04.35 pm
Here I am again after a very pleasant break yesterday! 🙂 My excuse for taking a break? It was our 26th Wedding Anniversary, and we went out to lunch. When we go out for a meal, we generally go for lunch rather than dinner – I’m not exactly sure why I prefer to go out for lunch instead… yes, it does cut a huge swath right through the middle of the day, but for some weird reason (remember, I do have a reputation to maintain! 😉 ) I feel that it’s of far lesser importance than fragmenting the evening, in the way that going out for dinner invariably does! Once upon a time, a long time ago now, Julian and I were reasonably heavy drinkers, but for many years now we only drink “socially”, or when we’re at a restaurant, when we might have a Martini, followed by a glass of wine with our main course – and I’ve found that going to bed after a fairly substantial meal and a couple of drinks, doesn’t always mean that you get a good night’s sleep! However, the same meal and the same drinks at lunch time gives you plenty of time to digest your meal, get in a bit of snoozing, WoW-ing or surfing during the afternoon, and have a pleasant evening before retiring to a peaceful night’s sleep 🙂 Plus the fact that it’s far less fattening, as we never have any dinner after we’ve been out to lunch – and somehow, you know, playing it the other way (that is, not having any lunch before going out to dinner) doesn’t seem to work in quite the same way – all that does is prompt you to eat more of the delicious-sounding rich foods than you normally would, before coming home to your over-indulgence induced bad dreams and fragmented sleep! Anyway, it was our Anniversary, and we went to “The Tender Trap” – a lovely restaurant on Blackburn Road in East Doncaster, where we had a really fantastic meal, and we worked out, with the help of the Head Waiter who’s been there since forever, that we’ve been going there for nearly 25 years – almost as long as we’ve been going to the East Empress in Glen Waverley!
When we got home we both pretty much bludged for the rest of the afternoon – I was actually awake for a change, so I could have written my blog, but I was just feeling too well-fed and lazy to be bothered! Sorry! 😉 Today I worked nearly all day on this latest background and Header – what do you all think? Is it too bright for some of the smaller screens? Please let me know if it is, because I do have a somewhat more sedate and “quieter” “Plan B” background and Header waiting in the wings! Julian picked up our Ferguson Plarre order this afternoon – one large Christmas Cake, one large Christmas Pudding, and three dozen mince pies! I was much relieved when he brought them home – I was starting to worry that we’d forget them, or pick them up late, and find that they’d sold them to someone else! Oh, and we put up the Christmas Tree, too! For the last two years we haven’t dismantled the tree, as it’s small enough to stand it upright, with all its decorations still on it, in one of the largest, thick orange garden bin bags – it’s starting to look a little “sad” and dilapidated though – this might be the last time we’ll be able to get away with it! Oh well – anyway, we’ve found the perfect spot for it (more-or-less!) so now all we have to do is, uhhh… wrap the presents? (Winter starts to panic *but how*??!!) Ah yes! We shall need boxes – in which to put most of the Christmas Presents – because most of them aren’t really the sort of Christmas Presents that you can wrap! 😉 Julian has another visit to the Dentist tomorrow, and even though the blister on the edge of my instep isn’t fully healed yet, I think I shall go with him. He can drop me off at the shopping centre on the way there, because I’ve just remembered something that I was going to get him – if “tha place” still has any left! I also need to get my own “personal” Christmas Cards, too, so it’s as good a chance as I’m likely to get, between now and Christmas! So, I guess that’s going to be “Hello!” to a couple of new blisters, and “Goodbye” to any chance of catching up with Nofret in WoW! Thank goodness Christmas comes but once a year!
I’m not quite sure what’s happening this weekend – I think my very favourite youngest daughter, Kate, will be coming over, though I’m not sure if her husband Terry will come or not. He’s not taken the news of his cancer well, and I think he’s going through a pretty rough patch at the moment (which is hardly surprising!) They both need all the help and support they can get at the moment, and of course, if there’s anything at all we can do for them, or help them with, it’s theirs! On a somewhat less distressing note, I’ve started looking for Cat Breeders in Victoria, as I’m after a “spotted” cat – either an Egyptian Mau, or a Bengal, and although we’re not quite ready for another cat just yet, looking for a pedigreed cat, especially one of those two breeds, usually means putting yourself on a waiting list, and then waiting until kittens become available! Auric and Dapple had their Fish House cleaned out on Tuesday, so their water is lovely and clear, and their walls are nice and algae-less – even their erstwhile mud-puddle outside got cleaned out again this morning! (not that they’ll ever be going out there again, of course!) And so that now brings you almost completely up to date with the comings and goings chez nous, and I can get on with all the “good” bits! 😉
Weigh-in Wednesday the 14th (yesterday) was a “Red Letter Day”, that I really didn’t want to get to! However… I’ve made up my mind not to get too emotional about my weight until the end of March, no matter what the scales say! I shall enjoy Christmas, and all the Birthdays and celebrations clustered around it, and go back onto Optifast for a month – or two, if necessary – at the end of March, after the “Holiday Eating Frenzy” has ended! I shall be moderately careful about what I eat, and I shall still weigh myself daily… However, yesterday, the 14th, I went up five points – from 69.6 kg on Tuesday, to 70.1 kg on Wednesday. Seventy kilos is? was? my “ultimate” end goal (which was why I wanted to get well under it first!) and I have to say that it’s taken me over 12 months, to put on those “extra” or “spare” five kilos from my “secondary” goal weight of 65 kg, to reach my “ultimate” goal weight of 70 kg. I don’t know whether to be pleased, or sorry! 
