04.22 pm

What a mixed-up sort of day it’s been here! We’ve been without the internet/Foxtel since we got up this morning, and it’s still not fixed! We’ve managed to find out a little bit about what’s going on through a friend of ours – it seems that something went “*BANG!*” at Tally Ho, sometime before 08.00 am (presumably – that’s just when we got out of bed this morning and found that “thingz weren’t werking no more!”) According to Foxtel, this whatever-it-is won’t be fixed until Monday (!!) though according to our friend, it was an electrical outage that caused the “*BANG!*” at Tally Ho, and that the power company responsible was hurrying over to Tally Ho this morning, around 11.30 am, to fix it! Now, either the “*BANG!*” at Tally Ho was a lot worse than was first thought, and it hasn’t been fixed yet, or else the “*BANG!*” at Tally Ho has been fixed, but Foxtel aren’t going to give up their weekend to fix their side of the problem – until Monday! Tel$tra says that the connection problem has been fixed – however, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Foxtel is honest and truthful (*rolls eyes*) we still have no Foxtel cable, and going on what they told us this morning, not likely to have one until Monday, full stop, end of sentence, begin new paragraph, etc! This puts us in a bit of a bind though, because we rely on our Foxtel cable for just about everything, apart from our fixed land-line! (I think!) Julian has been able to jury-rig “an internet connection” via his mobile phone and our wifi, and at a pinch, we can even play WoW! But we can’t watch Television – well we could watch “Free to Air”, if Julian sets up an antenna, but I’m sorry, I’d rather read my kindle than watch a semi-decent show mangled to death by ads! What a lovely weekend we have ahead of us! Thank you for your consideration, Foxtel! (*snarl!*)

This morning we bagged up Lemon and Butter and took them back to the Pet Shop barn-thingy, and we discussed – at some length – whether we should procure another two Golden Comets, another two different types of fish, or none at all. The “none at all” option didn’t even get my vote, and I asked the nice Fish Man we were talking to what sort of memory goldfish had – apparently the “three-second memory” theory has now been debunked – and the upshot of that conversation was that – because none of us had a clue as to exactly how long a couple of little goldfish remembered traumatic events, or even how badly Auric and Dapple had been bitten and harassed by Butter and Lemon, it wasn’t really worth risking their health and safety by getting another two Golden Comets. We umm’d and ahhh’d a bit, and finally decided to get two smaller, and very different looking playmates for them. One thing we saw up there in the aquarium section of the Pet Shop barn-thingy that both horrified and amused us, was a half-eaten small fish, drifting gently downwards in one of the tanks that had both smallish goldfish, and a “cloud” of teeny little “schooling” fishes, proving that goldfish, no matter how pretty and sweet they look, are omnivores, and will (quote) eat anything they can fit in their mouths! (unquote) including one of the teeny little “schooling” fish! Oh dear… Anyway, the two that we got… they’re known as “Red and White Comets”, they’re about an inch and a half long (about 3.5 to 4 cm long?) They’re bright orange on top, mottling down to a dazzling white underneath. Again, I have no idea whether they’re male or female (silly me! I should have asked, shouldn’t I!?) but I’ve called them Pyramus and Thisbe, after two characters in Shakespeare’s  comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. This time it’s quite easy to tell them apart – Pyramus has a short, angular bar of bright orange in his top fin, and an all-white face, whereas Thisbe is wearing orange and black “lipstick”! 🙂 Hopefully Auric and Dapple won’t have a fit of hysteria when we introduce them to eachother in a day or so…

I did play a little bit of WoW today, but it was fairly half-hearted, and I soon gave up and “went home to mother” – I really am getting totally fed up with standing in line, waiting for my “turn” to complete a quest, and having to stand around doing nothing whilst waiting for quest mobs or items to re-spawn!

And that’s really about all that’s been happening today, so I guess I can now get onto the good bits, yes?

