05.02 pm

Well, I’m a bit later than I wanted to be, but it took me a little longer than I thought it would to get the new Header for this background working properly… I didn’t have the text lined up properly so I had to fix it, didn’t I! Ahhh… details, details…

I had a good morning, working on Mychal, who’s now level 26 and has now gone through the three different Specialisations of Warlockery (“Warlockery“?!? Oh well… you all know what I mean, I hope!) “Affliction” – destroying one’s enemies through pain, curses, hex’s, whatever – a master or mistress of shadow magic, who specialises in draining and damage-over-time spells; “Demonology” – using conjured Demons to destroy one’s enemies – a master (or mistress!) of demonic magic who transforms into a demon (oo-er! I didn’t know that! I haven’t turned into one yet, anyway!) and compels demonic powers to aid her/him… and last but not least, “Destruction” – calling down “damaging effects” – in other words, a master or mistress of chaos, who calls down fire to burn and demolish enemies – “sounds like fun!” 😉 At the moment, as well as working on my Warlock Mychal, I’m also working my way through the three Mage Specialisations with Avishag, Mercedez and Cersie (Fire, Frost, and Arcane) to find out which Specialisation I think is the best and easiest for me to manage. Unfortunately you have to wait until you get to level 10 before you can even choose a Specialisation, and then you want to give each Specialisation a few “trial” levels to see how it works out before you decide which one to stick with – and it took me ages to get my three Mages, first up to level 10, then picking one of the Specialisations for each of them, and trying it out for another few levels – so I decided to take a few “short-cuts” with Mychal, and just change her Specialisation after I felt that I’d had a fair test of each one. As I said earlier, she’s now level 26, and has tried “Affliction” and “Demonology” – she switched to being a Practitioner of the “Destruction” Specialisation right before I logged off at lunch time, so she really hasn’t had a chance to do much with that yet. I’m really wishing that I’d thought of switching Specialisations this way with my Mages – it would have saved me a heck of a lot of time (and gold, that I spent in getting the Mages set up properly! Grr!)

Anyway, that’s the way I spent my morning! 🙂 Not terribly productive, but I enjoyed it nonetheless 🙂 After lunch I had my “walkies” – and although this daily exercise has given me about 3000% more mobility in a lots of ways, what I want to know is, why aren’t I feeling the better for it! Yes, I can now get around shopping centres, and just about anywhere under my own steam now,  which is fantastic – even eight months ago I wouldn’t have been able to do it – but honestly, I ache everywhere! I still can’t stand up straight – I doubt that I’ll ever be able to do that again anyway, my spine is too bent – I get out of my chair, and it takes me a few seconds to even stand up, let alone hobble off somewhere – my knees creak, my ankles click – I constantly feel as though I’ve strained all the muscles in my upper arms (or what laughingly passes for “muscles” in my upper arms!) Mind you, once I am up and have finished creaking and groaning, I’m fine, and you can take me anywhere – especially if you don’t make me wear shoes! (and if you wave a piece of chocolate or a cup of coffee under my nose, I’m unstoppable! 😉 ) So after lunch I went for my “walkies”, then, just for a change, I took my kindle and went down to the lounge room to read for a bit. I’d almost finished the book I was reading last night, and I badly wanted to finish it to see how it all ended up – so I finished it, and was immediately asked (electronically) if I’d rate it before I “left”! I hate it when you’re pressed to give books you’ve just finished  a rating, with Stars, an’ all – sometimes you want to think about it a bit – you know, it might have been a good “yarn”, but was it well written? Did it leave you wanting to know more about the characters and what they did next? Did it have a satisfying ending? Now, I’m always telling people that if it’s a good story – a good “yarn” – I’m not too fussed if the author has inadvertently changed tenses or perspectives in the middle of a paragraph, misspelled, or made typos in common words – what I’m interested in is the story! I read for “entertainment”! (whereas Julian mostly reads for information and learning – which to him, is entertainment – so I suppose it really all boils down to the same thing, doesn’t it! The “entertainment”!) This book that I’d just finished was a good story – but it hadn’t been made clear when I bought it that it was part of a series! I wish it had been, because I would have waited until all the books were available before starting to read it! Now I’ve read the first book – and it was like watching the Season end of a good TV show! You’re left on a ruddy Cliffhanger! Goodness knows when this author will get the next book out, as from further digging, it appears that she has several “Book 1’s” of different stories out – one even has a “Book 2” – but there’s no mention anywhere of when the next book in this particular series can be expected! Arrggghh! So I’m afraid that she’ll get no “Star” rating from me at the moment, even if “Book 1” was a good “yarn”! 😛

So now that I’ve filled you in on all that, can I get on to the “good” bits? 😉

Food stuffs. Last night we had lamb backstraps for dinner, done in the griller – I must say that the griller does keep the meat it cooks very nice and juicy inside, which is a very big plus! With that we had chips, steamed green beans, and no – not our usual half a tomato, we’d run out of tomatoes and Julian forgot to pick up some more when he went out to pick up the Dry Cleaning – we had steamed carrots, with a “hint of honey” drizzled over them. I used to prepare carrots by cooking them in chicken stock, draining them, putting them back into the still-hot saucepan with a small knob of butter, freshly ground black pepper, and either a teaspoon full of Maple Syrup, or a small amount of honey (any sort of honey will do, but Leatherwood Honey is really the best!) and quickly sautéeing them before dishing them up. Most delicious! 🙂 For dessert I had an Apple Le Rice, and one of the gigantic, so-called “brown” Nashi pears. I think the Greengrocers were colourblind or something – they were no more “Brown” Nashi pears than I’m 18 years old! It wasn’t bad – very, very juicy, but crisp and crunchy at the same time – but really it was pretty tasteless, much like its “White” Nashi pear counterpart. I’ll eat the two that are left, but we won’t be getting them again. Luckily Julian was able to procure some more yellow Nectarines yesterday, so I’ll most likely have one of those tonight… For lunch today I had a Sourdough sandwich – not the yummy Seeded Sourdough which we finished off the other day – just plain yummy Sourdough – with sliced roast beef sandwich meat, that lovely yummy Tasty/Cheddar cheese that I really like, and which goes so darn well in omelets too, a smidgen of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney, and chopped lettuce… it was a really, really nice sandwich! I also had one of my three, languishing mandarins after my sandwich, just so that they wouldn’t feel “left out” 😉 For dinner tonight we’re having the second last of our four frozen left-over meals from the “Lamb and Harissa Lasagna with Feta & Oregano” (we’ll be having the last ones on Monday night, when I have my hair coloured, so we’ll want something quick and easy for dinner!) For dessert I’ll be having – probably – one of the new, yellow Nectarines, and one of the Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurts.

Weigh-in this morning. My feet are swollen… and you know what that means! For some unknown reason, coz I’m not on those wretched pills at the moment – for some unknown reason, my body has suddenly decided to store fluid again! Bugger it! (pardon the French!) there’s absolutely no reason for my body to store fluid at the moment – unless it’s the warmer weather? Maybe my body thinks that it’d better store up some fluid for the Long, Hot, Summer which is about to burst forth upon us! Yeah, that’ll be it, fer shuuure! 😦 Anyway, I went from 65.7 kg yesterday morning to 65.8 kg this morning, which is actually well within that fabulous and mythical beastie, “The Margin of Error” – I guess we’ll just have to sit and weight it out…

