04.14 pm
Well, I’m finally back! Sorry for taking so long to get here – I’ve just been a bit… busy. Let’s see now – what’s been happening since Sunday? A fair bit actually! Sunday, of course, was our “Wynterthyme and Demelza Do The Broken Isles” day, and I think we did pretty well, all things considered! We’re now sitting pretty on level 108 (only another two levels to go!) Demelza once again lived up to her excellent reputation and died, falling off the edge of a very high cliff – just after I’d said to Julian (Demelza) “Now this time, make sure you don’t fall off!” “No, dear,” said Julian, as Demelza got a little too close to the edge, and as expected, promptly fell off! Actually, we both died a few times, but we got better! 😉 But now Wynterthyme and Demelza have a very tough decision to make! Both of them were born and raised on Quel’Dorei, which has been our major “stomping ground” for nearly ten years. We initially chose Quel’Dorei as our main base because it had a low population, it was fairly quiet, and we could pretty much go about our business and our questing, uninterrupted – and it was good! We’re anti-social geeks, and prefer to live in quiet isolation, Realm-wise, unencumbered by unsolicited invitations to duel, and/or to join various groups of players whom we’ve never heard of before, and what’s more, have no desire to get to know them in the future! Unfortunately, news of Quel’Dorei’s peace and quiet has spread over the intervening years, and now it’s always just about jam-packed, with noisy louts milling around the Inns and the Auction Houses in the capital cities, and the doing and completing quests has become neigh-on impossible – unless you want to “queue up” and stand in line, waiting until quest givers, quest items, and quest rewards become “available” again! It wasn’t quite as bad if you were playing a higher level – until the Expansion! After that, it was a bit as though the world had exploded, not just in the lower and baby areas, but with the new-found ability to “advance” a couple of your characters from level 1 to level 100 in one foul swoop – so that everyone who wanted to could get a look-in at the newly opened areas and levels more quickly – the higher level areas quickly became all choked up too! Some of you may remember my constant grouching and bleating about having to “wait in line” to be able to complete and hand in quests, and in the end, Julian snapped at me “Well, find a quieter Realm, then!” – which I did! Saurfang! It’s almost exactly like Quel’Dorei was in the earlier years, and my girls have been having a ball growing up and playing on Saurfang. Yes, it was a bit of a rigmarole, getting a couple of my Quel’Dorei girls transferred over, with a new Guild and a new Guild Bank – but it was accomplished without much bother, and so far (cross fingers, touch wood!) everything is going extremely well! Anyway, the Great Big Decision that Wynterthyme and Demelza have to make now is – whether or not to move over to Saurfang, bringing most of the Quel’Dorei Guild Bank with them – because the Quel’Dorei Guild Bank is the largest and wealthiest one that we have on any of the Realms – and there’s no point in leaving it all behind, if the two principal players aren’t going to be there to make use of it! (we will of course be leaving enough behind for the Guild members who remain on Quel’Dorei!) It’s not as though Wynterthyme and Demelza will be “Exiled for Life”, either – after seven days, they can return to Quel’Dorei, once again taking everything with them – though, why would they want to? It all boils down to whether you stay with the old familiar, and endure poor and very crowded conditions, or take the relatively small leap of faith (because you can always leap back again if you don’t like it!) and move to a freer, and much more open environment… The choice is entirely in their hands! *Watch This Space!*
On Monday morning, I went off to have my right foot and ankle x-rayed and ultrasounded – I was supposed to get the results back this Friday, but when I rang to make the appointment with the Doctor, I was told that Doctor B. had been off sick for a few days, and wasn’t going to be available until next Monday! So we’re all going to have to wait until next Monday to find out if I can get back on the treadmill or not! My ankle’s still a bit sore, and I have been walking on it quite a bit – but I walk a lot faster on the treadmill (4.4 kmph) than I do around the house or a shopping centre (around half that? maybe about 2 kmph?) and I don’t want to put too much of a strain on that foot (though I have been known to run up the corridor on more than one occasion! 😉 ) until I get the go-ahead from the Doctor! I only had a bit of time to play a WoW before Josh came over in the afternoon, and by the time he left, it was dinner time – and you all know my “rule” of not writing after dinner and television! (unless I’d already started writing before dinner, that is!) One thing concerned me a little – I couldn’t get over how long it took the technician to do the ultrasound of my ankle and foot! She kept going back over two particular spots – one on the inside of my ankle/foot – about where my instep would have been if I had an instep, which I don’t – and on the other side of my ankle, just below the ankle “funny-bone” (the ankle equivalent of the one on your elbow!) quite a few times! I suppose I should have asked her why – I usually do ask a lot of questions when I’m having an ultrasound, and I did think of asking her, but for some reason, this time I didn’t say a word – maybe I just didn’t want to know! (maybe I just didn’t want the hassle of repairing it… *shakes head* it’s a l-o-n-g story!)
Yesterday my very favourite eldest daughter came over for the day – we hadn’t seen her for two weeks due to uni assignments and last Friday her husband was home because it was a Public Holiday! So we sat in the lounge room and watched alternating episodes of “The Flash”, and “Arrow” until it was time for her to go home – and as her husband is generally home a bit later than usual because he commutes between Glen Waverley and Geelong, we finished watching our episodes of “The Flash” and “Arrow” a lot later than we usually do – so once again, I didn’t have time to write anything before dinner… Sorry! 