Food stuffs. Last night we didn’t have any dinner! None at all! We had a cup of coffee and one chocolate each at around about 08.45 pm, and a cup of tea at around 10.30 pm – and that was it! Today for lunch we had a reprise of the turkey sandwich we had the other day, made from the tasty whole-meal bread with all the sesame seeds in the crust, Sumac and Sesame hummus instead of butter, sandwich-sliced turkey breast, and a little bit of the Beerenberg Tomato Chutney – totally delicious! 🙂 Tonight we’re having Coles-brand, “Finest Australian Angus Beef with Garlic and Parsley” sausages – probably with chips, half a tomato, and (hopefully!) baby Brussels sprouts. For dessert I’ll have one of my “Eve” apples, and a small tub of Le Rice.

Weigh-in this morning. Was woeful! Shocking! Horrible! Tragic, even! This is the heaviest I’ve weighed since I hit maintenance last September! It’s those revolting little pills – every time, they do this to me, every time! I went from 65.1 kg to 65.6 kg! That’s disgusting, and even allowing for lunch yesterday, there’s no way that the food I ate yesterday could have caused such a massive weight gain overnight! Unfortunately, while I’m on these unspeakable little pills, I’m going to be storing so much damn fluid (and you should see how swollen my ruddy feet are! Actually, it’s probably best that you don’t see them – you’d faint with shock!) that I doubt there’ll be much in the way of rising sea levels until I come off them again! 😦 I knew something like this was going to happen, I was expecting it, and I know I said I was going to ignore all this fluid-caused weight-gain until at least the 15th of the month (which includes 5 days of getting them out of my system) but… it’s very emotionally devastating and draining… 😦

And that brings us around to tomorrow! Tomorrow, we’re expecting a visit from my very favourite youngest daughter and her husband. That’ll probably be quite an emotional event too, as they lost one of their cats a couple of nights ago. They have (or had!) three cats, one dog, and numerous rabbits. The cats are all “indoors” cats, but one of them, Parsnip, manged to get out the other day, and went missing. They drove all over the suburb looking for him, and not finding him, Terry rang around several Vets. He’d been hit by a car, but the woman who hit him took him to the nearest emergency animal hospital, where they gave him some pain relief, but he’d apparently broken his spine and there was nothing they could do, so they put him to sleep.  Kate and Terry were both devastated – and I know exactly how they feel – I lost a very dear little cat the same way, many, many years ago – and one of the worst things about it was that I found his collar in the bathroom – almost as though he’d left it there for me to find, with a note saying “Here you are Mum, I won’t be needing this any more – keep it to remember me by!” – as if I’d need a collar to remind me of our sweet little Cecil, who loved the colour red so much that he’d go to extraordinary lengths to find something red to sit or lie on! 🙂 Anyway, once again, that’s about “it” from me for this evening, but do drop in again tomorrow night, to find out how much more my [censored] weight went up, how Pyramus and Thisbe are getting on, and whether or not they’ve been introduced to Auric and Dapple yet – and if our internet/Foxtel cable-thingy are fixed yet! However, until then, do try extra hard to bee good, be aware that sometimes problems don’t require a solution to solve them; instead they require the maturity to outgrow them, and don’t forget to keep warm and dry, especially when it’s wet and cold outside, to look after yourselves, and to always drive carefully… but above all, please, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.58 pm

It feels as though today’s been as long as a century, and I don’t mind telling you, all I really want to do at the moment is curl up and go to sleep! Anyway, all I had time for this morning was to have my usual walk on the treadmill, eat breakfast, and play a couple of games of Solitaire, before I had to head back to the bathroom to get ready! Then at around about 11.15 am, off we went to the RACV Country Club in Healesville for lunch today, and it’s quite a drive – you know, I’ve never been able to work out why it always seems to take longer to go somewhere, than it takes to get home again afterwards! Still, the weather was kind to us, and there wasn’t too much traffic – at least, not after we got out into the middle of all the vineyards and wineries, out there in the Yarra Valley! And then… there it was! The RACV Healesville Country Club! Well, it’s not what I’d ever call an “attractive” place, or a beautiful place, or even, for that matter, anything that you’d even guess was a “Country Club”! Architecturally, it was almost “brutalist” – very severe and “industrial”! If you’d told me it was a metal-working facility, or an import/export warehouse, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised – apart from all the surrounding golf courses, that is! 😉 Inside it was little better – “plain and functional”, with lots of quietly neutral colours, and “interesting”, but not too “over-the-top” abstract landscapes on the walls. As we’re Members, we didn’t have to sign-in, but went straight through to the Terrace Bistro, where we were given a lovely table by the window, overlooking the nearby mountains. It was a stunning view, and judging by the vast number of winter-clad trees (i.e. leafless!) it would have been particularly breathtaking at the height of autumn! (Note to self: we must remember to go back there again next year, in autumn, to see if I’m right about that!) The service was quite good, and the food was served in good time, the waitresses pleasant and accommodating. After lunch, on our way out, we had a browse around the Gift Shop in the foyer, where Julian was able to pick up some “Cade” shower gel by L’Occitane – he tried to get some from the L’Occitane shop at Doncaster yesterday, but they were closed! Anyway, he got it today (it’s his favourite!) and I managed to find myself a rather lovely two-tone purple leather wallet – so we both came away from the Healesville RACV Country Club with nice full tummies, and very happy with our “spur of the moment” purchases! 🙂

