The weekend

Right - a proper entry on the weekend.

Firstly - for all the people commenting on the milkshakes - the company is For Heaven Shakes, and they'll be at various festivals and get-togethers round the UK this summer. And you're damn right those milkshakes are good! I'm currently trying to persuade the lovely Kirsty that she should get a license and sell alcoholic versions too!

I've actually had a really chilled out weekend, although in typical fashion, my plans to stay home and do nothing at all were foxed as I then got 3 separate invitations to go and spend time with friends.

Friday afternoon was really laid back - I went to the hairdressers for a bit of pampering (and a shiny new haircut obviously!) and then just wandered home and crashed. Sid texted later to say he was finishing work really late, and did I want to grab a takeaway with him when he got back. I was just about to start cooking healthy stir-fry, and although I was tempted by the takeaway idea, I thought about how rubbish I usually feel afterwards from all the salt and MSG and made the informed decision not to indulge. I am a paragon of self-restraint. Well, sometimes.

Saturday, I've already talked a bit about, and our day at the show. I'd actually arranged to have dinner with my friend Jo after the show, so I had about an hour when I got home to chill for a bit and grab a shower before she came round. I decided to wear my lovely new maxi dress out with a big belt to give it a bit of shape. I was feeling really good between my clothes and the haircut (and the scales still behaving), and I think it's interesting how that seemed to give me the will power to make better choices at dinner.

We went to Ask in town (the Italian chain) and were lucky to get one of the final 3 walk-in tables. I picked out a gorgeous dish with chicken breast, sun-blush tomatoes and mushrooms in a tomato and garlic sauce - lush, and not a bit of cheese or cream in sight! Our waiter made me laugh as I'd swear blind he was trying to flirt with us a bit, but can't have been older than about 19 or 20. He was also soooooooo slow at serving us, but that didn't really matter as we were just having a leisurely, gossipy dinner.

So all in all, there was I feeling quite attractive for once. Then I went upstairs to visit the toilets, and I started to get so paranoid as I felt everyone was looking at me! The restaurant setup is a bit odd, because there's a few tables downstairs at street level where we were sitting, but most of them are upstairs where the floor area's much bigger, and gives out onto a big terrace at the back. To get to the toilets you have to walk right across the room from the head of the stairs at the front over to the very back, and I swear to god I caught the eye of at least one person at every table. I instantly started to feel completely self-aware, wondering if I'd popped out of my dress (it's quite low cut), or else somehow caught my dress of something, or if it had gone see-through in the light (it's cotton - I checked this when I first got it, and in certain lights you can see the outline of legs, but nothing more that I know of).

Anyway, I guess I'll never know what it was, but Jo and I had a good giggle when I got back to the table over the fact that we both always assume the worst.

When we got back to my flat, Jo and I had a bit of a photo swapping session from all the trips and days out we've been on recently. Sid had popped round again by this point and as we were looking through the photos we flipped past some from Dahab last November. I'd not really thought about it, but both of them commented on how different I looked in the photos, and though I hadn't really noticed it before, they might have a point. I'll pull out the photos when I get home, and post them up on here, so you can see what you think!


I spent most of yesterday morning going on a second journey through my wardrobe chucking out stuff, and there's another heap of stuff gone. The wardrobe's starting to look distinctly bare now, which is a bit worrying! I still occasionally worry that I'm chucking all this stuff out, and I might need it again one day, but I'm determined that that won't be the case. I know how to control my weight now, even if I'm still on the journey downwards. But once I get where I'm going, I now have the tools to stay there, and to halt / reverse any upwards movements that I'm not happy with. That's quite empowering really!


Yesterday afternoon was spent lounging in the park with a group of friends. The park is literally just round the corner from my flat, and every Sunday afternoon during the summer the local brass band do a two hour concert from the bandstand, with a repertoire of modern, classical and show tunes. When the weather's nice the lawns surrounding the bandstand quickly fill up with groups of people with picnic rugs and there's a local ice-cream seller with his cart, as well as drinks supplied from the bar of the theatre, which is literally just at the top of the gardens. It's a really nice, chilled out way to spend an afternoon - complete with a treat size bag of chocolate and a punnet of raspberries. Shame the sun didn't really make an appearance to complete things, but at least it didn't rain either.

Now it's a new week - nothing too taxing socially this week - I'm back to the gym to do Body Pump this evening, but with light weights so I don't do anything further to my back. I might see if I feel up to going on a little jog tomorrow evening or maybe Thursday, and I'll be spinning on Wednesday. I'm heading down to London on Friday for Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park - The Kooks and The Killers are headlining and hopefully the weather will be kind. I was meant to be spending the whole weekend down there, but the friend I was going to visit afterwards has been called away to give a political speech in Serbia (what a cool excuse!), and in a way I'm quite grateful to have the rest of the weekend to come home and take the pressure of my diet and my wallet!

Adios, mon amigos!