I finally made it here! I’m afraid that once again I got myself all caught up in a complicated and intricate jigsaw puzzle – another 300 piece one, and of course, I just had to finish it, didn’t I! 🙂 and for the first time ever, I actually beat the only other person who was listed as having done the same puzzle! I completed it in 143.15 minutes, the other person took 172.01 minutes. Well, I was wrong about slopping around all day not doing much of anything! Julian loaded up the ancient old BBQ and carted it off to the tip, did some shopping, and has packed up most of the computer cupboard here in the Den. And what did I do? Well, I started tidying up some of my Rift shards, got rid of a couple of extraneous characters that I’d probably never have used again, and… worked on the ruddy jigsaw puzzle that now has me running late! Yeah, I really accomplished a lot, didn’t I! 😉 I was supposed to have gone through some of the drawers here, sifting and throwing out old stuff that’s of no use to anyone anymore. Some of the stuff in the drawers belonged to my mother, and has never really been touched since she used to live here. I don’t think Julian trusted me to go through it on my own – apparently he thought that I’d keep too many bits and pieces instead of throwing them out, because when I asked him for some bags and boxes, he said he’d do it with me, after lunch! Of course, after lunch was a bit late to be starting, and he was itching to start on the computer cupboard in here, so I got a reprieve until Monday 🙂 I have to admit, I am quite ambivalent about cleaning out those drawers – a lot of the things in them will be things I grew up with, and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to just toss out bits of my childhood simply because no-one will ever use them again. Of course, there’s lots of other stuff that I really only kept out of curiosity – things like letters between my mother and her partner that I thought I might read one day, but never did – but they won’t be thrown out, they’ll be shredded. I think there are some boxes of candles that date back to when my parents imported them for their business – well, I certainly don’t want them! They’d be quite rancid – or whatever happens to old tallow candles when they’re more than 30 years old! I think there are some old ornaments that I’ll keep, and there are at least two old sewing boxes that I am going to keep, come hell, heaven, or high water! There are just too many memories in them both… Anyway, that’s for Monday, and if Julian can keep ancient old hard drives (for the PC, not for his C-64!) then I can keep a couple of old sewing boxes! 😛 I don’t think it’ll take very long to go through the drawers – I’d like to start going through my wardrobe, and start getting clothes organised to either be cleaned and given to St. Vincents, kept (I suspect that there won’t be too many of those! More than 3/4 of my clothes are now too big for me, including the size “M” ones I bought only a couple of months ago! I’m now down to a size “S”, and in some cases, a size “XS”!) and there’s a whole heap of “intimate apparel” will have to be thrown out (I mean, who would want to wear someone else’s small-clothes, no matter how clean they are!)

My favourite eldest daughter posted a picture on Facebook a short while ago that I absolutely love! Now that we’re moving to a house, I’m wondering if we could get something similar commissioned – unfortunately, this one’s in Ireland, and we don’t have a front fence, but I’m sure something could be arranged! Maybe something in terracotta, to sit on the garage roof!? (I have seen terracotta versions sitting on people’s roofs around and about Melbourne) However, speaking of front fences, and the fact that we don’t have one, it has crossed our minds to do what we did with our place in Glen Waverley. When we moved there it had a low brick fence, with sort-of conifer bushes in a row behind it. Well, the bushes grew, and grew, and grew, until they were well and truly hanging over the footpath! It wasn’t possible to cut them back more than a couple of centimeters because these plants only grew a couple of centimeters of green foliage anyway, and if you cut too much off, you were left with a scraggy clump of bare, brown, and very dead, sticks! So, we thought we’d take them out and put up a nice, high fence – for privacy, and to stop the local school children from depositing their litter in our bushes. Long story short – the local Council wanted us to jump through too many hoops, as well as demanding that we pay through the nose to buy a permit… to allow us to apply for a permit (which cost extra, of course!) Instead, we opted to go the “free” way, and put in a nice, thick, and easily trimmed hedge of pittosporum! No fees, no permits, no hoops to jump through – just a nice, high hedge! 🙂 It’s taken about seven years or so for it to get nice and high and thick, but it looks good, is easily managed, and provides a goodly amount of privacy. We may do the same at Stillwater – if we do, then we could have a front gate too… I suppose… Food for thought… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Well, a pleasant-ish surprise – I was expecting to have gone back up again after that massive drop of four points – but no! That’s happening tomorrow morning! This morning I went down another one point, from 81.6kg to 81.5kg! So once more, all was well and peaceful in the Winter household this morning! 😉

Tomorrow, of course, is Sunday, and the pattering of our virtual feet will be heard throughout the Plane of Water, as we hack, slash, and trounce our way closer to level 65! Mind you, I don’t think we’ll get there tomorrow, not even if we take an experience enhancing potion – we’d only just got to level 64 when we finished off last week! Still, it’ll be fun trying 🙂 We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do when we do get to level 65 – whether we’ll start again from scratch, or go on a bit of a dungeon run. The last time we tried that after we got to magical level 65 was totally disastrous! If we are going to do dungeons, we have to make up our minds to stiffen our upper lips, stand in queues for groups, and play in a PUG, or “Pick Up Group”* Unfortunately, neither of us really “plays well with other children”, and we try to avoid PUGs wherever possible, even if it means getting killed, or not being able to complete even a baby Dungeon on our own 😦 Knowing us though, we’ll probably just start off another two characters and start again from the beginning! 🙂

And once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! 🙂 Do call in again tomorrow night to find out if my weight went back up again – it’s getting towards the end of the month and I’ll be starting those new tablets that Dr. Y. prescribed for me – he says I shouldn’t retain so much fluid with these ones, so I won’t start taking an extra anti-fluid pill until I see how things go… and don’t forget our adventures in the Plane of Water – did we die? What killed us? Did we have any amusing and/or terrifying adventures? Will I have once again found a new blog template to try out on you? There’ll be lots of news and hot goss waiting, so don’t miss out! 🙂 In the meantime, please try to bee good, remember that enthusiasm makes ordinary people extraordinary, and don’t forget to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm! But most importantly of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*PUG,  or “Pick Up Group” – people wanting to do raids or dungeons and don’t have enough players in their current group can pick up extra party members through a “Pick Up Group” utility. Quite often the players who do join your group really suck, big time, and the “Dungeon experience” becomes unpleasantly memorable, thanks to the often hopeless players that you were unlucky enough to “pick up”!