Here I am again – I’ve just come back from having dinner (wot I told you about just above) watching “Agatha Raisin” (ABC1, Saturdays, 7.30 pm – quite a light and frothy little “Murder-Who-Dun-It”) an episode of “Merlin” on Netflix, and having a look at some photos of Julian’s old place in Adelaide, sent over by his sister who’s over there at the moment. When their mother died last year, the house was sold – amazingly very quickly – to friends of the family who lived in the same street! They’d taken in Jenny’s little dog Oscar, when she’d died, and now little Oscar has come full circle once again, and is back where he lived most of his life! Truth is indeed a lot stranger than fiction! 🙂 And I’m afraid that I must say here that as much as they love little Oscar, I’m quite sure that the friends of the family who bought the house did not do so for little Oscar’s sake, but because they knew the house and its history, and loved it, K? Anyway, Melissa, Julian’s sister, had taken some photos of the part of the house that’s been “re-decorated” – although “re-built” might be a better term there, so we were having a quick squiz at what’s been done… and if I didn’t know it before, I surely know now why I would not have made a good Architect! (which is what my father had always wanted me to be, even though I really sucked at Maths!) It seems that when it comes to house design I’m worse than pretty hopeless! It would never in a million years have occurred to me to knock down this wall, and put the kitchen here instead of there, and turn the entire end of the house into one very large kitchen, living, and entertainment area! Anyway, it’s not finished yet, but it’ll look really fantastic – and totally different – when it is! So now there’s me come full circle, filled you all in on every teeny little aspect of our lives today (well, not quite all! 😉 ) and up to tomorrow. Tomorrow, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is Sunday, and our “traditional” (should that have a capital “T”?) day Bashing Around the Broken Isles (it was “Them” wot broke them, not us, honest!) where we can run around, slaying monsters, acquiring Artifacts to strengthen our Special Legion Weapon (or whatever they’re calling it this week) Hopefully we won’t die too many times, but death is transient in World of Warcraft, and the only real damage that occurs is to your stash of gold, when you pay for “repairs”! And so that’s about “it” from me for this evening! Do call in again tomorrow night to find out if my weight exceeded that Mythical Margin of Error, how we fared in the Broken Isles, and whether we died or not – and if so, how many times, and what killed us… plus anything else interesting or exciting that might have impinged upon our daily doin’s… but until then, please try to bee good, remember that all too often we are given answers to remember, rather than problems to solve, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry on these cold, wet days… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.15 pm

Right, well I’m afraid that tonight’s post is only going to be a sort-of a token “place-holder” – for some unknown reason, I’m utterly exhausted – and all I want to do is close my eyes! Of course, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me racing Mychal up to level 20 today – perish the thought! Still, I’m tired, and I don’t really think I could sensibly string two sentences together – and I keep on hitting the wrong keys and finding myself having to back-track to correct far too much! (and saying “and” far too much, too! *sigh*)

Suffice to say that it was a good day all round, the person to install our outside blinds arrived early, and I had to let him in because Julian had to race off to the bedroom to get dressed! (what’s wrong with tradies these days?! They always used to be late – or a “no-show” – and this is the second time in a row now, when one of them’s turned up early! *tsk!* Are the ruddy Unions losing their vice-like grip on their members, or something!) However, the blinds have been installed – I haven’t been out to have a look at the exterior aspect, but the one outside the Den seems to be working exactly as it’s supposed to, so at least that’s one that’s been installed correctly – and I’m sure Julian would have noticed if the others weren’t quite right, so I guess they must be fine too.

Everything and everyone else here is fine – it’s just me being either lazy or tired tonight – or both – take your pick, and I’ll probably hit you all with a real double-length double whammy tomorrow night, when I fill you all in properly on today’s doin’s 🙂 My weight went up three points, Flipper is (hopefully) busily eating her dinner in the Library, and Auric and Dapple have already started their usual shark-like circling of the gap in their glass ceiling, waiting for me to come and feed them (greedy little sods! 😉 ) So I shall take my leave of you all for this evening, and fill you in on all of the day’s details tomorrow evening. Until then though, please bee as good as you can, don’t forget that he who fears to suffer, suffers from fear, and remember to always drive carefully, to keep warm and dry in this rather unpleasant and very wintry weather, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.23 pm

Right, I’m starting quite a bit later than normal – the truth is, I was just having so much fun working through colour sets and backgrounds for the blog, I just let the time run away from me! I know everyone liked the fishy background, and it’s not gone for good – I just like to experiment sometimes! 🙂

I’ve actually been playing WoW for most of the day – this morning Julian and I played with Wynterthyme and Demelza, and after lunch I played a bit with my new(ish) Undead Warlock called Mychal. Mychal (spellings vary!) was the daughter of King Saul, and also King David’s first wife – Avishag was the name of the woman who was chosen to “warm his bed” in his old age – my character Avishag was the first character I created on Saurfang, and is meant to be a (sort-of a) “pair” with Mychal, who will hopefully be the last character that I create on Saurfang – though I don’t think anyone really believes that for an instant – not even me! 😉 Anyway, we had a good time this morning – I died a couple of times on the quest to get our second “Special” weapon – I just got overwhelmed! I think I told you about having to go and get our “Special” weapon, where we also got our second Pet, Hati? Well, that particular quest and its very Special weapon (an ugly looking gun ) was the Beast Master Hunter quest. We’re now level 103, and had the option of going off and doing a second “Special” quest to get the Marksman’s Special weapon (a rather nice looking bow!) You don’t have to go off and do this quest, it just gives you extra options in case you ever want to switch between fighting as a Beast Master Hunter, or a Marksman Hunter. F’rinstance, Marksmen get some really cool Shot abilities and rather nifty Targeting abilities. I’m not sure if you keep your Pet or not (obviously you don’t have Hati, your second Pet, because Hati is sort-of part of your Special Weapon!) However, we did the special quest, I died twice, and Julian didn’t die at all (and once again we were unable to fight as a team!) but we finished it, and claimed our “Special Marksman Weapon”, which is now putting its feet up, as it were, and idling around in our personal Bank Vaults! There will be a third “Special Quest” to get the final possible Hunter Weapon – the Survivalist one – personally I’m not at all interested in swapping out to play a Survivalist Hunter, no matter how handy or nifty their Special Weapon turns out to be – Survivalist Hunters do fight completely on their own, and have no Pet to act as a Tank for them – they have to rely on their wits, their fancy footwork, and a fair number of Traps and other special attributes to see them through – and quite honestly, I’ve never been any good at all, at setting Traps, and dancing agilely out of harm’s way with fancy footwork! So I dunno – maybe we’ll leave the last one alone… or maybe not! Perhaps we should do it, just for completeness sake, and to thumb our noses at everyone and be able to say that we’ve completed all of the Hunter related quests! And after all, death is so transient in World of Warcraft! 😉

Now, as I said in my opening paragraph, and as you’ve no doubt noticed, my fishy little… no, hnag on, that should be little fishy background – has been changed – at least temporarily! I really like experimenting with different colours and backgrounds, and I did pick up quite a lot of rather nice ones this afternoon – so watch out for a few graphical “surprises” over the next couple of days! I also bought a couple of new fonts – in fact the one you’re seeing on the Header today is one of the new ones, called “Lettres Douces Font Family” (“Lettres Douces” is French for Soft (or “Sweet”, because “douce” also means “sweet”) Letters) I might use the other one next time… 🙂

And now that I’ve finished telling you all what I’ve been up to today, it looks like I can get on to all the “good” bits now, doesn’t it! 🙂

Food stuffs. Last night we had those yummy sausages with the Bush Pepper and Shiraz wine again for dinner – grilled to perfection! Strangely, the grill seems to be somehow gentler on the sausages than pan-frying them, but once again they were excellent! We had chips, our usual half a tomato, and some steamed green beans with them, and just a small dab of the Perinaise mayonnaise. For dessert I had my last Jazz apple (I still have one Eve apple left though!) and, funnily enough, an Apple Le Rice 🙂 Yes, we had another Seeded Sourdough sandwich for lunch today, with sandwich-sliced cold roast beef, Halloumi cheese, a smidgen of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney, and chopped lettuce, and it was delicious! Julian had been going to have some smoked salmon on his seeded sourdough slices, but he decided that my sandwich looked so nice that he changed his mind and made a second sandwich for himself instead! That bread is really, really nice! In case you’d like to try it, it’s from Baker’s Delight, and it’s called “Seeded Sourdough” – if you can cut straight, buy it unsliced, and cut it whichever way you like – thick or thin – yourself, but if you’re like me, and your slices of bread look more like a dog’s hind leg, get them to slice it for you in their slicing machine! Tonight for dinner we’re having the marinated chicken breasts, pan-fried, as they’d probably burn in the griller – on a bed of plain steamed rice with finely chopped spring onion mixed through it. For dessert, I’ll either have one of my other Corella pears, or one of my mandarins, before they get over-ripe, and a small tub of my Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. Still surprisingly alright! I am still exceedingly amazed! I went from 65.2 kg to 65.4 kg this morning – up two, but still within the “comfort zone” – but I’ll probably go up again tomorrow morning, and then I won’t be in the “comfort zone” any more… but we’ll just have to weight and sea…

