My goodness gracious me! What absolutely horrible, cold, wet, and miserable weather! 
About the only thing good about today’s weather is the fact that all the rain is refreshing the water in our little fishy pond surrounding the water feature at the front of the house, from whence I concocted the name “Stillwater”! We’ve just got home from a shopping trip and visit to the hairdresser, and I can’t remember when I’ve been so glad to get inside and close the door behind me! We left here around midday, got onto Burwood Highway, just past the Vermont South shopping centre, and couldn’t remember if we’d shut the garage door behind us! So, we turned around and came back to check. We had, but it’s something we’re going to have to be mindful of – we’ve lived with an automatically closing garage door for eight years, and now we actually have to close it behind us (with a remote control, but we still have to remember to use it!) So we set off for Doncaster Shoppingtown again, and it was raining pretty heavily – the roads were definitely not much fun to be on this afternoon! We picked up some more coffee pods, and also some tea from T2, because we ahh… don’t know where our tea supply is cached in all the boxes! We will find it of course, but we needed some tea to take us through until we do. We got two little boxes of Ginger and Spice, and two little boxes of Raspberry Rush – both flavoured black teas that one can add milk to – they both sound nice, and they both smell delicious – so we’re about to sample the Ginger and Spice one to see if it’s as good as it smells! (it does!) 🙂 Anyway, I had my hair done, and after having lunch at Jones the Grocer (Julian had a very nice looking 3-cheese croissant and a piece of cake; I had one of my favourite Optifast bars, a Berry Crunch one!) we went and bought a new, small Sharp microwave – it’s very small and quite a cute little beastie – and Julian had to buy a new, smaller Pyrex jug in which to steam his beans as the one that he’s been using wouldn’t have fitted in the new, smaller microwave! I got some more perfume as I’d almost run out of the one that my favourite youngest daughter gave me for Mother’s Day (Don’t look now, but we brought Flipper’s two cat-caves back today and Julian’s just put one on the sofa-bed in here – she’s just noticed it, and has made an immediate bee-line for it! 🙂 ) Now, you recall that we’ve been trying to hire ourselves a treadmill – well, today we actually managed to find someone who was willing to not only lease one to us but who said that we could go around and try one out. We wanted to get one with an adjustable incline, so after we’d finished at Shoppingtown we slithered and slid our way on the freezing cold, wet and greasy roads to Glen Waverley, where this guy was located. It was still pouring with rain, but it had become about four times colder, too, and I’d just come from the hairdresser! All the treadmills were in the guy’s garage, so we had to run through the freezing rain to get to them (when I say “run”, I don’t mean actually running, I mean walking as quickly as I can with shoes on, OK?!) …It didn’t do my newly coiffured hair much good, I can tell you! Well, there were a lot of machines there in his garage, but we were only interested in two of them. There was one smaller (and dingier and grubbier-looking) one that did do a teeny-weeny bit of an incline, and one slightly larger, cleaner and nicer looking one that didn’t do any sort of incline, large or teeny! I had a go on the smaller one, and it wasn’t bad, but the walking platform or whatever was quite narrow, and my deformed splayed feet tended to overlap badly on the plastic sides that you stand on while you start the machine up. I think that might have been a bit dangerous and either break the machine, or send me flying, so we decided that maybe that wasn’t the right one for me. Next I tried the nicer, cleaner looking treadmill with no adjustable incline. It wouldn’t even start. “Oh dear!” said the guy who owned them “I must have got them mixed up! It’s the one behind it that you should be looking at!” – “Good save!” I thought to myself, as we stood around and shivered violently while he swapped the two machines over. I had a go on that one, which was quite a lot wider and managed to accommodate my deformed feet quite well. It goes slowly enough for me too, so we’ve arranged to have either that one, or one just like it, delivered early next week, for me to try for a month. Unfortunately it doesn’t have an adjustable incline, so I’ll have to walk flat, but if that one works out alright I might try “graduating” to one that will allow me to walk uphill next month – on the other hand, if I continue to lose weight while walking on the flat, I won’t bother with the incline. We’ll see how we go, anyway.
Weigh-in this morning. Well, life is full of little surprises, isn’t it! I went down another three points, from 76.9kg to 76.6kg! This can’t last, folks! I will have to pay for this rapid and very gratifying weight loss – I will have to bounce back! It would be good if I could go down another couple of points first though, wouldn’t it! 😉
Well, Flipper has eschewed her much-loved cat-cave and is reclining in regal splendour along the back of the sofa-bed! In fact she’s been behaving quite differently from the Flipper we’d come to know and love over at Doncaster! Many, many years ago, Flipper would, occasionally, sit on Julian’s lap (we even have some photos to prove it!) but since our sadly departed Russian Blue, Arty, came to live with us, she wouldn’t have a bar of sitting on anyone, and even hated to be picked up! Last evening, and this morning, she was quite willing to be picked up and cuddled on “Daddy’s” knee! And last night she was even happy to have the “horrible Mummy” cuddle and pat her! But the most amazing thing was, she made her way into our bedroom last night, where she somehow managed to jump up onto the bed (she doesn’t jump terribly well any more because of her arthritis) and spent the night cuddled into the doona between us! I think she got down once, probably to have a snack and a drink, or to use her litter box, but she was there again this morning when I woke up! She’s never, ever, ever done that before! When we went out at midday we were a little concerned that she’d be upset, but when we got home and I walked into the Den here, there she was, stretched out along the back of the sofa-bed, quite relaxed. When she saw me come in, she hopped down and came over for a pat, had a few mouthfuls of pussy-biscuits, and went back to her sofa-bed perch! I’m beginning to think that she likes living here already! I hope so, anyway! 🙂
The painter was supposed to be coming over tomorrow, to case the joint and see what needed to be painted, but he’s taken a rain check until Saturday morning, which suits us fine – we still have a lot of work to do here, with all the boxes that still have to be unpacked! On Saturday afternoon, my favourite youngest daughter Kate and her husband Terry are coming over to have a look at the place and to advise us on setting up and maintaining a Vegetable garden, and no doubt, my favourite eldest daughter will be over next week to see what the place looks like with furniture in it! 🙂 There’s really not all that much more to add tonight, apart from the very obvious fact that we’re both going to be very busy unpacking boxes for several weeks to come – so once more I shall leave you with the reminder to drop in again tomorrow night, to see what we’ve been up to, what adventures we’ve had, and whether or not my weight has bounced right back to the 77kg zone again! But until then, please bee good, don’t forget that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it; always remember to keep warm, to look after yourselves, and to drive carefully, but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 