04.03 pm

Oh dear! I’m quite out of practice at this after such a long holiday! It’s been far too long to write up everything that’s been happening, so I guess I should just start out by saying that we’ve been…. “living in interesting times”!

The kittens, Salai (aka “Sal”, aka “Sally”, aka “Sally-Pally”) and Satai (aka “Mephistopheles“, aka “Messy Toffee”, aka “that [censored] little sod!” 😉 ) have been growing apace – Sal, I would guesstimate, has reached his final, adult size – unfortunately he’s now starting to grow “outwards” a bit, thanks to his dutiful “cleaning up” of Satai’s leftover breakfasts, nibblies, and dinners (which Satai had been saving up for a small little snackeral later on!) but as Sal keeps reminding us, “we don’t want to invite the ants inside now, do we!?” (gobble! gobble! gobble!) “Messy”, at almost 17 weeks of age, and almost as big (height-wise) as Sal, is still a lanky, scrawny pre-teen little spotty leopard, and to give you an idea of his personality, think of a slightly (but only slightly!) gentler version of “Taz”, the Looney Tunes cartoon Tasmanian Devil 🙂 Poor Satai is in for a bit of an “anti-treat” tomorrow – “he sails to the Vet on the dawn tide tomorrow morning!” sans breakfast, to have his very-obviously-becoming-necessary “little snip”! We’re going to have to give them an early dinner tonight, because Satai can’t have anything except water after 10.00 pm tonight – and therefore neither can Sal, because they’re forever trying to steal eachother’s food! Tomorrow morning, we’re going to have to get Satai into his cat-carry cage and whisked into the garage hallway, where he can’t see what Sal’s up to. I’ll keep Sal occupied in the kitchen, and Julian will cart a foul-mouthed, screaming, furious, and very disgruntled Satai off to his “snippy” appointment. I’d go with them, but I don’t want to leave Sal alone with no breakfast, so as soon as the door to the garage closes, I’ll feed him and have a play with him.

Julian hasn’t been all that well, and had to be carted off to hospital in an ambulance at half past one in the morning (with me with him – I just threw Sal into the Library with Satai, and locked them in for the duration (they did have toys, some pussy biscuits, water, two littler boxes, and eachother for company though) – I didn’t get home again until about ten thirty the next morning! It was a bloody miserable night!) He spent a couple of days in hospital, and went back again yesterday to have a colonoscopy – that, and all the other tests he’s had, have come back clear, so whatever ailed him that night might have to forever remain a mystery. T’wasn’t nice though, and I hope I never have to race off with him in an ambulance in the wee small hours of the morning, ever, ever again!

Auric and Dapple, our two little fishies, are doing very well, and are getting so much bigger! They must be about one and a half times bigger than they were when we brought them in from their thick, algae-soup, “mud-puddle” outside! We’re told that they’ll grow to a size suitable for their tank, and though I have toyed with the idea of getting them a bigger Fish House when that happens, I don’t think I’ll be able to talk Julian into it! 😉 You know, Sal had been here for over a week before he noticed the two bright orange and gold fishies, swimming happily around in their tank – and when he did, he didn’t appear to be terribly interested in them anyway! Strange cat… Satai, on the other hand, noticed them immediately, and is already planning and scheming to find a way to get at them! Normal cat!

Our veggie garden is going great guns, and we have some beautiful looking tomatoes coming on, we’ve just finished a very large “tureen” of stewed, home-grown, and fully organic rhubarb, which was delicious, and the back-door neighbour’s fig tree is promising a bountiful crop – unless the people who recently bought the place decide that they don’t like figs, and swoop in and cut the tree down! 😥 Mind you, our own little fig tree is looking very healthy and should turn out to be a good bearer – alas, I think it’s still too little to have any figs this year, but with luck, it should produce a few next year! (cross fingers, touch wood! 😉 ) In the meantime, we have Bushy Park just close by for all our fruit and vegetable needs – except for garlic and tomatoes, which we’re now producing ourselves! 🙂 Hopefully, our delicious Black Russian tomatoes will ripen soon – they’re really the nicest, and the ones we planted the most of!

And now, gentle readers, I suppose you’re all wondering how my ruddy weight’s been going? Well, I can tell you all, in one, single word… “disastrously”!