Tomorrow is Friday, and our new outside blinds for the west-facing windows will be installed – sometime between 08.30 am and…. late? Who knows… Apart from that though, I have no idea what’s happening, so my bet is that I’ll be head down, tail up, getting Mychal up to level 15, and then working on the three Mages – in no particular order, as they all have to level up – and that brings me back full circle, to tell you all that – that’s about “it” from me for this evening! However, do drop in again tomorrow night, to find out if our blinds have been installed – and what they look like, what my weight did, and how Flipper (who ate her last night’s dinner for breakfast this morning, but Julian has just come in to tell me that she has eaten her dinner tonight, so we’re both well pleased with her! 🙂 ) and Auric and Dapple are, and what else we got up to, if anything, after the blinds had been installed. But until then, please try to bee good, remember that there are no original ideas, there are only original people, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry in this terribly wintry weather… but most importantly… please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.36 pm

Oh boy, what a morning! We stuffed around this morning because we really didn’t have enough time to do anything constructive (like play WoW!) so Julian “surfed” and I played Solitaire, and we finally headed off to The Glen Post Office and our appointment with the Post Master, at about 10.30 this morning. The appointment was for 11 o’clock, but we didn’t want to risk being late if we got stuck in traffic, or whatever, so we got there early, and sort-of mooched around – again not really doing anything constructive with our time – until almost 11 o’clock when we finally got to stand in front of the Post Master – er Post Mistress… I mean Post Person! Sorry! *sigh* And then… innit always the way? One part of the form didn’t appear to have been filled in correctly… You know, “things” – forms and so forth, like, f’rinstance, a Passport application – shouldn’t be too hard for a moderately intelligent adult to figure out what was needed where, and to fill it in correctly, wouldn’t you say? Well, maybe it was because it was one of those of badly worded and only sketchily explained pieces of “Officialdom” (in other words, your usual Government form, designed from the outset to be misleading, obtuse, and mostly irrelevant) but Julian – whose brain is probably somewhat over endowed with intelligence cells – had been pouring over these wretched Passport application forms for a couple of weeks – even ringing the relevant department up to clear up a couple of points… [pause] I’m applying for a new-slash-replacement Passport because I’ve changed my name legally by Deed Poll, and I’ve been issued with a new Birth Certificate, where the name is similar to, but different from, my name on my old Birth Certificate and Passport. One side of the new Birth Certificate is exactly the same as my old Birth Certificate, except for the “Christian Name field”, which has had an extra name (Winter) added – in front of my two old Christian names, so that part now reads: “Winter Cxxxx Lxxxx”, then the next line down is my Maiden Surname, “Bxxxxx”. Simple and very straightforward so far, right? The rest of that side of the document is, as I said, a complete clone of my original Birth Certificate. On the other side of the document, however, is a “Provenance”, or a sort of a time line (or perhaps more of a fact line?) tracing the particulars and dates relevant to my name and its changes. One part of the form that we had to fill in for the Passport application asked for the “name on the birth certificate” – but… which one? The name on side one – the one with my new Christian names on one line, and my Surname on the next line down – or the name on side two, the one tracing the relevant particulars and dates? Julian rang up, and was instructed to use the first one (I think! Even I was starting to get a bit confused there!) However, according to the Post Person, it should have been the other way around. She pointed at this, and that, and something else, explaining to us why this was so, but when Julian explained that he’d only done what he was told to by the Passport People, she wasn’t very happy about that, but was at least accommodating enough to go off and ring her particular Passport Person for advice, as well as the one Julian had rung. She came back about five minutes later, saying that apparently it didn’t matter – it could be either – which was a big relief to us, I can tell you! We were almost at the end of the interview when she got to the (totally hideous and vile!) Passport photo of yours truly (shudder) when we were told that there was the potential for another problem! Apparently the person “of good repute” who witnesses your signature on the application form, and who vouches for your good character, is supposed to sign the back of one of two photographs, and affix it, face down and signature up, next to the horrible (and usually totally unrepresentative of your features) photograph that will go into your Passport. We had our Solicitor sign the photos, stamp the application form, and verify that she’d known us for “X” years – and all that was fine and dandy… with just one, tiny possibility of having to have the photo part re-done! You’re asked to fill the form in using a “black pen”, and of course all the signatures had to be in this “black pen” too – so when we went along to have A. sign and stamp the form, Julian obligingly took along the “black pen” that he’d used all the way through the form, and she used that. She also signed the back of both photographs – which according to the Post Person, occasionally (because it’s black ink, as they requested!) the signature shows through the “face up” photo, making it impossible for the Passport People to use their normal “facial recognition” processes. This is probably why they provide the space for a second photograph to be affixed, face down and with the signature uppermost! Duh! Then again, the Post Person told us, they might say it’s fine and I’ll just get my new Passport through the mail in two to three weeks – otherwise we’ll have to do the whole photograph thing all over again! Or maybe all of the whole damn thing over again – she didn’t specify! What I want to know is – and as it’s a special form for “Change of Name” applications, it would be a damned good idea if they did do this – specify whether they want the information on the back of the new Birth Certificate (the Provenance, or time-fact-line information) or the information from the side that looks like a “normal” Birth Certificate! Why is that too hard to include on their ruddy application form?! It would be helpful too, if on all Passport application forms, not just the replacement or Change of Name application forms, they had a note next to the photo area, requesting that the photo that was to be shown “face up” was not written on!

Or am I just being picky?!

We did a bit of shopping up at The Glen – we bought a new salt grinder for the dining room table, I bought three gi-normous “brown” Nashi pears at the Asian greengrocer’s there in the fresh food court – I don’t think they’re fully ripe yet through, because they’re not really very “brown”, and I bought some more bamboo socks at the Aussie Disposals store, as that’s what I wear on my feet when I’m treadmilling – two pairs on each foot, and I still get blisters and blood blisters on my toes! We were just about to head for home and a muchly needed cup of coffee, when I spotted a Baker’s Delight! Knowing that we’d finished off the last of the Sourdough bread that we’d had on Sunday, I dragged Julian over to buy an un-sliced “Seeded Sourdough” loaf with which to make our lunch today! We’d sampled some the other day up at Vermont South, and it was just sooo delicious, that I just had to get some! Then we came home, had our coffee, and I had an hour and a half left to play WoW before I had to start writing this!

So having filled you in on today’s doin’s, I can now proceed along to the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had the second of our four Lamb and Harissa with Feta & Oregano left-over meals, which as always was really yummy and delicious! 🙂 For dessert I had a Corella pear, which between you, me, and the gatepost, was a little… tasteless and “floury” – but it was one of the older Corellas in the bowl, so hopefully the rest of them will be a lot better! I also had one of the Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurts, and really, you know I think I’m starting to like them as much as I really, really liked the Coles Rice Pudding, which now no longer exists! 😥 For lunch today we had ham, Swiss cheese, chopped lettuce, and a little bit of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney in a Seeded Sourdough sandwich – and honestly, that Seeded Sourdough has to be The. Best. Bread. EVER! Tonight we’re having sausages done on (in? on? *shrug*) the Grill, as they worked so well there the last time we had them – they’re the same type of sausages, too – the ones with the Bush pepper and Shiraz wine in them, from memory, with our usual half a tomato, chips, and some steamed green beans. For dessert tonight I’ll be having one of my last two apples, because I don’t think the so-called “brown” Nashi pears are ripe enough to eat yet, and I’ll have an Apple Le Rice as well.

