost resembled the bottom line on the quote and with this continued wet weather and the fact that the roofers would not be finished until at least mid next week we may be able to come up with the funds if our tax returns came back or we won the lottery or who knows. But I just told him not to sweat it. With that, I grabbed my wallet..... or so I thought and headed for the bank.

I had noticed that morning at the gym, that my wallet wasn't in my back pack, but I just thought that I had neglected to swap it over from my handbag.  The gym let me in without ID so at that stage, all was well. It turns out I hadn't forgotten to swap it over, but rather than placing it in my gym bag, in the mad dash to get out of here in the morning, I had put it in the Beach House Brat's kindy bag, only a minor snag. But I had to sneak into kindy to retrieve that wallet without the kiddo seeing me and deciding it was time to come home.  There was no way that was gunna happen as I so value my 'me time'.  After that little mission accomplished,  it was off to the bank to sort out the financial woes of the Beach House.

So it turns out that if we don't spend on anything this month other than food and employees' wages, we will be fine.  Even the Beach House Brat has reluctantly agreed for his pocket money to accrue for the month.

Now you may remember that most Fridays of our marriage Mr Beach House has brought me home flowers.  Personally I think he is scared of the flower lady that visits his factory complex each week, who stiff arms him to buy her flowers.  Believe me, I am not ungrateful even if I sound so, as it is one of the brighter spots in our marriage, but what he pays for them, is sometimes a little questionable to this frugal female.

So after his panicked phone call to me earlier in the day and my mad dash around town to make sure the funds were in place for us to survive the month.  Then me explaining that we couldn't afford so much as a take away coffee until after June 30, it was to my great surprise that Mr Beach House danced through the door last Friday evening, with this bunch of arum lilies for me.

Was it that I'd saved his arse once more? That I'd wasted two hours of my precious child free day, going from bank to bank to beg for the funds to see us through the month?  Or that he hadn't heard my explanation that even the kiddos had to pull their belts in and forgo pocket money for a month?  Well apparently not.  His answer..... 'They were the cheapest bunch darl' Duh!!!!! And in their tattered condition I can see why!!  I now know he hasn't been buying me flowers all these years to cover for an affair, as really with these el cheapo half dead beauties, why would you bother.

 So I just had to style them in a vignette, laugh and then blog about them.  That is the only way these flowers can make any sense to me.  Desire Empire, that go to place I have up my sleeve, where I can escape for free and try and make sense of some of the more perplexing adventures and machinations at the Beach House.

 And here are some photos of the roof, old and new, which have both caused so much drama at the Beach House this week.  The tiles are only 20 years old, but some genius nailed them down with steel nails, which in this coastal environment are now all rusted and are cracking the tiles, causing them to leak.

This is the new tin roof, as yet unfinished, you can see it is not screwed down properly, nor is it capped on the sides.

 As I write, the rain is sheeting down and visibility outside is down to 10 metres.  The only bright spot in an otherwise poop of a day, is that we seem to be leak free. Hallelujah.  Hope I haven't spoken too soon.

Have a great week guys

Best Carolyn
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Beach House of the Week at Palm Beach

A beautiful Beach House for your viewing pleasure.  It's on the market, so here's the link if you wanna live here.  http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-palm+beach-106869157. 

When I see these pictures I can't believe how lucky I am to live in this paradise. I'm off to get out amongst it, so see ya Monday. By the way I have been able to leave comments on some blogs by signing in as anonymous.  Sadly my blog doesn't allow you to sign in as anonymous.  I am missing all your sweet thoughts but the stats tell me you are still looking, so thanks for all your continued support.

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Weeknight Wonder on a Black and White Tablescape

So after the chaos of a water fall in my kitchen, which I detailed in my last post here. The sun is now shining and the lads are back on the job. You can't see the water falling here as it's all so white and bright but believe me it's there. Think slow running tap. And the Beach House brat should give you some indication that something is going on up there.

It's still wet up there but at least it has now stopped running.

