Being someone who has suffered (and I mean really suffered) from colds since a fairly young age, I’ve always searched around to find something which is fairly effective in the curing of the sniffles and other such fun things that go with the big cool that happens around here between May and June every year. Finally, I found something which works. It’s something I experimented with and seemed to pay off, so here it is. I call it a Green and Gold Drop. For me, it seems to have about an 80% success rate, and when combined with something like Vicks on the chest/throat and under the nose that goes closer to 100%. So, if you try it, hopefully you have similar success.

What you’ll need

• A lemon
• Some honey, I tend to like things like Yellowbox or other more difficult to find ones - but anything will work
• Water - not quite boiling, but around 85ºC or so (this helps avoid burning the ingredients)
• Some tea, preferably a Breakfast variety (I’ve never tried it with Green tea, though if you opt to bring your water temperature closer to around 70ºC or so)
• A mint leaf
• A small amount of crushed ginger

How to do it

1. I find that boiling your water in a pot on the stove tends to work best as it allows you to bring it to temperature gradually, though boiling the jug should work. At any rate, slice your lemon into thin slices of around 5mm each and leave the zest intact. Place these around the bottom of a saucepan, then cover them with honey. Cover them with around 1.5L of water and bring this to the desired temperature slowly. The slower the better, as this will allow the flavours to mature and keep the vitamins intact.
2. Add your ginger and mint as it approaches the desired temperature as these are to be background flavours and they’ll serve as less of a frontal the later you add them.
3. Leave it all to slowly cool to around 45ºC, and then slowly ramp it back up to the desired temperature. This will ensure all flavour is leeched out, and ensure everything has dissolved properly.
4. Prepare a teacup with your tea in it already, then pour your concoction in, making sure to get some chunks from it into your cup. These are fairly important.
5. Jiggle your tea to get the full flavour out, then add white sugar to taste.
6. Drink it, cover yourself in Vicks then go hop under a big doonah and relax. You’ve earned it.

Hopefully that one helps someone somewhere! Also, does anybody else have any recipes like this to cure the winter blues? I’d love to see them.

I am the son, and the heir, of nothing in particular.

Perhaps if you still cared I could still let you down as ever. And perhaps if I had amnesia, then I could forget that you still mean the world to me.

How much? Well, the lengths I’m going to to keep them is pretty crazy. That being said, they give me so much enjoyment I don’t really see the major issue in it so it’s okay. As anyone who knows me well could tell you I’m utterly obsessed with marine fish & aquariums and have wanted to keep one of my own for the majority of my life - something I will finally be coming to realise over the course of the next few weeks. After a recent outbreak of algae thanks to my tank’s current location in direct sunlight all day I’ve been left with a bare tank - something simply not good enough. So rather than fill it back up with tropical (freshwater) fish due to its smaller than ideal size, I’ve opted to go for the nano reef route, something which I feel will not only give me something to spend a lot of my spare time on, but that is at the end of the day going to offer me a much higher enjoyment factor.

Overall it is going to be a fairly simple system, comprised of the following - my 70L tank (2ft x 18′ x 1ft); a 1000L/h canister filter with a carbon/wool/bionode/zeolite segments (in that order); 2 300L/h adjustable flow powerheads; a 2×40w Power Compact light fixture with 10000k globes; 15lb of Fiji live rock; 20lb of Fiji live sand; and a 300w thermostat-controlled titanium heater. The important part about it is that it’s going to rely on the Berlin Method of filtration (primarily biological via live rock/sand). That was one thing I decided on after tossing up the practicality of having a remote sump filter instead of the canister - doing so limited me severely and didn’t provide the ideals I wanted. So, Berlin Method, here I come!