Weigh-in this morning. Was amazing! I was expecting to be up over the 66 kg mark this morning, so you can imagine my utter astonishment when I looked down at the scale readout, and saw that it was…. wait for it! Drum roll, please…. 65.2 kg! Down 7 whole points! As I keep saying – there’s just no rhyme nor reason for the way my weight fluctuates like that! However, I’m not complaining! 🙂 Mind you, this is me we’re talking about, and I reckon that it’ll be up there again in the high 65 kg zone again tomorrow! (Winter shakes her head sadly) Sometimes there’s just no pleasing this body of mine…

And that brings me round full circle again! Flipper doesn’t seem to want her dinner tonight, which is rather disturbing, but Auric and Dapple seem to be well enough – and as we don’t seem to have anything that we can remember on tomorrow, Julian and I will take the opportunity to play a little WoW with Wynterthyme and Demelza, which should be a lot of fun, and which we’re both looking forward to! And once again, gentle readers, that’s about “it” from me for tonight! Do call in again tomorrow night to find out if my weight did bounce back up again, if we did get to play with Wynterthyme and Demelza, and how we went with them, and if Flipper is eating properly or not… but until then, please try to bee good, remember that education is not preparation for life; education is life itself, and don’t forget to keep warm and dry in this rather inclement weather, to look after yourselves, and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please… don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.56 pm

Isn’t it good to see that I’m sticking with my new, running-late “normal” time of posting! 😀 (← cheesy grin) Anyway, I’ll have to hurry to catch you all up with the events of yesterday (Monday) as well as today, so here goes!

Yesterday our cleaning lady arrived at her usual time of around-about 9.30 am, and while I stayed out of the way playing WoW, she did all her usual terrifying Flipper things, like vacuuming and mopping, though I did go over and sit on the couch in here while she cleaned around and under my desk. In actual fact, I didn’t do much else all day except play WoW – and do my walk, which Julian accused me of not doing, just a few minutes ago! Well, I must confess that I didn’t do my walk on Sunday, because we had the kids over for our “Father’s Day” luncheon, nor did I do one today, because my very favourite eldest daughter was over (and whom Julian is now driving home) – but yesterday I did do my ruddy walk! 😛 The cleaning lady cleaned, and left, we had lunch, and a cup of tea, I went off and did 20 minutes on the treadmill, then I went off to tidy up for the evening! So I’m both miffed, and quite annoyed, that he’s accused me wrongly! He owes me an apology in the form of a cup of coffee when he gets home! 👿 Josh came over in the late afternoon and did my hair, which as usual looks really good now – and will hopefully still be looking good for tomorrow morning when I have an appointment at 11 o’clock at the Post Office Shop at The Glen, where I’ll be desperately trying to convince the Post Master that I am indeed the person in the Passport photo, and not some identity-stealing criminal (well, that’s what I look like in the photo, anyway!) Er… somehow I don’t think that came out quite the way it was supposed to, but I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about… Jumping through Government hoops to complete the ritual in order to get a Passport in my new name!

I didn’t get a chance to play WoW today – we were too busy watching new episodes from Season 3 (I think it’s Season 3!) of “The Flash” and “Arrow” all day. The two “Big Bad Baddies” from both shows were “killed off” in the last Season’s Finales, and we started off this new Season today with brand-new “Big Bad Baddies”, who look like being even Bigger, and Badder than the last lot were, so it looks like we’re going to have a lot of fun hiding behind pillows, or peeking at the screen between our fingers, and bewailing the lack of genuine “Peril Sensitive Sunglasses”, which automatically darken when anything nasty or menacing approaches, so that you can’t see anything bad coming towards you!

Julian has returned, and yes, I did receive a nice cup of coffee by way of apology for accusing me of not having done my walk yesterday! 😉

However I did do quite well in WoW yesterday, taking all three of my Horde Mages – Avishag, Mercedez, and Cersie – up to level 15, and well settled into their three different sub-Classes of Fire Magic, Arcane Magic, and Frost Magic. Unfortunately Blizzard are having a very early starting “full Maintenance” night this evening, starting at 3.00 am their-time – which translates to about 8.30 pm our time, so the game will be unavailable for play until tomorrow morning, when of course I’ll be charging around like a wounded cow, getting ready to go out and do battle at the Post Office for my bona-fides! I’m not sure what we’re doing after that – whether or not we’re doing any shopping, or coming straight home – but whatever we do end up doing, I probably won’t get anywhere near WoW until about 2.30 – when realistically I’ll only get about an hour and a half of play in before it’s time to come and start writing – I don’t think we’re doing anything on Thursday, though! 😉 On Friday morning our new outside blinds for the windows along the West-facing side of the house are being installed, but hopefully that shouldn’t really affect my game-play – unless we have to open up the inside blinds in here for some reason! You know, usually when you order something like blinds, that need to be “made to measure”, they’ll give you an “approximate” installment date of about three weeks or so – and they usually end up taking longer than that anyway – but this time, we were told “about three weeks…” but it’s only been about a week and a half! I guess we must have been extremely lucky, and managed to sneak our order in, just before the summer-time rush started!

And that’s really all that’s been going on around here since Sunday, so now I’ll get onto the “good” bits! 🙂

Food stuffs. As you know, we weren’t going to have anything for dinner on Sunday night – though I did lie – unintentionally – about the cake! When Julian went to make our coffee on Sunday night, he said that we had to eat the rest of the cake then, because he’d bought it on Saturday morning, and he didn’t think it would be safe to keep it until the next night (Monday night!) because of the fresh cream in it – so it was a matter of eat it, or throw it out. I opted to eat it – it was just too nice to waste! So we ate the cake on Sunday night – not that there was a lot of it left – there was just enough for a small slice each! For Monday’s lunch, we had yummy ham, cheese, and tomato toasties, made from what was left of the fresh Sourdough loaf that we’d bought for Sunday’s lunch, and last night for dinner we had Grilled Sirloin steak, chips, our usual half a tomato, and Brussels sprouts… and as Julian is really getting the hang of the Griller now, the steak was beautifully seared and “striped” on the outside, but still tender, pink and juicy in the middle! For dessert, I was going to have one of the two yellow Nectarines that I had left, but as they were both a little bit “squishy”, I gave Julian both of them to see if he could salvage one nectarine’s worth out of the two of them… they both got binned, unfortunately – apparently I’d left them in the fruit bowl just a bit too long… ditto with one of my Corella pears – but the rest of the Corellas were alright, so I had one of those, and an Apple Le Rice. Julian tried to get some more yellow Nectarines today at Doncaster (he went over to get more coffee and to drop off the Dry Cleaning!) and neither Coles, Woolworths, or The Colonial Fruit Market had yellow Nectarines! I think he said that The Colonial Fruit Market had some of the white Nectarines, but we find them a bit tasteless, so he didn’t get any. But it should be just the beginning of the stone fruit season – what’s happened to the yellow Nectarines, I wonder! Maybe it’s been too wet for them, or something! Hopefully they’ll have some in by the end of the week… Anyway, for lunch today, Julian brought back some lunch from Doncaster, so I had another “naughty but nice” lunch of two halves of either Mexican or Jalapeno chilli rolls, and one of those delicious Baker’s Delight fruit and white chocolate scones, with just a smidgen of butter… and tonight we’re having the second of the four left-over Lamb and Harissa Lasagna with Feta & Oregano meals, and for dessert I’ll probably have another Corella pear, or one of the three Mandarins that I still have left, plus one of the Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurts…

Weigh-in Monday morning. Was pretty good, really, so I shan’t complain this time! Considering what we ate on Sunday for lunch… I went from 65.6 kg on Sunday morning to 65.5 kg – down one! I should have guessed though…

Weigh-in this morning. Well, I should have guessed – it took a day, but Sunday caught up with me, after all! I went from 65.5 kg on Monday morning to 65.9 kg this morning. Not good! I don’t think I’ll be going down for a few days, especially after my lunch today… Oh well, life, after all, is for living…

