Lost

Apologies for the absence from blogging, which was rather unintended, if not unexpected given my track record for these things!

Usually when a blogger goes AWOL it's bad news, and I suppose for a while it was.  Week 11 of my recent weigh ins and I am ashamed to say I gained.  Yet again.  It was a crazy busy week, socially, and my head still wasn't in the game.  I was in Bristol on the Friday night to catch up with friends, and several shared bottles of prosecco and wine, pitchers of Pimms and daiquiris, and an Indian restaurant later, I'd put a dent in both my resolve and my weekly points.

That Saturday was a bit hungover, but after a full English, Hannah and I made it up the hill in Bristol to a branch of STA Travel, and emerged 40 mins later with our flights to Vietnam booked for November.  Which is so exciting, that it definitely merited a milkshake (although shared) to celebrate - after all the legendary Rocotillos (a Bristol Institution worthy of Capital Letters) was just the other side of the road .... so it would have been rude not to!

Then on that Monday, I went to Wimbledon with my friend Lou.  Since we're both too inept to have got into the ticket ballot last summer, we did it the old fashioned way and got in via The Queue (another Institution and an event in its own right, really).  I'd never been to Wimbledon before, and we were lucky that we scored a day that had both beautiful clear weather and a brilliant line-up of games - whilst we only had Grounds Tickets (no specific entry to the big matches on the premier courts) we did get to the watch the Williams sisters duking it out and Andy Murray's quarter final match from prime spots on Henman Hill, and we got into some of the smaller courts to watch some frankly thrilling doubles matches and the juniors knocking the spots of each other.  All of that accompanied by a very English picnic, that couldn't possibly have not had scones, a bottle of bubbly and some very large Pimms later on.  In other words not another good day for Weight Watchers.

The rest of that week was spent scurrying round for interviews and other bits and bobs, so you can see why I ended with a gain 1.75lbs.  And yeah, I was feeling too guilty to write about it.

But it was a kick up the arse to finally figure out what I'm doing.  As is the fact that Vietnam is now booked (it's a whole separate issue as to whether it was wise to book it considering I'm still jobless), and I'd like to be in a better place by then.  No numbers, no targets, just motivation to get moving.

I decided that the only way to do it, was to start eating much more basic food.  In other words:  start cooking again.  Whilst I do have full access to Dad's kitchen, I don't enjoy cooking in it, because it's massively cluttered to the point where there's very little counter space.  Plus most of my own utensils are still in storage, i.e. buried somewhere in massive Ikea bags in the spare room.  But really that's all excuses, so on Friday last week, I started eating properly again.  Lots of veg, grilled meat, and starting to make multiple batches of things like bolognese so I've got easy leftovers to reheat.

The funny thing is that that approach left me with so many spare points last week, that I had enough to have Chinese takeaway on Sunday night, go to the coffee shop twice during the week, survive a BBQ on Saturday afternoon, cook duck and enjoy some Ben and Jerry's ice-cream a couple of times.  Go figure.

Week 12's weight in result was far more palatable - 4lbs off.  Back to 13st 11.5lbs.  And I'm still going strong, having been to the Bristol Harbourside Festival on Saturday and a big garden party for a Christening yesterday, and still inside my points.

Unfortunately, weights not the only thing feeling lost this week;  I am too.  This whole work situation is making my head spin.  Last week, after talking to Hannah and my dad, I decided to widen my job search to Bristol as well as London.  I felt a bit like quitting but a sensible thing to do.  But the more I've thought about it, the more I feel like I actually want to be going back to Bristol rather than to London.  So many of my friends are there, and I like the pace of life.  My job search in London seems to have been shifted by my agents, so that rather than being put forward for jobs in central London, they're all out of London.  That's fine for the few jobs (that I didn't get) which were potentially close enough to cycle to from the flat but, as my flatmate pointed out, if I'm driving out to Surrey everyday for a job, I'm not really going to have much of a life in London - I won't be able to meet up with people after work like I would if I was working centrally, it's going to be difficult to fit in things like going to the gym - basically my life will be work and come home.  The more I think about it, the more Bristol seems more sensible, although I'd feel horribly guilty letting down my friend and flatmate after months of me talking about moving in, but I'm suddenly not sure that London is the right move after all.  It seemed such an exciting and easy idea whilst I was in the snowy Alps, now ... not so much.

Which of course means that I think I might be about to get offered the job in Surrey.  My agent emailed me at 8.30am this morning asking me to call him.  I can't think why else he'd be asking me to contact him so early on a Monday morning, unless he has job offer news.  I waited an hour, because I was too chicken to call him, my thoughts too ... swirly ... to know what I'm thinking.  Typically, I now can't get hold of him, so I'll have to wait a bit longer to speak to him.

I feel lost. I don't know what the right decision is.