As I mentioned above – for some strange reason, we seemed to arrive home a lot more quickly than we got to Healesville – even though we took exactly the same route – and if anything, the traffic was slightly heavier on the way home! Of course, the first thing we did when we came through the front door was head off for a cup of coffee (I didn’t, I took my shoes off first! That’s always the first thing I do when I’ve been out – take of my [heavily-censored] shoes!) We had been thinking of taking Lemon and Butter back to the Pet Shop barn-thingy this morning, but just as well we didn’t – we wouldn’t have had time – so they’ll go back tomorrow morning. I’m still a bit “iffy” about getting another two Golden Comets – I just have this weird feeling that if Dapple and Auric see another two sleek, shiny, silvery-yellow fish suddenly appearing in their Fish House, they’re going to freak right out, thinking that it’s Lemon and Butter coming back to terrorise them all over again! I’m now thinking that perhaps we’d be better off getting another couple of “ordinary” goldfish instead… or maybe a couple of mottled white and orange? I’d like a couple of black ones, but I wish they had black goldfish without the “goggle” eyes… Anyway, I think I’ll go with Julian when he takes Butter and Lemon back tomorrow morning (I caught them biting eachother this afternoon!) and we’ll see what happens! And seeing that that’s about all that’s happened here today, now I suppose I can get on with the “good bits”! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night we had plain-old pan-fried chicken breast, on plain-old steamed rice which had a bit of finely chopped spring onion mixed through it (so it wasn’t really “plain-old” steamed rice at all, was it! 😉 ) and for dessert I had a “bald-kiwi-fruit-brown” skinned Nashi pear, and the very weird “bubble-wrap-pop”, but delicious anyway, chocolate Chia Pod. Today for lunch – what can I do but give you all a link to the Terrace Bistro menu, and tell you what I had from it! 🙂 For my Entrée (at least they call it an Entrée there, and not “Starters” as a lot of restaurants seem to be doing these days!) I had the “Chick pea salad, crispy haloumi, harissa yogurt”, which was really lovely – there were maybe a few too many chick peas, but I didn’t eat them all – I did, however, eat all of the crispy haloumi and the harissa yogurt! 🙂 For my Main Course, I had the “Chicken tagine, cous cous, skordalia, jumbo olives, preserved lemon”, which was also very nice. Actually, I had a bit of a problem finding the chicken pieces in all the (very yummy!) sauce that it was swimming in! Luckily, I’d ordered the Side Dish of “Grilled ciabatta” which was exactly the right sort of thing with which to sog up all the lovely sauce! Of the chicken: there was one chicken leg, and one chicken thigh – skin on – hard to find in all the sauce, and extremely hard to cut the flesh from the bones in the bowl-type dish it came in. Of the cous cous: it was really weird! It was so enormous, that at first I thought it was baby corn! But size notwithstanding, cous cous is cous cous – ’nuff said! Of the skordalia: I’m not sure what its “base” was, and after about one or two mouthfuls of hard-won chicken, the skordalia was pretty-much all mushed into everything else – but I did get the impression that it was pretty yummy too! 🙂  Of the jumbo olives: there were only two of them (I’m not surprised!) and they were “pitted” (so they had a great big round hole going through the middle of them) and boy, they sure were “jumbo”, with a capital “J’, “U”, “M”, “B”, and “O”! Of the preserved lemon: there wasn’t really terribly much of that – just a few “skirls” of preserved zest, artfully arranged, here and there over the plate. The main ingredient in the whole dish appeared to be tomatoes, and tomato passata (tomato puree) But the whole thing was very nice, and the platter of Grilled ciabatta, which I shared with Julian, was really great for mopping up the sauce! For dessert, I had the “Citrus almond cake, blood orange Bavarian cream” – and this had to be one of the strangest desserts I’ve had for quite a while! I’d imagined a sort of cup-cake or friand-sized slice of cake made with almond meal (and liberally doused in almond essence!) accompanied by some sort of zesty orange cream – or something of that nature, anyway. What they brought me was a tall-ish “leaning tower of Pisa” water-glass of what looked like a pale, orangy-pink mousse, with a bit of whipped cream on top! Somewhat incredulously, I said to the waitress and she put it down in front of me, “That’s an almond cake?!?” She smiled and said happily “There’s cake inside it!”, before she whisked off elsewhere… I tackled my leaning tower of pink mousse… digging in deeply down one side to see if I could discover this miraculous buried “almond cake” treasure! Well, what can I say! Yes, it was nice. Was it what I was expecting? No. Would I order it again? No. Was I disappointed? Yes, very. It was more like a weird sort of trifle, where a layer of sponge, or more usually slices of Swiss Roll, are used to line a glass bowl. Sherry is liberally sprinkled on the sponge (or Swiss Roll) and about two inches of custard is poured into the bowl, on top of the sponge (or Swiss Roll) and allowed to set. Cream is then whipped until it forms soft peaks, and is smoothed over the set custard, and finally, a red jelly – usually Raspberry or Port Wine jelly – is mashed and crumbled with a fork, and very carefully applied to the top of the whipped cream, so that it resembles red jewels on white ermine (or something fancy like that, anyway!) Well, this dessert today was exactly like that – only the sponge (or Swiss Roll) was bits of almond cake (minus the sherry – or the almond essence!) the custard was way too much citrus mousse, they skimped on the (Bavarian) cream, and there was no jelly on top! All in all, I’d give them 8 out of 10 for the Entrée and the Mail Course, and about 1.5 out of 10 for the Dessert. We both had a short black, which came with a small, round, un-iced chocolate biscuit, and I would have given those two items at least and 8.5 out of 10! So that was lunch today, and I do very much want to go back there again.

