I’m only a week late with this one. I bought myself this lovely hydrangea as an equinox present last week. It’s living in my kitchen, and I feel cheerful every time I look at it. The colours are pretty and it reminds me that Christmas is coming and thinking about the equinox and the changing of the seasons also helps to keep me in mind with the changes going on inside me.

I went to see the surgeon today. He really didn’t want to look at my wounds, which have pretty much healed up now, thanks to the good work of the nurses at my local medical centre. They were all happy at the obesity centre to see how much weight I’ve already lost. I am happy too. Do you know, it really isn’t my imagination – my work pants are somewhat baggy around the thighs, and I am doing my bras up on the second set of hooks, not on the last set. Small changes but important. I have lost more than 7 kgs (nearly 16lbs) since my original weight. I’ve been blaming illness, the operation, whatever, but the fact is, that weight is now gone. It will never ever ever come back.

Surgeon gave me my first injection today. I was a little scared. Being a totally average, normal kind of person, I do not like getting needles stuck into me. They cause pain and pain is my worst thing. He warned me that it would be a bit of a scratchy feeling, and that’s all it was, really. Once the needle was in, he injected me with my first 1ml of saline, making the band a little tighter and my tummy a little less empty feeling. Gotta love it!

I often think what it must be like for Surgeon. He sees these women (mostly women) come waddling into his groups and meeting him for the first time. He sees their bodies changing, becoming something else. He has seen this magic and knows that he is the one who made it happen.

I’ve been hearing some more interesting news about gastric banding lately, and one is its association with mood changes. Apparently people who’ve had gastric banding are less depressed, and fewer of them are needing treatment for depression. At present I am still taking 1/2 a sertraline (think Zoloft) tablet a day but GP is hoping that I can go off them soon. It would be a very nice Christmas present. After that, I just want a new thyroid gland, and then I won’t need any medications at all. How nice.

Sometimes, when I’m walking around the shops or just looking at the women waiting for their cinema tickets, I wonder who I’ll turn into. A few weeks ago I was reading an article in the Sunday paper and it was by a photographer who puts people into “tribes”. Fat blokes with 5 o’clock shadows, wearing baggy t-shirts with funny comments on them and big, baggy shorts. Women with coloured hair who wear big jackets and chunky jewellery and carry neat purses. He’d taken lots of shots and matched the people into groups. Not a plan, but just the way we see ourselves.

At present I am definitely of the Invisible Fat Lady group. I wear a lot of dark colours (because darlinks, black is so slimming), I LIVE in stretchy pants, I don’t wear makeup. Generally my brightest thing will be some sort of accessory: I have pink Converse shoes with dots (love those shoes) I have a big bag with orange paeonies printed on it, I wear hot pink crocs, sometimes I bleach my hair, or shave it all off.

Just don’t look at the body.

But what will I turn into?

I kind of like the idea of Funky. Stripey leggings and cute dress tops with lacy bits. Hair dyed in 4 different shades and a bag with everything in it (well, some things don’t change).

The magic of this metamorphosis. I will be whatever I choose.

I know this is mostly a great picture of my hand and camera, out reflected and out of focus, but check it out! That’s real live frogspawn right there. Wooo hoooo. That lonely little froggy down by the pond has managed to avoid being eaten by kookaburras and, better than that, he got himself a lady friend.

Hi everyone. It’s nice to be back. Sorry about the long absence. It gets like this at school holidays: lots of work for me. It’s been so long since I actually took that photo that the mouldy looking dots in the jelly stuff are actually more like little commas. In a few days I hope to get a shot of some little black squiggles cruising round the pond. So exciting. I keep thinking of you whenever we do stuff in the garden, Eryn. Last weekend we prepared some round beds for vines: pumpkins, eggplants, cucumbers and the like. And stuff has been blooming.

This one is prostanthera, also called native mint bush. It’s a beautiful bush with pretty flowers and a really intense, lovely fragrance (though I don’t know where anyone got the idea of “mint” from) and it kind of makes the air cool in summer.

This is one of the last bluebells. Daffs are all finished now but the freesias are out. Love freesias.

I’ve always loved having herbs in my garden. The pink rosemary is blooming at the moment. Although the sheep did some damage to our big rosemary bush (um, ate it all, in fact) I managed to get cuttings, to keep it all going again.

Right back at the start of this blog, I planted a mulberry tree. Here it is in spring glory, its leaves a little wilted from the wind, but looking to me very much as if it’s about to bloom. As if in its very first year in my garden I might even get some fruit from it.

Which brings me back to the real reason I do this blog. To the fruit of my own efforts. Weight loss.