The water fall of the previous night was worked on and was reduced to a water feature last night. Just a dribble through the top window sill and a big wet patch on the ceiling. So things are improving and the weather is sunny now.  The guys can use power tools again so lets hope we are water tight tonight.

So with my new 'making it count' attitude, which you can read about here if you like, we mopped up the water and lit the fire and settled in for the night. Or so I thought.  State of Origin football is a big deal in this house....apparently.  I can't think of a more boring way to spend an evening, but Mr Beach House invites his mates around and they slosh red wine and dark chocolate around the room and generally have a great time. Some guy at the sailing club was naive enough to organise a committee meeting on State of Origin night.  He was unceremoniously howled down in a flood of emails and the meeting was moved to next week.  What these jocks will do for their football. I on the other hand, quietly retire to the media room and bash out yet another little snippet of my life on Blogger.  Much more fun and a little less messy.

Despite a soggy kitchen and before the footy fans arrived, I was able to indulge one of my passions.  After the stress of the day, I was in the mood for some comfort food and was not worried about the calories.  After the energy I've expended this week in one way or another, I don't think it really matters.  So prawn curry was on the menu.  In my swinging single days, there is no way I would have eaten curry with coconut milk as a regular meal, only as a sometime food, but last night I threw caution to the wind.  I needed some lovin'.

This week night wonder is just that, an easy and tasty treat that is simple to throw together. I can usually put it together in the time it takes Mr Beach House to shower the kiddos. They hate getting their hair washed so that is pretty quick. 

I have even entertained with this curry to great effect.  It is actually adapted from a green prawn curry recipe that was once on the menu at Eduardo's, an institution on the beach at Noosa in the 1990's, which like lots of great things in life, has now made way for developers, who generally have a knack for wrecking the ambiance of a place.  I mean where' s the love in razing a gorgeous little one storey alfresco place on the beach, with more charm in the his and hers, than the 4 storey generic cr*pola that replaced it?  I could go on, but just take my word for it.  It was one of those romantic restaurants that was  definitely on any to do list on a trip to Noosa, that lovely coastal resort in Queensland.

So anyway, here's the recipe.

Green Prawn Curry

• Heat a tblspn of peanut oil in a fry pan
• Add one heaped tblspn of green curry paste.   I use store bought, but I bet Eduardo didn't.  Allow the paste to become fragrant ( about 1 minute).
• Add a diced tomato.  Here I used the cherry tomatoes I had. 

• Add one 165ml or 6 fl.oz can of coconut cream and 1 tblspn of fish sauce.  Cover the fry pan for several minutes to allow the tomato to soften.

By this stage you should have the rice well and truly cooking.

• Next chuck in peeled green prawns.  I allow 8 per person.  I also leave the tails intact, as they just look better.

Throw in some chopped coriander and cook for several  more minutes until the prawns turn pink.

Cook the poppadoms as per package directions

Serve and enjoy

Now this is a very simple tablescape, but just several hours before this kitchen was underwater.   Ok well maybe not completely, but it felt like it anyway.

This is the way we eat mid week.  No fancy stuff here. Just simple quick and easy wholesome food.  Even though I must say the food was great, the conversation was a little more strained .  Mr Beach House didn't like the way I  had talked to the builders that morning.  Let me tell you something.  I didn't like the way I spoke to the them either, as it was rather blunt.  But I put it down to me, that we were sitting in an almost dry kitchen eating a yummy meal. If I left it up to Mr BH, lets just say we could have probably cast a line in, whilst sitting on the island bench and caught our own prawns, there was so much water. 

Postscript: Mr Beach House's footy team,  that is our state of New South Wales, lost as well.  Not a great night for him but at least we ate well.

Best Carolyn

PS I still can't post any comments on others' blogs and I am starting to see others commenting on the same problem, so hopefully it will be fixed soon. On that note, as I can't leave comments, I would like to publicly thank Stephanie Lynn  over at Under the Table and Dreaming for featuring two of my tablescapes this week.  You can see my Beachy White Tablescape here and my Alfresco Tablescape here.
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