Winter’s log, earthdate 201605.25

08.59 am

Fishy update: This morning both Auric and Dapple were swimming unconcernedly about – both of them had innocent looks on their faces!

How dare they worry Mummy and Daddy like that! 😦

So we’re not going to feed them for a couple of days – well, not until tomorrow night, anyway! Not because they’ve been worrying us so much, but to see if that helps them empty out their tummies a bit (if that’s what the problem is, or has been!) In the meantime, I’m going to see if there’s some sort of goldfish food that isn’t in pellet form – I’m pretty sure there used to be a goldfish-type food that looked like orange salt flakes… If a bloated tummy from the pellets swelling up in there has been the problem, and soaking them for ten minutes doesn’t seem to have helped, maybe something that won’t swell up so much would be better (if such a food exists!)

More news as it comes to hand – or later this evening – whichever comes first!

04.40 pm

OK, it looks like “later this evening” came first! 🙂 So, we went off this morning just after eleven o’clock for my blood test, and blood pressure assessment, and guess what! My blood pressure was even betterer than it was last time, before I stopped taking the blood pressure medication! Not only that, but Dr. B. has even lowered my beta blocker pills as well, to only half a tablet twice a day instead of a whole one twice a day – and barring any problems arising from that, she wants to test my blood pressure again in three weeks! I’m hoping to hear back from Dorevitch with my Warfarin results just a bit earlier than last time, but so far this afternoon we’ve heard nothing from them…

On the way back from all of the above, we called in at the Amazon shop near the corner of Waverley Road and Springvale Road, to see if they had any advice for us regarding Auric and Dapple – who, right at this very moment, are swimming around perfectly happily, mostly in the middle section of the tank, and it appears that both of them have to actively swim up to the top, and not just – stop swimming – and float up! Silly little fishies! Anyway, at the Amazon place they told us that it could be the water, and for us to bring some of it in so that they could test it. They also wanted some photos of the fish and the tank, so Julian took those over after we’d had lunch at The Glen, and done a bit of shopping, before coming home, and having a very well-earned cup of coffee. When he turned up at the shop with the photos and some of the water, they ran heaps of tests on it (the water, that is, not the photos!) and apparently there is some ammonia in the water – there shouldn’t be any, so that might be causing the problem, and the filter that we’re using should have started growing some beneficial bacteria for “fixing” (?) the nitrogen in the water, but it hasn’t yet – so we now have a second, different filter, with charcoal in it to help keep the water fresh, and with some special tablets (pellets?) that will start them (the good bacteria) growing. We’re to use both filters for two to three weeks, and we need to get a water tester kit so that we can keep the ph balance right. I hope I got all that right – I’m merely transcribing from memory what Julian was telling me over the phone! We also have some different Fish Food for them – the “flaked” stuff that I’d remembered seeing once years ago, and that I mentioned earlier this morning – so, yes Virginia, there really is flaky fish food still available at the bottom of the garden! However, we’re not going to feed them tonight, instead we’ll change most of their water over, start off the two filters, and let them settle into those changes to their environment until Thursday, before we start them on the new Fish Food Flakes. What gets me the most is seeing them this afternoon – positively gamboling and frisking around their tank – when last night, we honestly thought we were going to lose Auric! Seeing him just lying pathetically on his side, floating at the top of the tank with his side fin in the air, and his long tail drooping down into the water, not even stirring, was really heart wrenching! This afternoon, Dapple was hanging in the tank, about half way up from the gravel, just minding his own business, looking out the side of the tank, when Auric – who’d seemed to be at death’s door last night – swam up from beneath him, head butted him three times in the side (to be perfectly honest, from where I was sitting, it looked like he was playfully biting him!) then turned and swam off quickly, as if to say “Tee-hee! You’re “it”! Catch me if you can!” Dapple just looked mildly annoyed, and swam off a couple of inches to another vantage point from which to observe the world outside… For animals that you can’t really interact with, they’re really most entertaining little critters! I’m very glad that we decided not to put them back in the pond outside, even if they are giving us grey hair at the moment!

So, once we got home, I of course, got stuck into WoW. I re-rolled a level 1 Night Elf called Påndora, and re-named her Phoenìx, whom I fully intend to level up to 100 – at time of writing, anyway! 😉 I’d just got her up to level 10 when Julian got home from his visit to the Amazon shop, and as it was starting to get a bit late, I had to leave her sitting out in the middle of nowhere (I seem to be rather good at doing that, don’t I!) and hopefully I’ll be able to get back to her either this evening, or tomorrow.

And now for the good bits! 🙂

Food stuffz: last night we had our last lot of the Three Islands sausages – apparently these are the “shrinking” sausages that we have to have one and a half of each, and according to Julian, they put out so much liquid that he has to completely drain the frying pan half way through cooking them, or we’d end up with stewed sausages! They make a hell of a mess of the stove too, I’m told! Anyway, they do taste nice – I like them, anyway! 🙂 With them we had chips, steamed green beans, and the ubiquitous half a tomato. For dessert I had my last Corella pear (and I must admit I’ve had better Corella pears!) a small bowl of Coles-brand, very low-calorie, and extremely delicious Rice Pudding, and my third last very special Mother’s Day cookies. We went to the Shingle Inn at The Glen today for lunch (well, we were in the area… 😉 ) where I had my usual BLT on Sourdough bread, a long black with a small jug of skinny milk, and I let Julian choose a small cake for dessert. In actual fact the “small cake” turned out to be exactly what he got me the last time we were there, to wit, one tiny little raspberry-iced éclair, filled with a delicious raspberry cream (of which he ate half!) and about the same sized chocolate-iced éclair, which was filled with equally yummy chocolate cream. Tonight for dinner we’re having Frenched lamb cutlets, boiled potatoes, steamed green beans, and, I guess, our usual half a tomato. Julian did get me some more Corella pears this afternoon, but I think they’ll be far too green to eat for a couple of days, so for dessert tonight I think I’ll have another small bowl of Coles-brand, very low-calorie, extremely delicious Rice Pudding, with a couple of slices of the tinned (?) peaches, which these days come in a plastic jar!

Weigh-in this morning. Was another “Oh dear!” morning 😦 I went from 63.9kg to 64.2kg – up three points, for absolutely no apparent reason! So you can bet your sweet bippy that I’m not going to be ultra impressed with what the scales are going to tell me tomorrow morning, after my BLT on Sourdough, and my two (one and a half, really!) tiny éclairs today! *sigh*

Which once more brings me to tomorrow! Poor Julian has another visit to the Dentist, where he’s having another three amalgam fillings replaced with the white resin ones. Not a particularly excruciating visit, but very nerve-wracking, nonetheless! Hopefully there won’t be too many more to go, after this next lot! So, while he’s away having nasty things done inside his mouth, I’ll be slogging away with Phoenìx – hopefully, with the help of the Heirloom items I’m wearing, I’ll be able to get myself up to level 20, and finally, the use of a Mount, at long last! And that’s really about it from me again for tonight! There’ll be more news on the fishies as it comes to hand, but let’s all cross our fingers that they’ll do a little better tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night though, and find out if my BLT and the éclairs were really worth the half a kilo of weight I expect I’ll probably put on by tomorrow, how Auric and Dapple fared overnight, and what the results of my Warfarin blood test were… until then though, please try extra hard to bee good, remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck, and don’t forget to keep warm and dry now that the weather seems to have become a lot more wintry, to always drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all else, please, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