Woo-hoo! 🙂 We made it! Level 100! Goodbye Experience Bar – hello Reputation farming! (if we want to earn our Draenor Flying Licences, that is!) We actually hit level 100 fairly early on – after all, we only had a tiny way to go – and then it was straight back to our Garrison(s), where I’m afraid I felt a little bit gypped! Yes, at level 100, we now had access to buy the level 3 building “plans” so that we could upgrade all our Garrison buildings – BUT! We had to have completed certain quests in order to get the “Achievement” associated with each building we wanted to upgrade – f’rinstance, to upgrade my Lumber Mill to level 3, I needed to have the Achievement called “Upgrading the Mill” – which needless to say, I’d never heard of, and didn’t have! I should have it by tonight though – it was just a matter of getting “X” number of Work Orders through the Mill… I was able to upgrade my Mine though, and my Herb Garden, but to upgrade my Storehouse (where my Bank and the Guild Bank reside) I need an Achievement called “Got My Mind On My Draenor Money” – that is, I need to Loot, or to have looted, 10,000 gold on Draenor, and I have no idea how close I am to that amount! I could look it up if I logged on, but I can’t at the moment, because I’m writing this, and if I do log on, I’ll get distracted and never get this finished! Anyway, I think that Julian’s already received that particular Achievement, so I can’t be that far off it, surely! We also get the opportunity to create another three buildings – one large, one medium, and one small. I’ve decided to create a “Gladiator’s Sanctum”, because when I get it to level 2, I’ll get Safe Fall (no more dying from falling off cliffs and tall buildings!) and Underwater Breathing (no more expensive and hard-to-get Water Breathing potions!) I’ve also decided on the Dwarven Bunker and the Salvage Yard, because of the extra resources they’ll allow me to get…

Anyway, we spent a bit of time upgrading ourselves and our buildings, then we trundled off again, questing mainly for gold, but – and I don’t know about Julian – I’m also trying to keep track of the Factions we need to raise our Reputations with, for this Draenor Flying thingy. Reputation is a funny thing – as you go through the game picking up quests, you gain a “Reputation” with the group of faction who are giving you all these quests. The only thing I can liken it to is, say you go to Surfer’s Paradise for a holiday. While you’re there some of the locals tell you that some pets have gone missing from their back yards – they think that they might have been let out deliberately, and – because they’re terribly busy standing at their front gate looking worried, they ask you to see if you can find them. Well, you’re on holiday, but you’re bored, and they’ve offered to pay you, so you say “OK”, and start cruising around the streets looking for these missing pets. They’re not very hard to find, and they’re tame and co-operative enough to let you pick them up and take them back to their owners. You get your reward, and the locals think you’re a really nice person, and your reputation with them rises. If you do things like this often enough, pretty soon the “locals” think you’re a pretty special sort of person, and before you know it, you go from “Hated”, to “Hostile”, “Unfriendly”, “Neutral”, “Friendly”, “Honoured”, “Revered”, and finally, to “Exalted”. Quite a lot of Achievements and “Special Rewards” (like a special Mount, or a Faction Tabard) depend on your level of Reputation with a particular Faction (of which there are hundreds, by the way!) So if you’re after that extra special snazzy “XYZ” flying and riding Mount that everyone is coveting this week, which requires you to be “Exalted with A-Faction”, you’ll go and do as many quests as you can in A-Faction’s area, in order to build up your Reputation with them. I might add that Julian and I have never really gone down the Faction Reputation road, unless it’s been to get something like this “Riding and Flying Licence”, so it’ll be quite a novelty for us – if that’s what we decide to do.

So we had a good day – Julian died once, by falling off a cliff because he wasn’t looking where he was going – I was forced to “Feign Death” a couple of times to get the mobs off me, but I didn’t actually die 🙂 I’m really looking forward to getting back into things with Wynterthyme – poor old Arisnoë might have to take a back seat for a day or two until I get all this Garrison Building stuff sorted out and set up properly – but then it’ll be full speed ahead to get Arisnoë’ to level 90, and my first Horde Garrison!

Food stuffz: last night we had pork fillet cut up into little “rounds” – cooked beautifully, and while the pork was cooking, Julian steamed some sliced water chestnuts. Just before the meat was ready, he sautéed the steamed water chestnuts in the pan with the pork, and boy, did it make all the difference! 🙂 With it we had half a tomato, and steamed rice with finely chopped spring onions and a little bit of soy sauce mixed through it. For dessert, I had one apricot, and a low-fat yoghurt. Today for lunch I had two Ryvita crispbreads with low-fat ricotta, a slice of sandwich ham on each crispbread, and a spoonful of quinoa tabouli salad on top of the ham. They were a bit messy to eat, but very yummy! Tonight being Sunday night, we each had an omelet, made with Halloumi cheese, bacon bits, red capsicum, and spring onion. I had another apricot for dessert, with another low-fat yoghurt…

Weigh-in this morning. Batman is pointing up at his “Bat-Sign” in the sky with one arm! Yes, I went up again – four points! (disgraceful! hence the Ryvita crispbreads – probably for the rest of the month! Naughty Winter! No more berry crumble and chocolate mud-cake with gooey frosting for you!) However, I really do feel as though I was getting back into the range where I feel I should be – getting down to 62.3kg made me feel anxious, and getting down to 61.8kg really scared me a bit. Anyway, as I said, I went up four points this morning, from 63.4kg to 63.8kg, and I’d like to stop right there please, Mr. Music! My feet are still a bit puffy, though not as bad as they’ve been over the last couple of days, when they looked more like hams with fingers, than feet at the end of my legs, so I’m probably still carrying too much fluid… I really hate hot weather 😦

I spoke to Clarke this morning – he’ll be here tomorrow between 10 and 10.30am – which means he’ll be fixing my shower door and loosening up my recalcitrant vanity unit drawers. I hope. I also hope he’ll still be here when Josh arrives – I’d like them to have a chat about our aviary – because with me being the totally non-technical sort of person that I am, I’m afraid I don’t explain those sorts of things very well. I understand the principles and concepts involved, and I can see how it all goes together and why, but I get totally lost and tongue-tied when I have to try and explain or describe it to someone. Anyway, it’s been a long day, I have Followers to send off on Missions, and (hopefully) a Lumber Mill to upgrade – so once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Don’t forget to call back again tomorrow night, to see if my weight is holding steady, or if it’s still on the rise (if it is, I’ll probably be panicking!) whether the design for our aviary has been sorted out or not, and if I have a level 3 Lumber Mill and Storehouse or not. But until then, do continue to bee good, remember that we are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