Friday Favourites

Sometimes it's nice to reflect on what's bought you happiness / contentment / joy, especially when times are feeling a bit stressful, and so I bring you a second instalment of Friday favourites!

1.       Amazon Firestick

I actually bought this baby a few weeks ago but I still get excited about spending time at home several weeks later!  I love my Netflix, but I’m not so good with watching regular tv.  Not having a smart tv (I made a good choice when I bought my set about 6 or 7 years ago and it’s still going strong and looking good), I’ve been relegated to watching Netflix on my laptop or iPad up til now, which usually means I end up playing on the internet instead, getting distracted or curled up like a teenager in my bedroom.  Now, however, I can watch in state, installed on the sofa with a blanket, and not having to worry about which device has got some juice in the battery.  It’s safe to say that I’ve been enjoying my Netflix more than ever, and I love being able to pop Spotify up on the tv for music while I’m pottering round on the weekend, plus having E4 and BBC iPlayer at the touch of a button.  Money well invested.

2.       Horse riding

Way back in the mists of time, I used to ride regularly.  Every weekend as a kid you’d find me gleefully hanging out at my local stable all day Saturday or Sunday – the lesson would only last an hour but I’d happily muck out stables, help with feed and generally hang out with friends and ponies for the remaining hours.  I rode with the University’s riding club when I went off down South to do my degree, but I had a pretty painful riding accident during my final year of uni that severely dented my confidence (and my back), and when I moved to London immediately after graduation I gave up .... there’s not too many places that a new graduate can afford to ride in the capitol after all!

Since then (a good 12 years or more) I’ve ridden just a handful of times and I’ve always loved it, but it was never a regular thing.  The time has come.  I spent a bit of time over the last couple of weeks researching local stables and finally had my first lesson 2 weeks ago on a very damp Wednesday evening.  I thought I was just going to be getting back into it gently with some walking and trotting, as I was booked into a novice lesson, but no – the instructor had me cantering and popping over a few little single jumps before the hour was up!  This week she had me on faster horse and we spent most of the lesson tackling runs of (small) jumps and at the end of the lesson she said I can join the advanced class next time if I’d like.  Two weeks ago I was scared I’d have forgotten and make an idiot out of myself, but it’s all still there and I’ve loved being back in the saddle.

 (Riding down in Exmoor a few years ago)

3.        House buying

As mentioned earlier in the week, this distant pipedream has suddenly moved forward to being very much a reality, and I can’t tell you how exciting that is.  Of course, me being me, I’d really like it all to just happen NOW, but it doesn’t work that way and I’ve still got a long, hard road ahead of me, trawling through all the processes and trying to find an actual place that I like, can afford.  There’s a huge problem in Bristol at the moment with houses all going to sealed bids and selling for about 15-20% above the asking price, which is terrifying when you have a strict budget to stick to, but I’m sure if I just persist, I’ll triumph eventually.

Just the thought of having a home, somewhere that is mine to decorate, furnish and improve as I please, that is not dependent on anyone else’s renting whims and is my own little haven at the end of the day makes the whole spectre of the buying struggle worthwhile.  Right now, I’m talking to mortgage brokers to confirm how much I can get and that someone is prepared to lend to me, as well as religiously scanning the listings to see what’s out there right now.  

4.        Bill Bailey    

We went to see this genius of comedy on Tuesday evening, and he was just as funny as ever.  During the second half I was literally doubled over, laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.  Enough said.  I love a bit of live comedy and can’t wait to put some more in my diary.

5.        Bristol 10k Great Run

I did it.  It felt highly satisfying to be able to drag my very under-trained butt around the course on Sunday, and to be able to finish in a surprisingly decent time for me.  1:16 on Sunday, compared to personal best of 1:05 and my first ever time of 1:12.  Both when I had considerably more running fitness than I do now.  I was happy with that.  I still haven’t quite managed to re-find my love of running but it felt like a step forward.

(Liz and I looking relieved to be done last weekend)

6.        Friday nights with friends

There’s something deeply satisfying about finishing the week with a relaxed night with good friends.  Especially when it’s friends that you’ve only recently bought together, but you’ve thought they’d get on well for ages, and you’ve been proved right.  Time with these girls is relaxing, supportive and deeply satisfying.  There will no doubt be wine and chats about things both superficial and meaningful.