Thanks for all your kind thoughts. By the time I got to see GP I was no longer having problems with that pain. Last week, though, I did have issues with my wounds breaking down. Added to this was my skin sensitivity which means I tend to get a rash if I use the kind of dressings you can just buy over the counter. I didn’t know what to do, and I had to cover them because I had to wear a white t-shirt for work, and those just don’t look good, bloodstained.

Lucky for me there is a lovely nurse at my local medical centre and she dressed the wounds for me, even found a dressing that didn’t cause me too many skin issues. They took a swab, to see if I was growing anything nasty in there. Apparently I am, because I got a call from the medical centre this evening and the results of the test have finally come in. I have to pick it up tomorrow and take it to the surgeon.

Yeah. The surgeon. Tomorrow I get my first injection into the gastric band. This means that it will beging to constrict on my stomach and I can get seriously into the business of sending some blob creatures off to the planet Adipose III (yeah, Dr Who reference there).

Soooooo excited. It’s all about to really start happening. My clothes are already a little baggy on me from the few kgs I’ve lost since the operation, but now I’m going to begin my own metamorphosis.

The tadpoles are there to inspire me.

Ah, here I am again, having escaped the rigours of selling cinema tickets to people and sneaking a quite Sunday morning before the family gets up to do a quick catchup and visit everyone’s blogs.

Er, no, I haven’t been to see a doctor yet. I did make an appointment, but the pain has almost gone now. Beloved did remind me that I have, basically, been stabbed in the stomach (in the nicest possible way) and that there of course is damage and the pain was really like, well, you know how it feels when you exercise real hard and it’s a muscle group that haven’t been pushed for a while? The next day you’re going up some stairs or using your arms or whatever and it hurts so bad? Well it was like that times about a hundred. Anyway, it’s pretty much gone now, so I went to work on Thursday instead of the doctor. Wish I hadn’t. I was sick as a dog with this rotten cold, lost it totally and yelled at a customer and got a file note for sloppy cash handling. Ah, the fun never stops.

Still, the great thing about my job is the [mostly] nice people you meet. On Friday night I once again met my inspiration, a customer who has had gastric banding. Again he gave me his credit card with no signature on the back, but photo ID and signature on the front and once again he commented that he didn’t look very much like his much fatter picture any more. He’s proud of his achievement. I high-fived him and told him how he’d inspired me. He has lost 37kg (that’s 81lbs) in 2 years. Said it was slow but obviously so happy with the results. It’s great to get reminders like that.

In the good news, Beloved and I have been back in the garden and it’s so fun, planning out all our veggies and things. No sign of germination yet from the seeds I planted last week, and I’m a bit worried about them. You see, it’s been so windy, they kept drying out. I’ve put them in an old aquarium to protect them from the wind and I hope that will help them.

Yesterday we planted some seed potatoes and some chillies. I love having salsa with chillies. Still no sign of tadpoles in the pond but the frog is there, I hear him at night, so hoping he will have some luck with the girls soon.

As I said earlier, the whole family is home at the moment. It’s so wonderful. Radio Boy arrived on Friday night. As usual, I got myself in a state. Especially when I heard the sirens go off very late. We live in a fairly rural area and we have CFA (Country Fire Authority) which is a group of well trained local volunteers who do firefighting and other work around the place. Thing is, if a branch blows over the road and stops traffic, the sirens go off and the folks go down to cut and move the branch. If there’s a car smash, the sirens go off. So there I was, channeling School Buddy’s grandma, (who lived with her family) who was always in a panic if she heard an ambulance and the gandkids weren’t right there ith her. I turned to Beloved and asked him when he thought Radio Boy would be home and he said ‘Oh, anytime now’ and I almost worked up a sweat until I heard the front door and Radio Boy’s clompy boots.

Had such a fun day yesterday. GF got her nose pierced, but then bumped the stud and it came out. Radio Boy asked me to help. H’m. First time I’ve ever had my fingers up someone else’s nose. I’ve never even been that intimate with Beloved! (And I hope I never do!) Unfortunately, the little hole was swollen shut and we couldn’t get that rotten stud to go back where it belonged, so GF has decided she’ll have to go back today and have another try.

Oh, the pain!

Poss and BF got home last night after I was in bed, but I just lay there feeling good, knowing that my family was all here, safe under my roof.

Haven’t done any photos this week. Maybe today when Beloved and I go for a walk. Anyway, here’s a flower

I don’t even know what this is called. It’s a hardy little bulb that comes up all over the place in springtime and I love seeing those little blue faces.

And here is Illya (again)

with an apology for that big angry “don’t link to US” notice in my last blog.

Now I’m coming to visit you.