So once again, that brings me back almost full circle – I’ve caught you all up on what we got up to yesterday and today, and I’ve told you as much as I know of what’s happening tomorrow morning, and on Friday morning, so that’s really about “it” from me for tonight! Do drop in again tomorrow night to find out if the Post Master approved my Passport application – or whatever it is that he or she has to do with my application – what my weight decided to do, or not do, to me, and whether or not I got any sensible WoW-ing in! Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, so until tomorrow night, please do try to bee good, remember that lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm and dry in this nasty little cell of cold and wet weather, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.24 pm

Goodness, it’s quite late to be starting to write, but I don’t think this’ll be a long post tonight, as we’re both pretty tired after today’s luncheon… *yawn* Sorry… 🙂

Well, the morning started out well, we both managed to get our usual “Sunday sleep-in”, then it was pretty much “all hands on deck” to get things ready. I usually make myself scarce in the Den on days like this as I just tend to get in Julian’s way, but this morning, after I got Julian to clean down the dining room table (not that it was actually dirty, mind you, but it did have magazines, papers, various non-matching place-mats, and various fruit bowls strewn all over it!) I made us both a cup of coffee – which I didn’t get to drink until it was almost cold – and set the table properly for lunch, with matching place-mats, and all the usual stuff that goes onto a nicely appointed dinner table. Julian made a Greek salad – or what would have been a Greek salad, if he’d remembered to get the olives for it – but I must say that the Feta cheese he got for it was spot-on, and a very fine example of the breed! 🙂 He also brought home a loaf of sourdough bread from Baker’s Delight – not the absolutely wonderful tasting “seeded sourdough bread” that we’d tasted a sample of the other day, but one of their other un-sliced loaves of sourdough bread, which we had with our lunch – and y’know what? I honestly don’t know why anyone ever eats any other sort of bread! It’s got “body”, texture, flavour – it’s delicious! It’s ever so much more betterer than your common or garden variety, totally tasteless, “polystyrene” textured sandwich loaves! Kate and Terry were running late, but my very favourite eldest daughter and her spouse arrived on time, and Julian departed to go and pick up the Nando’s chicken and chips. While he was out Kate and Terry arrived, and so we were pretty much able to sit down to lunch shorty after Julian arrived with the main part of the meal. There was heaps of chatter, banter, and literary and television series discussions, with a great deal of laughter and merriment thrown in for good measure. As usual, we’d really over-catered for the meal, but by the time we were ready for coffee and cake, all of the excess chicken and chips seemed to have… quietly disappeared! The Black Forest Cake was absolutely fantastic – Ferguson Plarre are excellent Bakers – they actually use real ingredients, like proper, fresh, whipped chocolate cream, and real-live stewed cherries (well, I don’t know that they were actually “stewed“, but they were certainly “cooked”, and they were certainly “real-live” proper cherries, and not the messy tinned “cherry gloop” that most bakeries seem to use in Black Forest Cakes!) There’s a bit of cake left – Julian, the naughty boy, made sure that everyone’s plates had been collected, rinsed, and put in the dishwasher, before he asked – all innocent-like – if anyone wanted more cake? Just as people were starting to say things like “Is there any more?”, “where’s my plate gone?!”, and “Yes please!“, one voice over-rode them all – mine! I said – fairly loudly, and very firmly: “No! There’s. No. Cake. Left!” – I mean, they probably would have come to blows over it, if we’d let them have seconds, because there was only a tiny little piece left! I had to save them from themselves! Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, OK! 😉 *sigh* Oh well, I suppose Julian and I will just have to suffer in silence, and have it for our dessert tomorrow night…

Needless to say, Julian and I won’t be having any dinner tonight – just our nightly chocolate each, and a cup of coffee!

Lunch today: [1] Primi Piatti and Nibblies: Moët & Chandon champagne for the Father’s Day toast, potato crisps, satay peanuts, and some sort of semi-hot mix  [2] Secondi: a nice bottle of red wine, and a nice bottle of white wine to have with lunch, a lovely home-made “naked” (that is, without salad dressing, because most of us don’t like it all that much) Greek salad with delicious Feta cheese, but no olives, a delicious, thinly sliced (by Julian) loaf of Baker’s Delight Sourdough bread, with a small amount of butter for those who wanted it, a lot of Nando’s “chicken tenders”, ditto for Nando’s hot chips, a few different sauces and mayonnaises of varying “hotness” in which to dip said chicken tenders and chips  [3] Dolci: a stunningly delicious Ferguson Plarre Black Forest Cake, pouring cream for said cake (as if a cake like that needed more cream! …still, we all added a small-ish dollop… 😉 ) coffee, however you wanted it.

Dinner tonight: maybe one chocolate each, maybe not… but definitely coffee…

Weigh-in this morning. Probably the best it’s going to be for a few days! 😕 Still, remember what I was talking about last night, and the fine line between “diet control” and a normal, enjoyable life? All I can say is – if I can’t have a fun day like today a few times a year, then one has to seriously ask oneself – is the low weight and the strict dietary discipline necessary to maintain it really worth it?! I’ve thought about it a lot, as you can probably imagine – and my answer, I’m afraid, has to be a resounding “No!” All the time I was on the Optifast diet, with absolutely nothing else besides water, tea and coffee, I could handle it extremely well, because I knew that it wasn’t going to be “forever” – if, on the other hand, I’d been told that this was all I could have – for the rest of my life – I’m not so sure that I would have accepted that – in fact, I know damn well I wouldn’t have! I’m afraid my attitude would have been that it’d be better to die young, fat, and happy, than to live for another thirty plus years, only ever able to eat Vita Brits, bran, bananas, Optifast Bars, Optifast soups, and diet jellies! (and hoping all the time that something clever and miraculous would come along to save me, other than me having to give up everything I loved eating, for ever!) Anyway – this morning I went from 65.8 kg to 65.6 kg, so I wonder how much today’s little “celebration” will set me back! *sigh* Once again, we’ll just have to weight and sea, I suppose…

And that brings me up to tomorrow again – our cleaning lady will be here in the morning, and Josh will be here tomorrow afternoon… in between, I’ll continue with my three young Mages on Saurfang. They’ve all been given their specialist “sub-classes”, Jordana is my Fire Mage, Mercedez is my Arcane Mage, and Cersie is my Frost Mage. Now I have to organise a Horde Priest, and a Horde Warlock, and like a jelly, I’ll be set! 😉 Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well and happy, and so life muddles along as usual… and that, gentle readers, is about “it” from me for this evening! Please feel free to drop in again on Tuesday night (remember, there’s usually no blog on Monday night as I simply run out of time on Monday evenings!) to see how much my weight will have gone up after today, how my Mages are coming along, and what else I’ve been up to! Until then however, please try to bee good, remember that happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry, even if the weather report does tell you it’s going to be “fine”… but most importantly, please – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

02.07 pm

Well, goodness gracious me! Will ya’s look at this! It’s just after lunch, and I’m sitting here writing my blog! Julian’s out doing some shopping for our “Father’s Day” luncheon tomorrow, and I’m getting an early start on this because we want to spend the majority of the afternoon playing WoW, as we won’t be able to have our usual “Sunday Broken Isles Bash” with Wynterthyme and Demelza, thanks to the Family Celebrations! We’re even having our omelet for dinner tonight because we really don’t think we’ll be feeling like much for dinner tomorrow night! We were going to go out for lunch tomorrow, but as it’s “Father’s Day”, it was up to Julian to decide where he wanted to go – and he opted for the easier and far less “formal” choice of having a Nando’s lunch at home. We usually get enough of the Nando’s chicken tenders to feed however many of us there’ll be, ditto with the Nando’s bags of chips, while we provide (usually) two salads, dessert (usually some sort of bought cake, plus cream) before-lunch Nibblies, mineral water, champagne (crikey! what’s a “Celebration” without champagne?! 😉 ) wine (a bottle of red and a bottle of white) and coffee. Sometimes we’ll have a BBQ instead of Nando’s, but I don’t think the weather is going to be all that crash-hot tomorrow – and besides, Julian doesn’t want to have to do a lot of work, it being “our” somewhat off-kilter Father’s Day! We started this Family Tradition of having things like Valentine’s Day, Easter, both Mother’s and Father’s Days, and usually Birthdays, at least a week – sometimes even two weeks – after the rest of the population has had their little “commercially dictated” Special Day! Take Valentine’s Day as a prime example! If you take your significant other out for dinner on “the” Day, February 14th, you’re given either a so-called “Special Valentine’s day Menu”, with very few dishes to choose from, or you’re given a “Set” menu of dishes, with no choices! You gets what you’re given! The restaurant is usually packed to the rafters – and in fact sometimes you’re pressured into leaving early so that the restaurant can cram in a second sitting! Service is slow and harried, and the wine list is usually as limited as their Set or Special menu! We, however, prefer to have a proper, full menu and wine list to choose from, to be able to eat a leisurely, beautifully presented, and well served meal, and to not feel pressured about anything – both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day come under the same sort of heading. Easter and Birthday’s are another two family Celebrations that we usually put off for at least a week – sometimes a couple of weeks – as both Terry and Neale have their side of the family with whom they want to spend time, which is fair enough, and sometimes “The” day is not convenient for one or more of us, so we put those celebrations off until we can all get together. And this time our “Father’s Day” celebration is this Sunday – tomorrow.