(Prosecco Friday from a few weeks ago)

7.       Somerset by Alice Temperley

I went shopping last weekend (whoops – I really didn’t have the money for that!) and was wandering round John Lewis and my eye was caught by the clothes in this section.  Sooooooo pretty!  There was about 10 things I would happily have taken home, but being restrained, I just tried on a top and trousers.  Well.  They were both gorgeous – so beautifully cut and perfectly sized and I soooo wanted to take them both home, but reluctantly put the top back for next month’s shopping basket.  But I am totally getting it then and I'm totally fan-girling over the amazing black lace skirt as well!  The trousers already got me about 6 compliments, so I’m guessing they’re good!

So that’s what’s been floating my boat this week!

Stressing Out

It's most vexing really - I wrote a Friday favourites post ... and seem to have lost it.  Hmph.  And it's now Sunday and too late to do another Friday favourites and well, grumpy, just grumpy.

Much has been going on in my world.  Lots.  And with it there are lots of feelings which, for someone working on fixing her emotional eating instead of just eating all the feels, is a trial.  But I'm still here and I don't think I ate all of them, so that's probably progress of some sort.

My life feels like it's rather full of anxiety at the moment, to the point where I constantly feel like I have a knotted ball of it in my stomach - not an overly pleasant sensation, I think we can all agree!  This is due to a whole list of things which I'm just going to have to work my way through one at a time, but basically fall into two camps.  Firstly: ridiculous events for which I optimistically signed myself up.  Secondly: housing.

At some point at the beginning of the year (and just after several boozy Christmas dinners with various friends) I was obviously feeling very optimistic about how fit I'd be at this point in the year and signed myself up for a 10k, a triathlon and a 5k obstacle race on consecutive weeks.  Genius!  Since then my motivation to run (or really do much other than walking) has sulked off into hiding and so training has been ... sporadic, shall we say.  Today I was able to tick the first event off the list, and whilst it was hard, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it could be.  I ran the Bristol 10k this morning - the furthest I've run since 2012 - and we made it round in 1:16.  My first ever 10k was 1:12, and my very best time is 1:05, but I was about a stone and a half lighter for both of those, so I'm pretty proud of today's time.  Plus I hadn't run further than 5.5km in training this time, so the second half was pretty much uncharted territory.

Next week is meant to be an off-road triathlon and .... I'm sacking it off.  At least until later in the year.  I was meant to be doing it with a friend, but she is currently injured and I'm even more hopelessly unprepared for this one than the 10k.  I would rather potentially lose the entry fee than try something on my own that makes me feel absolutely miserable and is a horrible experience.  The obstacle run however will go ahead - I'm sure I can survive that one and it's only for fun.

So on to the second set of stresses in my life at the moment - the gnarly mess that has appeared in front of me regarding my housing situation.  This has all come up in the last week and I'm trying to make sense of it at the moment and figure out the best way forwards.

Last week I asked my flatmate outright what she was thinking of doing when our lease is up for renewal in August - I've long had my suspicions she was thinking of moving in with her new boyfriend but, as nothing had been mentioned specifically, wasn't sure.  However she is planning on it, so whatever happens next it will mean change for me.  I'm also away on holiday for the first part of August so the renewal date falls whilst I've been out of the country for the 2 and a half weeks for added complication.

Earlier this week I also found out something quite momentous.  Where I thought I didn't have a hope of buying a house yet because of getting a mortgage,  it turns out it's actually quite possible.  Long story short - I've been dreaming about buying a house for years, but after dealing with the debt from my 20's and then going self-employed I thought I was still years off this possibility and I was wrong about that.

However, the area I live in (and would like to remain in) is pretty hideously expensive, so whilst it's now viable for me to buy, it's going to be tricky finding something decent whilst sticking to my budget.  And as at the moment, I have a 3 month deadline hanging over my head to either find somewhere (or at least have it imminently lined up) or I've pretty much got to commit to another 6 month lease on a flat, unless I can possibly persuade my landlady to let me roll the lease on our flat on monthly on my own.

As you can see, there are a horrible number of variables in play, and it's giving me a headache trying to think it all through and figure out the best plan of action, or even where to start.  As I hadn't expected to be in a position to even think about buying there's a lot of research and ground work I need to do first to figure out where I stand.

In the spirit of trying to cope with my emotions rather than eat them, I am trying to sit with the anxiety when it's nearly overwhelming and use it to propel me into doing something productive like thinking the problem through, doing research and weighing up my options.  It's not always easy though.

