Lexin

I have no real news.

I did have a leaky leg for which I had to take antibiotics. It’s all cleared up now, though I have a review of my medications tomorrow. So that will be fun, for some measure of fun.

In other news

I’m still playing the remastered version of Oblivion. My current character is level 34 and has a million gold pieces. He has done this by killing bandits and selling their armour, and making potions and selling them. The actual quests don’t pay that well, not even the Arena.

Cats

Opal has finally started to use the expensive water fountain I bought her. Smokey used hers almost as soon as I put it down, but Opal has taken a couple of months to use hers. I’m pleased, I want to be sure both cats are getting the water they should.

Just got back from the doctor.

I woke up yesterday with my left leg leaking fluid from a little scar. It leaked all day, being a pest. I kept hoping it would stop, but it didn’t.

For a nanosecond I considered taking it to Ysbyty Gwynedd, but the idea of A&E on a Bank Holiday Monday froze the gizzard. I would have been there all day long on those awful chairs. And I didn’t think it urgent enough to bother them with.

This morning I took a couple of pictures and used my doctors online consultation thingy, where I described the symptoms and attached a photo.

Inside ten minutes I got a phone call telling me to come in and get it seen. So I trotted off out and waited about half an hour. The doctor has prescribed an antibiotic, the same one I was given in May for cellulitis on my other leg. I am under instructions to elevate my leg and take the medication as instructed on the pack. They also gave me a wraparound thing to catch the drips. It seems that if I had left it much longer it would have become either cellulitis or sepsis. Neither of these appeal much.

Then I went to the Crosville Club for lunch - and was just in time. Go me! They close for some reason at 12:45.

Now, to elevate the leg.

My poor guests, on arrival at my house last Thursday pointed out what should have been obvious to me - that my freezer (it's a fridge/freezer) could not be closed and the drawers could not be opened. Ooops.

I therefore spent yesterday and today defrosting the freezer so that it will work again. I could, I suppose, have done it while I had guests, but didn't feel that appropriate, though I'm sure that Corylus, Rhakir and Peter wouldn't have minded. At least, not much.

So I now have a lovely, clean, working freezer - but no food to put in it, and two large bags of defrosted food, which couldn't be rescued and put in a cooler as the drawers didn't open.

It only goes to show that as housewives go, I'm a waste of space.

I just took my hearing aids out because I’m trying to watch TV and the social club across the road from my home has just started to play host to live music. With my aids in, the TV and the music were an absolute jumble.

aunty_marion an I have been having a holiday of sorts, travelling hither and yon around North Wales to see various sights. Yesterday we went up the Great Orme on a tramway and had hot chocolate and a hot dog at the top. Lovely views.

On another day we went to a National Trust property called Plas Newydd in which is probably Rex Whistler’s finest work, a mural of a fantasy city on the dining room wall. It is so intricate that you could look at it for hours and still be finding new bits. It is fantastic, if you ever get a chance, do go and see it.

It is my birthday. I’m 63.

I would have liked to go to Eastercon, which is in Belfast, but I couldn’t afford it. Spit.

My plan for today, therefore, is to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on my PlayStation.

I’ve reached the Grymforge. In the Grymforge I have discovered an automaton called Grym. And, boy, does he live down to his name.

He only takes damage when he’s been standing in lava, and takes more bludgeoning damage than any other kind. In particular, magic attacks do not appear to have much success unless they are cold based. Which, of course, means that the heat from the lava is reduced that much quicker. I spent all yesterday evening on Grym and got nowhere.

My cunning plan, which I came up with overnight, is to load a previous save and go back to the Emerald Grove. There is a reliable vendor there and I will buy a bludgeoning weapon for my whole party. With those, we might make some progress.

On the Wiki for the game there’s a method of killing Grym with one blow but it involves more hand/eye coordination than I’m capable of.

Cats

I took Smokey (my black cat) to the vet for her annual check up. She’s in good condition, but had lost 800g, meaning she’s a bit skinny, and she has a small hernia. Nobody in their right mind would give a general anaesthetic to a 19 year old cat. So we keep a careful eye on her.

The same week, I had to take Opal (the tabby) to the vet because she was walking funny. You may recall that she came to me with a broken pelvis. Her walk was reminiscent of then. She was prescribed Gabapentin and Loxicom. She does seem much better when on the medication. Which is good, because the vet said that if the problem continued we might have to x-ray her, and perhaps refer her to a specialist vet in either Liverpool or Chester.

Opal hates being in her carrier and both Liverpool and Chester are a long way from here. Carrying her in her basket on a train would suck like a vacuum cleaner.

I had a really bad night last night. Massive stomach issues the whole night, and I got no sleep.

So I spent a lot of it wondering what the muskrat is up to disassembling the US computer systems. I’ve read in some places that he’s looking for fraud.

That can’t be true because if you’re looking for fraud you need to know be an expert in how the payments being made are calculated. Just jumping to a conclusion because you don’t like why the payments are made doesn’t constitute fraud. I’m sure there are lots of things I don’t like that the UK government spends money on, but they are not fraudulent on that basis.

I also can’t quite understand why the muskrat arriving with this acolytes and plugging in hard drives was allowed by the security people in the buildings. They should have been politely escorted out and told not to come back.

I was a union representative for someone who plugged his phone into a government computer, and who was sacked - literally escorted from the building with his stuff in a box. And there was no way the person in question could download anything from a government computer because the USB ports were all locked down. He was just charging his phone, but that was enough to get him booted.

And that’s before we come on to the orange shitgibbon suggesting that Egypt and Jordan might take the displaced people from Gaza. Someone needs to tell him that he can’t give away land he doesn’t own. He’s not world president, and his suggestion is illegal and appalling.

I hate both the muskrat and the orange shitgibbon from the bottom of my heart.

The weather here is kind of odd. The tops of the mountains are covered with snow, but Bangor is close to sea level and if there is snow here it's not sitting, but I don't think there is. There might be sleet.

aunty_marion went home today after Christmas and New Year celebrated with me. We had a splendid time. The three bird roast was a bit dry, and I will try to get a chicken next year, and in June when she visits again.

My friend aunty_marion and I are watching something called “Arrow” and all the actors seem as if they were printed in a factory near Hollywood. We can barely tell one from another - and both of us have prosopagnosia.

Still, Happy New Year!

Just a minor update.

I have to do my Christmas cards – not looking forward to wrangling Word into labels. Sigh.

Cats are both well, though Opal spent this afternoon throwing the cushions off the sofa, for no reason that I could discern.

Gaming continues apace, I’m running one of our DnD’s, and I suspect that the party may be captured next week, and have to get out of the prison. As a GM, that makes me rub my hands together with glee.