Julian’s just got home from doing the shopping – he’s got all sorts of “salad-y” things, pre-lunch Nibblie-bits, drinks, and the most luscious looking Black Forest Cake imaginable, from Fergusson Plarre! Tomorrow morning he’ll ring Nando’s and order the chicken tenders and the chips, to be ready for pick-up at [a special time of his choosing] and then once the kids are here and we’re all nice and comfortable and eating all the Nibblies, he’ll dart off and pick everything up, while Kate and I make the salads and set the table (anyone would think we’ve done this sort of thing before! 😉 ) As per-usual, no doubt we’ll have widely over-estimated how much of everything we’d need, and we’ll have absolutely tons left over (except for the cake! There’s never enough cake! 😉 ) so as I said earlier – I don’t expect that Julian or I will want very much at all for dinner tomorrow night!

So that largely takes care of tomorrow! 🙂

This morning we both played WoW, only not as a “team”. I started leveling up my two newest Mages, Mercedez and Cersie. Avishag, now level 12, is a Fire Mage; this morning I turned Mercedez into an Arcane Mage, and Cersie will become my Frost Mage. So far though, I’m very pleased with all three of them, with each “sub-class” appearing to be most “playable”, and certainly very powerful in comparison to, say, a Beast Master Hunter, of the same experience level!

So, not all that much has happened over here today – Julian cleaned out, and swapped over 30% of the water in the Fish House this morning, and if I don’t fold and put away the washing this evening, either of us will have any smalls to wear! Oh, I must tell you all! Last night we started watching a new (to us!) series on Netflix, called “Falling Skies“, which (amongst a host of others) stars Noah Wyle, who made his TV debut in 1994, in the series “ER” – later, in 2014 he was in another show, The Librarians, which I watched with my very favourite eldest daughter, not all that long ago. Anyway, as Julian and I have only watched one episode of “Falling Skies” so far, I can’t really tell you all that much about it – but it lasted for 5 Seasons, so it can’t be all that bad, can it?! 😉 “Watch this space!”

And now, after a good afternoon killing “Nasty Creatures” on the Broken Isles, I can get on to the “good” bits – or as much of them as there’ve been so far, anyway!

Food stuffs. Last night we had a very, very nice, slow-cooked Corned Silverside – a beautiful piece of meat! Only a small amount of fat on one side – which largely cooked off anyway – with plain, boiled potatoes, half a tomato, and some Brussels sprouts… I had a teaspoon of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney (which, by-the-by, is extremely nice! Spicy, but not too spicy, if you know what I mean!) with mine, Julian had some Dijon mustard… for dessert I had the last of my brown Bosc “stewing” pears, and not a moment too soon, either! It was on the verge of being “over-ripe”, but I caught it just in time 🙂 I also had an Apple Le Rice. For lunch today we had a very delicious sandwich made from our current favourite bread, the whole-meal with the sesame seed crust… with a generous spread of our favourite butter substitute, the basil-pesto hummus, a smidgen of the Beerenberg Hot Tomato Chutney, and some sliced up left-over Corned Silverside from last night. It was absolutely scrumptious! And for dinner tonight of course, we’ll be having tomorrow night’s omelets. I expect that all the usual goodies will be incorporated therein – eggs, tomato, diced capsicum of some sort, cheese – either Halloumi or the lovely cheddar-slash-tasty cheese that seems to go so well in omelets, bacon, and fried onions – I’m looking forwards to it! 🙂 For dessert I’ll have one of my yellow Nectarines, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. It’s been quite interesting, watching my weight going up in conjunction with my feet getting more and more swollen…  At the moment my feet seem to be slowly getting more and more swollen every night. I do tend to notice these things you know, because not being able to stand up straight properly any more, I see a lot more of my feet than I really want to (what wouldn’t I give to be able to stand up straight, even if only for a couple of hours! You really have no idea how horrible it is to have to walk bent over like a ruddy pretzel all the time!) I’ve decided that as well as keeping a graph chart of my weight, I’m going to make a date chart of the state of my feet – because I want to see how these cycles work, and if there’s any thing that I can do to prevent them – or at the very least, to ameliorate them. Yes, you guessed it, I went up again this morning! I went from 65.6 kg yesterday to 65.8 kg this morning – and I haven’t been doing anything that I shouldn’t! Mind you, I didn’t have time to get my treadmilling done today, because I started this just after lunch – but other than that, I’ve been a good little Vegemite… mostly… And after reading an article in that nice new Tabloid, The Age, this morning about models, and how thin they’re pretty much forced to be these days, I was thinking – where do you draw the line between really strict weight control, and living a happy and comfortable life eating pretty much what you want to, except in moderation – well, a bit more than just “moderation”, really (because to me, the word “moderation”, when coupled with one’s food or eating habits, implies “sloppy, undisciplined eating”, with the nebulous intention of losing any excess weight that might result from your idea of “moderation”… “later”, or “afterwards”!) No, really! I mean it! I’m torn. There are so many foods that I like, that I want – desperately, sometimes – to taste again. Foods that I haven’t eaten in almost three years, and to be honest, I don’t think I dare eat any of them ever again, because of what they will, or might do to my weight! Or that they might not do to my weight – it doesn’t matter! I still don’t dare eat them! I’m talking about your average or common garden-variety doughnut, or pizza, or KFC Zinger, or a Big Mac here – I’m not talking about wanting to eat them every day, or once a month, or even every six months – I’d simply love to taste them again… and I can’t. I don’t dare. I have massive attacks of the guilts when I have one of those Baker’s Delight fruit and white chocolate scones that I like so terribly much (and of course, me being me makes me say “stuff it!”, and stuff another one in my mouth anyway, the very next day! – see what I mean about “I don’t dare taste most of these things again”?) So I say again – where does one draw the line between strict weight control, like those poor skeletal models, and living a normal life, but just being mindful of what one eats…

S’truth, I ‘ave rattled on, haven’t I! Sorry about that one chief! Anyway, I’ll fill you all in on tomorrow’s festivities tomorrow night, hopefully – what we ate, what Flipper thought of it all, and all the rest of it. Auric and Dapple are both happy little fishies, and I’m looking forward to seeing both of my very favourite daughters at the same time, for a change! Anyway, I think that’s about “it” from me for this evening (yes, I can hear your collective sigh of relief from here! 😉 ) Do call in again tomorrow night – I promise (says she with her fingers crossed behind her back!) I won’t splurge with all the angst again – for another couple of months, anyway – and I’m sure you’ll all be interested in how the day panned out, how much my weight did go up again (because it will!) – and how much of that lovely looking Black Forest Cake is still left! Until then though, do try very hard to bee good, don’t forget that nearly all of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important, and remember to look after yourselves… to always drive carefully… and to keep warm and dry in this really changeable weather… but most of all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

03.05 pm

Dear peoples – everything is fine, and we’re all well – Julian and I are well, Flipper is well, and Auric and Dapple are also well… however there won’t be a blog tonight because I simply don’t feel like writing tonight – and besides, today has been very quiet – we both played WoW this morning – you could probably call it a “mini Sunday” – but that’s about it for today, I’m afraid! Yeah, I’m lazy, but… *shrug*