In the meantime, I've run the 10k and ticked that off the list, and I have to admit I feel stronger for it.

What is it they say?  What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger?

Knowing When You Need Help

At some point over the last 48 hours, I decided that I needed a bit more help with what I’m attempting to do.  I started this process alone – googling emotional eating, and then following that trail of breadcrumbs to websites and books that could help.  And they have helped, immensely, as I’m far better educated now on what I’m doing.

The problem remains though, that education alone is not enough.  I know logically what I’m doing wrong and what I need to change, but putting into practice the process of divorcing myself from those habits is far harder, because I have to catch myself in the moment and then have the clarity to see what I’m doing each time and find a better way to deal with it, and that is a far cry from sitting down and doing journaling exercises when you’re calm and relaxed and sitting on your bed after dinner.

So I’ve decided that it’s time to bring in the big guns.  The extra resource I’ve decided on is the website linked to the first book I read, Shrink Yourself.  I hadn’t used it up until now, as it’s a subscription based service, not dissimilar to Weightwatchers, Slimming World or any other.  But also light years different, as instead of tracking food and giving rules on what you can and can’t eat, the website has a series of interactive tools that you can use whenever you’re feeling a bit out of control and like it’s about to go wrong.  They’re designed to be used in the heat of the moment, to help slow you down and review what you’re feeling and understand it.  There’s an app, so you can carry it with you wherever you are, and the different tools range from short ones used to deal with a craving right there when it arises, to more complex ones allowing you to explore your stress and feelings, journal your progress and do reading around chapters of the book that might be helpful for less urgent but deeper times.  The fact I’ve already read the book a couple of times is probably helpful because the concepts are already familiar to me.

Of course, in typical fashion, having paid my subscription last night, today has turned out to be a pretty easy day and I haven’t really had cause to use it yet, but I couldn’t honestly tell you whether today’s ease is a result of knowing I have a better net to fall back on or just a good day anyway.

I’m interested to see how it goes, as part of me remains eternally optimistic that this will be the key to unlocking the next bit of my progress, and the other half resignedly believes that it can’t possibly be that easy.  I guess the first week will give me a good idea of whether it’s going to help make a difference as usually my streaks of good days last 4 or 5 in a row at best.

The subscription I’ve paid for lasts 3 months, which co-incidentally is also the length of time they suggest that you give yourself to complete all the exercises and allow your old habits to fade and better behaviours to take their place.  It also happens to pretty much take me up to the date I head off to Borneo, which is neither here nor there I guess, but pleases my inherent sense of neatness and karmic “it’s meant to be”.

Over-tired

Over the weekend I felt particularly glum about the progress, or lack of, that I’ve been making with this ‘ere old emotional eating malarkey.  Which in a lot of ways, feels much like ... none whatsoever.

So there I was, feeling all down about it, and woe-is-me-this-is-not-working-and-will-never-work-and-I’ll-be-stuck-like-this-forever.

Which when I think about it, and even at the time I knew it, was largely down to the fact that I was super tired after two late nights and not a lot of sleep whilst I was camping.  I was basically being like an over-tired toddler that DOESN’T WANT TO GO TO BED!  I knew I was tired, I knew I was eating rubbish because I was tired, and why the hell I didn’t just lie down and have a nap on Sunday afternoon before I hit the kitchen I do not know.  But I didn’t and there we go.  I ate cookies in the car on the way home in a desperate attempt not to fall asleep on the motorway (in retrospect, I could totally have just stopped at the services and got a tea or coffee to keep me going – caffeine being far more effective than sugar and all that), and then feeling sick from the sugar, I ate crisps when I got home because I was craving salt to counteract it.  Yuh huh.  Clever.

Monday was better as I’d had a good 10 hour sleep and could focus on things much more logically again, but it wasn’t until I was walking to work this morning that I had a bit of a revelation.  Trying to change eating behaviours, is a bit like having physio on a particularly annoying injury.  You have to do the exercises, diligently, every day, and some days you’ll forget or just get so annoyed with it because nothing is happening quickly and you still feel rubbish and wonky and whatever.  But if you stick in there, eventually, progress starts to happen.  Frustratingly slowly often (I should know, I’m currently physio-ing my shoulder and that too is driving me nuts) but if you don’t do anything at all, nothing gets better.

And the fact is that my progress is there – my progress is that I haven’t put weight on despite not being on a specific diet programme anymore, and I’m not yoyo-ing around wildly all over the place.  It doesn’t take much more of a change from there, just one more habit gently nudged out before my weight will drop a bit.  And then another.