We’re not having any dinner tonight – just coffee! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. What can I say? I’m ignoring all of this until August 15th! (i.e. five days after I finish taking these pills – it takes a few days to get them out of your system!) I went from 64.7 kg to 65.1 kg – and tomorrow it’ll be even more, especially after all the carbs I ate today – but I don’t care! Fact: I’m on those horrible pills, Fact: ya gotta enjoy life, and Fact: it’ll all come off again, once I finish with these hideous little discs of water retention! 😛

And that brings me to tomorrow – I think we’ll probably be having a fairly quiet day, after we’ve swapped over Butter and Lemon (I should have called them “Piranha 1” and “Piranha 2”, not “Butter” and “Lemon”!! 😛 ) Anyway, that’s about “it” from me for tonight – but do drop in again tomorrow night to find out how the fish-swap went, and what we ended up with, and how much more my weight went up (because it will, you know!) as well as all the news and hot gossip from this neck of the woods! Until then though, please try to bee good, remember that it isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it’s the pebble in your shoe – and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry when it’s wet and cold… but most importantly, please, whatever else that you do, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.18 pm

Well, I’ve been out most of the day – I didn’t even get a chance to log onto WoW! However, a lot was accomplished! We went over to Doncaster to get some more coffee and to pick up the Dry Cleaning… I also wanted to pay a visit to the Howard’s Storage World that’s just opened up at Doncaster Shoppingtown – damn them! Why couldn’t they have opened their shop there before we moved! I really like Howard’s Storage shops – they always seem to have something in there that, as soon as I set eyes on it, I instinctively know that I just can’t live without that particular item! Oh well, maybe it’s just as well that we moved away before they opened… However, I digress! Today I was going with two particular objectives… one: I needed some sort of stool or small table that I could put my clothes on when I’m having a shower or changing, and that had room for a small laundry basket underneath or inside it… I do/did have a laundry basket in there, but it’s not the sort of laundry basket that you can “put things on top of”, if you know what I mean. And two: even with all the meticulous planning and designing that went into this new bathroom of mine, it still has a really major storage space problem – or should I say, lack of storage space problem! In the end, it was my ultimate choice, so the buck stops with me. I wanted cupboards with adjustable height, and pull-out shelves, but I stupidly allowed Clarke to talk me into having drawers instead – which turned out to be a very bad mistake on my part, because the finished drawers aren’t deep enough for anything over about 4″, or 10 cm high (if that!) As for things like cans of hair spray and deodorant, forget it, Freddie! I only have two very narrow drawers that are deep enough for things like that, but honestly, the drawers become too crowded to really be useful if you put more than three things in each one! I shall rue that stupid decision of mine until the day I move out of here in a coffin! So anyway, as I was saying, space is a real hassle in my lovely new bathroom (but at least I’m not tripping over an unused and unwanted bath tub every time I turn around!) so the other thing I was looking for in Howard’s Storage was for some sort of a free-standing perspex or chrome “corner stand” – something along the lines of one of those corner shower caddies that hang over your