And today… We’d just got home on Monday to discover a little “Australia Post” notification in our letter box – I think we must have missed the Postie by “that much →←” – my Passport had arrived, but because it was Registered Mail, only I could pick it up – which I did today! Ladies and gentlepersons, I has an Passport! I cans go overseas now! 😀 It’s a pity that Flipper and Auric and Dapple don’t have Passports, coz we can’t go overseas without them – so it looks like we’ll just have to stay home, for now… but it makes for excellent ID purposes! My shirt wot I’d bought online from Katies also arrived, so I came home this afternoon with one fancy “lace-up” shirt – black – and one Passport – dark blue with the Australian emblem on it. Our Mr. Lawnmower Man has finally come home from his own overseas holidays – just in the nikka, too! As Julian told him – we almost needed a machete to get to the front door! So, the garden is once more looking neat and trim, we can see the potato bags properly again, and Julian plucked the first of out carrot crop! Well, Kate, my very favourite youngest daughter, and family gardening guru, did warn me that the carrots we grew would look nothing at all like the carrots one finds in the supermarket – and I totally believed her – but I wasn’t as prepared as I’d thought I was for the sight of the two pale orange, skinny, short, and almost-completely spiral – carrots that Julian brought in! He washed them, and we had a munch – and they certainly tasted like carrots, and crunched up when we chewed them, like carrots – but honestly, they really looked more like chubby piggy tails! Quite hilarious! 😀
And having filled you in on all of that, I’ll get on to some of the “good” bits. Only some though, because I forgot to take notes, and I can’t remember what we had for dinner – except that it was a very delicious omelet on Sunday, and one of the most fantastic stews we’ve ever had on Monday – so I’ll just have to start from today, alright?
Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had pasta with tomato sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese, and for dessert I had one of my much neglected mandarins (my true excuse: I love mandarins – it’s just that they’re very mucky and messy to eat, by the time you peel off their skins and “de-vein” them and cut away the excess pith!) and an Apple Le Rice. Today we had lunch up at Forest Hill Chase at a little Coffee place – we started off at The Coffee Club, but were told that there was a twenty-minute (and all the rest!) wait on all orders, and the menu calorie count they’d put against their BLT was horrendous! Even though the BLT came with a side order of chips, the calories claimed still seemed to be far too high for what it was – but it was the long wait that decided us, so we packed up and went to the next coffee place along – whose name I fergit! I had a ham, cheese and tomato Toastie, an extremely sinful (but very delicious!) Walnut Chocolate Fudge slice, and my usual long black with a small jug of skinny milk on the side. I want to go back there again tomorrow, so that I can have another of those Walnut Chocolate Fudge slices! Tonight we’re having “Tuscan Pork *Gourmet Port Sausages* →Gluten Free← 100% Australian Pork with Fennel, Parsley, and Parmesan Cheese” – sounds a bit posh, doesn’t it! We’ll also be having our usual half a tomato, steamed green beans, and chips with those, so anyway, I’ll let you know what they were like tomorrow night! For dessert I’ll have one of the teeny “kiddie” apples, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme.
Weigh-in Sunday: 66.4 kg
Weigh-in Monday: 66.0 kg
Weigh-in Tuesday: 65.9 kg
Weigh-in Today (Wednesday): Oh, this is sooo torturously slow! 65.8 kg! Oh well, after that Fudge slice today, it’s sure to be back in the 66 kg zone – probably somewhere around 66.9 kg! 😦 Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – self-inflicted, so no sympathy, please! 😉
And that brings me back to tomorrow! I was supposed to be going to see my Prosthodontist on Friday 14th of October, but I got a call from them on Monday to say that Dr. N. (my Prosthodontist) is lecturing that day, so could I come this week? Well, yes I could, and they had Thursday free, so I’m off there tomorrow morning at 10.00 am, where I think he’ll be unscrewing my bottom bridge and taking top part out (the teeth) and giving them a good old sand-blasting underneath to get rid of any tartar that’s probably accumulated there during the year. Oh well, I guess it’s better to get it over and done with, though I have to admit – I’m not really looking forward to it. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but it’s certainly uncomfortable – and actually it does hurt, when they use the ultrasonic (?? I think?) de-scaler thingy around the tops of the posts that hold the screws into my jaw… it certainly makes them bleed (and me on Warfarin, too! 😯 ) After that, I think I’ll be gravely in need of a rather large cup of coffee, and a good, long, soothing session with Zelenka, killing greeblies in Tanaris – or wherever else I’ve moved on to by then! 😉 Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, and I think that’s about all I have for you this evening! Probably just as well, too, as it’s starting to get just a wee bit long… Anyway, do drop in again tomorrow night to find out how many points that Walnut Chocolate Fudge slice cost me, whether we’ve had any more of our home-grown, organic carrots, and how I got on at the Prosthodontist! Until then however, please try very hard to bee good, remember that if you don’t have the time to do it right this time, when will you ever have the time to do it again, correctly? and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm and dry, especially in this sudden, rather nasty cold snap, and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 