Restoring the Old Girl

Get some pork on your fork!
I'm not on so much of a Debbie Downer now. My gloom at Mary's departure has lifted a lot.
For dinner tonight I made my favourite of the moment  pork belly with Vietnamese noodle salad.
Pork belly is soooo delicious. It's not difficult to cook at all - a monkey could do it. Most pieces of pork belly you buy are already scored, but if your piece isn't, just cut it through the skin in a broad cross-hatch pattern to make it easy to cut after it's cooked.
Rub the skin with plenty of salt (preferably Maldon, or good quality salt)  and let it sit for half an hour before wiping most of the salt off.
Put some oil in a metal baking pan and then put the pork belly in the pan, skin down. Bake it at 220 degrees for 30 minutes. Turn it down to 190 and cook for about another one and a quarter hours for a 1kg piece.
Then turn it over so the skin is facing up and bake until it goes crisp - maybe another 20 or 30 minutes.
When I turn my skin side up I put my fan forced grill on in the oven and it crisps up in no time.
Take it out of the oven, cover with foil and let it sit for 15 minutes before slicing up to serve.
I make a simple, quick Vietnamese style rice noodle salad. Cook your rice noodles, then add sliced cucumber, carrot, iceberg lettuce, mung bean sprouts, mint, coriander ( or just a few of these things ). Dress it with a splash of fish sauce, lime juice and a spoonful of soft brown sugar. Throw in sliced chili too if you're in the mood.
It's such a yummy dinner. You could really jazz it up further if you're having a dinner party. Top the salad with fried, crushed peanuts and add a few prawns, for example.

Yesterday was Friday and for dinner we packed up a barbecue and in 15 minutes we were here.

Bellbird Grove is so close to where we live, and yet it's half way to Mount Glorious. I love being able to escape the city pronto, when the urge arises.
We have been doing a lot of painting - the outside of our house, lower level, still needs painting. We've also been doing a lot of gardening. I'm loving the garden because everything seems to grow so well at the moment.
Our main bedroom has been bugging me. It really needs something done with it, although I haven't been able to find any ideas really. I like this....

and this....

Ha! Just kidding. I really need to do some research though.

I really love Don & Betty Draper's bed - sorry about the raunchy photo, it's all I could find.

I've found this bed head on Ebay, which just needs recovering......

However, with my pile of  'projects' forming a mountain and threatening to fall down and crush me, I'm loathe to get something else that's not ready to just go into place. I love that bed head though. Maybe I could allow in one more, than shut the gate....and lock it on all further projects until I clear the back log?