Thursday 24th Jul '08

For lunch today I made myself a roll.

Rosemary & Basil Ham from Charlie's
Provolone cheese from Charlie's
Mizuna and Horned Mustard leaves from my garden
Butter!

In the afternoon, I began keeping a watchful eye on one of my pregnant guppies as she was showing signs of going into labour. I had to pop out to the shops for a while but when I got back, sure enough, she had popped out several fry! I love watching my guppies give birth. It just feel a thrill I can't describe - a new little tiny life is coming into the world (of my fish tank) and it's amazing.

The little yellow ball is a guppy egg that the mother expelled. You can see the eyes but the fry has not had time to develop yet.

I managed to capture a photo of the mother giving birth to a fry. Usually they give birth to the fry head first. You see the little eyes sticking out of the mother's birth canal before they shoot out! However, in this photo you see the fry in a curved position so it looks like a little bubble protruding from the birth canal. I was holding my breath until mummy guppy finally expelled it out and I saw a healthy little fry darting about, alive and well. I saw a few 'breech' births too! The tail of the fry would be sticking out and I think the mummy guppy has a bit more trouble giving birth to the fry this way.

Tonight was a first - my sisters and I took our Dad out for dinner to celebrate his birthday. We went to Shun Fung on the River at the Pier Street Jetty on Riverside Drive.

We were too hungry to start with entrees so we just ordered everything to come out together.

Jellyfish and Drunken Chicken
Sizzling Chicken
Fillet of Beef with Honey and Black Pepper
Seafood Claypot
Steamed Tooth Fish

For dessert, we shared the Red Bean Pancake with Ice Cream

The food was basically typical Chinese food. You would expect the staff to be more professional because of the restaurant's location but it really was just like being in a Chinese restaurant in Northbridge. I suppose on a nice sunny day it would be lovely to sit out on the verandah and watch the view over the river. However, tonight it was freezing and they had plastic sheets covering the verandah section so all you could was the reflection of the restaurant's lights on the plastic. We were seated at a small table right beside a heater so it did get pretty warm, especially after I had drunk almost a whole bottle of wine by myself.

Back at home, I got hungry later (of course!) and remembered I had bought a green papaya from the fruit and veg store in Carousel a few days ago. So...I made the Thai salad Som Tam.

thinly sliced green papaya
sliced fresh green beans
diced fresh tomato
chilli
fish sauce
sugar
lemon juice
crushed cashews
coriander

Usually you put dried shrimp in this salad too, but I didn't because I didn't feel like popping an antihistamine for this midnight snack.