05.56 pm

Well, my very favourite eldest daughter was supposed to have been coming over today, but she forgot that their cleaners were going to be there today, so she’s coming tomorrow, instead! 🙂 Now, I know that many of you will think that I’d have taken the opportunity to get some pretty solid WoW-ing in, right? Well, you’d have been wrong! I did do a small amount of “tidying up”, to make room for Wynterthyme when she moves over to Saurfang, but in actual fact I spent more time putting a new background on my main bookmarks wallpapery-thingy! It’s a screen wallpaper that basically mirrors this blog, with the same background and header – only the header part is a lot bigger, has a few more “decorations” on it, and instead of a daily “diary”, it contains all of my favourite and most used “bookmarks”! A bit of an overkill, maybe, as there are plenty of other ways of storing and utilising bookmarks, but it works for me! 🙂

After lunch I went off to Doncaster Shoppingtown with Julian, to pick up the Dry Cleaning, some more coffee, and some meat for dinner tonight. I should probably have been clambering onto the treadmill, but I’m a little bit wary of it at the moment! I’ve done 15 minutes of slow(ish) walking on it for the past couple of days, and each time my ankle has started complaining by the time I’ve done about eight to ten minutes – and this morning it was already sore when I got up! I was sort-of thinking that while my very favourite eldest daughter was over today, that I’d give it a bit of a rest – but of course, she didn’t come over today, did she! I’m very ambivalent about what to do about my ankle – I feel that if I say to Julian (or to anyone else, for that matter) “I don’t think I’ll do my walk today while Lee’s over – I’ll give it a rest, because it was sore yesterday and sore when I woke up this morning” – he (or whoever) will think I’m just trying to wriggle out of doing my daily exercise and using my ankle as an excuse – because I did say that to him this morning, and he scowled at me. But I compromised, by agreeing to go shopping with him, because I can quite happily manage to walk at “shopping speed” – which generally means stopping every now and then to look at something – but even so, by the time we’d done the very small amount of supermarket shopping, had a cup of coffee, and done a bit of the other “looking at things” that I wanted to do while we were there (like calling in at the vacuum cleaner shop to look at their steam mops and clothes steamers) and were walking down towards the Nespresso shop, my ankle was giving me hell! Still, I made it home in one piece, and now I’m “resting” it, sitting here writing!

And that’s really about all I’ve done today! If I finish this in time, after dinner and television, I might play a bit more WoW, now that I’ve got my desktop wallpapery-thingy done! I’ve always been like that with art – even at school! In senior school (years 10, 11 and 12 – or whatever they’re calling those years these days – back then it was Intermediate, Leaving, and Matric!) if I didn’t finish a piece of art I was working on in one double period, I either wouldn’t start it in the first place, or couldn’t bring myself to go back to it the next day – I’m still the same! Finish it in a day, or don’t start it until I can. Yes, I know – I’m weird! Now, where was I? Oh yes – I’ve finished the wallpapery-thingy so if I have time I’ll be able to play WoW this evening! And having filled you all in on the days events, I shall now move on to the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had the last of the frozen left-overs from the delicious beef stew we had a few days ago… and it occurred to me, looking at a picture of a similar stew in one of my foodie emails this morning, that it looked remarkably like a recipe I’ve been looking for for ages* but, strangely, I haven’t been able to find online – or actually I can find a lot of recipes for it online, but they’re nothing at all like the one I remember from my childhood. Anyway, I looked at the picture this morning and thought “You know, if you put a tin of crushed tomatoes, and some tomato paste in that, with a bit of garlic and rosemary, it’d look exactly like Stracotto!” So next time we make it, we’ll try it and see! So last night we had the rest of the stew on a bed of rice, and for dessert I had my last fig, and because the fig was really quite small, I also had one of the Nashi pears that Julian got for me, with some Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt. For lunch today we had wraps, with our favourite butter substitute of basil-pesto hummus, spring onion, red capsicum, Halloumi cheese, and ham – very delicious! I have to confess though, when we stopped and had our coffee over at Doncaster, I also had a salted caramel fudge brownie, and it was absolutely to die for! (so there goes another couple of kilos on the scales tomorrow morning! ) Tonight we’re having a fairly plain dinner – fillet steak, pan-fried this time, not done in the griller, with chips, our usual half a tomato, and broccolini. For dessert I’m having one of my Corella pears, and I’m trying another one of the CHOBANI yoghurts – I’d tried their blueberry one, about a week or so ago, and wasn’t terribly impressed, and I tried their cherry one the following night, and was very impressed! It was lovely, and that was what I wanted to get today while we were doing the shopping – some more of the yummy cherry CHOBANI yoghurts – but they didn’t have any! 😦 So I’ve bought one raspberry one, to try – and what do you want to bet me, that if I do like the raspberry one, I won’t be able to get any more of that one, either, hmm?! Dinner’s yelling at me… back later…

09.33 pm

Well, It’s now later… 🙂

Weigh-in this morning. Was awful! 😯 Goodness only knows how my wretched body manages to do these things to me – perhaps unbeknownst to me, my body is a sadist… or perhaps I’m unconsciously a masochist… I dunno… One thing I do know though is that it’ll probably be a lot much more worser tomorrow, after that delicious salted caramel fudge brownie today… luckily though, it didn’t come with a blob of whipped cream! Anyway – I suppose you’re all waiting with battered breath to hear what my body did do to me this morning… I’m not really sure that I should tell you… *sigh* Alright… I went from 66.3 kg yesterday…. to 66.8 kg today. Half a kilo overnight! Just from eating one measly little fruit and white chocolate scone! …and it only had a teeny little bit of butter on it… 😥

And here we are once again, almost at the “top” of tonight, and the “bottom” of tomorrow morning… Flipper is asleep on our bed, after having licked rather halfheartedly at her dinner – I’m not sure that it was actually “half-hearted” – I think it was more a matter of “she forgot that it was her dinner and that she was supposed to be eating it”, poor old girl… if she’s running true to form, she’ll wake up hungry in about half an hour, come in here looking for her pussy biscuits, and not finding them, because we’ve hidden them again, she’ll wander into the Library and think “Oh! Look! 🙂 Dinner!” and eat about three quarters of it – hopefully enough to get the rest of her medication! Well, that’s what she’s been doing for the last three nights, anyway. Auric and Dapple are good little chaps – unlike Flipper, they were very eager for their dinner tonight, and darted after the tiny black pellets as they drifted down through the water, more so than usual! Usually they’ll gobble up a few pellets, and then just swim lazily around for a bit, before going down and vacuuming the gravel for whatever pellets they’ve missed. Tomorrow, of course, my very favourite eldest daughter will be coming over (which reminds me! I told her I’d send her the link to a site that sells the most gorgeous pendants – and she said she’d give me one for Christmas, if I sent her the link – they’re made from different semi-precious stones (amethyst, jade, opal, lace agate, etc.) and decorated with copper or silver wire, and they’re absolutely gorgeous!) No doubt we’ll watch alternating episodes of “Arrow” and “The Flash”, talk a lot, and have a good time, while Julian retires to the safety of the “Commodorium” – his inside “shed”, where he works on his first computer love, the Commodore 64. And that, I suppose, is really about “it” from me for this evening! But do drop in again tomorrow night, and find out if Flipper did go back and eat any more of her dinner, and to see just how much more my weight will have gone up, now that I can’t do my usual walking on the treadmill (or any walking at all, really! Thank you ankle! NOT! – I’ll probably be into the 67 kg zone tomorrow! 😥 ) and how our day of lazy television viewing went… Until then though, please try hard to bee good, remember not to follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you, and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry, because even when the weather looks fine, this is Melbourne, and it’ll be freezing cold and pouring with rain within about ten minutes… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.16 pm

