'Diary' entry

I wondered where my 'plague' of grasshoppers was going, and why so many geckos were venturing out during the day!

Gam has passed the half way point in his clinical placement. It's nice to have the end in sight.

What's not nice is that the air-conditioner situated on our upstairs neighbour's balcony, right above our bedroom door, is malfunctioning. It's always been a noisy unit, but it used to have periods where the fan would shut off and the noise would cease for a while; now it gets so loud at times that even with the door shut it sounds like someone is using power tools, and it never stops rattling. Having the door shut means that we must have our air-conditioner on. Having the air-conditioner on makes my hayfever much worse...

The persistent noise has led to a couple of nights this week where I didn't get more than 3 hours sleep, which was highly unpleasant, to say the least. I'm embarrassed to say that on the second night of no sleep, having spent the previous day so tired I felt nauseous, and having realised from looking at my mobile that I'd been awake for about 4 hours and there were only 2 hours left until we had to get up I swore in frustration and started to cry. I wasn't even the one who had to spend the entire day commuting-working-commuting, so aside from being embarrassed at my lack of self-control I also felt rather guilty when Gam, who would have been more tired than I, massaged my back and covered my ears with his hands until I fell asleep. Okay, I don't just feel embarrassed I feel downright ashamed... and always so awfully lucky to be living with the sweetest guy in the world.

When I went to see our resident managers about getting the air-conditioning serviced I was informed they were already on it- they'd phoned just about every service provider in Brisbane and had been unable to get a service date prior to the first week of March. March! I almost cried again on hearing that, but thankfully the rogue air-con has quietened down somewhat of its own accord. We still need to shut the sliding door and windows to block out the noise, but it's now merely annoyingly loud not oppressively loud.

MEMO TO PHILIP RUDDOCK: Sleep deprivation is fucking torture! If I feel so crappy from being deprived of a relatively small amount of sleep I can only begin to imagine what being forced to endure whole days and nights without sleep must feel like. Come back and tell us whether you support it after you've tried it, you shameless Amnesty-pin-wearing bastard.

Oh and now I have come down with a sore throat, probably thanks to my immune system being depressed by lack of sleep. Although I must say that Gam usually attributes any illness I suffer to a 'weak' immune system caused by eating too many vegetables and not enough meat. Hmph. I just hope I don't make Gam sick, given that he has to work in a hospital with elderly patients.

I've been continuing to enjoy my new cookbook. On the weekend I attempted to make profiteroles, which I'd never tried before. I'd always heard that making choux pastry was a bit tricky, so I held my breath over the choux pastry, worried it wouldn't rise. It turned out just great, although the ones I made on a pizza tray with ventilation holes on the bottom puffed up much better than the ones on a regular tray. Mental note for next time... anyway, I thought the hard part was over! Making ganache is a cinch and I assumed making the creme patissiere ('pastry cream'- essentially thick custard) would be a breeze. Wrong! I don't know if it's the recipe or me, but I got it to thicken just fine, it just didn't thicken to the point where I could pipe it into the choux puffs (like whipped cream). Gam improvised for me and used the electric beaters to whip it until it was of a slightly more spoonable consistency... and, well, it might have wound up slightly messier than it was supposed to, but we weren't too proud to eat them. They did taste awesome, I just can't believe I got the choux-puffs right and then screwed up the pastry cream!

Of course I suffered a bunch of pimples over the next few days for the sin of eating dairy but it was WORTH it. So there, pimples.

We also bought a new fish on the weekend...