shower head… only a lot nicer, and without the little “hanging up” loop at the top of it. Well, I was lucky enough to find both items – within minutes, really – of us walking in the door! We waited longer for them to bring one of the “hollow wheelie-stool” thingies up from downstairs than we did in finding what we wanted! So that was good… Of course, the little hollow table-thingy on wheels (for putting clothes on, and laundry in) was a flat-pack, but Julian’s getting quite good at assembling those sorts of things, and it’s already done, and waiting in my bathroom for me! 🙂 And I imagine that the little chrome corner stand thingy is also sitting in the bathroom, awaiting my ministrations (after I’ve finished this!)

I had also wanted to go to David Jones and have a look at a new Estée Lauder product (products, actually!) as I’ve had two emails from Estée Lauder about them, over the last two weeks! The Nice Young Estée Lauder Lady in D.J’s had never heard of them – the same as the Nice Young Estée Lauder Lady over at The Glen, last week, so she rang up about it… and it turns out – we’re actually talking about three new make-up products here, not just one or two – it turns out that they’re going to end up being “on-line only”, though for a short time, one of the three new products will be available at a shop at Melbourne Central, in the city! Now really, I ask you! How many women will spend $90 for cosmetics that they can only see online? The Lipstick only comes in two shades – which both look so similar online that it’s almost impossible to tell which one is which! What about whether that shade will suit their skin colouring? What if it’s too oily, or too dry, or too something else, that can’t be determined from viewing pixels on a screen?! How gullible do they think we are?! Don’t answer that!! So… although I’m usually a real sucker for new cosmetics, that was one “itch” I just had to walk away from…

On our way home from Doncaster Shoppingtown we stopped off at Vermont South Shopping Centre, as Julian wanted to have a word with the guy at the Pet Shop barn-thingy where we got Butter and Lemon, about their behaviour and attitude. As I said last night, we introduced them to Auric and Dapple yesterday afternoon, with somewhat disturbing results! I had fully expected Auric to want to dominate the new littler fish, but the reverse was true! The two Golden Comets ganged up on Auric and Dapple, and by about 8.30 pm we had to separate them, or run the risk of losing Auric, and possibly Dapple too, to fear and stress! It was a really sorry mess! Even after we’d removed Butter and Lemon and put them back in their holding tank, both Auric and Dapple remained in a very high state of distress for some hours – especially Auric – though Dapple was a bit more knocked around than Auric (some of his scales looked half dislodged!) Now they’re on opposite sides of the room – Auric and Dapple in their big Fish House, and still in the process of calming down, more than 24 hours after their unhappy encounter with Butter and Lemon. Butter and Lemon are back in their little holding tank over on the sideboard, and it’s interesting to note that occasionally, they’ll even have a go at eachother! The guy at the Pet Sho barn-thingy said to bring them back, and he’d swap them over, which was very good of him – but at this stage I’m not sure if I want to subject Auric and Dapple to more trauma, because as soon as they see (or smell? do goldfish have a sense of smell?) new fishes, especially if they’re Golden Comets, like Butter and Lemon – they’ll immediately react badly, thinking that we’ve brought their two assailants back, and get stressed out again. I think this requires a bit of “think” music for a few days…