And ok – it’s not quite as easy as I thought it would be, but it’s worth fighting for.  I think that I expected that once I understood all my triggers, then they’d just melt away – but maybe it doesn’t work like that.  Maybe I have to sit there and resist the call to eat, and acknowledge the discomfort of whatever I’m feeling for me to break the habit of turning to food.  And so even though, I’m not on a diet there is still some will power involved – the difference is that this time I know why I’m craving food and I’m making a conscious change to my response rather than just trying to resist with blunt force until I cave under the weight of the craving.

Giving up gets me nowhere – there is no option to not try.

Friday Favourites

This might be more of an occasional thing, but I thought it might be nice to do something more cheerful than my usual eating related adventures / doom and gloom.  So here’s what’s been floating my boat this week!

1.       Micro adventures

Last weekend my friend Lynsey and I jumped in the car and decided on the spot where to go.  It ended up being Clevedon which is a little town on the coast near us.  We drove along country lanes in the sun, walked along the sea front and wandered on to the coast path for a while, and then found a cafe for a hot chocolate with marshmallows in the sun.  We do these quite often – pick a place or thing and whoever’s free and just pootle off and see somewhere different.  Sometimes there’s walks, there’s nearly always cute cafes or funky looking restaurants for refreshments.  The best thing is these little breakaways require zero planning and can be whatever we make them, but they’re a fun thing to do on the weekend or sunny evenings.

2.        Work socials

I accepted an invite for this ages ago, and when it rolled round this Wednesday all I wanted to do was hermit in the evening.  Because that’s how I roll at the moment.  Instead, I forced myself to cheer the eff up and go, and whaddaya know?  It’s was FUN.  My work team had a couple of teams entered for a treasure hunt around Bristol (‘s pubs) and it was hilarious.  We charged around the harbourside area of town, trying to find all the clues and collectibles, drinking gin and blatantly cheating by trying to steal answers from other teams whilst protecting our own.  A brilliant use of an evening, even if we were all a bit jaded in the office the following day!

3.       How To Get Away With Murder

On Wednesday of the previous week, my friend Krissy and I had a movie night.  There was pizza, crisps and hummus, wine and all the good things.  We watched Thor because we’re totally basic and Chris Hemsworth is hot, and then there was that awkward dilemma of “we want to watch something else, but we’re old and need to get bed at reasonable times” so we perused Netflix until we came across this.  It’s on both out watch lists, but neither of us had started it yet, so we went for it.  Oh good god.  I was fascinated, and simultaneously not quite sure what was going on ... it’s one of those shows where the main storyline is interspersed with flash-forwards and flash-backs, so you’re never quite seeing the whole time-line in order, but it’s good.  Episode 2 was similarly good this week, so was 3 and I’m looking forwards to the next one when I get 50 mins spare.

4.       EOS lip balm

It’s entirely possible that I’m the last person in the world to try these babies, but apparently Boots are finally selling them and my friends have been raving about them for ages.  I love that the ingredients list is pretty much all natural and lacking entirely in the usual petroleum-based chemicals, and also that it’s cute and round and pink.  I still love my Carmex (also great for sore noses when you have a stinking cold!), but this is all nice and shiny and new.

5.       Bank Holiday weekends

Frankly, who doesn’t love a Bank Holiday??  An extra day off work, the giddy possibility of sun, and barbeques and gin whilst sitting outside!  Bank Holidays are basically as British as British can be.  Whether it’s wise or not, I’m taking a risk and going camping in North Devon this weekend for a bit of surfing and socialising.  Which means it will probably rain non-stop and blow a hoolie, but that’s the good ol’ UK weather for you.  I’ll see you on the other side with tales of drowning in the mud most likely.

6.       Notebooks and getting organised

Organisation is 100% not my strong point.  Not.  At.  All.  

I am sadly, hilariously disorganised; notoriously late for everything (although I personally think that’s a separate issue more related to my hopeless optimism), and frequently guilty of either forgetting things completely or somehow mysteriously committing to multiple things at the same time.  It’s something that stresses me out and makes me feel like less of an adult.  

