As you can see, in honour of my “re-birth” and new name, I’ve created a new header (with sparkles!) and colours… The spring icon is still there, in soft-blossom-pink, and will remain where it is until the 1st of December, the first day of summer (unfortunately – I don’t enjoy summers…) Actually, not all that much has been happening around here today! We set off at around 11.20 this morning for my appointment with Dr. B., to get the results of my foot x-ray and to find out if I could get back on the treadmill or not – it was pouring with rain when we left, and I can tell you that we were most grateful that we have a door from the house into the garage! As we got closer to Glen Waverley, the rain got stronger, and by the time we got to the surgery, which doesn’t have an underground car park, it was really pelting down! Luckily I didn’t have to use my chair, or poor Julian might have got drowned! As it was, we both scuttled into the waiting room looking a little like drowned rats! There’s usually a bit of a wait to see the good doctor, and today was no exception – there were two other patients before me – so I settled down with my kindle, and Julian read his book on his phone (yes, he does have a kindle, but he didn’t bring it with him, the silly goose! 🙂 ) Dr. B. had a look at the x-rays, with Julian and I both adding little bits of information as to what was which and where, but on the whole, my feet didn’t look too bad, apart from the severe arthritis on the top bones near the ankle of my left foot. So I didn’t have a stress fracture at all, it was just the arthritis eroding the bones on the top of my foot which had me in agony the other day – so I now know to stop walking if that pain becomes consistent or gets unbearable!  However at least I can start treadmilling again, and maybe my weight will be a little more “obedient” as a result! Dr. B. is still quite mystified about the swelling in my feet and ankles, because although fairly severe, especially in my left foot, the arthritis isn’t really bad enough to cause so much swelling. My feet do look terrible, but then they always have (the fine legacy of eleven years of classical ballet!) Whenever I’ve been in hospital, nurses have taken one horrified look at my feet, and gone running for the oxygen monitor (because they go a nasty bruise-purple colour, you see, which is usually a sign of oxygen starvation in the extremities which can lead to all sorts of nasty things) the results of the oxygen monitoring are always the same – the nurses just give me a dirty look for scaring them and tell me what I’ve been telling them all along! That there’s nothing wrong with the oxygen supply in my feet – they just don’t look as if there’s enough (*shrug* it’s not my fault! I keep telling my feet not to do it, but they won’t listen to me – they’re very disobedient!) Anyway, I’ve got my Warfarin blood test tomorrow, and Dr. B wants an iron count done and several other tests to see if we can narrow the cause of my swollen feet down a bit, so they’ll be done at the same time, and I’ll get the results of those sometime next week. But in the meantime, I’m back to the treadmill! 🙂 I went on a short hill climb as soon as I got home this morning, but because Julian and Dr. B. had laid down the law and told me to “take it a bit easier” (*fume*) and to stop walking if my foot played up again, I only walked for twelve minutes this morning instead of my normal fifteen minutes plus – and I only walked at 3 kmph instead of my usual 3.3 kmph – but I suspect that I’ll be back up to full-time and speed again by the weekend… My foot did give a few twinges here and there, but not enough to stop me, tough old snowflake that I am! 😉

After my treadmilling I thought I’d play a little Rift, but it was night time again in Telara, and I couldn’t really see where I was going – if it had been real life and not a game, I’d be covered in scratches and bruises from where I’d been running blindly into rocks and fences and trees, so I gave up after I’d scrambled my way up to level 29, and decided to give the blog a new face instead. Which I did. What do you all think of it?

Weigh-in this morning was quite gratifying – maybe it was all the anticipation of starting to walk up hills again or something, because I went down four points! From 70.1kg down to 69.7kg – which pleased me greatly! I asked Dr. B. about going down to 65kg before starting on Maintenance, and she said that there was no reason why I couldn’t, but that I shouldn’t try to go lower than that. So, down to 65kg I shall go, and then start a carefully planned Maintenance diet. I aim to be stabilised around 70kg or less, and from then on I’ll be monitoring myself like a hawk! I’m totally determined that I’m not going to let myself go permanently over 70kg!

I think the rest of the week is going to be fairly quiet – I have my blood tests tomorrow, and I want to get there early (are you reading this Julian?! Early! As in maybe after my treadmilling but before breakfast?) so as to be able to give ourselves as much of the day to “do things in” as possible! As far as I’m aware, Friday is free (to Rift! Yay!) On Saturday, I’d like to get to the nearby nursery, or to Bunnies, to talk to someone about out veggie garden – Sunday, of course, Mandreth and Sylversong will be messing about in The Wilds again (where hopefully we won’t die quite so many times as we did last Sunday!) After that, there’s only a week left before Clarke’s due to start work on my bathroom! Maybe we can do some box unpacking next week – if Julian’s finished with all his paperwork in the Office! Anyway, I think that’s about all I have to regale you with this evening – as I said, it’s been a quietish sort of day, and apart from our rather damp start this morning everything’s been a bit “Ho-Hum”, if you know what I mean. Do drop in again tomorrow night to find out all the latest! Hopefully my Warfarin tests will be good and they won’t want to feed me any extra rat poison – and if we go early enough in the morning I might even have the results by the time I write again. I’m sure you’ll all be most anxious to know whether or not my weight behaved itself again, as well as how my treadmilling is going (and whether or not I’ve snuck myself back to full speed again!) But until then, please bee good, remember that if you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs; never forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather… but most importantly, never forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