As for what I’m stocking it with, for a start I’m going to stick to 2 pair of Clownfish, most likely False Perculas (Amphiprion ocellaris), and a few smaller corals. Only time shall tell what happens, eh? It’ll have a cleanup crew of most likely Peppermint Shrimp or Blood Shrimp, and maybe a smaller crab. I’m aiming for diversity so depending on the day I might end up with just a pair of Clownfish and perhaps 2 Gobies or something. Seeings this is my first foray into saltwater keeping I don’t want to get too technical right out of the gate, however I’m fairly confident I’m on a winning setup.

Cycling should take around a week and a half given the method of cycling I’ll be aiming for - dosing the tank with pure ammonia - which will see me ready to add the fish to the tank without issues and give me a fairly strong biohandling ability from the out.

So, I’ll post some photos once it’s all set up with the live rock and sand in place. Right now it looks kind of like shit because I’ve not bothered cleaning it knowing I’ll be emptying it and giving it a complete cleanout over the coming days, so I’m gonna take photos of it at every stage. Hooray for that!

So like, how many others of you keep fish and/or other glamour pets? You know, pets that’re kind of obscure. Lizards, corals, frogs, sharks, moose… anything! Also, someone needs to help me name my corals (yes, I’m going to name them) and fish because according to at least one reliable source I’m terrible at naming animals. Bring on your suggestions*.

* Please note: any and all suggestions of “Nemo”, “Dory”, or similar will be met with a prompt smack to the forehead. You are warned.

UPDATE! I have some photos I’ve taken so far of it as it stands, and I will be adding them progressively as I do more with it.

The empty tank waiting to be filled

Just after dumping some 2.5kg of salt into my water (I’m gunning for around 1.026 sg)

Last night after letting the tank cycle through for around 7 hours or so

About 15 minutes ago after letting it run for the last 30 hours or so with the airstone and all filters running. Current water params: sg 1.026, pH 8.5, 25.3ºC/77.5ºF, other traces undetectable

EDIT 2: Live rock and so forth now in the tank, cycling has begun!

Tank just as I’ve arranged my live rock, all in all I ended up with 16lb of Fiji rock

About 10 minutes ago after adding the crushed coral base and letting the tank stabilise. Thankfully seeings the rock was already semi-cured the system has spiked fairly high already at the start of the cycle. Current water params: sg 1.026, pH 8.2, 26.2ºC/79.1ºC, Ammonia 1ppm, Nitrate 10ppm

Well what a week. It seemed like a shitload has happened in recapping it in my head, but really, not much did. Don’t you just hate that? It makes life seem dreadfully boring when you realise that the majority of what you’re recalling is sensationalised - making it seem like there’s a lot of things but really it’s only one or two things of any real significance. It seems that only really hit me when I sat down to actually write about it or convey it through some other medium. Just kinda like “HAY BEN YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME” or something. But really.. not much has happened at all. It entails working, working, working, learning to make burgers at work like a sucker and being somehow miraculously good at it, having a new prime minister, not sleeping, working, and the occasional film. Really not too interesting when you get down to it… gah. On the upside I heard from my friend Mallory which made me smile, she’s a really cool kid and I pretty much miss her a lot. Damn America taking all the cool people D: Oh wait, it’s taking me too lol. Coincidence?! I guess that makes me cool. I also miss Mandy which is gay. Don’t really like to do so, nop.

So, that’s my week in a capsulised form. Don’t choke on it, I’m not insured.

I decide to actually write in this thing for once. My workload has increased exponentially lately, to the point I worked 58 hours this week. Pretty shit eh? Ah well, gotta make them paper-papers, somehow anyway. It’s not all bad though, it gives me something to do.

Anyway, just a quick update to say that I’m not dead and that I’m actually around or something. I’ve got 10 days off work to take care of stuff I need to, so I will perhaps get it all done. That includes a buttload of coding, going photographing sometime, all that kinda fun stuff. Make the most of it and all.

In the process of trying to breed my fighter fish, having some success in that they’re into one another and all that, just haven’t quite got the right environment yet it seems. In time.

Ahhh, too tired to type. Just figured I’d write while I had a spare moment. Sup?