stock

We only went to Perth for 36 hours but for some reason our various vegetables in the fridge let themselves go as a consequence and we came back to slimy asparagus and yellow broccoli. So I am making stock with the addition of potatoes with the shoots cut off and some of that massively expensive garlic. When I put it in the pot I thought, god, I might just as easily go out and spoon crap out of the compost bin, but in fact it has been cooking gaily away for an hour or so now and it smells excellent.

Yesterday was overheated but today is a nice cool (if still a bit muggy) day and I think it will be OK. As the dogs are outside I am the focus of attention by cats. Asha is sitting to my right looking perturbedly at Bela who is approaching me from the left. Bela is like a dinosaur, huge and impractical, and when he sits on the floor it's like a small 4WD has been left there. Asha is a trifle overweight due to the fact that she sleeps almost the entire day well into the night, usually in the bed like some kind of hypochondriac duchess, but her nervousness has stopped her from descending entirely into obesity. Asha sees herself as part of a pack of three: Mia, me and Bela. Anyone else is an enemy. Bela has no time for her at all, though they will sometimes sniff each other's faces, but it is as likely to end in him cuffing her with his claws as anything else. She also doesn't really trust her humans either, and considers anything they do to be potentially life-threatening and vicious, so she is always running away, and in that really irritating way of getting underfoot while doing it.

I am going to take Charlie and Barry on a walk to Glenroy, to take a swag of books back to the library there. That will be my main activity of the day I feel.