I’m baAAaack! – and boy, what a couple of days it’s been! On Monday morning I played WoW until lunchtime, and as you may all remember, I’d said that I had an appointment on Monday afternoon at two o’clock to see our Doctor, Dr. B., to get the results of the x-ray and ultrasound that I’d had done last week on my sore right ankle/foot … and as she’s a very good doctor, and tremendously popular – plus the fact that she’d been off ill all of the previous week – I knew that she’d be running late with her appointments (as she usually is anyway!) so somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I put in the aside that “maybe we’d get to see her at a quarter past three!” Oh, the irony! We got there slightly before two o’clock. Naturally, I had my Kindle with me (I never leave home without it!) As my eyes moved across the packed waiting room (she’s not the only doctor there, BTW) I sighed, and started reading… Time passed…. slowly… I looked at my watch; it was 2.30 pm and the room was still packed… More time passed… and I sternly resisted the temptation to keep looking at my watch… There was a television up on the wall, showing a live panel doing an in-depth analysis of the Donald Trump/Hilary Clinton debate etc… with subtitles, but no sound. I returned to my book. By now it was a quarter to three, and I thought of what I’d written in my blog… thinking that it was starting to look as though I wouldn’t get to see her before 3.15! How hilarious! Winter the Delphic Oracle! And rather agitatedly, I tried to go back to my book. Now, we’re quite used to not getting to see Dr. B. on time – as I said, she’s a very good doctor, and very popular – a fifteen to thirty minutes wait is about normal – but this was starting to get ridiculous, and I was getting quite angry! Then at ten past three, she called in another patient, and I was livid! At twenty past three, I turned to Julian and I said (not in my loudest voice, but certainly not my softest, either) “I’ll give her another ten minutes… if we don’t get to see her by half past three, I’m leaving!” I meant it, too! She finally called us in at 3.25 pm – for my two o’clock appointment! However, she did apologise, and asked me how many books I’d read since we’d arrived – I gracefully accepted her apology, and with a straight face told her that I’d started on my sixth (book)… So! The results of the x-ray and ultrasound.

The foot is made up of lots and lots of tiny little bones, all held in place and functioning by a series of tendons. Some of them run down your foot, from the ankle to the toes, and some of them wrap around your foot, and my problem is in the sort-of “bandage” ligaments that run across the top of the foot, slightly above the heel and ankle-proper, and just before the foot curves up into the leg. The “sheath” around the tendon is inflamed and swollen…with a small amount of fluid and soft tissue (er… read: exacerbated by my osteoarthritis!) Actually it’s a little bit like Carpel Tunnel syndrome, only in my ankle, not my wrist! So what to do about it? Dr. B. has “prescribed” a Physiotherapist, which we’ll get onto in the next couple of days, and to talk to my Podiatrist when I see her next – though frankly, I suspect that all she’d be able to do would be to confirm the diagnosis made by the ultrasound technician the other day – however she may be able to suggest a good Physiotherapist who handles these sorts of things all the time. We’ll see. But good news, I am allowed back on the treadmill… for a shorter time and a much slower speed, and on the “flat”, not on the 10% angle I usually have it on 😦 Oh, and I’m to stop walking and get off, when, or if, my ankle starts to complain. So instead of doing 20 minutes, at 4.6 kilometers an hour, on a 10% incline, I’m now only doing 15 minutes, at 2.4 kilometers an hour, on a flat surface! Oh! How are the mighty fallen! 😦 It’s a dull and as boring as ditch water, too – I feel as though I’m plodding through Perdition like some latter day Dante! (Mother… why did you raise me this way! 😉 ) because around the time that I do my “walkies”, the talk-back radio just waffles on about avant-garde music (today it was on what you can learn about music by listening to it being played backwards! *rolls eyes*) or playing ghastly, repetitive – as in a single chorus, repeated over and over again – no tune, no melody – just… boring whatever-passes-for-music these days. Anyway, there you go – now all of you know as much about my ankle as I do! 😉

On Mondays, Josh usually comes over in the afternoon to do my hair – well, we got home from the Doctor, and had a cup of coffee – only we weren’t going to be seeing Josh that afternoon – his car had broken down rather badly – something to do with the clutch, I believe… so he was going to come over on Tuesday, yesterday – so I could have done my blog on Monday, but I’d already ensconced myself in to my “non-writing” mode, so I didn’t – I played WoW instead, and got Zelenka up to level 60, at long last, and with the greatest of glee, went off to get my her flying licence! I played WoW a fair bit on Tuesday, too, and although I think I can probably improve my shot rotation a lot (the order in which I shoot off various damage over time spells) being able to fly makes questing in Outland almost a breeze! 🙂 Julian and I have decided to move Wynterthyme and Demelza from Quel’Dorei to Saurfang – now all we have to do is organise it all, and to decide what we’re going to take from the guild bank with us, and hopefully we’ll both be well settled in Saurfang by next Sunday! Yesterday, Tuesday, my very favourite eldest daughter usually comes over, but she’s coming over on Thursday instead, this week – so once more, I got in quite a bit of WoW-ing – and even a bit of reading and today’s really been more of the same!

So now that I’ve caught you all up on my daily doings, I’ll get onto all the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. On Monday night we had some more of the pork, herb and garlic sausages, with chips, half a tomato, and a mixture of peas and leeks (our own home-grown, organic leeks which we’d harvested some time ago – Julian prepped them by washing, chopping, and “blanching” them, before freezing them in vacuum sealed plastic bags) This time Julian pan-fried the sausages instead of using the griller, like he did last time, as last time they got a bit “squashed”! They tasted nice, but they look and cut a lot better when they’re not squashed by the top of the griller! For dessert, I had a Corella pear and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt. Yesterday for lunch we had sandwiches made with sourdough bread, the last of the delicious roast beef leftovers, some corned beef to pad it out a bit, some chopped lettuce, Feta cheese, and a little of the Baxters “Fire Roasted Tomato & Smoky Chipotle Relish” (which I’m afraid doesn’t exist, because I can’t find a mention of it online anywhere!) which was really, really yummy. Last night for dinner we had some of the very nicest marinated lamb backstraps that I think I’ve ever had! It’s (unfortunately!) a Woolworths “Gold” brand (I usually boycott Coles and Woolworths “special” home brands!) but this is one item that I think we’ll be buying quite often! It’s Woolworths “Gold” brand, Australian Lamb Eye of Loin, with Caramelised Onion. “Succulent, hand seasoned lamb with cumin, fennel & fresh coriander” – as you probably know too, I absolutely hate coriander, but on this occasion, I didn’t even notice it! Julian pan-fried it, and we had chips, peas, and our own home-grown, organic, curly carrots, and it was a really wonderful and spectacular meal – definitely on a par with a “Three Michelin Hat” restaurant! What can I say?! Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, eat your hearts out! 🙂 For dessert I had a delicious fresh fig – store-bought, alas, and not from our little twig of a tree (yet!) but it was lovely, and I had an Apple Le Rice. As Julian had quite a big shopping list this morning, lunch today was a “bring home from the shops” lunch – two halves of a savoury roll, and a yummy, sinfully delicious, Baker’s Delight fruit and white chocolate scone, with the white chocolate drizzled on the top of it – I don’t think I’ll be looking at all “gaunt” (see below!) tomorrow! Tonight we’re having the last of our frozen left-over stew on a bed of rice, and I’m really looking forward to it as it’s the sort of thing that only gets better the more often you have it! For dessert, I’ll have the last of my fresh figs, and one of the smaller Nashi pears that Julian got the other day (because this last fig is really quite small!) and one of my Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurts.

Weigh-in Monday morning:      I went from 66.5 kg to 66.5 kg – I stayed the same as I was on Sunday
Weigh-in Tuesday morning:      I went down 3 points, from 66.5 kg to 66.2 kg
Weigh-in today – Wednesday: I went back up one point, from 66.2 kg to 66.3 kg – well within that Fabled Beastie, the magical, mythical “Margin of Error”!

I spoke to Dr. B. about my weight, too, on Monday – she seems to think that I shouldn’t try to get back down to my “lower” weights (between 63 and 64 kilograms) as I’d looked too “bony”, and my face was too thin and gaunt at those weights – she says, and Julian apparently agrees with her, that I look better around this weight! So I shall continue along the way I am – for now, anyway – watching my weight with an eagle eye! Next month, November, I go back on those terrible pills again for ten days… Roll on March!

And that about brings me back to tomorrow! Flipper has just been gorging herself on pussy biscuits (kibble) because both of us forgot to hide them away while she was asleep this afternoon – so she probably won’t eat her dinner tonight Most annoyment! Auric and Dapple are both well, and my hair really looks lovely! My very favourite eldest daughter has handed in her last assignment for the year – on time, for a change – and will be over tomorrow, when we’ll probably watch alternate episodes of “Arrow” and “The Flash” – so a good time will be had by all! And that’s really about “it” from me for this evening! Do drop in again tomorrow evening to see how my weight went, whether or not Flipper ate her dinner tonight, and what other sorts of adventures we all had chez nous! 🙂 Until then though, please try to bee good, remember that unlike baked beans, loaves of breads or Fuji apples, books once consumed, do not disappear, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry in these “late-winter, early-spring” days, when anything goes, weather-wise… but above all, please, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.38 pm

OK, just a very, very quick catch-up this evening, to let you know that Wynterthyme and Demelza made it to level 110 – not unscathed, oh no – they did mange to get deaded a couple of times… but they quickly recovered and went on their merry way! 🙂 No more xp (experience) bar now – just Reputation (if you want it visible!) and what’s called an “Artifact Power” bar, which basically lets you know how soon you’ll be able to boost up your Magical, Mythical Weapon again – and I really can’t tell you much more than that! I don’t really understand it myself yet, or how it works! Whenever we get to go and “upgrade” our weapon power (or whatever!) I always get Julian to come over and tell me what to do, as I really have no idea what I’m doing.