See-y’all tamarra night –

Keep well, and please don’t forget to stay safe! Also, do at least try to bee good, and always remember – if there is no wind, row! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.01 pm

Here I am again – no longer “fashionably late”, but “late, as usual!” – actually, I think starting this “late” has become “normal” for me now – so I suppose I could say “Here I am again, right on time, for a change! 😉 ” Today’s really been a bit busy! As I told you yesterday, the Vet was due to make a home visit to give Flipper her usual two-monthly anti-arthritis injection, almost two weeks early (she never seems to last the full two months, poor old girl! ) The Veterinary Nurse rang us fairly early this morning to see if Flipper required any other treatment or examination, or was it just for the injection, because if it was only the injection, a nurse could come out and do that. Of course we said “No, only the injection”, followed by a quickly added “and would it be possible for the nurse to come out a little earlier please, because we had an appointment in Glen Waverley at eleven o’clock?” The cheerful young lady on the other end of the phone told us that that was fine – she could come out right now, if that was alright with us? Well, it was, and she arrived at about a quarter to ten – poor Flipper didn’t have any idea what was going to happen, when she was summarily lifted up onto the (hastily brushed down) kitchen bench – if anything, I think she was slightly chuffed at all the attention she was suddenly getting from the three of us! 🙂 The needle was prepared, and slipped in under some loose skin on the back of her neck, and I don’t think she even noticed, until she tried to move as the final squirt of medication went in, which must have stung a bit, because she gave a loud and very cross “Meeyeah!” (she’s always had rather a strange accent – we think it’s probably because she’s Norwegian!) in protest – but by then it was all over, and we all made a big fuss over her before she was lifted down – where she immediately wandered off as though nothing had happened! The nurse, Bree, was very impressed with her appearance and the way she was walking – and I suppose, to someone who doesn’t live with her and see her every day, she is a remarkably fit and healthy example of a 22 year old cat! To us though, who’ve known her from when she was a terribly fastidious and always perfectly groomed young lady, who walked more in a series of elegant little “bunny hops” than your normal, every-day elegant cat “saunter”, she looks rather raggedy and scruffy, and “hobbles” around, looking something akin to a slightly smaller and more feline version of me! So… Flipper was saved from her debilitating phobia of being taken to the Vet, has had her anti-arthritis injection anyway 🙂 and from the way she’s been behaving, is obviously feeling a lot of relief from her painful arthritis, which was, after all, the whole object of the exercise – and as far as we’re concerned, it might have cost a lot, but it was very definitely money well-spent! We had a lot of trouble last night getting her to eat her dinner – which she finally ate most of, in the wee small hours of this morning, around one o’clock… Tonight, after her needle this morning, she demanded (I bet you didn’t know that cats could stamp their feet, did you! Well, arthriticky or not, she can!) her dinner early tonight, and more importantly, has already eaten most of it, which is really good! I think we might make a habit of doing things this way – it’s certainly less stressful to everyone and everything – except for our wallets… 😉

After all of that, we then got ready to go off to Glen Waverley to have all my Passport papers and photos (lord! they’re so hideous! I can’t believe I look that awful! Talk about “Night of the Living Dead”! 😯 ) signed, and what-not – which didn’t take long, thank heavens, and on the way back to the Vermont South shopping centre we stopped by that Ray’s Camping place on Whitehorse Road. Not that we’re thinking of going camping or anything! Heaven forbid! No, I need a small(ish) folding table upon which to fold the laundry after it’s been washed and dried – and where better to find such an animal as a folding camp table, than at a camping gear place? We walked in, asked where the camp tables were – less than half a dozen paces away, as it turned out – and there it was! The perfect little table-for-folding-laundry-on! Unfortunately, I now have no more excuses for not folding the laundry… *sigh* “What I really need is one of those little folding card-table type things, so that I can sit in my chair and have something a little larger than the tiny nested tables I’m currently using, to fold the laundry on while I’m watching television after dinner – something that can be packed up and stored flat under the bed or something afterwards… I wonder if they’d sell folding tables at one of those camping equipment stores…” …Me and my big mouth!! 😉 So we got the little table, and it looks like I’ll be folding laundry tonight while we’re watching television (not that I really mind!) and we continued on to Vermont South to check the PO Box, and also made a short detour into Coles, so that I could get some more fruit… Then Julian remembered that he was out of green beans, almost out of Brussels sprouts, we had no more potatoes – might as well get some carrots while we’re there – oh! We were out of chicken, too, and perhaps we should get some more steak! The Sirloin was nicer than the fillet – let’s get some more… We picked up some more mineral water, then I spotted some cocoa, coconut, and almond butter/spread that didn’t appear to be too high in calories, so we got some of that, and some more Dukkah – Pistachio, nuts and spice blend this time…and just as Julian was trying to steer me in the direction of the checkout, I grabbed my final “impulse purchase” of the day off one of the shelves – some Nando’s Perinaise peri-peri mayonnaise (“Mild”) because it’s absolutely delicious to dip chips in! In the fruit department I got some more Corella pears, some small mandarins, and a couple of the green Nashi pears – maybe it was only the yellow ones that I found so insipid… The result was that we arrived home with half a car’s worth of shopping, a folding camp table, and a lot of signed Passport papers! 🙂 Mission accomplished! 😉

Having given you all a really truly blow-by-blow description of our day, I can now get onto all the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night we had the first of our four left-over meals from the Lamb and Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano – and once again, it was delicious! These sorts of dishes do improve the longer the spices have to work their way through everything. If you haven’t tried making it yet, it’s messy, but relatively easy to make, and believe me – you won’t regret it! It’s just so yummy! For dessert I had my last yellow Nectarine – just as well we got some more today! and also an Apple Le Rice. Today for lunch – well, seeing as we were right outside Baker’s Delight 😳 we got two savoury rolls (actually I don’t know that they were really “savoury”! They were really more “spicy and hot”! One was a Mexican Chili roll, and the other was a Jalapeno roll!) of which we had half each, and we both had one of their fruit and white chocolate scones… Tonight we’re having sausages, cooked “experimentally” in our new Grill! They’re the “Farm Foods” Beef, Pepper, and Barossa Valley Shiraz – and then the package says “seasoned with pepper and mustard” – no doubt we’ll also have chips, steamed green beans (now that we have some) and our usual half a tomato. We might even have a smidgen of that Nando’s Perinaise that I got today, with the sausages and the chips! And for dessert, I think I’ll try one of the green Nashi pears, and have one of the yummy Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurts.

Weigh-in this morning. Not good, but not really terrible either, is all I can say! I went from 65.5 kg to 65.4 kg – only down one point, and I did have that slightly naughty lunch today – on the other hand, I did my full 20 minutes on the treadmill, at 4.2 kilometers an hour (I hope my back doesn’t play up tonight!) So… we’ll just have to weight and sea what the scales tell me tomorrow morning, won’t we!