And now on to the good bits! 🙂

Food stuffs. last night we had the very last of the Lamb and Harissa Lasagne left-overs that we still had in the freezer – and I have to say, it was just as nice as if it had been freshly made! It’s really delicious, and if you haven’t tried it yet (the recipe is there for you all on my “Recipes…” page!) well, all I can say is “You don’t know what you’re missing!” – truly! 🙂 For dessert I had one of my Corella pears, and a small tub of Apple Le Rice. Today we had lunch at The Shingle Inn, and I had my “usual” – a BLT on Sourdough bread (actually it was toast!) a long black (coffee) with a small side jug of skinny milk, and a sinful, wicked, bad, and extremely delicious and luscious, chocolate caramel slice! 😳 Tonight for dinner we’re having pan-fried chicken breast (again – because Julian forgot that he didn’t have any mustard left?!? Please Explain?!?) with steamed rice, and finely chopped spring onions mixed through it. For dessert tonight I’m having one of my “bald-kiwi-fruit-brown” skinned Nashi pears, and one of those utterly weird, but very nice, chocolate Chia Pods.

Weigh-in this morning. Was, I suppose, within that nebulous “margin of error” – I went from 64.6 kg to 64.7 kg – up one point – hardly surprising, as this is my third day (out of 10) of those dreadful little fluid loving and retaining pills! I did my normal walk this morning, and I spent the better part of the afternoon “grating” the skin off my insteps. You know, I get so cross with the people who make my shoes! I’m… “XX” years old. My feet are the way they are, and no amount of “extra support” that they seem to insist that I really, really need, is going to make any difference whatsoever, except to make me uncomfortable, make me waddle like a duck, hurt my feet, and give me blisters! I only ever wear shoes when I leave the house anyway – and that isn’t often – which also means that if I have to walk around for too long, this “extra support” that’s been forced on me against my will, makes my foot “roll” against the extremely uncomfortable raised instep, which results in me “grating” the skin off my instep. Yes, just like rubbing my instep against a vegetable grater! By the time I got home this afternoon I was in quite a lot of pain, so I guess that once again, I’m going to have to “bandage up” fairly heavily again when we go out for lunch tomorrow. Grrr! Why won’t they listen to me!

And that brings me around to tomorrow which, shoes notwithstanding, I’m really looking forward to! I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night! 🙂 And as my dinner is almost ready, I’ll call it quits, and tell you all that that’s about “it” from me for tonight! 🙂 Do drop in again tomorrow night, to find out how our lunch went, whether Auric and Dapple have recovered from their traumatic meeting with Butter and Lemon yet, and what else has been happening chez nous! Until then though, try to bee good for a change 😉 don’t forget that a goal is a dream… with a deadline! and remember to always drive carefully, to keep warm and dry as much as possible, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.30 pm

Yesterday I worked on graphics for most of the day – I wanted to play WoW, but I had a few ideas for Backgrounds and Headers that I wanted to try out, so of course, that’s what I did – and while a lot of them turned out not to be suitable, the ones that were (suitable) turned out pretty well – and the next thing I knew, Josh was here, and then it was dinner time, an’ all, and now it’s today! 🙂 And here it is, my second day into my horrible pills! …Only another eight to go… (thank heavens!) Usually on a Tuesday my very favourite eldest daughter is over here, but not today! 🙂 Her husband is “between jobs”, and they’ve gone to the movies! 🙂 So Julian and I slept in a bit, and had a relatively lazy day! We were going to go out for lunch today, to the RACV Club in the City – but we decided to go to their other venue, the Healesville Country Club instead, because we’ve never been there. Julian was about to ring and book, when we thought “Hnag on, it’s supposed to be raining on Tuesday, and it won’t be much fun driving around on country roads that we’re not familiar with, in the pouring rain!” So we looked up the forecast for the rest of the week, and decided that maybe Thursday would be a better day to make our first visit to the Healesville Country Club Bistro – so we’re booked in for Thursday lunch! Well, today’s been fairly fine, after all, so what’s the bet that it’ll be raining cats and dogs on Thursday?! I hope my hair-do lasts until Thursday night…