We had a pretty good run though, despite a couple of fatalities – and as I said, we’ve both hit the magic “level 110”, and we’re not really sure what happens from here on in – I guess we just keep on questing away, until we run out of quests and find ourselves stuck for something to do, other than Dungeons, Raids, or PVP! We still haven’t made up our minds whether or not to move the two girls over to Saurfang – Julian, I think, is leaning towards “not”, and I’m afraid I’m leaning – quite heavily, actually – in favour of “move!”, because once again today, there were so many other players milling around in our quest areas that quite often I found myself running off after some other player that I’d thought was Demelza – only to find out that she was way back at the last Flight Point, or the last quest giver, and I was following… well, not Demelza, anyway – and this was even after Demelza had gone and stuck a great big red “X” over her head, so that I’d be able to weasily distinguish her from any other players! *rolls eyes* I think I need new computer glasses!

The “good” bits:

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had the most delicious marinated roast beef that I’ve had for quite a long time! You could almost say it was the “perfect piece of beef” – almost no fat, just the right size (because remember, meat shrinks quite a bit when you cook it!) it was cooked to perfection, and the marinade – whatever it was – didn’t become dry, or become “caked on”, as it can sometimes if too much is used. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what sort of beef, what sort of marinade, or what “brand” it was it was, as Julian just tipped it from its wrapping into the baking dish and threw the wrapping away! But it was really lovely – you’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m afraid! 🙂 And as it turned out, once more we didn’t get to eat our curly, home-grown, organic carrots! There was lots of roast potato, roast pumpkin, and steamed green beans – we didn’t even have our usual half a tomato, as there was almost too much with just the meat, potatoes, pumpkin and green beans! *sigh* However I’m sure we’ll have our curly, home-grown, organic carrots on Monday night! For dessert I had one and a half teeny-tiny little “kiddy” apples, and an Apple Le Rice. Today for lunch we had sandwiches made from the last of the sourdough loaf, with a butter substitute of mashed cold roast potatoes, and mashed cold roast pumpkin, chopped up cold roast beef, and salt and pepper – and they were fantastic! Tonight, being Sunday night, we’ll be having our usual omelets, with my favourite Cheddar/Tasty cheese (fried before the beaten eggs get tipped into the frying pan!) cooked bacon, cooked onions, maybe some spring onions as well, diced red capsicum, and diced tomato – and for dessert I’ll have another of my Corella pears and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. Not too good – but as I said – I’m not really expecting any sort of improvement until at least the end of the week – if I get the go-ahead to start using my treadmill again tomorrow afternoon when I see Dr. B.! I went from 66.3 kg on Saturday to 66.5 kg this morning. At this rate, I will be back on the Optifast again soon! I’ll talk to Dr. B. about that, too, tomorrow afternoon…

And that’s really about “it” from me for this evening – tomorrow promises to be a very busy day – we have our cleaning lady over in the morning, my appointment with Dr. B at 02.00 pm (which means we might get to see her around 03.15 pm!) and then Josh will be over later in the day! I should get some time tomorrow morning while the cleaning lady is here to try to level up Zelenka a bit more… Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well – Flipper was very tardy eating her dinner last night – in fact she didn’t get her pussy biscuits (kibble!) back until nearly midnight! Hopefully she’ll be a little more interested in her dinner tonight! Anyway, do call in again tomorrow night for a much more comprehensive account of the day’s doin’s, like which way my weight slid, and what Dr. B. had to say about my ankle, my treadmilling, and my recalcitrant weight… until then though, please try to bee good, remember that we all have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry, especially in this uncertain weather… but most importantly, please – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.06 pm

Here I am – a bit late, but then I’ve had my very favourite youngest daughter over for a visit, so I think I can be excused – this time, anyway! 😉 She arrived around about 1.30-ish, on her own – apparently Terry, her husband, had to work – and she only left about half an hour ago, so although I’m starting to write a little later than I normally do, we’ve had a very pleasant afternoon, discussing everything from gardening and aquariums, to superannuation and rabbits! It seems that they have the same problem that we have, with aquariums! They’ve had their aquarium a lot longer than we’ve had ours, but they’ve only recently moved theirs into their lounge room. It had been in the “parlor”, towards the front of the house, where they couldn’t see or enjoy it, and the fish suffered because their tank didn’t receive enough attention – so we swapped many fishy stories and handy tips for the care and cleaning of Fish Houses – however the problem we both have, now that we’ve gone and installed aquariums in our lounge rooms, is this… now neither of us has anywhere to put the Christmas Tree this year! Last year, before we brought Auric and Dapple inside, we put the Christmas Tree against the wall where their Fish House now resides… and with the new lounge suite that we bought this year, we now have no spare wall or floor space for the Tree! Kate and Terry did much the same, when they moved their aquarium down to their lounge room – they placed it in about the only aquarium-sized space they had – which also happened to be where they always put their Christmas Tree! We might be able – if we buy yet another, and much smaller, Christmas Tree – to put it up on top of the marble-topped dresser between the kitchen and the lounge room… though I don’t really like the thought of it sitting up there – but we’ll have to start seriously thinking about it soon! (Grizzle mode: ON)That’s the trouble with all these “open-plan living spaces” – while they do give the illusion of a lot more space, there are no real demarcation lines between utility areas – like the kitchen, with its pots and pans and cooking smells and associated “mess” – and the slightly more “formal” areas – like the lounge room, more suited for social entertaining, or sitting comfortably with drinks and nibblies while you chat to family and close friends (Grizzle mode: OFF) Strictly speaking though, that has absolutely nothing to do with not having anywhere to put a Christmas Tree, because you went and put a medium-sized aquarium right where the Christmas Tree always went!! 😛 and the reason I don’t think that even a small Christmas Tree would look “right”, sitting on top of the marble-topped dresser, is because (a) it’s too close to the kitchen, and a Christmas Tree, no matter how small, is “inappropriate” in a kitchen setting, and (b) it was always supposed to be kept clear, tidy, and totally uncluttered, with the large gilt mirror behind the slightly ornate heirloom glass ewer and bowl, to lend it an air of grace and “formality”, as “the” demarcation line between the kitchen and the lounge room, the top of that dresser always looks disappointingly crowded and messy – probably because it’s so close to the kitchen that (and how can I put this politely?) items more suited to “kitchen management” than the “grace” and “formality” that I was trying to achieve, get dumped on it all the time – and a Christmas Tree (no matter how small!) is only going to add to that… mess. We may have to temporarily move the camphor wood chest, and move the television closer to the end of the entertainment unit…

This morning though, I played WoW (so what else is new in Denmark?) Yes, I did get Zelenka safely into Winterspring, and she’s now level 55 (only five more levels until I can get my flying licence! 🙂 ) It’s a bit of a shame really, because I’ve just arrived at Everlook, the sort-of capital of Winterspring, and I was looking forward to spending a bit of time questing around where I had access to both Banks and an Auction House! But… I’ve just been given my marching orders to the Blasted Lands! Oy Vey! And after that, it’s through the Big Bad Portal to Outland, and all sorts of “not nice” stuff! But at least I should be able to fly by then! 🙂

And that’s about all that’s happened today, so I might as well get on with all the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had the Richmond Valley Veal Porterhouse – lightly pan-fried, because Veal – even if it’s Veal Porterhouse – is too delicate to bung holus-bolus into a griller. With it we had chips, our usual half a tomato, and a mixture of some of our own home-grown and organic baby broad beans, steamed with some ordinary, store-bought green beans (we want to let our broad beans get a bit bigger before we start harvesting them in earnest!) We didn’t have our “curly” home-grown and organic carrots last night – Julian though we already had enough without them – so we’re having them tonight! For dessert I had one of my Corella pears and an Apple Le Rice. We had very yummy wraps for lunch today, with lovely new pine nut hummus as a butter substitute, red capsicum, ham, spring onion, and my very favourite Cheddar/Tasty cheese – and for dinner tonight we’re having a marinated roast beef, with roast potatoes, pumpkin, our curly, home-grown and organic carrots, and steamed green beans. For dessert I’ll have a small “kiddies” apple, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt.