However, over the last week or so, I’ve taken to carrying a little notebook with me and I feel like it’s changed my life.  I love a list, and write them frequently to try and combat my failure to organise – packing lists, to do lists, etc – but then leave them behind and well .... that doesn’t help.  So my trusty little notebook stays with me all day, on my desk at work, in my handbag and around the flat, and I scribble in it when I think of something.  It has all the lists in one place, and genuinely despite the last week being busy, it’s been mysteriously stress-free.  The car got MOT’d and serviced, the weekend with my schoolfriends got organised, the packing for this weekend got done and in the car before work this morning ... it’s scary how well it’s gone (which secretly feels like I’ve forgotten something blindingly obvious).

Somehow the most simple tactic has changed the game, and I fully like the newly organised me.

7.       Eat Pray Love

I saw the film of this years ago, but never read the book and when I was looking for books to read back when I was off work in December, this was recommended by my flatmate.  It took me until 3 or 4 weeks ago to get through the list of other books to it, but I started reading this on my flight to France at the end of last month and I love it.  I’m being horribly slow with reading at the moment, but I love that it’s part travel guide, part spiritual / religious thesis, part biography and full of charm and self-deprecating humour.  I’m near the end now (got the Kindle packed for this weekend’s downtime!) and don’t really want it to end.

8.       Game Of Thrones 

Series 6 – ahhhhhhhh – you’re so good!  I LOVE GoT, and have been impatiently waiting since last year for the next series and FINALLY watched the first episode on Monday.  Yup – still got it.  Series 6 is going to be ace – I feel it in my bones.

9.       Running with friends

It was so nice to run with the girls on the Downs on Monday night.  Good chats, pretty scenery and the motivation that comes with running in a group.  This might be the thing that helps me fall in love with running again.  We can but hope.  I don’t need to be running any more half marathons or anything, but would love to be able to comfortably run a 5 miler when I fancy it again – that makes me feel strong and invincible, like a normal healthy person.

If you have any recommendations for what you’re loving at the moment – send them my way!  Hope you all have wonderful weekends , whatever you’re up to, and feel fabulously rested by Tuesday.

Self Doubt

Self doubt. According to my book, it’s the root of all dietary evil.

I’ve been pottering along with the not-dieting thing for a while now, but just in the last week or so, I noticed that rather than maintaining effortlessly, I was starting to slip back into old habits. Alarm bells rang, and I thought it was time for a refresh via another reading of my emotional eating resources. The one I’m currently perusing a second time is Shrink Yourself, although I really rate Eat, Guilt, Repent, Repeat as well.

Anyhoo, this book is ace (for me at least), as even on the second or third read of chapters (this is my second full read through, but I’ve dipped into chapters a couple of times since reading it the first time in September), it still makes me go “oh my god, yes, it’s like you’re describing me!”. Which is quite reassuring because if the problems are similar, it gives me some vague hope that the solutions suggested might also work for me.

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning now, and if I ain’t hungry, then I just ain’t bothered about food. Which I think you’ll agree is a very nice thing for someone who’s had to think about her weight, and food consumption, most of her adult life. Other days, well, I still want to eat EVERYTHING, and I just can’t figure out why. There’s no palpable “I’m bored / sad / lonely and therefore hungry” light bulb going on over my head, and therefore I just can’t work out what to do to combat the feeling.

Re-reading the book has highlighted something I had forgotten though – that a lot of time we overeat as a reaction to self-doubt. And as I know very well, self-doubt can come in many forms, on many subjects and from many sources. This weekend for instance, I spent a gorgeous couple of days back in my dad’s home town, seeing a lot of old friends and catching up. It was all very lovely and happy on the surface, and yet I was eating way more than I needed. The minute I re-read the chapter on self-doubt it all pinged into place – I love those friends but they have very different lives to me: they’re all settled into married couples, own houses and are starting families. Whilst that’s not necessarily exactly what I want right now (the thought of having babies anytime soon causes me actual panic), I do somehow feel like I’ve fallen behind and my life is inferior when I’m there and immersed in that environment.

Stepping back and looking at it objectively, the truth is that I don’t own a home yet, at least in part, because I live in a city where house prices are pretty much double my home town’s – so even aside from the time out taken to pay off debts, I would still struggle to get a mortgage on my own. And the friends I have in this city who do own had parental assistance to get started ... I didn’t and that’s not inferiority, just different. I don’t really want kids right now (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever be ready) but my friends at home are in a different phase of their lives and for them it is primary importance ... I’m just soaking up their priorities like they’re my own when I’m home. As for being married ... well, I won’t say that’s something that I wouldn’t like, or at least a decent long-partner, but life just hasn’t been kind enough to put that in my path yet. Does it make me an inferior person to them? Well, it’s easy to interpret it as such (I’m not as lovable, or attractive, etc), but I think that would be doing myself an injustice.