Anyway, so I spent most of the morning playing WoW (well, what else would you have expected?!) and Phaédra is now level 43! Still stuffing around in Feralas, which I have now decided is really my most un-favourite zone in the entirety of World of Warcraft, and just before I started writing this I was trying to think of ways and means of getting out of the benighted place! I’d pretty much  already left Feralas for Thousand Needles anyway, where I’d just finished off most of those quests too, and the main quest giver, who didn’t want to know me at this stage, was standing around with a greyed out exclamation mark over his head (a greyed out exclamation mark over a quest giver’s head means that he does have a quest for you, but you’re not a high enough level yet for him to give it to you!) so I suddenly remembered that there were still a couple of quests in Feralas that I hadn’t done yet, and besides, I wanted to visit the Ruins of Mathystra, to see if I could acquire for myself the Ghost Saber Tooth Pet, and I also wanted to see if I could Tame the “Special” Turtle in the Dungeon “Black Fathom Deeps”. Looking on it all as a bit of a “holiday”, I flew all the way back, and went up to The Ruins of Mathystra. I was only level 42 then, but even so, everything else up there was only level 17 – so all I had to do was run around looking for Cat Figurines to tap, to see if they contained the almost mythical Ghost Saber Tooth Cat. Really, the only thing I had to worry about were the handful of other, level 21 Hunters who were also running all over the place, trying to find the right Cat Figurine to tap! Well, I don’t know about all the other Hunters who were out there looking for their GST Pet, but I found, and finally Tamed, my Ghost Saber Tooth on my 14th Cat Figurine (and just so as you all know, Cat Figurines are about as rare as hen’s teeth – only rarer!)

I Hearthed back to Darnassus, where I “Stabled” my brand-new pussy cat Pet, and went back in search of my Turtle. As I hadn’t done any quests over in Darkshore, I didn’t have any of the Flight Points, so I had to gallop all the way down to the Dungeon on my Imperial Quilen, but I stopped along the way and picked myself up a “temporary”, or “sacrificial” Pet, just so I’d have some protection (not that I really needed any!) and that I could “Abandon” as soon as I got to the Turtle. I eventually arrived, and for once actually found the entrance to the Dungeon first pop! In I went… and I’m ashamed to say that when it got to the “jumping” bit, I had to get Julian to “jump me across”, because if there’s one thing I simply can’t do without lots of help, it’s leaping gaily and gazelle-like from rock to rock, or from ledge to ledge. Once across to the other side, I quickly and easily got myself to the Turtle part, and Tamed my Turtle, whom I have named “Bliss” – and please don’t ask me why I called him (or her!) “Bliss” – I think it just seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose! Back to Darnassus again, where I got myself ready and girded my loins to go and flounder around in Feralas again. The main problem I have with Feralas is that there are only about three or four Alliance Flight Points there, and they’re all pretty much on the western coast. There’s one more Alliance Flight Point, out near the middle of Feralas, but to get there you have to go through so much hostile territory, that by the time you do get to it, you’re almost on the verge of screaming “Stuff it, this isn’t worth it! I’m going home!” There were a few quests there waiting for me, and apart from having to go the ultra–long way around to complete these quests – because this is all smack-bang, right in the middle of the Horde’s section of Feralas, and I’m afraid that they don’t take very kindly at all, to having Alliance adventurers traipsing through their territory!

Still, I eventually completed the quests, went up the necessary level, and high-tailed it back to the dreadful “Speed Barge” in the middle of Thousand Needles, where the main quest giver was now only too happy to give me the quest… which was to leave Thousand Needles, and go off to Gadgetzan, in Tanaris! Well, I suppose that as Tanaris is pretty much all flat desert, at the very least I should be able to see where I’m going… 😉

After lunch today, at 02.30 pm, Julian and I moved Lemon and Butter (still temporary names only – er… I think!) in with Auric and Dapple, and what a surprise that turned out to be! I was fully expecting Auric and Dapple to perhaps be a little hostile towards the two new, and quite a bit smaller, fishies! But the little Golden Comets pretty much terrorised Auric and Dapple! Auric was panic-stricken, and poor little Dapple tried to turn himself inside-out to get away from them. They’re quite intelligent fish, you know – Lemon and Butter very quickly worked out that (a) they had no problem at all, herding Auric and Dapple down to one end of the tank and keeping them there, but that was quickly getting a bit “old”, so they (b) split up,! Lemon (or was it Butter?) herded Auric off in one direction, while Butter (or was it Lemon?) kept Dapple cornered down the other end of the tank! I’ve never seen Auric and Dapple behave this way! The poor little boys (or girls!) were actually shaking, they were so upset! My poor little Dapple kept waggling his head, as though he was saying “No, Mummy! No! What have you done!”* Anyway, it’s 06.15 pm now and I’ve just been down to see how they’re all going. So far so good, I guess Butter and Lemon showed Auric and Dapple who was going to be Boss, and now they’re swimming back and forth, and I think they’re all looking forward to dinner! Auric and Dapple, while I don’t think they’re really frantic, or upset anymore, I’m also pretty sure that they’re not entirely happy, either. We haven’t emptied out Butter and Lemon’s smaller tank, so if the worst comes to the worst, and Auric and Dapple don’t settle down, they might have to live in separate Houses.

And now on to the good bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night we had the “Easy Grilled Dijon Chicken” for dinner, and although Julian didn’t marinate it for as long as he did the first time he made it, it was long enough (actually, the “recipe” doesn’t even say to marinate it, it just says to dip the chicken in the mixture and grill it – we just like to do things our own way!) and the chicken was superb! So tender and succulent and tasty! Once again we had it with plain steamed rice, to which some finely chopped spring onions had been added. For dessert, I had a “Jazz” apple (the last of the “Jazz” apples, I think! the rest are “Eve” apples…) and another Apple Le Rice. Julian went out around lunch time to get some milk and a few other things, and brought home some rolls and other goodies for our lunch, so for lunch today I had two halves of different types of rolls, and one of Baker’s Delight scrumptious fruit and while chocolate scones – after all, life is for living, not cowering in fear, in case eating something delicious is going to blow you up like a ten ton blimp! 😛 I must say that I’m really looking forwards to dinner tonight – we’re having the very last of the frozen left-over Lamb and Harissa Lasagna with Feta and Oregano (see my “Recipes…” page for how to make this delicious and economical dish!) And for dessert tonight I’ll have one of my Corella pears, and another small tub of Le Rice.

Weigh-in yesterday morning. Wasn’t good! What a marvelous way to boost my confidence as I start into my ten days of taking fluid-loving and fluid-retaining medication, NOT! I went from 64.5 kg to 64.9 kg! Terrible! However, I did go for my walk – much good it did me – so I just have to grit my teeth and “suck it up”, as they say in the classics – but I’ll be mightily relieved when August 11th rolls around!

Weigh-in this morning. Hmm… maybe a little bit betterer than yesterday! I went from 64.9 kg to 64.6 kg – just one point off what I’d been the day before yesterday, but at least it was down, and not up again! But… Who knows what it’ll be tomorrow morning! Most likely up again, especially after my somewhat naughty lunch today! 😉

And that brings me to tomorrow! Tomorrow we’re going over to Doncaster to pick up the Dry Cleaning, and to go to Howard’s Storage Shed, which has just opened up over there – it’s a shame they didn’t get there before we moved! Never mind, I have some “storage” ideas for my bathroom (which, even as carefully planned as it was, it’s still lacking adequate storage space!) but I need to go and see exactly what they have there. And really, that’s about “it” from me for this evening! Do call in again tomorrow night, to find out how Auric, Dapple, Butter, and Lemon are all getting on together, or whether we feel that they should be separated. No doubt you’ll be wondering which way my weight went, up or down, and whether or not I found any answers to my bathroom storage woes – but until then, please try hard to bee good, remember, never let inexperience get in the way of ambition, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry in this sometimes suddenly changeable weather… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*To my very favourite eldest daughter, if you’re reading this – “Yes dear, I’m well aware of the fact that I’m anthropomorphising, but that’s exactly what poor little Dapple looked like he was saying!” 😛