Weigh-in this morning. More of the yo-yo-ing about! Yesterday morning I weighed in at 66.4 kg – this morning I weighed in at 66.3 kg – well within the Mystical, Magical, Margin of Error! Still an’ all, I can’t complain too much, seeing as I’m not even doing my treadmilling! Roll on Monday, and hopefully I’ll get the “all-clear” to start walking again!

And there you are – “My Day”, by Winter P.! Tomorrow is Sunday, and it’ll be back to The Broken Isles with Wynterthyme and Demelza, who still haven’t made up their minds whether to stay on crowded and bustling Quel’Dorei, or move to the quieter and more peaceful Saurfang! So there may – or may not – be a blog tomorrow night – it depends on what time we finish off and dust down – but rest assured, I’ll let you know! 😉 And that’s really about “it” from me for this evening! Feel free to call in again tomorrow night to see if I’m back, or still trying to run back for my body, if I accidentally got killed in some impossible to get back to place in the Broken Isles, and what my weight decided to do, and whether or not Flipper ate her dinner! Until then however, do try to bee good, don’t forget that there are three kinds of people in the world, the wills, the won’ts and the can’ts… the first accomplish everything; the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything – and remember to always drive carefully, to keep warm and dry when it’s cold and wet, and to look after yourselves… but above all… please – remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.26 pm

Julian and I spent most of the day yesterday fretting about today, because yesterday we’d sort-of felt that something was supposed to be happening today (Friday) – only neither of us could remember Who, What, Why, or When! Well, this morning dawned bright and clear, and we stumbled out of bed, still wondering (and worrying!) about this Who, or What, or Why, and especially When – this “event” today was going to be taking place. But… no-one arrived, knocking on our doorbell and ringing our door – no-one rang up saying “Where are you? You’re late! Are you still coming over?” – and as far as we know (!) we haven’t missed any vital medical or dental appointments! So much for our strange feelings all day yesterday that we had something on today! (apart from our clothes, of course!) So all in all, we’ve had a pretty quiet day today – at least, I have, Julian, as always, has been very busily busy, doing this, that, and the other. He tested the water in the Fish House this morning, and was able to pronounce it chemically “Spot-On!”, and then he proceeded to clean the tank thoroughly, vacuuming the gravel in the bottom twice (just to make sure!) and re-arranging Auric and Dapple’s “Octopus’ Garden, in their Tank” (Winter sings, off-key as usual: “tra-la-laaa”) That was this morning – and about ten minutes ago I went out to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee before sitting down to start writing (I’m totally unable to start writing, without a cup of coffee close at hand!) so I went over to say hello to my little Fishies while the coffee was… “podding”? I think I just made up a new word! 🙂 I must immediately email Nespresso! 😉 NO! I should copyright it first, and then email them – and charge them royalties for its use! That is if they wanted to use it – which they should, as it describes, succinctly and accurately, exactly the way their machines produce cups of coffee! Anyway, I digress! While I was waiting for my coffee, I went over to have a look at the nice, clean, and completely re-arranged Fish House – and there were poor little Auric and Dapple, huddled together down one end of the tank, close to the nice, clean gravel, and looking a trifle bemused 😉 (actually I think they were just having an afternoon nap – and whenever I do catch them napping, they immediately swim nonchalantly off, pretending that they hadn’t been sleeping at all – just “resting their eyes” – which was exactly what they did this afternoon!)

So while Julian was being busy this morning, I sat here putting Zelenka through her Warlock-y paces in the Un’Goro Crater. I think she’s finished all of the quests available in Un’Goro, except for one particular quest chain, which I refuse to do, and that’s the “Maximillian of Northshire” chain. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s (a) ruddy stupid, and (b) very “buggy”, and the last part of it is interminable! You have to run round and round and round the crater on Pimento, Maximillian’s horse¹, chucking boulders at a Gigantic Devilsaur that’s chasing you! It takes a good eight to ten minutes (possibly longer!) of running and throwing until the poor old Devilsaur keels over – probably more from exhaustion than from any injuries caused by your rock throwing! I feel sorry for Pimento, too…

So I’d just turned level 53, and had run out of quests for Un’Goro! Consulting my little “where to go next” symbol on my Action Bar, it seemed that I was being sent off to Winterspring – an area in the north of Kalimdor, for levels between 50 and 55, which sounded pretty much like me, so off I went! It’s strange though, because the last character I had in Un’Goro was a Night Elf Mage, and she was promptly sent off to Silithus! Mind you, I did do the wretched Maximillian quest chain with her – which I suppose is probably why I dislike that chain so much. Well, I’m not all that keen on Silithus anyway, so I’ve started off on my way to Winterspring. That little journey involves a very long trek through Ashenvale, and then all the way up through Felwood! I’ve almost made it to the border, but I stopped at the last Flight Point and Hearthed to dust down and finish up – I shall attempt the final dash through the tunnel to Winterspring this evening, and let you all know how I went, this time tomorrow night! 🙂

And that’s really all I’ve done today, so now I shall get on with all the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had the first lot of our left-over beef stew, which as we both suspected it would be, was even nicer than it had been on the night it was made! We still have one more “meal” of stew sitting in the freezer – then we’ll have to make some more! What a shame summer is nearly upon us, as it’s not really the season to appreciate thick and heart stews! 😦 (and speaking of making “some more”, it’s probably time we had some more Lamb and Harissa Lasagna, with Feta and Oregano again!) We did have the stew on a bed of plain, steamed rice, because although there’s quite a bit of potato in it, it still goes very well with rice – which also helps to “sog up” the gravy! For dessert, alas, there was no more Apple Le Rice (or any other sort of Le Rice, for that matter!) nor was there any Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt left – so I had a dark cacao Chia Pod instead, and an apple. At lunch time today – Julian had just finished “mucking out” the Fish’s stables – he discovered that there really wasn’t very much for lunch, either! I managed to talk him out of going up to Vermont South just to get something for lunch (which was really very virtuous and noble of me, because I would have absolutely loved a reprise of yesterday’s savoury rolls and fruit and white chocolate scone!) In the end, I had two slices of sourdough bread, with some “Coco² Almond” spread on them – very thinly spread, too, with no butter or other butter substitute! (because, I mean – eww! Can you imagine basil-pesto hummus, with coco and almond spread?! ) Julian had some smoked salmon… Tonight we’re having some lovely-looking Richmond Valley Veal Porterhouse, pan-fried (I think!) which I’m really looking forward to! With that we’ll probably have some of our home-grown, organic, and strangely curly carrots, and maybe a few of our home-grown and organic broad beans, just to see what they’re like, because they’re not really big enough to harvest and eat just yet, so to eke them out a bit more, we’ll have a few store-bought snow peas, plus some chips, and maybe our usual half a tomato. For dessert, I’ll be having one of my Corella pears, and an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in this morning. Not good, but then that’s not at all surprising! Roll on Monday, with hopefully some good news from the Doctor, regarding my walking! Unfortunately, with a slight hiccup in timing and availability of food-stuffs, I’ve been “over-egging the omelet” a bit – which on top of not being able to use the treadmill has resulted in some “not terribly nice” weigh-ins over the last few days. Frankly, I don’t expect to see very much of a positive difference until the end of next week – then I’ll see where I go from there! Today I went from 66.0 kg yesterday to 66.4 kg today. Not a good look!

And that brings me around to tomorrow, and an afternoon visit from my very favourite youngest daughter and her husband! It’ll be great to see them again – we don’t see nearly enough of them, and they only live in Hampton East! Still, they both work, and have a lot more work when they get home, with the rabbits who need to be fed and cleaned out, the cats – ditto, and the dog, who needs to be walked and played with, as well as fed! However, they’ll be here around one-ish, and we can have a nice long chat about gardening and pets and food (Kate worked for Jenny Craig for fifteen years – first as a Consultant, then as a Centre Manager, and then at Head Office, writing up Training Manuals for the Trainers!) and it should be a very good day all round! Flipper, Auric and Dapple are well, and y’know what? That’s really about “it” from me for today! Do drop in again tomorrow night to see if Zelenka made it into Winterspring, how my weight went (probably up, after that bread and spread (though the spread is relatively low-calorie, for what it is!)) and how our visit with Kate and Terry went, and whether we learned anything about gardening and vegetable growing from them… Until then though, do try to bee good, remember that words mean more than what is set down on paper- it takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry when you’re out in the weather… but above all… please – don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

¹the knight, Maximillian, is back at the camp, probably looking after the BBQ, and trying to figure out how to fit both Devilsaur steaks and chops on it at the same time!

