Winter’s log, earthdate 201703.01

04.27 pm

Hey! Guess what! It’s my Birthday month! My parents had been expecting me to be born somewhere between mid to late February, but being the lazy sod that I am, I dithered around and delayed my departure from my warm and watery world until it was my maternal Grandfather’s birthday, and arrived then – on the Ides of March – you know, the one they warned Caesar about!? Nah – I wasn’t really born on the Ides of March – though because of my predilection for trouble, a lot of people say I should have been – the 9th of March is my Birthday, not the 15th! And of course, today was the day I was going to see the Great and Wise Dr. Y., so I was doubly jittery and anxious this morning! My appointment was for 11 o’clock, and we arrived at about five to eleven – and sat there until about five to twelve! Thank all the powers that be for ebooks, because it’s really difficult lugging a shelf-load of even slim paperback novels around, especially in this hot weather! Anyhoo, in we went, and sat and waited for another fifteen minutes or so, before he finally made it to us. Greetings and the usual small talk ensued, and then (“ring-ring”) went his phone! “Excuse me,” says he, picking up the handset… and after trying very politely not to listen in to the one side of the conversation that we could hear from our perches, when he finally put the phone down he explained to us that he’s been having heaps of difficulties finding alternates to some medications a patient of his is on, because she’s very lactose intolerant, and it seems that nearly all of the medications that she needs contain lactose! A colleague of his had managed to track a few of these non-lactose substances, and had rung him to let him know what they were. Well, he’d received the report on my last lots of tests, which as I think I mentioned yesterday were extremely good, and we  told him exactly how much I hated taking those wretched little pills… to which he replied “Well, stop taking them then!” He then went on to say that I’ve been doing really well for quite a long time now, and that unless there were any major upsets, I don’t need to see him any more! I have to get another ultrasound done in twelve months, and the results of that will go to my GP, so unless she thinks I should see him again then, and barring any untoward mishaps in the meantime, that should be it! He seems quite over the moon with the amount of weight I’ve lost – and managed to keep off – for nearly two years now, and I suppose it really is kinda hard to reconcile the sort of person I was when I first met him to the sort of person that I am now! Yanno – I’m really happy that hopefully I will never have to see him again about my health, but at the same time, really sad that I won’t see him again, full stop! He’s a really fantastic doctor – and a really, really nice man! I couldn’t even say to him “I’ll catch up with you on Facebook” or whatever, because he never goes near any of the usual social media types of places – in fact, according to him, he gets online as seldom as possible! He’s probably too busy to, anyway! Oh well, I’m the richer for having met him, and I’m quite sure he saved my life… (Winter raises her defective and almost empty coffee cup in a silent toast) So here’s to you, Dr. Y., may you have as much success with all your other patients as you did with me!

We came straight home after that – via Vermont South shopping centre, both to check the PO Box, and to grab something for lunch – our lawn mowing man was due early this afternoon and we had to be home to open the side gate for him. After lunch, I played WoW for a bit, then, because it was niggling me, did a bit more work on the Template – yes, I changed it again (just in case you hadn’t noticed! 😉 ) And that’s pretty much been all I’ve done today! I haven’t even done the cat litter boxes yet – I haven’t had time! I’ll do them this evening before bed – or just give them a cursory “sift”, and change them all out completely tomorrow morning. I’d also really like to get hold of a really good new “wand” (??) type of vacuum cleaner – at the moment I’m using a reasonably good electronic carpet sweeper, but the little container that holds all the dust, cat fluff, and occasional granule or so of kitty litter, is very small (read: “minuscule”!) and extremely awkward to remove, empty, and replace. Oh well, one day… *sigh*

So, now onto all the good bits!

Food stuffz: Last night for dinner we had a new chicken dish that I found in one of my many and varied foodie emails the other day. It’s called “Honey-Balsamic Baked Chicken Breasts with Tomatoes and Mushrooms” – you’ll find it here, it’s utterly delicious, and the recipe printout is about to be laminated to become one of our “Keepers”. I suppose you could have it on its own, or with mashed potatoes and vegetables, or whatever you like – last night we had it with plain steamed rice and finely chopped spring onions. There’s plenty left over, too, which has been parceled out into two and a half meal-sized portions and put in the freezer for future use. For dessert I had a brown Nashi pear and a MOO banana caramel sundae yoghurt. For lunch today I had half a cheese and mushroom savoury roll, and a half a chorizo and tomato pizza-type roll from Baker’s Delight, and a fruit and white chocolate scone, with just a smattering of butter on each half. Tonight we’re having some sort of fancy sausages for dinner (Julian can’t remember what sort they are, and he can’t go and look either, because Sal is using his heel for a pillow!) with chips, half of one of our very own organic and home-grown tomatoes, and steamed snow peas. For dessert I’ll have one of my Beurre Bosc pears, and probably an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in this morning – was annoying! Why does my body do this to me? Does it think it’s funny, or something?! (don’t answer that!) I went from 73.8 kg yesterday morning, to 74.2 kg this morning – the same as I was on Monday! S’not fair! *pout* 😛

And that brings me up to tomorrow… I don’t think anything much is happening tomorrow, apart from a guy coming around tomorrow to talk to Julian about putting on some more solar panels, but it looks like I might get a nice clear run at a bit of worthwhile WoW-ing! 🙂 And that’s really about “it” from me again for this evening! Do feel free to drop in again tomorrow night – find out what my weight decided to do, whether we decided to get some more solar panels or not, and if I got any decent WoW-ing in or not! Until then though, please do your very best to bee good, remember that words are but pictures of our thoughts, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather and whereabouts you are in it… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