Hi everyone! I know, I’m sorry, I’ve neglected my visual diary blog for a few weeks, but my regular readers know this happens every now and then, and usually because I’ve been travelling. This time I failed to set up a few posts to appear on this blog while I was away, but I have some good things to share now I’m back in Montevideo.

Our first stop was Perth WA, where we needed to clear our belongings from our house we sold a few months ago to the last of a long line of fine, responsible house sitters we’ve had living there since we came to Uruguay on the search for gold, c.1999. (I’m not going to be more precise, it would take a couple of paragraphs to explain all this) We accepted the occupants’ attractive offer to buy the house they’d always said they liked, and so we had to get over there to organise our stuff. As we have not yet bought or rented another place, and things are truly up in the air on all that, most went into storage at the removal company’s warehouse facility in metro Perth WA. We sent about 5 cubic m. to the tip, and about the same amount of clothing and goods were donated. I think there’ll be more tip and donate activity when we eventually unpack!

With two teams of packers, it was a whirl of activity which Mike and I could not really keep up with. We each lunged once or twice to take something from the packers’ hands, but although we did bring an extra case back, we were still well under our luggage limit, and as usual while there we did buy a few important things like Vegemite, Gravox, curry pastes, several books and a couple of new garments each.

This wine saucer is one of a pair I bought on what turns out to have been my first visit to Uruguay, in 1989. The antique shop owner told me they were German made, c.1910, and it is lovely to be reunited with them, as they are such a beautiful design. Mike did a great job this morning cleaning them and this dragonflies sugar cube bowl with tongs:

The house clearing went both heaps better than I expected, and a little worse in some aspects; as I for example was not prepared for the tide of emotions that hit me at the end of the first day, even though it has been on my determined agenda for months. Mike was a bit dismayed when he realised how much it had deteriorated from the freshly renovated state it was when we last lived in it as man and wife 22 years ago, though I’d been telling him for several years ‘It really needs a lot of work…’ Thanks to the solid support of our good friend Graciela Cortazzo who stood by patiently saying ‘Keep’, ‘Donate’ or ‘Tip’ whenever she sensed we were hovering or dithering, we survived it all, after which we had another week or so of visiting friends, and a fair bit of wine therapy. We can now plan our next steps with clear minds. Before returning to Uruguay, we spent a week in Tasmania, another at Nerang, Gold Coast Qld, and finally a week in New Zealand. Some impressions of the Auckland Art Gallery exhibitions and the War Museum there, will come up in the next couple of weeks.

But in the meantime, let me invite you to start dipping into my new blog, pickledgizzards.com, where for several months now I have been writing about Life and Family memories including the foods I associate with them, and how eating, particularly in Australia, has changed over my lifetime. As you know, I don’t ‘do recipes’ here, (or fluffy kitties or cute grandchildren either) But my second blog isn’t just another foodie blog loaded with my favourite chef’s yummy gourmet recipes, and to see what I mean, try https://pickledgizzards.com/cheese-savouries/ I hope you enjoy those posts, too.