04.08 pm

…and here I was, all ready to start writing at about 03.50 pm or so, and… I got sidetracked – again! Er… by some new fonts… ( 😯 who’d-a-thunk it! 😉 ) so I looked at all the new fonts that this truly terrible site sent me today…. (they keep sending me email, pretty-much on a daily basis, with all these yummy new fonts that have “just come in”!) And d’you know why they’re a truly terrible site?!  The price range of all those delectable little (and sometimes not quite so little!) fonts starts at “Damn Cheap”, but can occasionally go as high as “Extremely Reasonable”, and even “Excellent Value for Money!”! So I mean, what’s a poor old fontaholic like me supposed to do, for heaven’s sake!? From a font addict owning around 2000+ fonts a couple of years ago, I think I now have closer to around 5000+! *sigh*

Anyway, you all have my full attention now (gee, I really do wish that I could show off my pretty new font here in the body of the blog – but Word Press won’t let me… I’ll have to see if I can incorporate it in a new Header or something… but it’s a very fine font, so it might not show up as well as I’d like, and… ahem! Yes! Right! Full attention, Winter!) 😉 As I mentioned last night, the appointment to see my Prosthodontist was moved from next week to today, at 10.00 am. Fair enough, so we got up a little earlier than we normally do (like around 7.30, instead of very grudgingly, between 8 o’clock and 8.15!) and just to prove that indeed, miracles do still happen, I was actually ready to walk out the door by 09.30 am! I go to see Dr. N. once a year, to have my implants professionally cleaned and looked at to make sure that they’re still alright – about every two years or so he gets me to have a full dental x-ray, so that he can check on the posts embedded in my jaw, and y’know, I’d never really stopped to think about it – I’ve had them for eleven years! They cost an arm and a leg, and a pope and an emperor’s ransom, but we’ve had our money’s worth from them more than ten times over! Few things have changed my life so completely, before or since! Dr. N. is a lovely person – he’s an old World of Warcraft player – I suppose you could say “ex” World of Warcraft player, really, as he hasn’t played for years because his work keeps him so busy! He was saying today, after I asked him about his lecture next week, that next year he’s not going to do so many (lectures, talks, overseas seminars, etc.) as he just hasn’t got enough time! He started doing implants about 20 years ago, and all of his patients/clients/whatever, from back then all come back once a year for the once-over and a professional “clean”, and of course he has his newer patients, and all the new technology that’s being used in dentistry and especially dental prosthetics to learn about and implement in his practice – do you know they’re now using 3D printing to make all the parts for the implants?! Fantastic! And of course with all the new materials and techniques, implants are becoming more affordable, and quicker and easier to put in – apparently a lot of new patients even opt to have the work done there in the surgery, rather than go into hospital and have them done under a full anesthetic! I told him that I was almost jealous – that I wished I still had my original teeth so that I could have it done all over again with all of the new stuff, but he said that my implants, and the way they were done, is still the top option available – so I suppose that’s alright… but I’d still like to see my implants being printed, right from the titanium posts that go into my jaw, to the ceramic teeth that I chew with! 🙂 Today – after eleven years straight – he did my top bridges. They haven’t been touched (except by me when I’m brushing them and cleaning under the bridgework!) for eleven years, and he was extremely pleased with them – there was a bit of superficial cleaning to be done… it was an hour appointment, and most of the time was spent in undoing the ten screws holding everything in place – the rest was very quick (just as well too, because he was running almost an hour behind!) The reason the top teeth haven’t been done since they were put in eleven years ago is because the bottom pieces have always taken pride of place in the maintenance visits – somehow or other they seem to hold the most “gunk” that has to be almost sand-blasted off, no matter how well I look after them! Anyway, for the first time ever, he did the top ones today, although he does still want to have a look at the bottom ones, so I have another appointment on December the 12th – my very favourite youngest daughter’s Birthday – at 02.00 pm. – I hope she won’t mind!

We came home via the Vermont South shopping centre to check the mail, and Julian had a bit of shopping to do, so we didn’t really get home until around 12.20 – whereupon we fell over ourselves trying to get at our very first cup of coffee for the day! I settled down to do some more leveling up with Zelenka, while Julian disappeared into the Office – and that’s what I did for most of what was left of the afternoon! I got Zelenka up to level 50, then logged out, fully intending to start writing… but, er…. I checked my email, and… but at least I’m here now, right?! 😉

And that’s pretty much been my day – so having told you all about it, I can now go and get on with all the “good”, or “interesting”, bits….

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had chicken sausages, which although they got slightly “squished” in the griller, they turned out to be very nice indeed! I think we’ll have them again… with them we had our usual half a tomato, steamed green beans, and chips. For dessert I had one of my Corella pears, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt. For lunch today, as we were getting home a lot later than I’d been expecting to get home from a 10.00 am dental appointment, Julian picked up some delicacies from Baker’s Delight, and we had half of two different savoury rolls, and – bless their hearts and souls, Baker’s Delight actually had some in today – a fantastic fruit and white chocolate scone (the ones with the white chocolate “drizzle” icing on them! *bliss*) Tonight for dinner we’re having some of the left-over stew that we had the other night – we both betting that it’s going to taste even betterer tonight – if that’s even possible, because it was pretty incredible the first time we had it! last time we had it with rice – but to tell the truth, I don’t really think that stewed potato really goes with steamed rice – it just seemed “wrong”, you know what I mean? So I suggested to Julian that tonight we could have it with just plain (sourdough) bread and a bit of butter – I’ll tell you what we ended up having with it tomorrow night, K? For dessert tonight I’m going to have to have another of the “kiddy” apples (“kiddy” apples, because they’re so small!) and an Apple Le Rice… not because I’m having a tiny apple as a piece of fruit or anything, but simply because I had the Vaalia Lemon Creme yoghurt last night, so it’s the Apple Le Rice’s turn tonight!

Weigh-in this morning. Here we go, up and down again… from 65.8 kg yesterday morning, to 66.0 kg today! It’ll probably shoot up to 66.8 kg tomorrow too, because I had savoury bread rolls and a fruit and white chocolate scone for lunch today, and I’ll be having that stew with potatoes, or either rice or bread and butter for dinner. Oh well, Say Lar Vee, as the French are so fond of saying!

And that finally brings me around to tomorrow! Julian and I are both convinced that “something” is supposed to be happening tomorrow, or that someone is supposed to be coming over – but neither of us can remember who, or what! 😦 Anyway, this time tomorrow night, I suppose we’ll know the who and/or the what, so I’ll fill you all in on it tomorrow night. Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, and I must say that the garden and the vegetable beds are all looking very vibrant and healthy, now that they’re visible again, since our Gardening Man has returned from his overseas ‘oliday – let’s just hope he doesn’t go away like that again in a hurry without appointing a “stand-in” to look after his clients! Anyway, that’s about “it” from me for tonight – do call in again tomorrow night to find out what happened with my weight, if we did have something on for tomorrow that we’ve forgotten about tonight, and what else we got up to during the day! Until then though, please try hard to bee good, don’t forget that we choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them, and remember to always drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep warm and dry, because this is Melbourne, and very likely to change without warning, even though it’s quite nice outside at the moment… but above all, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