And that brings us full circle up to tomorrow again! Now, today I decided to get some Horde characters onto Saurfang… BUT I needed to have a Horde Guild, and Guild Bank (well, I didn’t really need to have a Guild and a Guild Bank, but it’s much more easier to start off with them than to turn around and have to organise them from scratch, right?) Anyway, I used my second account, because I had a second Horde Guild and Guild Bank on Nagrand that I didn’t really need – so I transferred Sörcha, the Guild Mistress (and her associated Guild and Guild Bank) from Nagrand to Saurfang, and viola, as the French say! An instant Saurfang Horde Guild and Guild Bank! Not that there’s all that much in the way of gold or goods in the “Hunter’s Incorporated” Guild Bank at the moment – but… it’ll grow… it’ll grow… (hopefully!) I had to change Sörcha’s name when I transferred her, so she’s now called “Foxfire” (I think I was quite lucky to get that name! Once again – no funny accents or characters, for a change!) Foxfire’s a Beast Master Hunter and will act primarily as Guild Mistress, Banker, and Auction Manager – at the moment there are only two other Guild members – my Blood Elf Mage, Avishag, and Julian’s Goblin Rogue, Spangler, and tomorrow I expect to be attempting to level Avishag up a bit, to see what it’s like being a Horde Mage! Eventually I’ll roll a Priest and a Warlock, but as they say in the classics, “that’s an adventure for another day!” And that, dear readers, is about “it” from me for today! Do call in again tomorrow night to see how my weight went, what Flipper’s been up to, now that she feels almost frisky again (well.l.l.l…. a bit more “frisky”, anyway? 😉 ) and how I went playing Horde-side for a change! But in the meantime, please try to bee good, don’t forget that the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry, especially as tonight’s weather report said that we’re going to have about a week of cold, wet weather… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

03.58 pm

Goodness! For once I’ve not only changed the background and the header – do you like my little fishies? They remind me a bit of Auric and Dapple! – but I’m starting early, too, on a day when my very favourite eldest daughter was over! Unfortunately her husband did something “not nice” to one of his legs, and has decided to come home, so she and I only had this morning in which to watch our weekly episodes of “The Flash”, and “Arrow”. They were the last episodes of Season 3, too, so of course, they both ended up on Cliff Hangers! Luckily for us though, we have Season 4 all ready and waiting in the wings for us next week, so at least we won’t have to go through the unbelievably sadistic six month wait that most people usually have, to see how everything turned out! 😉 I’m looking forward to next week! 😉

This morning before my very favourite eldest daughter arrived I played a bit more WoW, and got my Fire Mage, Jordana, up to level 16 – so only four more levels until I’ll be able to ride, and one more level (I believe) until I can “Portal” myself around from capital city to capital city, which will be a lot much more betterer that jogging all over the country-side by “shank’s pony”!

*Breaking News* Flipper, as you all know, is 22 years old, pretty senile, I’m afraid, and suffers quite a lot with arthritis and high blood pressure. At meal times we lace her dinner up with pills and potions to give her some pain relief from the arthritis – which is why it’s so important that she eats her dinner (or a sufficient amount of it, anyway) and funnily enough she seems to really enjoy the taste of her medicated food (thank heavens too, because most cats wouldn’t have a bar of anything that smelt, in any way shape or form, different, or “chemical”!) She goes to the Vet once every two months for a special anti-arthritis injection – she also goes every six months for a full check-up, where they test everything thing from her temperature to her blood pressure, and do all sorts of fancy blood tests, and so far, cross fingers, touch wood, she seems to be holding her own. She is deteriorating, but that’s only to be expected in a 22 year old cat, but the deterioration so far seems to be slow, and not too excessive. Yet, anyway. The thing is, she hates going to the Vet – even though they’ve never hurt her up there, and she always feels so much better after she’s had all her jabs and so-forth – but it’s getting to the agonising stage – for us – where we spend days debating on whether we should take her up this week, or leave it until the following week. She becomes so distressed the minute she sees the cat carry basket that she starts struggling (which is not good for her arthriticky old joints and bones!) screaming, yowling, and wetting herself (just as well most of the house has a tiled floor!) and every time we take her, she gets more upset than she was the time before. We’re now starting to think that this growing trauma of being taken up to the Vet probably does her more harm than if we didn’t take her at all, but by the same token, we can’t bear seeing her in so much pain every day with her arthritis. I suggested to Julian that he talk to the Vets about the possibility of a home visit – I mean, what could be the worst that they’d say? “No, we don’t make home visits”? I thought it was worth a try, anyway, so when Julian rang the Vet this afternoon to arrange for her two-monthly anti-arthritis injection (the injection is supposed to be every two months, but she never seems to be able to last the full two months – she only ever seems to be able to last about seven weeks, before really needing another one!) he asked, and they said they would – it’s going to cost us an emperor and a pope’s ransom, but if it prevents the almost hysterical outburst from her, I’ll count it as money well spent! One of the Vets will come out here tomorrow morning around a quarter past ten, and it’ll probably be all done and over before she’s had a chance to realise that it’s the Vet, and that she’s just had something sharp poked into her skin! A full report of the home visit will be written up for you all tomorrow!

And that’s about all that’s happened here today, so I’ll now fill you all in on the good bits!

Food stuffs. Last night we had our second grilled meal – this time we had grilled sirloin steak, with mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, and our usual half a tomato. Once again, I think the steak could probably have done with about a minute and a half, to two minutes less cooking time, but I think the temperature of the grill was about right this time, as the steak was well caramelised and tasty – I also think that we’re just used to seeing a lot more “pink” in the middle of our steak than we’re getting so far from the new griller… For dessert I had the last of the dark chocolate Chia Pods, and one of the brown, Bosc “stewing” pears, which although starting to get a little bit over-ripe, was still edible and enjoyable. Today for lunch I had a sandwich made from that yummy whole-meal bread that has all the sesame seeds stuck in the crust. The filling was a slight scraping of butter, sliced sandwich ham, tomato, a sprinkling of the Lemon Herb Dukkah, and slices of that new sort-of cheddar, sort-of tasty, cheese that’s my current cheese favourite. Tonight for dinner we’re having the first of four lots of frozen left-over Lamb and Harissa Lasagna with Feta and Oregano, which is going to be sooo yummy and delicious! 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Could have been worse, so I’m not going to complain, even though I didn’t go down at all! I went from 65.5 kg to 65.5 kg – in other words, I stayed the same – which as Julian pointed out to me this morning, is at least better than going up! I didn’t do my walk at all today – last night, and the night before, my back was so sore I didn’t know what to do with myself! It’s like two dull to sharp (depending on how much one moves around!) thumb knuckles, digging really hard into each side of your spine, just above the beginning of your coccyx, or tailbone. Anyway, I decided that today I’d give myself a rest from the walking to see if it helped my back. Tomorrow the experiment will continue, with me changing the angle of the treadmill. I was using it at an angle of 10°, the highest it will go – Julian has been using it at an angle of 4°. I’d decided to leave it at 4°, and try the lesser angle for a while, as I thought it would be easier, or more gentle than the 10° I’d been using for so long – today Lee and Julian suggested that it might be the lesser angle that was making my back hurt (I can’t think why though! One would think that a steeper angle would be more likely to cause pain!) anyway, tomorrow I’ll put it back up to 10°, and see how that goes. Of course, it could also be the fact that I’ve increased my speed from 4 kilometers an hour to 4.2 kilometers an hour, and that I’ve started doing about 10 jogging steps, every five minutes or so… (all the while hanging onto the treadmill “handles” for grim death!) 😉

And here we are again – back to square one! We’ve got a bit of a busy morning tomorrow – the Vet coming at 10.15 am, then we have to race off to sign some papers at 11 am, so there won’t be much time to cuddle and coddle Flipper, after her whirlwind visit from the Vet. Oh, I’ve just been informed by himself that we now need to make an appointment to see a Post Master, at a Post Office, in order for me to formally present him (or her) with all my Passport papers (because I’m getting a new passport with my new name etc.) to prove my bona fides, or whatever. Lord, what a kerfuffle! So we’ll probably come home via The Glen, to see if the Post Master is available… however I do have somewhat vague recollection of having to go through this once before, the last time I had to get my passport… and dredging blindly around in the thick, black, gooey pit that is my memory, I do seem to remember that actually ringing up, and making the appointment, was all just a segment of the various loops and flaming hoops that one had to leap gazelle-like through in order to prove to the Government of Australia that you weren’t up to anything “shady”! Somehow, I’ll be very surprised if we do get to see a Post Master tomorrow – apparently they’re all terribly busy individuals – but whether we do or we don’t, it’ll be an interesting exercise! And now, that really is about “it” from me for this evening! However do call in again tomorrow night to find out what my weight did, how Flipper went with her home visit from the Vet, and whether or not we got to see a Post Master “on the spot”, or if we have to go back again next week! Until then though, do try to bee good, remember that sometimes we’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are – so make sure you slow down and smell the roses on the way, and don’t forget to keep warm and dry, no matter what you’re doing, to always drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