04.31 pm
“Remember, remember! The fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” – I guess that old rhyme isn’t heard much anymore! These days – from what I can gather – November 5th is mainly known as “fireworks night”, if it’s even remembered at all! But back in the “good old days”, when I was a gell, all the children started collecting for the November bonfires (usually “community” affairs in someone’s empty paddock) as early as May! Little by little, piles of old fencing, broken furniture, logs filched from someone’s firewood pile, even the odd tyre or two – although that was rather frowned upon – old tyres were worth money, back in “those” days! Rags and bits of old clothing were collected too, to dress the “Guy” – Guy Fawkes in effigy, who would be burnt (as he well deserved, doncha know!) on the roaring flames of the bonfire. Most adults generally turned an indulgent “blind eye” to the comings and goings of small children dragging their bits of combustible materials down the street – although there was the occasional “Oi! Where d’you think you’re going with that good fence post, young lad!” – whereupon said young lad either dropped the freshly dug up fence post and scarpered quick smart, or tried to look all innocent, with a “but I found it in the lane, Mister, honest I did!” (you could pretty much find anything in those old night lanes, from dead birds that I used to gingerly carry home so that they could have a “decent burial” in our garden, to old books – and bits of “lost clothing”! [ 😉 goodness knows what used to go on in those back lanes after dark! I was only five years old…]) Anyway, towards the end of August, adults would start buying fireworks, and kids would spend their hard-earned pocket money on “penny bungers”, and sparklers, ready for the Big Night! These days fireworks are considered to be far too dangerous for the ordinary “man on the street” to handle, and are only permitted to be handled by the professionals – but in those days, come dusk on November 5th, people would gather outside in the street, or in the afore mentioned paddocks, and those that had assembled a bonfire lit them. Children scampered around setting off their penny bungers, and waving their sparkling sparklers like demented fairies waving their fairy wands, while the adults stood around and gossiped, lit the bigger fireworks, like the rockets and the Catherine wheels, and everyone usually had a jolly good time. Yes, there was occasionally an accident or two – I do remember, that a boy once managed to blow off one of his hands because he was trying to set off a rocket by inserting it, pointy side down, into an empty beer bottle… in his bedroom (why??!!) but to the best of my knowledge, no-one we knew ever got more than the odd burnt finger, from holding their sparkler too close to the “burny bit”… Ah well, I think kids generally miss out on a lot of things these days, due to everyone being so fearful and over-protective? I don’t expect to hear very many bangs and whooshes tonight, though when we lived in Doncaster we had such a wonderful view over the city – we’d turn off all the lights and sit there watching all the pretty lights in the sky, on New Year’s Eve, November 5th, and any other nights where there’s be likely to be “Officially handled” fireworks. One of our cats, Arty, used to absolutely love watching them! He’d sit there with us, head swiveling every which way to watch the rockets and showers of falling sparks… Alas… we lost him all too soon from kidney failure,poor little boy…
…Sorry! I got all nostalgic for Guy Fawkes night, and Arty, for a bit then! I’m sorry I didn’t get to write anything last night, but the Podiatrist was a trifle late, and by the time she’d gone it was dinner time, and you know my writing rules – If I starts it before dinner, I finishes it after dinner. If I don’t get a chance to start writing before dinner, it doesn’t get written – writing from scratch on a full stomach is just too onerous! So! We did go out shopping yesterday, after the Vet and her nurse had been around to give Flipper her anti-arthritis injection, trim her claws, and snip out some of the many little mats of fur that we didn’t want to snip off in case we snipped her by mistake! The two ladies were really lovely, and soon had Flipper examined, injected, claws trimmed and mats more-or-less vanquished – and although she wasn’t very happy about all the unwanted attention, Flipper didn’t have her usual hysterical fit of the vapours and traumas that she has as soon as she sees the cat carry basket – so although it costs an arm and a leg, if it keeps Flipper a little bit happier, I consider it money well spent! After the Vet and the nurse left, we spent a bit of time making a fuss of Flipper, until she gratefully curled up in her “cave” and went to sleep. Julian put the radio on for her, and we quietly slipped out of the house and went off to Knox City!
