Recently we were in lockdown 4.0 here in Melbourne. Sure weren’t expecting lockdown #3 to happen, but it did during the Lunar New Year weekend earlier this year in Feb. Even #4 just happened.

Personally, I find it an overreaction and unwarranted. If my Dad was still around, he would say ‘大惊小怪!’ or ‘装模作样!’, and I would agree with him completely.

However, instead of pulling this face 😒 in response to the recent lockdown (28 May – 10 Jun), I’ll write some things I did during lockdown.

1. Installing Smoke Alarm

So, I recently found out my smoke detector was broken – who knows how long it’s not been working! 😬

When I got a new smoke alarm from the store, I found out it’s of a different size – meaning instead of simply dismounting and replacing the old one, I need to drill holes on my ceiling to mount the new one.

I think it’s supposed to be a simple and quick job. But I’m obviously not an expert in these stuffs (although I did fix my toilet in the past haha), I just learn how to do them as they come – just like in life, you learn how to handle it when things break! So instead of 10 min, I took an hour..

So here’re the simple steps (fr top left of above photos):

1. Dismounted old one, see traces of previous two alarms?
2. Re-use one existing hole & mark the other hole to drill.
3. Drill. Harder than it looks!
4. Put in the red things, see the left wasn’t properly snugged? Yea, my neck hurt by this time and I was happy w imperfect job 😆
5. Securing with screws.

Have I learnt anything? Well, yes. Firstly, how to install a smoke alarm, obviously. 😄

To celebrate my work and entertain some of my girl friends (they who are more impressed by my work than I am 🤣), I quickly sent the below picture to them.

So, another lesson: some jobs are easier than it looks (people don’t know and think you’ve done a complex thing).

And one more: I often look better than I actually am. That’s true. I mean, I have a friend who’s in earnest as she said I should have a section in my blog on DIY stuffs so people can go there to get help. If I were really to do that, instead of fixing stuffs, I’m not sure how many things will break in their homes if anyone was to actually take advice on handyman work from me! 😅😅😅

2. 🐑 Melly cooking lamb?? 😱

Why the shock? Because I’m scared of lamb meat! The gamey smell.. I can’t stand it 🤮

As winter approached 🥶, a friend convinced me to bulk buy chestnuts from the farm – that’s quite a feat considering I hadn’t even bought it from the supermarket, ever! But she kept saying what a nice winter snack it is, the roasted chestnut delicious smell, bla bla bla… and, I was sold. 😅

It was so popular that we had to wait and kept checking back on their website of its re-stocking status 🌰🌰🌰. That, and with those chestnut promises my friend instilled in my mind made me increasingly eager to get these fresh farm chestnuts. We all did – the few others who combined order with us.

Anyway, because of this many chestnuts, I thought of learning to cook the chinese braised pork with chestnut dish. Weather is cold, lockdown at home, perfect timing. Went to the supermarket, setting out to buy 🐷, came back with 🐑! And still had no clue.

When I prepped the meat, I thought it looked a bit funny 🤨. But I dismissed it. Until I put them in the pan and saw the blood reeking out from the meat, and the smell … I gasped, opened the freezer, glanced at the package (there’s 0.5kg more), and there, the picture of 🐑 stared at me. 😱

‘Nooooo…!’ I paced about anxiously, trying to think what to do now with all the other ingredients I’ve prepped up for my supposed pork!

A friend asked me later, ‘then, what did you do with the lamb??’

The question should be: What did I NOT do with the lamb?

Because I was determined to get rid of the gamey smell (without the know-how), I ended up doing whatever comes to mind –

1. Cooked it with lots of star anises and cinnamon sticks, sugar, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, garlic, ginger… (just like how I would braised the pork, but without my dear chestnuts – I saved it away).
2. Simmered all the liquid away, thinking the taste will seep in well to the meat by then.
3. Took it out, squeezed lime juice on the meat + smeared some mixture of asian spices powder on top.
4. Airfried everything at 200 deg!

Some say it looks good – I think it wasn’t actually bad, and I did ate it for my dinner that night. But all the time in my mind I heard ‘that’s lamb,.. that’s lamb,.. uh oh that’s lamb, I’m telling you, that’s lamb,.. gamey gamey.’ 😣 I know it’s psychological, but it’s hard not to get that into your head!

I still had 0.5 kg -> what to do.. ? I almost thought of learning to make the Ughyur’s lamb skewers because that’s the only lamb dish I actually love to eat (they masked the smell completely with spices).

However, the next day, my neighbour came to my rescue. She eats lamb, so I passed it to her instead. She was happy. I was even happier. Problem solved 😁

3. DIY haircut 💇

The last time I had a haircut was 16 months ago. When I thought of getting a haircut last year, we had to wear mask and I chose to wait. Then I just left it.

I was about thinking about it again when lockdown #4 was announced. So I could either:

1. Wait for ? how long (based on the past year record, the govt covid rules has been as changeable as Melbourne’s weather, so I wasn’t sure it would really be for only 7 days when they first announced it this time round). OR,
2. Have a go at it myself.

It wasn’t a hard decision, I’m gonna cut it myself. I felt like I was on my way of becoming Rapunzel Tjoa, it’s getting heavy and I suspect it may be taking away nutrients from the rest of my body! (it’s an old saying I was told as a kid 😆)

I could do it only because it’s so long that I have buffer to stuff it up. I trimmed off about 20cm – was told by my friend later that if it’s a healthy hair of at least 30cm, I could donate it away (but too late, and it’s less than 30cm anyway, and not healthy either – thats the reason I cut it! 😛).

4. More time in the kitchen 👩‍🍳

After the lamb fiasco above, I don’t think I could ever count sheep in my sleep the same way again.

But it didn’t stop me from trying many more successful ones 😋