Here I am, on time for a change! 🙂 Happy Australia Day everyone – but I’m sorry, I refuse point blank to apologise for something that was allegedly done to the indigenous people here, almost a century before my ancestors arrived here from Italy and England! Anyway, we both had a very quiet, lazy, and indolent day today – me, simply because I am lazy and indolent, and Julian, because he hurt his ankle last night and we thought it best to rest it as much as possible today – so he copied some of the Adelaide CD’s that had been damaged through poor and rough handling, and played WoW, and I… just played WoW! 🙂 I had a great time, too – it reminded me of “the good old days” when I used to make what we called “The Menethal Run”, which I may have mentioned from time to time… After I’d cleaned out the Guild Bank, and had sorted out what was left, I  finally managed to get back to poor little Kødiak. I wanted to get her to level 10 so that I could go after that dang bear, Mangeclaw, to Tame – remember I said that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be? Well, I did finally locate him – and as I suspected – in a place I’ve never known him to be! I’d picked up a quest in Stormwind that called for me to go to Thelsamar, a Dwarven village roughly north-east of Ironforge (the Dwarven capital city) which would give me a good jumping-off place to start looking for him. There was only one small problem! I was level 10… but Mangeclaw was level 11! OK, well I couldn’t Tame him until I was level 11 too – so I thought that I might as well run around picking up as many Flight Points (places that you can fly to and from, once you’ve “learned” where they are) as I could, so I set off with my flea-ridden mutt Pet (a wolf) on my way to Menethal Harbour… many, many, many years ago, I used to make this run when I was barely level five, and back in those days, there were a lot more “roaming mobs” patrolling the sides of the roads, and who, scenting my young blood, would converge on me from miles around, hoping to kill me – and as I made this run regularly, and got killed equally as regularly, we nicknamed it the “Death Run”. Now, in World of Warcraft, if you get killed and run back to re-claim your body, you’re not penalised – if you choose to be resurrected in the local graveyard, your armor deteriorates, and you suffer from “Resurrection Sickness” for ten minutes, which means that your health and strength get cut down to about half for ten minutes, making you much easier to attack and kill. Most people choose to run back for their bodies! Remember, I used to do this for fun! I’d run from Ironforge all the way to Menethal Harbour – dying multiple times along the way. This time, at level 10, I was pretty safe, and I got to my destination, after picking up about four new Flight Points, in good order (but my poor Pet got attacked and killed a few times, which allowed me to run away and make my escape!) There’s a ship that sails from Menethal to the opposite island continent, Kalimdor, so still trying to level up to 11, and still after new Flight Points, I hopped on board and sailed away from the Eastern Kingdoms to Theramore Island, in Dustwallow Marsh. After I picked up the Flight Point there, and still not quite level 11 (you get experience points from “exploring” new places!) I looked at the map, and wondered if I could get myself to Ratchet, a “neutral” town further north, with yet another Flight Point that would be very handy to have under my belt. Dustwallow Marsh is a much higher level area than my puny level 10, but I thought that maybe I could swim to Ratchet, if I was careful – I didn’t dare try to take the road at that stage. Julian and I didn’t think there was anything terribly dangerous in the waters, so I thought I could probably get there by swimming, and island hopping… We both forgot about the pirates! On all the little island that I was going to hop onto! I got killed. From my ghostly form in the graveyard, I had another look at the map… Perhaps I’d be better off on the road after all?! So I risked the Resurrection Sickness, Rez’d in the graveyard, called my Pet – who hadn’t been killed – and we set off along the road. In the “good old days”, I used to count how many times I got killed on my way around the two island continents – this time, I forgot to count, but it was probably well over twenty times, and possibly more than 30! All the creatures that killed me didn’t have a “level” number, they just had “??” or a death’s-head, indicating that they were so much higher level than I was that there was no point in telling me! So I ran, got killed, appeared in the graveyard, ran back for my body, plus a few paces past it, “re-generated” myself, ran another couple of yards – sorry – meters, got killed again, ran back for my body, etc., etc. Oh boy! Did it bring back memories! 🙂 I eventually got to Ratchet, got my precious Flight Point, and decided that Durotar was an OK place – I should be fine running through there to Ashenvale and the village of Astranaar – at which point, I thought, I should have reached level 11 by way of exploration, and I’d Hearth back to Stormwind, catch the tram to Ironforge, and go off after Mangeclaw. But I still got killed another half a dozen times before I finally had all the Flight Points that I could get, between Ratchet in Durotar, and Lor’Danel in Darkshore! Julian kept asking me if I wanted him to log on with a high level character to “escort” me, but I declined – I was having too much fun! 🙂 And apart from my two “walkies”, that’s about all I’ve been doing today! See what I mean? Lazy and indolent! 😉

Food stuffz: Last night we had the pork fillet “medallions” (for want of a better term) with all the usual accompaniments – five chips, half a tomato, and a spoonful of green beans – all beautifully cooked and presented by Julian, despite an extremely swollen and sore right ankle! For lunch today we had a sandwich! Made with Coles “baked-on-the-premises” Multi-Grain bread, which was very nice and tasty (but not quite as nice as their flat-bread!) with ham, quinoa tabouli salad, tomato, and low-fat sliced sandwich cheese – really delicious! Tonight I believe we’re having chicken – probably pan-fried, or in “boats”, with either rice or chips, some more green beans, and the usual half a tomato, followed by a low-fat yoghurt – instead of my usual diet jelly tonight – I hope! 😉 I did manage to get in both my treadmill walks, so I’ve walked three kilometers, so surely that will help with the…

Weigh-in this morning. Yes, well we all knew that my weight was going to go up this morning, after eating all that sweet stuff yesterday, only being able to get one walk in, and not being able to take my usual lunch time anti-fluid tablet, and so of course, it did! I went up four points, from 62.7kg to 63.1kg, which under the circumstances I didn’t think was too bad, considering what I’d eaten all day! (so I might even go up again tomorrow – though hopefully I’ll start coming down again!) But I’ll weight and see what the scales tell me tomorrow morning, before I go reaching for the Optifast bars and soups again! 😉

So tomorrow we’ve got the Burial Service to attend. I was going to say that at least it would be shorter than the Funeral Service, but then I remembered that it’s at Healesville, which is a lot further away than Noble Park! *sigh* Swings and Roundabouts, I guess… We’ll probably be a bit rushed for time tomorrow morning, as we have to pick up my favourite eldest daughter and get ourselves to Healesville before High Noon, which is when the Service starts… no time for a sleep-in tomorrow morning, I fear! No time to have lunch before we go either, so I’m thinking… depending on what time everything finishes, of course – that Healesville is a bit of a “touristy” place, surely there’ll be some pretty little cafes, or “Devonshire Tea” rooms, where we could go and have something to eat after the Service – maybe even with Kate and Terry – but we’ll just have to wait and see how tomorrow pans out – I’ll let you all know what we ended up doing tomorrow night! 🙂 And so, once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Drop by again tomorrow night to find out how it all went, whether my weight is still going up – or if it’s starting to go down again, and what sort of adventures we had on our long trip up to Healesville! Until tomorrow night then, don’t forget to bee good, remember that there’s nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard – nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons! And also don’t forget to drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