Once up at Knox, my objectives were to (1) See if there was a My Size up there, because I wanted to have a look at some slacks that they had in their catalogue. Mainly I wanted to see if they had pockets in them, because if they didn’t (have pockets) then I wasn’t interested in them. However, there’s no My Size store up at Knox City, so I had to cross that one off the list. (2) I wanted to go to Priceline to get some more of my favourite makeup removing wipes, because I only had about two left – I also wanted to have a look at a new makeup removing product from Nivea – which I’d heard good things about – so I got some of that – and finding that it also came as a wipe, I got some of them as well, and didn’t get the other wipes I’d been planning to get. I was then going to go on to Myer, to get some Jurlique Clarity Hand Lotion, which would have been Objective #3, but seeing as I was already in Priceline, I decided to go looking to see if they had anything “comparable”. There was one product there that I’ve had before – well, not that exact same product, but I’ve had some of their other products, so I decided to try the Avène Cold Cream Body Lotion, because I know that I’m not allergic to, or sensitive to, their products. I used it last night, and this morning – and it really is lovely and smooth and gentle! So far… so good! 😉 The only other thing on my list of Objectives was fruit! By this time it was almost lunch time, so we decided to have an early lunch, get my fruit, and head home – completely forgetting that we needed to get Tissues and Naked Ginger! Anyway, we had a very nice lunch at the Shingle Inn there at Knox City – less than 100 yards away from the very nice fresh fruit and vegetable market! I got quite a bit of fruit – some yellow peaches, yellow nectarines, Red Dacca bananas, Lady Finger bananas, and two “Ya” pears, just to see what they were like. Unfortunately these Ya pears come “packaged” in those pale yellow fibrous nets – supposedly to protect them – but I didn’t realise until I went to get one last night that it had been split inside its net wrapping, and the fruit was quite spoilt as a result. I had the last remaining one instead, and it too had some bad bruising, though I was able to eat almost all of it. I don’t think I’ll bother getting any more – it was quite nice, but pretty much exactly the same as the pale skinned Nashi pears – just a different shape! Anyway, after getting my fruit, we came home, and it wasn’t until we were driving into the garage that we realised that we hadn’t been to the supermarket – so Julian had to go out this afternoon to get Tissues and Naked Ginger! 
Then I read my book (Kindle) until the Podiatrist arrived – and that was about the sum total of my day!
As for today – well, I did play some WoW this morning, but logged off at lunchtime and after lunch started working on the background and header that you’re looking at right now! That took me pretty well up to 04.30 pm, when I started writing this – so now you’re all up-to-date in what I’ve been up to, so now I can get on to the “good” bits, I guess! 😉
Food stuffs. I said earlier that we had lunch at the Shingle Inn at Knox City yesterday, and I had all my “usuals” – a BLT on sourdough bread, a luscious, gooey, and very delectable chocolate caramel slice, and a long black with a little jug of skinny milk. As usual, it was all delicious! For dinner last night we had some beautiful fillet steak, pan-fried with pepper and a little lemon-infused olive oil, mashed potatoes, our usual half a tomato, and some home-grown, completely organic, and utterly delicious steamed broad beans! For dessert I had the Ya pear, and an Apple Le Rice. Today for lunch we had sandwiches made with a new sourdough loaf from Baker’s Delight, and you know, I think it was the nicest tasting sourdough bread that I’ve tasted for a long time! It was really nice and tasty! There was some of the fillet steak left over from dinner last night, so I had that in my sandwich, with some of that yummy Cheddar/Tasty cheese, and a smidge of Baxters Fire Roasted Tomato & Smoky Chipotle Relish. Altogether, that sandwich today was a real winner! Tonight for dinner we’re having chicken breasts pan-fried with a few herbs and spices, on a bed of plain, steamed rice with some finely chopped spring onion mixed through it. For dessert I’m having one of my yellow peaches, and one of my yellow Nectarines, because they’re both quite small – and I’ll be having a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt with them.
Weigh-in yesterday morning. I think those wretched little pills are starting to kick in! 😦 I went from 67.0 kg on Thursday, to 67.6 kg yesterday morning… not good!
Weigh-in this morning. Yup, the pills have kicked in with a vengeance! I went up again this morning – from 67.6 kg yesterday, to 67.8 kg this morning 😥 Only another five days to go….
Flipper has been fed, but she’s hardly even touched her dinner! I’ve taken away her pussy biscuits, and she won’t be getting them back until she’s eaten at least half of her dinner – or until just before we go to bed – whichever comes first! Auric and Dapple have had their Fish House thoroughly vacuumed, and all of the glass walls cleaned. Their water’s been tested, and everything’s apparently completely “spot-on”, so that’s good – they should be very happy and very grateful little boys! 🙂 Tomorrow of course, is Sunday, and our “traditional” day for romping through the Broken Isles, looking for monsters to smite, and evil people to castigate! I did change from a Beastmaster Hunter to a Marksman, but I think I’ll change back again so that Demelzae and Wynterthyme can both have the same Pets! I hope we don’t die too many times (though we probably will!) but I’ll fill you all in on that tomorrow night! And once more, that’s really about “it” from me for this evening! Please drop in again tomorrow, to find out how we went in WoW, as well as how much extra (fluid) weight those unspeakably despicable pills have made me go up to, and what other sorts of adventures we’ve had during the day. Until then though, please do try to bee good, remember – to change one’s life: 1. start immediately. 2. do it flamboyantly. 3. no exceptions – and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry no matter what the weather looks like – this is Melbourne, where the weather is subject to change without notice – but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 