Eighteen days to go…
Well, as usual we spent a very pleasant day on the Tarken Glacier – it would have been even more pleasant if it hadn’t been snowing so heavily, though! Needless to say, we didn’t reach level 65 – in fact, I only made it half way (51%) and poor Julian didn’t even get quite that far! I tells ya, it’s a s-l-o-w goin’ when you get into the sixties! I only have one more point to go in my Foraging skills, though, to become a full “Savant” at skill-level 450 (and that’s as high as you can go, in all of the Skill departments – 450!) and about fifteen levels left to get in Butchering Skills (that’s the skinning and the processing of the skins, not meat production, as one might have thought!) You can only have three “Skills” – the basic ones being “Foraging”, “Mining” and “Butchering” – they’re the three “Gathering” skills, then there are other “manufacturing” skills, but I won’t go into them here. You can buy extra skill slots for Credits, but as I already have all the artisans who can make anything that Guild members might need or want, I didn’t bother buying any extra for Sylversong. When Julian and I play together, we usually choose to level up only two skills out of a possible three… Why? So we don’t waste too much time figuring out whose turn it is to harvest whatever. This time I took Foraging and Butchering, and he took Mining and Butchering – so all plants are mine to harvest, and all minerals are his to harvest. The Butchering we take in turns, each of us going up ten levels and then handing the skinning over to the other person. A little clumsy, but it works 🙂 And that’s why my Butchering skills are so far behind my Foraging skills! 😛 Anyway, as I said in the beginning, we both had a fun day – it’s a lot harder at this level, not because the mobs are so much harder to kill – they’re not – even the Elites were pretty easy – no, it’s the mob density! At one stage we were running around in the snow and the blizzards, visibility almost 0%. We had to find dead Researchers and give them a “proper burial” (i.e. right click on a sparkly skeleton, and hey presto! He’s decently interred!) These “sparkly skeletons” were very few and far between, and we had a very wide area in which to search for them – but the mobs were like flies on a pile of umm… rotten meat? making it: mob density (number of nasties attacking you) close to 87%, quest objective (the “sparkly skeletons”) about 5%! And of course, fighting in those snow storms and white-outs, you got turned around a lot, and all you seemed to be doing was fighting, fighting, and more fighting – with only the occasional “burial”… and all the time we’re killing this, and slaughtering that, our poor little experience bars were barely moving! Quite frankly, I don’t think we’ll even make level 65 next Sunday, but I don’t care – it’s fun playing! 🙂
my-Julian got an SMS from Julian-the-Agent the other night – the Vendors wanted to know if we wanted to buy the desk and bookcase in the front study (my-Julian’s office-to-be) We did think about it – we do have a lot more rooms to furnish than we do here – but in the end we decided that we didn’t really need it. However, I would like to buy their bedroom mirror, or failing that, to know where they got it from. Well, they obviously don’t want to sell it, because they did say that they’d bought it from a “Trade Fair”, and that the manufacturers were in New South Wales (I think?!) about four years ago. Well, that rules out that plan of attack for getting the same sort of mirror… Having looked around at all sorts of places for something similar, I have a feeling that we’re going to have to buy the right size piece of mirror and take it to a picture framer and get them to match the frame as closely as they can to the one in the picture we have of the original. There used to be a beautiful picture and framing shop over at Doncaster, many years ago – but alas, like My Size, Urban Soul, Magnolia, and many other really fantastic shops, they ended up balking at Westfield’s highly exorbitant rental fees, plus the rule that if the Centre was open, they had to be too, whether it was Christmas, Easter, or just an ordinary Public Holiday, and they’ve all moved out – to who knows where! So this evening, after dinner and television, I think my allotted task will be to look for picture framing shops – I may be living in the past, but I think we should be able to choose the frame, tell the people what size mirror we want, and get them to organise it all for us – and hopefully we might get it before Christmas… next year! Anyway, I know you used to be able to do it that way, once upon a time…
I also looked for a shower stool – I’m used to having the bench seat in my shower, and while I don’t rely on it as heavily as I did before I lost so much weight, I still need it – especially when I’m washing my hair – so I’m going to have to get a shower stool, because there’s no handy-dandy built-in shower bench over at Stillwater. Now, I could pick up a “cheap as chips” plastic and tubular steel one at the local chemist shop, but they look horribly “hospital-y” and ugly. I want a nice, wooden one! Well, I found some. They’re made of cedar, and they look lovely! They’re also a lovely price – from the manufacturer’s point of view, that is! We’re thinking about it… So, tomorrow, weather permitting, we may go picture framing shopping, or shower stool shopping… Julian says he has the clothes dryer goal in hand… so I’m not sure that there’s anything more to do in the furniture shopping department! If the weather is really too bad, we should (and probably will anyway – it won’t take long!) go through our wardrobe. Anything bigger than a size “S” goes! 🙂 Then we can get the “professional” packers in this week, and be ready to go by August 25th! I’m also compiling a list of things to assemble for August 20th – settlement day! We’ll need to take something to sit on, an electric jug or a saucepan, to boil water in, a couple of mugs, some skinny milk, tea and or coffee (Nescafe, unfortunately!) and a packet of my Optifast bars (I’ll need one there for Friday too, so I might as well take a packet and be done with it! They’ll be “living there” after the 25th, anyway!) Ooo-er! I can’t wait! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. More surprises! Maybe these new pills are going to work out alright – although after only one day, it’s a bit soon to tell for sure… However, I went down another three points – from 80.5kg to 80.2kg! And there I am, aren’t I! Down to the last two or three points before going down to the next kilo-level! And we all know what that means, don’t we! I’ll sit there on that weight for about a week, or go up, and then sit there… so I’m not really looking forward to weighing myself tomorrow… 
(Ahhh… coffee… 🙂 ) I can’t believe myself… this is the third day in a row that I’ve spent the day wearing… socks! I hate socks! Normally… but those concrete stairs are so icy… and besides, these socks feel nice and light and loose – not tight and restrictive like socks normally do! In fact, I was thinking on my morning Stair Walk, that they’d make ideal shoes for me! I think you can get socks for yoga or something, that have non-slip soles… and if then they cut the tops off the socks so that they looked more… stylish? and they came in black (which, unfortunately these ones don’t – but maybe the yoga ones might?!) I’d be quite happy…. er… well, maybe a little less opposed? to wearing shoes… “If”, “if”, and more “if’s”! Still, at least I’d be comfortable… So anyway, once again that’s about all from me for tonight! Don’t forget to look in on the blog again tomorrow night, and find out if my weight “misgivings” have come to pass, or if I’ve gone down a bit more (fingers crossed! fingers crossed!) And see whether we did go out, or if the weather kept us indoors again, sifting through our wardrobe this time! There’ll be lots to tell you about, so don’t be shy and miss out! 🙂 Until then, though, continue to bee good, remember that the most common way people give up their power is by thinking that they don’t have any; don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm… but most of all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 