In the moment, immersed deep in the environment of my home town, it’s easy to let self-doubt take over, without even realising it and to numb the discomfort of it with food. Back in my flat, in my normal environment, and taking the time to really look into my emotional eating again, it fades like a bad dream.

Other than the eating, the weekend was glorious – staying with friends catching up on life, and laughing at the hilarious things their little 2 year old girl says, smiling at her wonder at there being snow on the hills on Saturday morning (as she announced to us so happily again and again). Wandering around the top of the hills, celebrating a pregnancy announcement and quietly mourning with another friend over a miscarriage. Shopping with the girls, pub lunches in the sun and gossipy dinners over wine. Friendships like that are food for the soul.

Monday came round so quickly, but it’s traditionally a day of fresh starts - so here’s to starting over, yet again, and kicking those self-doubts into touch.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

As A General Rule

It amazes me how damn good food tastes right now.  Or to be precise, how damn good it is to have variety again – to enjoy all the things I’ve steered clear of for so long, whilst at the same time noticing how bland and blah a lot of other food is.  Those bland and blah foods are a mix of things I’ve been forcing myself to eat for so long because they were easy “low point” options and also foods that I’ve craved because they were “banned” and now I remember that they’re totally not worth it.

I think that I’m slowly getting used to being able to pick freely again, and some of my early food obsessions are starting to lessen now.  Initially, I was obsessed with fruit crumble and custard for instance, and it’s still something I love but I think I’ve got my fill of it now.  What I realise now is it’s worth (or still worth, as I think this was a theme from my diet days) just going for the good stuff.  Good cake over cheap cake.  Good bread.  Good restaurants.  Basically, if you’re going to use your calories (and don’t feel guilty about that!) then use them wisely.  Personally, I never feel guilt for eating an excellent slice of delicious homemade cake.  I definitely feel regret for cheap cake that I could have got anytime.

I read something really nice the other day, from a nutritionist, about the idea of food rules, and in particular having a “general rule”.  Her idea is that rather than saying “I’m giving up coffee”, or “I’m trying not to drink alcohol during the week”, which totally sets one up to fail the minute you deviate from an absolute rule, you say “as a general rule I don’t eat crisps” – which means that if you’re offered something you really like then you can take it without guilt, but you know as a general rule you’d rather eat something a bit healthier.  This, for me, meshes perfectly with the idea of finding balance between looking after yourself and never feeling guilt for what you eat.  It’s something I can sit alongside the healed eating habits I’m aiming for as a mantra for life.

Right now, I’m not there, but I hope I’m getting there.  Slowly.  I baked this week – something I haven’t done for ages for fear of either having cake in the house and eating the lot, or spending a lot of money on something I enjoy but having to give the results away all the time.  Last night I wasn’t particularly hungry so I didn’t bother with dinner and had a cup of tea and a smallish slice of the aforementioned cake instead.  That’s actually huge progress for me, as a few months ago I wouldn’t have even considered not having dinner just because I wasn’t hungry and would likely have had the cake afterwards as well.

It’s a frustratingly slow process to heal all my bad habits, and when you’re in it you can’t see how anything is changing.  But like learning anything, sometimes you look back and can see how far you’ve come, or a particular situation will make you reflect on a specific change you automatically make now, and that encourages you to keep slowly pushing forwards.

As before, my weight hasn’t changed recently – sometimes it goes down a bit, sometimes up a bit, but I’m still  averaging where I was when I left Weightwatchers and stopped dieting. I’m certainly no worse off than I was, and I’m much happier to be maintaining effortlessly whilst not dieting rather than not losing weight whilst actively tying myself in knots on a diet program.  It seems like a bit of a no-brainer really when I put it that way!

Other than that, I've booked to go to Borneo in August with friends exploring (wooooohoooo!), I'm trying to organise a weekend in Budapest to keep me going holiday-wise until then, works kind of tottering along and I really need to get back surfing before I forget which end of the surfboard is which.  Oh yeah - and I cunningly (foolishly) entered myself for THREE races next month - what on earth was I thinking???  So I might be lucky if I'm still alive in August to go on holiday at all!!!

I'm dreaming of beaches like these until then: