'morning all.  Other than work - my hope for today is to stay awake long enough to go to a concert tonight - we've got tickets to see Tin Alley Quartet at the Melbourne Recital Centre - they are so good, we always love going to their concerts.

Kim, you need more sleep, you've hardly been to bed at all today / tonight!!!

"work bench marina  "

You're definitely out to lead me astray, Uni - I could maybe dream about the work bench, but that's about all these days!

Sorely tempted to come up, might see if I can persuade DH to visit friends in the Blue Mountains that weekend!

This was in an earlier tip from faffa: "It tells you how to cook brown rice in the EDC underneath the rice method. In the basket, well rinsed, varoma for 30-35 mins".  Good luck.

I used to shampoo my hair 2 - 3 times a week, then I went for about 8 months without shampooing my hair at all, just washing it under the shower a couple of times a week.  At first I didn't like it and felt uncomfortable, but it was much easier to handle and the texture changed.  When it was freshly shampooed it was very "fly-away' but, by not using shampoo, it was so much easier to control.  The texture change was due to the natural oils coming back.  I now shampoo using a natural chemical free shampoo once a week and give it a wash under the shower in between times and this regime works well for me.

I think it would be very hard to not shampoo if you were constantly in a steamy restaurant kitchen or working on a farm or in a dusty / dirty environment, etc.  For me it worked well and I am happy with it as it is now, but this may not suit everyone.

Re. the baking powder.  Does it NEED to be GF, or is this the option to make the cake GF, i.e. does it make any difference to the finished cake whether your baking powder is GF or not?

I'm like you Obbie - I have it open on my PC all day and pop in and out every so often, it's the only way I even stand a chance of keeping up, and even then I only get the chance to read about 1/3 of the posts.