05.01 pm

Not quite so early this afternoon – Julian and I have been having a bit of fun taking Wynterthyme and Demelzae through some of the low-level Dungeons in WoW! As I think I’ve told all of you previously, Julian and I don’t “do” Dungeons – because unless you belong to a large-ish Guild, and you can rely on your fellow Guildies to run the Dungeon with you, you have to join a Pick Up Group, or “PUG”, as they’re commonly called. A “PUG” consists of a bunch of complete strangers, and like all groups of complete strangers, some are nice, some are loud, rude, and overbearing, and some are just simply “Not Nice”. Julian and I, being the fairly anti-social people that we are, “do not play well with other children”. We tend to play “our” way – going through a Dungeon or Instance carefully, killing everything that needs to be killed, taking our time, skinning all the skinables, and observing the intricacies and details of the usually superb art-work that’s gone into the Dungeon design. PUGs, on the other hand, want to get through the Dungeon as quickly as possible, running on before the rest of the party (in other words, us!) is ready to move on; they’re hair-trigger quick to pounce on, and put the boots into the unfortunate group member who accidentally clicks on “Need” instead of “Greed” when rolling virtual dice to see who gets a dropped item (you’re only supposed to click “Need” if it’s something that you can, and will use! The rest of the time you’re supposed to click “Greed”, indicating that you’re going to be selling it on the Auction House and are only interested in what you can get for it) and they bicker loudly and incessantly about who should have got which items.

As Julian and I avoid PUGs like the plague, we’ve run very few Dungeons – but as we’re both level 110 now, we’re having great fun going back and doing all the old Dungeons that we never got to do! The two of us can go in, “one-shotting” all the Elite mobs, and having a good look around at everything! Of course all of the loot that we pick up is useless to us at level 110 – but some of it makes good “Transmogrification” costumes, which is a bit of a fun bonus to us now, but back when we were at the level where we should have been doing those Dungeons, well, maybe we’d have been bickering loudly and incessantly about who should have got which items, too! 😯

So as I said, Julian and I have been having a bit of fun in the Dungeons this afternoon, but for most of the morning I played around with some re-discovered online jig-saw puzzles, and Julian made the most scrumptious looking loaf of bread, by hand! It’s not a sourdough loaf this time – he hasn’t made bread since 2014, before I started on my diet – and he wanted to “get his hand in again” by practicing on a plain, white loaf – and by the looks of it, I think he did pretty well, don’t you?! He made this loaf completely by hand – but back when he was making bread every week, he used the bread making machine – and when he makes the sourdough loaf next time, he might use the machine again, but I just can’t wait to have a taste of this one – it looks magnificent! (the house smells pretty magnificent, too! I love the smell of freshly baked bread!)

And that’s been pretty much our day – I did my treadmilling again today, plus all my other exercises – not that I think they’re doing me terribly much good, as they’re all really simple and easy! Flipper still isn’t eating properly, and is really only interested in her pussy biscuits – when she’s awake – which isn’t all that often… I gave Auric and Dapple a little bit less dinner last night, and although Auric showed a slight tendency to “float”, it wasn’t bad enough to really worry about, so I’ll give them a bit less again tonight, and see how they go. So, having filled  all of you in on all the salient points, I shall now proceed to get onto all the “good” bits! 🙂

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had some very, very delicious succulent and tender pork steaks, pan-fried in a teeny bit of olive oil with some of our home-grown rosemary, with mashed potatoes, steamed home-grown and organic broad beans, and our usual half a tomato. For dessert I didn’t have one of my Corella pears – I thought I’d give them another day because the last of my yellow peaches and nectarines looked and felt as though they were about “on the turn”, so I thought I’d better eat them toot sweet, which I did, with an Apple Le Rice. For lunch today we had another ham and cheese Toastie, which as usual, was lovely! (and much less messy to eat than a wrap! 😉 ) Tonight we’re having the last of this lot of left-overs from the Lamb and Harissa Lasagne with Feta and Oregano that Julian made last week – so he’s going to have to make another one soon! We’re having the left-overs tonight because it’s really too hot to stove-cook anything, and we can just heat the Lasagna up in the microwave…

Julian has just brought in a lightly buttered slice of his freshly baked loaf – and it’s fantastic! The crust is, well, “crusty”, not too thick, and has a nice bit of “crunch” to it. The bread itself is perfectly cooked, not doughy or soggy, with a lovely, even texture, and it tastes soooo much better than ordinary “commercial” white bread, which – let’s face it – is really more like bland, tasteless, polystyrene! I’m really looking forward to lunch tomorrow! 🙂

Is anyone reading this blog old enough to remember family mealtimes – especially dinner at night – where everyone would be sitting around the kitchen table, talking, or Dad would be reading the newspaper, and Mum would be dishing up the family dinner… and there’d always be a fresh loaf of bread on the table, with a serrated bread knife – no pre-sliced bread in those days – sitting next to it on the breadboard, and there’d be a nice pat of butter, usually sitting on an “odd” saucer next to the salt and pepper in the middle of the table? My family didn’t always have bread out on the table – though we always had bread and butter on the table when we had company – my mother’s parents always (always!) had bread and butter there, even at lunch time, and when we went to a friend’s place for dinner, there was always bread and butter… Do people still do that? We don’t visit friends for dinner much, and vice-versa – usually we all just pile off to a restaurant!

I’m digressing again! Yes, we’re having left-over Lasagna for dinner tonight, as it’s really far too hot to stove-cook anything – and for dessert, tonight I’ll try one of the green pears that Julian brought home yesterday – I think they’re Williams, but they might be Packhams – anyway, I’ll try one of them tonight, along with a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. Oh well, I suppose one could say that it’s still within that magical Fae realm, “margin of error”! I went from 68.4 kg yesterday and the day before, to 68.7 kg this morning… so… who knows what it might – or might not be – tomorrow? I suppose we shall all just have to weight and sea…

And that brings me around to tomorrow again – it always happens, doesn’t it? Tomorrow is always “just around the corner”, with who knows what sorts of surprises waiting for you! 🙂 So, now… I think I’ve filled you all in on just about everything that’s transpired today, and told you all about what might – or might not – be happening tomorrow – which isn’t a lot, really, because at this stage of the evening even I don’t know what’s happening tomorrow! But drop by again tomorrow night, and you’re sure to find out whether my weight went up, down, or stayed boringly the same, whether or not Flipper ate her dinner this evening, and if Auric’s nasty little bouts of the “floaties” has dissipated! 😉 As a bonus extra, you’ll also find out how we amused ourselves, and if we ran any more Dungeons in WoW (wow!) But until then, do try extra hard to bee good, don’t forget  – do or do not, there is no try, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm, depending on your personal preferences… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