04.14 pm

Well, I’m finally back! Sorry for taking so long to get here – I’ve just been a bit… busy. Let’s see now – what’s been happening since Sunday? A fair bit actually! Sunday, of course, was our “Wynterthyme and Demelza Do The Broken Isles” day, and I think we did pretty well, all things considered! We’re now sitting pretty on level 108 (only another two levels to go!) Demelza once again lived up to her excellent reputation and died, falling off the edge of a very high cliff – just after I’d said to Julian (Demelza) “Now this time, make sure you don’t fall off!” “No, dear,” said Julian, as Demelza got a little too close to the edge, and as expected, promptly fell off! Actually, we both died a few times, but we got better! 😉 But now Wynterthyme and Demelza have a very tough decision to make! Both of them were born and raised on Quel’Dorei, which has been our major “stomping ground” for nearly ten years. We initially chose Quel’Dorei as our main base because it had a low population, it was fairly quiet, and we could pretty much go about our business and our questing, uninterrupted – and it was good! We’re anti-social geeks, and prefer to live in quiet isolation, Realm-wise, unencumbered by unsolicited invitations to duel, and/or to join various groups of players whom we’ve never heard of before, and what’s more, have no desire to get to know them in the future! Unfortunately, news of Quel’Dorei’s  peace and quiet has spread over the intervening years, and now it’s always just about jam-packed, with noisy louts milling around the Inns and the Auction Houses in the capital cities, and the doing and completing quests has become neigh-on impossible – unless you want to “queue up” and stand in line, waiting until quest givers, quest items, and quest rewards become “available” again! It wasn’t quite as bad if you were playing a higher level – until the Expansion! After that, it was a bit as though the world had exploded, not just in the lower and baby areas, but with the new-found ability to “advance” a couple of your characters from level 1 to level 100 in one foul swoop – so that everyone who wanted to could get a look-in at the newly opened areas and levels more quickly – the higher level areas quickly became all choked up too! Some of you may remember my constant grouching and bleating about having to “wait in line” to be able to complete and hand in quests, and in the end, Julian snapped at me “Well, find a quieter Realm, then!” – which I did! Saurfang! It’s almost exactly like Quel’Dorei was in the earlier years, and my girls have been having a ball growing up and playing on Saurfang. Yes, it was a bit of a rigmarole, getting a couple of my Quel’Dorei girls transferred over, with a new Guild and a new Guild Bank – but it was accomplished without much bother, and so far (cross fingers, touch wood!) everything is going extremely well! Anyway, the Great Big Decision that Wynterthyme and Demelza have to make now is – whether or not to move over to Saurfang, bringing most of the Quel’Dorei Guild Bank with them – because the Quel’Dorei Guild Bank is the largest and wealthiest one that we have on any of the Realms – and there’s no point in leaving it all behind, if the two principal players aren’t going to be there to make use of it! (we will of course be leaving enough behind for the Guild members who remain on Quel’Dorei!) It’s not as though Wynterthyme and Demelza will be “Exiled for Life”, either – after seven days, they can return to Quel’Dorei, once again taking everything with them – though, why would they want to? It all boils down to whether you stay with the old familiar, and endure poor and very crowded conditions, or take the relatively small leap of faith (because you can always leap back again if you don’t like it!) and move to a freer, and much more open environment… The choice is entirely in their hands! *Watch This Space!*

On Monday morning, I went off to have my right foot and ankle x-rayed and ultrasounded – I was supposed to get the results back this Friday, but when I rang to make the appointment with the Doctor, I was told that Doctor B. had been off sick for a few days, and wasn’t going to be available until next Monday! So we’re all going to have to wait until next Monday to find out if I can get back on the treadmill or not! My ankle’s still a bit sore, and I have been walking on it quite a bit – but I walk a lot faster on the treadmill (4.4 kmph) than I do around the house or a shopping centre (around half that? maybe about 2 kmph?) and I don’t want to put too much of a strain on that foot (though I have been known to run up the corridor on more than one occasion! 😉 ) until I get the go-ahead from the Doctor! I only had a bit of time to play a WoW before Josh came over in the afternoon, and by the time he left, it was dinner time – and you all know my “rule” of not writing after dinner and television! (unless I’d already started writing before dinner, that is!) One thing concerned me a little – I couldn’t get over how long it took the technician to do the ultrasound of my ankle and foot! She kept going back over two particular spots – one on the inside of my ankle/foot – about where my instep would have been if I had an instep, which I don’t – and on the other side of my ankle, just below the ankle “funny-bone” (the ankle equivalent of the one on your elbow!) quite a few times! I suppose I should have asked her why – I usually do ask a lot of questions when I’m having an ultrasound, and I did think of asking her, but for some reason, this time I didn’t say a word – maybe I just didn’t want to know! (maybe I just didn’t want the hassle of repairing it… *shakes head* it’s a l-o-n-g story!)

Yesterday my very favourite eldest daughter came over for the day – we hadn’t seen her for two weeks due to uni assignments and last Friday her husband was home because it was a Public Holiday! So we sat in the lounge room and watched alternating episodes of “The Flash”, and “Arrow” until it was time for her to go home – and as her husband is generally home a bit later than usual because he commutes between Glen Waverley and Geelong, we finished watching our episodes of “The Flash” and “Arrow” a lot later than we usually do – so once again, I didn’t have time to write anything before dinner… Sorry!

And today… We’d just got home on Monday to discover a little “Australia Post” notification in our letter box – I think we must have missed the Postie by “that much →←” – my Passport had arrived, but because it was Registered Mail, only I could pick it up – which I did today! Ladies and gentlepersons, I has an Passport! I cans go overseas now! 😀 It’s a pity that Flipper and Auric and Dapple don’t have Passports, coz we can’t go overseas without them – so it looks like we’ll just have to stay home, for now… but it makes for excellent ID purposes! My shirt wot I’d bought online from Katies also arrived, so I came home this afternoon with one fancy “lace-up” shirt – black – and one Passport – dark blue with the Australian emblem on it. Our Mr. Lawnmower Man has finally come home from his own overseas holidays – just in the nikka, too! As Julian told him – we almost needed a machete to get to the front door! So, the garden is once more looking neat and trim, we can see the potato bags properly again, and Julian plucked the first of out carrot crop! Well, Kate, my very favourite youngest daughter, and family gardening guru, did warn me that the carrots we grew would look nothing at all like the carrots one finds in the supermarket – and I totally believed her – but I wasn’t as prepared as I’d thought I was for the sight of the two pale orange, skinny, short, and almost-completely spiral – carrots that Julian brought in! He washed them, and we had a munch – and they certainly tasted like carrots, and crunched up when we chewed them, like carrots – but honestly, they really looked more like chubby piggy tails! Quite hilarious! 😀

And having filled you in on all of that, I’ll get on to some of the “good” bits. Only some though, because I forgot to take notes, and I can’t remember what we had for dinner – except that it was a very delicious omelet on Sunday, and one of the most fantastic stews we’ve ever had on Monday – so I’ll just have to start from today, alright?

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had pasta with tomato sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese, and for dessert I had one of my much neglected mandarins (my true excuse: I love mandarins – it’s just that they’re very mucky and messy to eat, by the time you peel off their skins and “de-vein” them and cut away the excess pith!) and an Apple Le Rice. Today we had lunch up at Forest Hill Chase at a little Coffee place – we started off at The Coffee Club, but were told that there was a twenty-minute (and all the rest!) wait on all orders, and the menu calorie count they’d put against their BLT was horrendous! Even though the BLT came with a side order of chips, the calories claimed still seemed to be far too high for what it was – but it was the long wait that decided us, so we packed up and went to the next coffee place along – whose name I fergit! I had a ham, cheese and tomato Toastie, an extremely sinful (but very delicious!) Walnut Chocolate Fudge slice, and my usual long black with a small jug of skinny milk on the side. I want to go back there again tomorrow, so that I can have another of those Walnut Chocolate Fudge slices! Tonight we’re having “Tuscan Pork *Gourmet Port Sausages* →Gluten Free← 100% Australian Pork with Fennel, Parsley, and Parmesan Cheese” – sounds a bit posh, doesn’t it! We’ll also be having our usual half a tomato, steamed green beans, and chips with those, so anyway, I’ll let you know what they were like tomorrow night! For dessert I’ll have one of the teeny “kiddie” apples, and a Vaalia Lemon Creme.