I’m not really all that sure why, either… I’m not eating anything different, or any more of what I am eating (er… well-l-l… unless you count the Bare Ginger¹, which I have been having maybe one or two too many of them – only for the fiber, mind you… would you like to buy a bridge?) The one thing that I haven’t been doing though, is exercising… walking on the treadmill, which I must get back to! I don’t use the treadmill so much in an effort to lose weight, but to wake up my metabolism, which is notoriously s-l-o-w – walking at, say, three kilometers an hour, for fifteen minutes, gets my metabolism going, and I really do think it makes a big difference! So…. why haven’t I been doing my walking? *shrug* Laziness… ? Procrastination… ? The use of the tried and true excuse of “I haven’t got time – we have to leave in half an hour!” ? All of those, I guess, plus the fact that I’m a past master (mistress?) at making up plausible, and even semi-plausible excuses…

I did make up my mind, before Christmas 2016, that I was going to damn-well enjoy Christmas and the holidays! I was going to eat mince pies and Christmas cake; have Panettone for breakfast, and a chocolate after dinner! So I did… and my weight didn’t suffer unduly… Then of course, there were the birthdays… My very favourite youngest daughter’s birthday is on December 12th. My very favourite eldest daughter’s birthday is January 12th. Julian’s birthday is February 4th! Then there’s “Saint Valentine’s Day” – or should that read “Saint Chocolatine’s Day” – my birthday early in March, followed shortly thereafter by… you guessed it, Easter! I mean… what’s a girl to do?! *sigh*

It also didn’t help that quite often, when we were “a bit rushed for time” (!!) we’d have lunch up at the shops, or Julian would bring home a couple of savoury rolls, and two fruit scones with white chocolate icing from Baker’s Delight, which we shared. It all adds up…

Yes, people, those are my sins, and I’m living with them. I’ve put on about four kilos, bringing me up to 74.0 kg as of today (yes, I still weigh myself every morning, regardless!) I’ve also just come off ten days of those despicable little pills, but this time I was determined that I wasn’t going to let them rattle me when I piled on the fluid and the kilos! Because (a) I’m seeing Dr. Y. on March 1st, and I’m going to remonstrate with him regarding my continuing to take them, and (b) I’ll be going back onto Optifast after Easter (Winter blows a raspberry at the horrid little pills!) Needless to say, Julian has been putting on a bit of weight too, because he’s no longer doing his early morning walks, either (although he’s recently lost a few kilos thanks to his “mystery illness” and his colonoscopy yesterday) So, my intention is, and has been from the day I decided to enjoy Christmas and the holidays, that as soon as Easter was over (i.e. that as soon as all the Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs that had been in the house since the beginning of Lent had finally been eaten) I was going to go back onto my Optifast diet for two months, or until I’d got back to my goal weight of 70 kg., secure in my knowledge that there would be no more birthdays or gala holidays until May 9th (I think that’s when Terry’s birthday is!) Julian thinks he’ll do the Optifast diet too, and I think that’ll be fun – in a perverse sort of way! 🙂

Food stuffz: Today for lunch I had a ham, cheese and tomato Toastie, a yummy, gooey, sticky chocolate caramel slice, and a long black with a small jug of skinny milk on the side – yes, we’d come back from Bushy Park and were doing a bit of grocery shopping up at Vermont South and decided to have lunch there (just for a change, like! 😉 ) and tonight for dinner we’re having some lovely little pork cutlets, pan-fried with a little rosemary, and a squeeze of lemon juice just before serving, with a few chips, sugar-snap peas, and half a home-grown tomato. For dessert I’ll have a green Nashi pear (they’re a lot smaller than the gigantic brown Nashi pears, and are really very nice!) and an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh in yesterday morning: 73.8 kg
Weigh-in this morning: 74.0 kg
Yes, my weight is still see-sawing up and down like a yo-yo!

And that, gentle readers, pretty much brings you up to date with the comings and goings chez nous! As I said earlier, poor little Satai (who am I kidding?! There’s nothing “little” or “poor” about that naughty little miscreant! 😉 ) is off to have his little “snip” – but he’ll be the better for it, and he’ll be fine as soon as he gets home and gets some dinner (though they’ll probably give him something to eat at the Vet, after his little operation) Life continues to muddle along in its inimitable way, so do drop in again tomorrow night to find out what’s been happening! Satai should be home by the time I sit down to write – and certainly before I stop writing, anyway, so I’ll be able to tell you all how he is, and what my weight decided to punish me with for having that chocolate caramel slice today (and the iced apple cake I had yesterday at the hospital while I was waiting for Julian!) However, until then, please try hard to bee good, remember that the mediator between head and hands must be the heart… don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on what sort of weather Melbourne’s decided to give us – this time… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

¹It’s not as stringy and as fibrous as the Buderim Naked Ginger…