04.18 pm

I’m going to have a grizzle today – I hope you don’t mind too much, but thingz have to be said! This time it’s about Flickr. Flickr has been really good so far – I’d take a photo on my phone, it would be automatically uploaded to Flickr, where I could go in and edit it, then post it here – or anywhere else I wanted to send it. The “Edit” function used to have a drop-down function in its menu called “Aviary” which allowed you to do all sorts of things – add coloured filters, crop (which was always “de rigueur” for me because I’m a totally lousy photographer!) get rid of red-eye – all sorts of handy things! Now all you can get in their “Edit” menu is “Rotate”, “Replace”, and “Delete” – and rumour has it that “Replace” doesn’t work, either! And it seems I’m not the only Flickr user who’s a lot more than just “very put out” about this, because the powers-that-be there at Flickr aren’t replying to emails, and have refused to acknowledge that there’s a problem, or to say anything about the fact that their photo editing function is “broken” – let alone give us any idea of when it might be fixed! I’m about at the point of saying that unless Flickr can get their act together and get this editing problem fixed by the end of the weekend (this weekend, so if they’re in America, that’d actually be Tuesday, Melbourne time, as we’re a day ahead of them) or at the very least, let us all know what’s happening with their Aviary edit function, I’ll be asking Julian to shop around for an alternative to Flickr – which would be a shame, as it’s secure, quick, and easy to work with. I have also toyed with the idea of downloading the photos to my computer (do I have to do that? Maybe I don’t have to – I wouldn’t have a clue!) editing them in Photoshop, and then re-uploading them to Flickr – but doing all of that with every single photo that I want to put in the blog seems like a hell of a lot of unnecessary mucking around, for something that should be a simple matter of “aim, “click”, edit, post”!

C’mon Flickr! Get yer bloomin’ act together!

Yesterday my very favourite eldest daughter came over and we watched the last few episodes we had of “Legends of Tomorrow”, “The Flash”, “Supergirl”, and “Arrow” – we’ll have to get Julian to download some more of them for next week – but at least we got to see the dénouement of the four-part crossover episodes! Then we watched a couple of episodes of “The Librarians” before it was time for Lee to go home… “The Librarians” is really a lot of fun, as long as you remember that it’s just light, frothy entertainment! 🙂

Not much else has been happening around here though – this morning we were going to make a trip out to Bushy Park to get more fruit and vegetables, but that plan was amended to an afternoon trip, because we’re having corned beef done in the slow cooker for dinner tonight, and Julian had to get that all set up and simmering… then of course there was washing to be done, and the Fish House to clean as well, so today’s afternoon trip to Bushy Park for more fruit and vegetables became a Monday jaunt. Julian did have to go out today though, as the three of us went quite mad yesterday, and had eaten (gobbled!) up all of the divinely delicious sourdough bread that he’d bought at Doncaster the other day, so we had nothing for lunch today! I did tell you about the new Sourdough Bread Shop over at Doncaster, didn’t I? I think it’s called the “Woodfrog Bakery” – but I might be wrong, so don’t quite me on that! It’s not a “three walls and a shop-front” type of shop, it’s a reasonably solid type of kiosk-y affair, in the middle of the “walkway” leading up to Coles and the Colonial Fresh Market – situated behind the Coffee Hit, and about opposite to where Jones the Grocer used to be – you can’t miss it! It specialises in Sourdough only -Breads and pastries (e.g. Danish, etc.) and they are absolutely the nicest, tastiest, and most delicious breads I think I’ve ever eaten! Julian made the three of us sandwiches from a normal, medium-sized loaf yesterday, and the three of us all milled around like circling sharks, nabbing bits of bread to “nibble” on while we were waiting for the sandwiches – I even scored a semi-frozen “heel”, which I gleefully made off with and gnawed on whilst waiting for my sandwich. By the time the sandwiches had been made, and devoured, the entire loaf had been consumed! And I’m not really a big one for just plain-old bread and butter – or in this case, “naked and half-frozen, bread”! It’s yummy! Take my word for it! 🙂

So anyway, Julian went out to get some bread for lunch today, and came back with nearly half the supermarket, I think! (and we only did a great big shop the day before yesterday!) We have our cleaning lady coming on Monday morning, but we’ll scuttle off to Bushy Park for our fruit and vegetables after lunch – I must remember to try and get some cherries, too – my very favourite eldest daughter is very fond of cherries – in fact they’re one of the only fruits she’ll eat! I’ll have run out of my stewed plums by Monday, too, but this time I thought I might try stewing some apricots, if they have any nice looking ones available… because as nice as they are, I’m afraid that I am getting just a trifle tired of stewed plums…