Weigh-in Sunday:       66.4 kg
Weigh-in Monday:      66.0 kg
Weigh-in Tuesday:     65.9 kg
Weigh-in Today (Wednesday): Oh, this is sooo torturously slow!   65.8 kg! Oh well, after that Fudge slice today, it’s sure to be back in the 66 kg zone – probably somewhere around 66.9 kg! 😦 Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – self-inflicted, so no sympathy, please! 😉

And that brings me back to tomorrow! I was supposed to be going to see my Prosthodontist on Friday 14th of October, but I got a call from them on Monday to say that Dr. N. (my Prosthodontist) is lecturing that day, so could I come this week? Well, yes I could, and they had Thursday free, so I’m off there tomorrow morning at 10.00 am, where I think he’ll be unscrewing my bottom bridge and taking top part out (the teeth) and giving them a good old sand-blasting underneath to get rid of any tartar that’s probably accumulated there during the year. Oh well, I guess it’s better to get it over and done with, though I have to admit – I’m not really looking forward to it. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but it’s certainly uncomfortable – and actually it does hurt, when they use the ultrasonic (?? I think?) de-scaler thingy around the tops of the posts that hold the screws into my jaw… it certainly makes them bleed (and me on Warfarin, too! 😯 ) After that, I think I’ll be gravely in need of a rather large cup of coffee, and a good, long, soothing session with Zelenka, killing greeblies in Tanaris – or wherever else I’ve moved on to by then! 😉 Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, and I think that’s about all I have for you this evening! Probably just as well, too, as it’s starting to get just a wee bit long… Anyway, do drop in again tomorrow night to find out how many points that Walnut Chocolate Fudge slice cost me, whether we’ve had any more of our home-grown, organic carrots, and how I got on at the Prosthodontist! Until then however, please try very hard to bee good, remember that if you don’t have the time to do it right this time, when will you ever have the time to do it again, correctly? and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to keep warm and dry, especially in this sudden, rather nasty cold snap, and to always drive carefully… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.35 pm

Daylight Savings Time… (grrr! whose ruddy stupid idea was Daylight Saving, anyway!) Yes, another late finish from our day in the Broken Isles, but I’ll try to give you all something to go on 🙂 We both died – multiple times – mostly from forgetting not to use our most favourite  “missile defence”, “Barrage”! If you’re fighting a really tough mob – and let’s face it, most of the mobs in the Broken Isles really are “really tough” – to get them down as quickly as possible – before any more mobs can arrive to swamp you – the temptation to use “Barrage” is almost overwhelming! You see, “Barrage” fires a spray of bullets (or arrows) out in front of you for approximately 2.7 seconds. A lot of these bullets (or arrows) actually do hit the mob you’re aiming at, making its demise a lot quicker – which is why you used “Barrage” in the first place – however most of the bullets (or arrows) spray out in all directions (except behind you!) damaging anything attackable, regardless of their status, and turning them hostile towards you… and you very quickly find yourself being attacked by not only your original target, but also by an awful lot of usually harmless, or even friendly animals, as well as neutral mobs who would have left you alone – except that you fired on them, didn’t you! A lot of the time we find ourselves in a position where we need to pass through a lot of hostile mobs to reach our objective, but if we’re quick and quiet – and don’t use “Barrage” – it’s usually not too hard. If, however, you’re spotted by a hostile mob who runs over to intercept you, woe betide you if you use that handy shot, “Barrage”! Many times today, when entering hostile forts, Julian would say to me – or I’d say to him, “don’t forget! Do not use Barrage in here!” – and then one or the other of us “forgets”, and does use it, quickly followed by the other of us using it too, because “well s/he used it, so I thought it would be safe!” Naturally, as the bullets (or arrows) spray all over the place, and multiple creatures get inadvertently hit by them (I think it’s called “Collateral Damage”!) all hell breaks loose, and we’d find ourselves totally surrounded by viciously attacking mobs, including the original targeted mob, and then suddenly – we’re dead! 😯 Still, we finished off lots of quests today – including one rather funny one where we got “scammed” by a couple of Goblin “entrepreneurs”, who sent us off to find three “valuable” items for them, and for which they were offering three glossy and shiny trinkets as quest rewards. Of course, when we turned up with the last of their quest items to hand in, they were long gone, but had left a note pinned to their erstwhile shack saying something along the lines of “So long suckers – it’s been fun watching you running stupidly around” – we even got an Achievement called “What A Rip Off!!” for that quest! 🙂 We knew it was a con job, actually – we watched someone else receive the Achievement, and looked it up, deciding that it looked like bit of fun, so we’d do it too! After all, it’s all XP (experience) and it looked like a bit of fun (which was all that it was meant to be!) We had a good day today – and we even went up a level, to level 108, and a good part of the way towards level 109!

And that’s really all we’ve done all day, so now I can get on to the good bits! 😉

Food stuffz. Last night for dinner we had a new recipe wot I found from one of my foodie emails – called “Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken“, and it was really very nice – we had it with mashed potatoes, our usual half a tomato, and steamed green beans. Now, the recipe was good – but seemed to be “missing” a few things – I have some ideas that I’ll talk over with Julian and maybe post my “Amended Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken” recipe on my “Recipes…” page… because… it really wasn’t very spicy… For dessert I had the last of my enormous, so-called “brown” Nashi pears, which once again was really nice – maybe I will get some more of them, after all – and the second of the CHOBANI yoghurts, the cherry one, which was absolutely delicious, and I will be getting some more of those! The “Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken” called for about a kilo and a half of chicken, so as you can imagine, there was quite a bit left over! We had some of the refrigerated left-over chicken pieces cut up in a sandwich for lunch today – the rest of the left-over chicken is, of course, in the freezer, for later consumption. The sandwich was made with the new and delicious sourdough loaf, with some of our favourite butter substitute, basil and pesto hummus, sliced up cold Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken, and a dash of the “Baxters Fire Roasted Tomato and Smoky Chipotle Relish” – the one I wasn’t able to find online, so I’m presuming that it must be just a figment of our collective imagination… 😉 Tonight, of course, is Sunday night and we’ll be having our traditional Sunday Night Omelet for dinner – more later!

09.40 pm

‘Tis now later… Our omelet tonight – again, it was a really, really good example of the species! It had all the usual suspects – diced tomato, diced red capsicum, pre-fried diced onion, pre-fried bacon, and squares of my very favourite Cheddar/Tasty cheese – plus Julian’s special, secret mix of herbs and spices. Most delicious! 🙂 For dessert I had one of the small, “kiddies lunchbox size” apples that Julian got the other day, because all the other ones were gi-normous (why is it, I wonder, that most fruit these days is either gigantic, or teensy-weensy? Whatever happened to “normal” sized fruit?) and an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in Saturday morning. [in a frustrated and harassed tone] It’s doing it again! For once, with no possible reason for doing so (that is, I hadn’t eaten any “lunches-that-I-maybe-shouldn’t-have-had”, or similar!) I shot right up again! I went from 66.0 kg to 66.4 kg – four whole bloody points, which I didn’t deserve! This is getting highly monotonous!

Weigh-in this morning. Was annoying. I went from 66.4 kg … to 66.4 kg! I stayed the bloody same! You know, I was thinking about how my weight has been going up… and up… and up… and once again, I’m going to say this – only this time, so help me, I really mean it – next March, when I see Dr. Y again, he’s going to cop a (very polite!) ear-full from me, about those wretched little pills I have to take every three months! Every time I take them, I go up nearly a kilogram… and every time I come off them, it takes me longer and longer to get my weight back down to what it was before… and this last time I took them, my weight hasn’t gone back down to anywhere near where it was before I took the damn things! This last time has been the worst – my weight shot up so much it went right off the damn graph sheet, and has barely come back to about half way to where it was before – if that! You know, I really don’t want to – but if it comes to the crunch I will (kicking and screaming all the way, because I already did it for a year and a half!) though if I really have to, I’ll go back onto the Optifast diet for at least a month, if not longer – but I’ll hold that possibility as  a “last resort tactic”!

And that brings me around to tomorrow again – I’m not really sure what’s happening – I know I have to ring up and make the appointment to have my right foot x-rayd and ultrasounded, and an appointment to go back to the doctor two days later to get the results of said x-ray and ultrasound – because the sooner I find out what’s wrong with my foot, the sooner I’ll be able to get something done about it, and the sooner I get it “fixed”, the sooner I’ll be able to get back to my treadmilling, which I haven’t been doing because the top of my foot is just too sore! (Winter sings, off key: “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, the’s a hole in the bucket…” Julian throws scant bucket of water over Winter, who abruptly stops singing) Anyway, there it is – Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, and have all eaten their respective dinners – and that’s about “it” from me for this evening, because apart from my appointment making, off-key singing, and Josh’s visit tomorrow afternoon, I have absolutely no idea what’s happening tomorrow (I’d really like to get to Spotlight, or Harris Scarfe to look at bath towels though!) But call in again tomorrow night anyway, so that you can find out what my weight did, when I’m due to be x-ray’d and ultrasounded, and what level I’ve managed to get Zelenka up to, as well as all the other interesting and exciting things that I’ve been up to – or perhaps not been up to! Until then, please try hard to bee good, remember, all the answers you need are inside of you; you only have to become quiet enough to hear them – and don’t forget to always drive carefully, to keep warm and dry in this weird, thunder-threatening weather, and to look after yourselves… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

