04.29 pm
Well, today’s been very quiet! Julian went over to Doncaster for two very important reasons – firstly, because I was starting to run low on my new favourite Nespresso “Variations Limited Edition” flavour, which they bring out every year just before Christmas – this year their “theme” (for whatever reason!) is “Well known and loved Austrian Desserts”, featuring coffee pod flavours based on Sachertorte, Apfelstrudel, and Linzer Torte! My this year’s favourite is the “Linzer Torte” one – it has a “cherry liquor” flavour and is quite delicious! (though it’s not a patch on my last year’s favourite – an “Amaretto” flavoured coffee, which was truly to die for… because I absolutely love anything with an almond flavour!) The other reason to go over to Doncaster was that the Dry Cleaning basket was overflowing all over the bedroom floor – and besides, we felt it was probably time for our next contribution to the “Daisy Dry Cleaning Christmas Fund” – I reckon they must be just about due for their next family Mercedes by now!? 😉 While Julian was out, I played WoW mostly – getting my new Night Elf Mage “Equipoise” up to level 13, and starting to sort out my other characters there on Scarlet Crusade. You know, the last time I played on that Realm was so long ago that my Hunters all have ammo in their backpacks! That was so long ago that you can’t even Vendor it – you just have to throw it out and destroy it! The other things is that being Hunters, they’re all geared up in Leather – Hunters haven’t worn Leather in years! They wear Mail armor now, so I’m going to have to find the gold to re-outfit them all! (Winter sighs, and rolls her eyes in mock despair!) The rest of the time, I spent reading the “paper” (The Age online) which is now mostly just click-bait – but occasionally some of their articles are either stupid enough – and very occasionally serious enough – to prompt me to send in a comment (or on very rare occasions, two, or three) on the subject. This morning happened to be one of those occasions – so if you’re interested, you can find my two comments underneath the first comment, at the bottom of the linked article.
Then Julian got home, and we had lunch… I also did a bit of research and drew up a chart of what vegetables we could plant in December, as in spite of the plethora of tomato plants that Julian planted the other day, there’s still a fair amount of room left in our veggie beds for other things, like… capsicum, and cucumbers! We want to try growing “apple cucumbers”, as they seem to have completely gone out of fashion! They used to be all over the place – in greengrocers and supermarkets everywhere… now if you go in and say you’re looking for apple cucumbers, people just look at you blankly – apparently we’re ultra old fashioned (or maybe we’re just too old to understand the issue!) Anyway, I want to see if we can get some apple cucumber seeds, rather than seedlings (which we’d prefer!) so that we can grow our own. We also want to put in more green beans – last year’s green beans did extraordinarily well, and we want to try putting in a different type of carrot – our last lot of carrots weren’t too bad, and they were certainly edible – but I think they were those little Dutch carrots that only grow about an inch or so long… Anyway, yeah, carrots, some more rhubarb – only one of our crowns survived – radish would be nice – I like radishes, “Mustard Greens” (whatever they are, but they sound cool!) Leek, and Broccoli.
So that’s pretty much been my day today – we didn’t see our friends today, which is fairly understandable, as they’ve had a shocking time lately with the loss of one of their children – so we basically… bludged, this afternoon! 🙂 Auric had yet another fit of the floaties last night, which is a bit concerning, so we’re trying a different tack! Julian usually feeds them their breakfast around ten o’clock in the morning, and I usually feed them anywhere between 06.30 pm and 08.00 pm, depending on how late I’m running before dinner. Tonight I got Julian to give them their dinner early, at about 05.30 pm… because it doesn’t seem to matter what time I feed them at night, it’s always around 8 o’clock that Auric starts “floating” (something seems to go wrong with his swim bladder, and if he stops swimming for any reason, be bobs straight up to the surface like a little (big!) orange cork, where he seems to have trouble swimming down again!) I want to see whether changing their dinner time changes the time he starts getting the floaties. If he starts floating around about the same time – 8 pm-ish – then it’s obviously not his dinner, and we have to try to think of other possible causes – but if he starts floating about an hour to an hour and a half earlier, then it must be his dinner, and he’ll need to go on a strict diet – though how we do that without putting poor little Dapple on a diet too, I don’t know! (well, actually I do know how to do that – but it’s a real hassle, and an enormous headache to organise and implement, and I just don’t want to go down that path!) Flipper probably ate more last night in one sitting than she has for some time! I think we might try the same tactic tonight, if possible – but it relies on her being awake and cooperative – which doesn’t seem to happen all that much any more – as her kidneys deteriorate, she gets less and less lucid, and more and more demanding of human company and petting. The main things is that she seems to be happy and contented – as long as she’s asleep with us close by, or when one of us is with her and making a fuss of her. All we can really do is just take things one day at a time… 
And now on to all the “good” bits! 🙂
Food stuffs. Last night we had a lovely small piece of porterhouse steak, pan-fried in a small amount of olive oil, with chips, our usual half a tomato, and a steamed medley of home-grown cauliflower florets, home-grown broad beans, and store-bought green beans – an extremely interesting and tasty mixture! For dessert I had a smallish yellow peach, a smallish yellow Nectarine, and an Apple Le Rice – all very delicious! For lunch today we had another sandwich made with Julian’s sourdough bread – with a teeny bit of butter, sandwich-sliced chicken, Cheddar/Tasty cheese, chopped iceberg lettuce, and a smidgen of the “imaginary” Baxters “Fire Roasted Tomato & Smoky Chipotle Relish” (I tried Googling it again tonight, and sure as eggs are eggs and apples are apples, there was still nothing online about it! There was, however, a link back to my blog! I am arrived! Looking for a link to Baxters relish, Google had a link back to my blog! Now, how exciting is that! 😉 ) The sandwich was absolutely scrumptious! For dinner tonight we’re having chicken breast, pan-fried with a few herbs, on a bed of plain steamed rice with finely chopped spring onions. For dessert, I’ll have one of my Corella pears, and a dark cherry CHOBANI yoghurt.
Weigh-in this morning. Wasn’t pleasant – but I’m getting used it that… Despite my exercises an’ all, my feet still look like balloons – with tiny little balloon toes – and ya’know, it’d probably look kinda cute, too… if I was a cartoon! *sigh* This morning I went from 68.6 kg yesterday morning, to 69.0 kg. That’s up three points! Why?! I’m not happy…
And that brings me around to tomorrow again! Saturday… as usual, I have no idea what’s happening – Julian, as always, has places to go, people to see, things to do – and I, on the other hand, have WoW to play, graphics to graph, and jigsaw puzzles to do… (wow! hold me down!) but at this particular point in time, I’m forced to admit that… that’s about “it” from me for this evening! Do call in again tomorrow night though, to see how much more my weight went up, whether Auric had another bout of the “floaties” this evening, and if I’ve got any further with Equipoise 🙂 But, until then, try very hard to bee good, don’t forget – nothing endures but personal qualities, and remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm, or cool, depending on your personal preferences, and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please -remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 