I played WoW for most of this morning – I did a bit of re-arranging on Saurfang, and the Alliance girl I have as my main Banker and Auctionator was level 54. I was in Stormwind, and getting tired of running or galloping everywhere and was wishing that I could fly… but you can’t fly until you get to level 60… hmm! Only six more levels! Shouldn’t take me too long! So I did the unthinkable (for me, anyway) and I played with a Banker! I made it to level 60 this afternoon, whereupon I dropped all my quests and raced back to Stormwind to get my flying licence! Yayyy! Now I can get back to my young-uns! 🙂 I also sorted out the Guild Bank vaults, so now I should be all set up and ready to manage the Auctions and Banking again! 🙂

Tomorrow is Sunday, and we’ll be back at WoW again, dragging our Mage and Warlock a little closer to level 70 (we’re both level 65 at the moment) Not that anything in particular happens at level 70 – it’s just the next “milestone”, you know? Anyway, depending on what time we finish playing tomorrow, there may – or may not – be an “episode” for you all to read. “Watch this space!” 😉

Food stuffs: yesterday’s utterly sublime sandwich was made with the stupendously tasty sourdough bread, organic butter, commercially sliced pastrami, thin slices of Cheddar/Tasty cheese, and organic, home-grown tomato. Very, very delicious! 🙂 Dinner last night was lightly pan-fried fillet steak, cooked in a cast iron skillet, with steamed green beans, chips, and half a really delicious, organic, and home-grown “Black Russian” tomato! I kid you not – there’s nothing quite as nice and flavoursome as a home-grown tomato! They’re absolutely nothing like the tasteless commercial “rubbish” tomatoes that you buy in supermarkets, where all of the flavour and goodness is sacrificed to produce tomatoes that are a uniform and more “pleasing” size and shape, and so that they can grow thicker skins, to last longer on the shelves! For dessert I had a small-ish “Williams” pear, a small apricot, and an Apple Le Rice. Today for lunch we had our usual “Baker’s Delight” fare – half a ham Danish, half a cheese and mushroom pizza roll, and a chocolate and choc-chip scone (with a small scraping of butter!) Tonight, as I might have mentioned, we’re having slow-cooked corned silverside, with another half an organic and home-grown “Black Russian” (or “Grosse Lisse”?) tomato, steamed green beans, and mashed potatoes. For dessert I’ll have a brown Nashi pear, another very small apricot, and one of the MOO Sticky Apple and Organic Honey yoghurts.

Weigh-in mornings have not been pleasant!

Weigh-in Thursday, February 23rd:      73.8 kg
Weigh-in Friday, February 24th:           74.0 kg
Weigh-in Saturday, February 25th:       74.2 kg

Oh well, as Julian said this morning – not long now until the end of Easter and the beginning of our joint Optifast diet! Yanno, in a perverse sort of way I’m actually looking forward to returning to the Optifast regimen – the food – while commercial and packaged, isn’t too bad – I really did like the soups – with the addition of a few chili flakes and/or semi-dried basil flakes – and the bars were yummy! Some of the new diet jellies (jelly crystals that you make up yourself, not those ghastly, over-sweet pre-prepared jelly cups!) are really, really nice, too! So as I said – I’m almost looking forward to it! 🙂

And there you go – all caught up with what’s been happening around this neck of the woods! Next Saturday we’ve got Julian’s Big Birthday Bash, and thanks to circumstances beyond our control, we’re going to be having it in conjunction with mine again, which is only about a week away anyway! I’m not sure where we’ll be going, but I’ll let you all know as soon as we’ve made up our minds! Sal and Satai, after having been truly angelic all day yesterday, have really gone out of their way to be naughty and wicked today! At the moment they’ve got their noses firmly in their respective troughs, guzzling their dinner, so peace reigns supreme for the moment! Auric and Dapple are still settling down after their Great Big Fish House Cleanup so I haven’t fed them yet – I’ll give them another half an hour to settle down, and then they too shall get their din-dins! 🙂 And really, that’s about “it” from me for this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow (or Monday, or Tuesday) night to see what we’ve been up to, and if I’ve managed to edit some photos to put up for you all! In the meantime, do try to bee good, remember that the hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching… and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on your inclination… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