School holidays are on the way with some private (aka “public schools” here in Victoria, just to confuse people) schools already out. I just don’t get that. People pay all this money and their kids spend LESS time learning stuff. Ripped off.

Anyway, that’s my excuse. One of them. The other being fear. You see, last Thursday, all going good, blah blah blah and I go to bed and as I lie down: PAIN Imagine being stabbed with a red hot knife. Right where the gastric band is. Oh gods. I tossed and turned in bed and every time I moved that pain came back. It was terrible. But when I got up, it went away. So I forgot about it. Sort of. Friday night: same thing. I was up at midnight, surfing the net for “gastric band pain” to see what other people had experienced and I found one. And she didn’t know what it was, either. Nobody seemd to think it was the band moving, though.

I was so scared. Mostly that I’d broken it. I kept going over all my stuff ups and no, I haven’t been particularly good with the diet. I mean, sheesh. If I could do diets I wouldn’t bloody have needed surgery, would I? Yes, your honour, I DID eat a steak on Thursday for my dinner. It was tender as and I cut it into eensy little pieces and chewed each piece fifty thousand times.

Saturday, tried to cheer up. It was a perfect day. Spring was here and Beloved and I planted some tomatoes.

The wire on the ground is chook-proofing. Stops them rearranging the mulch to their liking. If you look very closely to the left of where Beloved is digging, you can see a chook, Sir Boris (a hen, despite the name) is already helping.

We have a few different kinds of tomatoes, Mighty Red, which is just big ones, some Romas, some of those little cherry type tomatoes, one plant of yellow ones and one Heirloom variety: Black Russian

Here’s my Black Russian. He already has flower buds, the enthusiastic thing. I have dubbed him Illya Kuryakin

Because David McCallum is forever my pinup boy. Long ago Beloved accepted the fact that I fell in love with Illya at the age of 12 and there’s nothing he can do about it. He doesn’t mind. He even records NCIS for me. What a guy!

Beloved is digging mounds. Here he is with Boris:

Boris is feeling a bit lonely at the moment. Her “sister”, Sir Morris, has vanished. The world is full of predators and hens are very tasty. Beloved is digging mounds for the seeds that I’ve planted and am hoping will actually germinate.

I did cucumbers, cantaloupes, watermelons, capsicums and eggplant. Yummm! I hope they grow for us. I’ve never had much luck with seeds, mainly because I’m afraid of wasting water, but with Radio Boy now living away from here and Poss only here part of the time, well, water isn’t so scarce. Anyway, it was a good feeling, gettting those tomatoes into the ground and befuddling the chooks so they can’t dig them up and planning for more seeds.

Saturday night: more pain and by Sunday I was feeling downright miserable. As though I’d managed to yes! Sabotage myself so that I, alone of all the hundreds and probably thousands of people around the world who have received gastric banding surgery would be the single one stupid enough to break it and not be able to lose weight.

It was another warm day and we went for a walk in the forest. The treeferns were all unfurling for the spring

and we saw a cute little swamp wallaby, like the ones that live on our road. He was nibbling grass just near the path, but the photos I took of him were crappy, so haven’t included them here.

We walked to a nice little restaurant called Cook’s Corner. It’s super yummy there and I felt relaxed and good and we had lunch and then walked back. I took lots of photos and so did Beloved. He’s having some fun with his camera. I even took photos of forget me nots

because even though they’re a noxious weed here, they’re still pretty.

Well, yesterday I rang the people who did the op and the nurse really didn’t have a clue and all she could do was quiz me on whether I’d been sticking to the diet. But the pain didn’t seem to be any different if I’d eaten or not, gone with food or liquid. She booked me in for an appointment with the doctor on Thursday, but I don’t want to go on Thursday. I’m supposed to work. I want to get my WALL*E t-shirt and save up money for my writing workshop.

Last night when I went to bed, the pain was still there. But not so bad. Kind of like a pulled muscle x 1000. So maybe that’s all it is. I’ll see how I go tonight and hopefully be able to cancel my appointment with the doctor.

Anyway, not working tomorrow, so I can catch up with everyone and see how you’re all going (well, I hope). Right now I have to go and visit Editor and her cute new baby. He’s a whole week old and I haven’t seen him yet! Ah, at least I’m not going to breathe any germs on him and that’s gotta be a good one.

be well, everyone