winter salad for a VIP

Sunday saw a community gathering for a working bee at the old school, to launch the revival efforts to turn it into a community hub. Chris spent the morning hammering flat nails in the old floor from which lino had been lifted. I managed to get down for lunch (a big showing being in order, as the local MP was attending) but remembered only at the last minute that I was supposed to take a salad or cake.

Thank heavens for the garden, even the modest winter variation. Encouraged by the permie class's positive reactions, I ended up with a big bowl of garden rocket, dressed with lemon juice from our city lemons, tossed through with tomatoes, studded with olives, and garnished with lots of parsley and shallot tops. Looked beautiful and tasted delicious. And the only things not our own were some olive oil and the tomatoes. Yay!

A lovely event, a bit of catching up, including organising to take part in Tara's permablitz in a couple of weeks, and potting her up some mint that she needs for her kitchen outlet. (She 'fessed to picking a bit when she'd dropped a note in a few day's earlier).

Very inclusive, lovely ceremony presided over by Ron Murray - not a welcome to country, he explained, but a ceremony to renew the site, rid it of bad luck etc. The leaves of cherry ballart (being a parasitic tree) were used to symbolise the young of the newest generation - a reason to treasure my cherry ballarts even more.

Project sounds terrific too - big plans, but with such a community mobilised, no reason to be skeptical about realising them. Hopefully we made a good impression on the minister!