Wet, wet, wet

I think it has rained every day so far that we have been in Cairns.  The locals are saying the wet season has started early. Time to get out of here!

We've done a few tasks for Marjory, including feeding her up by cooking cakes and goodies, making grapefruit marmalade out of her grapefruits, a bit of gardening, window cleaning, sorting out a few things, taking her out and about and generally cheering her up. Also David replaced her kitchen drawers. This was a masterful bit of cabinetry. Here's the original:

and here is one of the new ones. They run much better.

The experimentation with tropical fruits continues. We bought a little sapodilla, and ate it yesterday after it had softened. Brownish colour, slightly grainy texture, like a quince, and the flavour of burnt caramel, but fruity. Yum. Marjory's soursop tree also bestowed a fruit and it was extraordinary. Sort of lemony sweet and kind of fizzy, but looks like wet cottonwool!

Have I raved about the pineapples? There is a new variety, Mareeba Gold, that is so sweet it's almost too sweet. Also, mangoes are just coming in from Darwin. Every Friday we have been staggering out of Rusty's markets loaded up with amazing stuff. Fruit, veg and barramundi.  Not a bad diet. In this climate, after you eat your pineapple, you plant the top in your garden, and this is what happens.

We have remained in Cairns this long partly in order to attend a concert Marjory particularly wanted David to enjoy: the Cairns Brass Band having its 10th anniversary concert "Brass, Sweat and Tears".  No tears were shed though because the performance was so good, full of favourites and showcasing the various solo talents. We all had a good evening. Plus I got to wear my new red coral necklace that Marjory bought as an early birthday present.