Food stuffs. As I mentioned earlier, we had lunch at “The Tender Trap” yesterday – and this is what I had: Pork Rillette with Spiced Nut Crumble & Pedro Ximenez Soaked Dates – this had to be one of the nicest, yummiest, “Entrée”, or “Starter” that I’ve ever had! Almost exactly like pâté, only made with pork instead of goose liver! There were only three dates 😦 and they’d been soaked in some sort of a sweet dessert wine, and were to die for! For “Mains”, I had Eye Fillet, cooked “medium rare”, with Confit Garlic White Bean Puree, Burnt Onion, Asparagus, Jus – and because mains these days doesn’t often come with anything other than “edible garnish”, which is what all those other things were, you have to order accompanying dishes (of vegetables, etc.) We had three side dishes: a “Roquette, Pear, Honey & Pecorino” salad, in which you would have thought that they could have put a bit more pear (you had to really hunt for it amongst the green rocket leaves and the grated Pecorino cheese!) an “Heirloom Tomato, Basil, Bread, Shallot, and Fig Balsamic” which was fantastic, and “Thick Cut Chips with Lemon Zest & Thyme”. When we ordered them we were very doubtful that we’d eat much of them, because usually we never finish salads, and “sides”, but this time we astounded ourselves by eating almost every scrap, and which we both pronounced “wonderful” and “scrumptious”! For dessert we both had the “Cinnamon Donuts, Pedro Ximmenez Custard, & Burnt Orange Icecream” (you may notice there that the dates had been soaked in “Pedro Ximenez”, but the Custard served with the Donuts was made with “Pedro Ximmenez”? Their spelling, not mine, as I scraped, copied and pasted from their online menu!) I really couldn’t tell you which was the best part of the meal – it was all just superb, and that Burnt Orange ice cream was just too damn yummy for words! We both finished off with a very strong, very intense, syrupy “short black”, which was served with the teeniest little crisp, round, biscuit. For dinner last night all we had was a small tub of Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt!
And now dinner is ready, so I’ll post this much, and finish later this evening, leaving you all to wonder what we had to eat today! (tee-hee!)
09.55 pm
Weigh-in Thursday the 15th (today) was within the mythical “margin of error” again. I went from 70.1 kg yesterday to 70.0 kg today. Big Whoop! 😛
Food stuff. Lunch today was, alas for my “waste”-line, a “brought home” lunch, and I had half a savoury “cheese” roll, and half a savoury flat “pizza” roll… with one of my very favourite Baker’s Delight fruit and white chocolate scone. Tonight for dinner we had the most beautiful little pork steaks, lightly pan-fried in a little lemon-infused olive oil, with a few sprigs of home-grown rosemary and a sprinkling of freshly ground pepper. With them we had chips, steamed green beans, mixed with slivered almonds sauteed in butter, plus the ubiquitous spiced and seasoned half a tomato. For dessert I had one of my little Honey pears (also known as the Winter Nelis pear), and an Apple Le Rice.
And that’s about the sum of today’s doin’s! Tomorrow, as I said earlier, Julian has another visit to the Dentist. I’ll go too, to see if I can get the last of my “personal” shopping done, and also to have my next Warfarin blood test done… let’s see how well my poor blistered instep holds out! For the last five or six nights we’ve been watching one episode a night of a new show on Netflix, “The Crown“, which we’re finding very interesting! While I’m of an age to (vaguely! I was little more than a toddler at the time of the Coronation!) remember a bit of the earlier years of Elizabeth II’s reign, we’re both learning a lot that neither of us knew before, so it’s been fascinating to watch the story unfold! If you get a chance to watch it, I can highly recommend it! Anyway, that’s really about “it” from me again tonight – but do drop in again tomorrow night, to find out how Julian went at the Dentist, what my weight clobbered me with after all our feasting, whether or not I did manage to finish up all my “personal shopping (and – more to the point – whether my instep lasted the distance!) Until then though, do try very hard to bee good (because you-know-who is watching!) don’t forget that with each new day comes new strength and new thoughts, and remember to always drive carefully, to keep warm – or cool – depending on what you’re doing, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 