05.52 pm

Well, it’s very late this evening – and there’s not even that much to tell you all! *shrug* As I predicted yesterday, Julian and I spent the majority of today pretty much hunkered down in here, with virtual cotton wool stuffed in our ears so that there was no possibility that we’d be able to hear – even accidentally – anything that might have been in some way associated with Foopball – well, maybe we weren’t quite that cloistered! 😉 Julian did go out briefly to pick up the Dry Cleaning and to do a bit of shopping for our dinner tonight – but for most of the day we stayed quietly at home, minding our own business as much as humanly possible in completely “Sportz Nutz Oztralia” – and more particularly, in good-old Foopball crazy Melbourne! *rolls eyes*

So this is just a “place-holder”, an “interim measure”, so to speak, to let you all know that everything’s fine – I just don’t really feel like writing this evening. After a few false starts and hiccups this morning I finally got Zelenka up to level 45 – and of course, tomorrow being Sunday, it’ll be back to “The Wynterthyme and Demelza Show”, or maybe the “Wynterthyme and Demelza Do The Broken Isles” show – something like that, anyway – so prepare yourselves for a doozy of a double blockk-buster blorf* tomorrow night! 😉

Flipper, Auric and Dapple are all well, as are Julian and I – and I’ll be back again tomorrow with all the hot goss on what’s been happening chez nous – in the meantime, please try to bee good, don’t forget that we need to write to be understood, speak to be heard, and to read in order to grow, and please remember to look after yourselves, to keep warm and dry whenever it’s cold and raining, and to always drive carefully… but above all… please – remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*double blockk-buster blorf – commonly known as a “DBBB” – or “episode of gigantic proportions” – ooo-er! 😯

05.01 pm

Well, it looks like I’m getting back to my old habit of starting this late! Isn’t it nice to know that some things never change! 😉 Actually, I started late, because there’s not really terribly much to tell you all! It’s been a very quiet day, mostly – this morning Julian and I played with Wynterthyme and Demelza in the Broken Isles until lunch time – it was a bit annoying, actually – we started quite a long and complicated quest chain… only to find that it ended in a full-blown Dungeon! Hmm… and I was just about to write “and we don’t “do” Dungeons!” …but that would have been untrue, because we do “do” Dungeons – when we can handle them either on our own (solo) or with just the two of us – and this particular Dungeon was probably a 10-player Dungeon – so we flagged it as “Untracked” (so that we wouldn’t see it in our immediate Quest List – “out of sight, out of mind”, and all that!) headed back to base camp, and went off on another, different quest chain! Still, even though we’ll probably never finish off that Dungeon-ending quest (Julian might – as he’ll occasionally play in PUG*s, but I don’t play well with players I don’t know, so I’ll just have to get him to tell me all about it if he does ever go back and do it!) but we did get a fair bit of experience under our collective belts, and we both went up a level, to level 107! We also got a few good pieces of equipment out of the parts of the quest that we did do, which was an added bonus, because all too often quest rewards and drops are only worth a few gold as Vendor trash 

After lunch we decided to leave Wynterthyme and Demelza until Sunday, and I was torn… would I go and read, or go back to Zelenka? For ages I’ve been bitterly complaining that I have so many books I want to read, and so little time in which to read them all, so for once I decided to stop complaining, and do some reading for a change, and I went and read until 4 o’clock, when I sat down at my desk, intending to start writing – but got somewhat side-tracked by some new patterns and fonts, and the desire to see what they’d look like in a new header… which took… a little bit of time off my writing! 😉

And that being all the interesting bits about “My Day” (Hey! Perhaps I should have called this blog “My Day!” instead of “My Word!” Should I change it? (please don’t say “Yes!”)) so now I’ll get on with the “good” bits! 😉

Food stuffs. Last night for dinner we had lamb backstraps marinated in a Feta cheese “slurry”** to which Julian had added a few sprigs of home-grown, organic basil from our Herb Garden! We had that with plain steamed rice, to which some finely chopped spring onion and red capsicum had been added – and we had an absolutely delicious meal, fit for an emperor, or a pope, even! 😉 For dessert I had one of the extra-large, so-called “brown” Nashi pears – and you know, it was much more nicer than the first one I’d had some time ago – it actually tasted very nice! I only ate about 3/4 of it, because it was so large, but I’m feeling a lot happier about eating the last one tomorrow night, now that I found the one last night to be quite palatable! I also had the new-to-try CHOBANI blueberry yoghurt, which was rather nice, so go ahead and buy some if you haven’t already had it – as it now has the official “Winter P” seal of approval! 🙂 For lunch today I had a sandwich made from a new loaf sourdough bread from the ever famous and always popular (with us! 😉 ) Baker’s Delight – I don’t think it has a specific name, or if it does, Julian didn’t say… anyway I’d procured some sandwich piri-piri chicken chunks at the supermarket yesterday, because I thought it sounded nice – and just a bit spicy – so the sandwich today was very plain – with just the piri-piri chicken chunks, and nothing else to detract from the flavour… well, if that chicken was “hot”, or “spicy”, I’m Hilary Clinton on steroids! The so-called piri-piri was bland enough to taste like salt-free bread! 😦 Very disappointing! We will not be buying it again! Tonight we’re having a reprise of the beef, herbs and garlic sausages, with chips, home-grown and organic bok choy from our very own vegetable garden, and half a store-bought tomato… and for dessert I’ll be having one of my Corella pears and an Apple Le Rice.

Weigh-in this morning. My weight is playing see-saw with me again! This morning I went down two points, despite the four (or five, I fergit which!) chocolate coated, sugar and fat-free marsh melons wot I greedily consumed yesterday afternoon – but don’t worry, I’m quite sure they’ll show up in the reckoning tomorrow morning! I went from 66.2 kg yesterday to 66.0 kg this morning. Hey! Maybe chocolate coated, sugar and fat-free marsh melons are good for you, and I should eat the whole bag-full? 😉 (no Winter, I don’t think that’s the way it works!)

And that brings me up to tomorrow again! Once again, Auric and Dapple have been good little fishies – Julian did a full 30% water change-over this afternoon, and cleaned and vacuumed their gravel for them, too! Flipper is still asleep in her “Cave” on the couch behind me, so she hasn’t been fed yet (but I’m going to remove her pussy biscuits anyway, in case she wakes up and decides to fill up on them, rather than her dinner – uno momento! Right! Done! 🙂 ) I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow, except that we’ll both be trying to avoid any contact with Foopball news throughout the day – though I suppose we’ll have to sit through all the Foopball analysis and hoo-ha on the ABC1 News tomorrow night – unless we turn the television on early, and pause it, so that we can then fast forward through the Sport bits! Oh well, we’ll probably just mute the sound and talk amongst ourselves… Anyway, once more that’s really about “it” from me for this evening – but do drop in again tomorrow night, to see how my weight went, what we did to amuse ourselves during the Grand Final, and whether anything else of note occurred during the day! Until then though, please bee good, remember that only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible, and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm and dry – especially if you go to the Foopball… but most importantly, please don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

*PUGs – “Pick Up Groups” – if you really need to run a Dungeon, you can put your name down to join other players who also need to do that particular Dungeon – then when a group has assembled all the required Classes for the job (Tank, Healer, DPS, etc.) off you all go and “do” the Dungeon. I don’t like PUGs because they’re usually comprised of crass, rude, impatient, and greedy people who don’t give a damn about anyone’s needs in the Dungeon but their own. They bully and argue as to who gets what with drops, and criticise constantly if you happen to hit “Need” instead of “Greed” by mistake. If you have to stop to heal, or to eat, or to pick something up, they run ahead without waiting because you’re “slowing them down” (like, there’s a fire somewhere?!) I’ve taken part in about half a dozen PUGs in all the years I’ve been playing WoW, and none of them have been a pleasant experience – so now I simply don’t do them, end of story!

** Feta cheese and water, mixed into a loose “paste”, or “slurry”, in a plastic zip-lock bag – pop the lamb backstrap into the bag with the slurry, zip up the bag, and “massage” the backstrap with the slurry for a minute or so, then throw the bag full of slurry and the backstrap into the fridge – gently of course – for a couple of hours. Heat a tiny bit of good olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan, then tip the slurry-coated backstrap into the hot frying pan, discarding the somewhat messy bag, and pan-fry the backstrap until cooked to your liking. Serve with rice, or a salad, or whatever vegetables you like!