You can eat whatever you want!

I remember thinking that about some women, usually prefaced with, 'It's not fair!' I used to think that really slim women somehow managed to be so slim effortlessly and that they had the 'key' to some miracle something that meant they could eat whatever they wanted, all the time, and still remain so slim. I used to find it infuriating when I saw a really slim woman eating an icecream or a chocolate bar - how dare she! How dare she be so slim and still eat all those fattening things!!
And, to some extent, I still catch those thoughts from time to time - my Gremlin is good at hanging on to sticks with which to beat me whenever I let my guard down. It's all your fault (so says my Gremlin) that you're so fat, look at what you eat! Don't think you can get away with eating stuff like that, gloats my Gremlin, and think you can lose weight! If that Gillian McKeith woman put all the food you eat on a table, the nation would be sick and food sales would go into a downward spiral ... everyone would just be DISGUSTED because you are disgusting....
It's poisonous stuff and if I catch the Gremlin at it, I give him what for (what does that expression actually mean?!) and do my very best to rid my mind of those slimy, poisonous, UNTRUE slanders.
And, how do I know what those skinny women eat? I may have seen them eating icecream or a cream cake or a chocolate bar, but what if that was ALL THEY ATE ALL DAY?! I know from my own experience that if I want to eat icecream, cake and/or chocolate, other food has to go out the window - there simply isn't room for it all any more. At one time I would have eaten the icecream, cake and/or chocolate AND my meals and then more icecream, cake and/or chocolate because I was so disgusted with myself. And so it would go on, giving my Gremlin ample sources of sticks to beat me with.
So when Daughter Number 2 said that to me today, I was quite shocked to hear those words I'd so often thought to myself, applied to me ... Daughter Number 2 was being complimentary, rather than envious; she was noticing that I no longer restrict the foods I eat based on some diet or other. She was supporting me as I did my exercises by noticing that I have toned up and am looking pretty good considering my advanced years ;)
I went for an osteoporosis screening yesterday and to my great surprise and relief, I have the bone density of a much younger woman - which means that I'm in little to no danger of osteoporosis in the future - although I will get it checked again after the menopause.

Well, Blogger's been off line for a while so I haven't been blogging.
Several things have happened since then, of course.
I spent all last week having packed lunches instead of eating out as an experiment to see how I would feel about that and how it would impact on my eating.
Actually it was fine. I had lots of salad stuff in the house and made myself a salad for lunch each day (lettuce, grated carrot, radishes, chopped up quorn scotch eggs, grated cheddar, crumbled blue cheese and mayonnaise)and took fruit and yogurt for snacking during the day. Some days I cycled home and did some exercises, other days I did some shopping round the town. One day it was a good job I'd popped home as the stoopid cat got himself shut in the sitting room. By the time I got home, he'd scrapped up the carpet from under the door, so I couldn't open the door to get him out. It took me several minutes to flatten the carpet enough to slide the door over it so the cat could get out. He was fine, but the carpet is rather wrecked. OH had to tack it down to the floorboards ...
Daughter Number Two is about to start her GCSE exams but seems pretty calm about it. I'm sitting my AS level Classical Civilisation exam tomorrow (1st of 2) and am not yet feeling nervous about it, but I know I haven't done as much work for it as I could have done, but life has kept throwing other things at me that have taken up my time and energy. It's a reason, not an excuse - but I will see how I do tomorrow. I'd like to feel confident answering the questions and not make a fool of myself.

You may have noticed the last 2 blogs are very similar ... the first one didn't disappear as I'd thought ... oh well. I live and learn.
We made the banana cake but left out the peanut butter from the recipe, which made the cake rather dry - a colleague suggested we should have put more butter in to compensate for the loss of the moisture provided by the peanut butter, and I suspect she was right. I quite like dry cake, so it was fine by me.
Last night Daughter Number Two wanted to make brownies - I have THE best brownie recipe - they end up gooey, chewy, very very chocolatey and really delish. I've got one to have with my cup of tea in a moment.
I've got quite a bit coming up and will have to keep my eye on the ball - two plays I wrote are to be performed, one 'live' and one on the radio - I'll have some input into the radio one and will be meeting the director shortly.
I'm about to start marking GCSE exams and I'm working full-time for the first time since I started the marking - it will be a juggling act to fit it all in.
Onwards and upwards.

Various Things

Bugger! I just typed a long blog and it disappeared! AHG!

Various things going on - I just finished a book about Catalhoyuk, the Neolithic site in Turkey - somehow I've completely missed out on this amazing place - I only found out about it by reading Bill Bryson's book about the home - Catalhoyuk was a very early village where the 'homes' were quite different in some fascinating ways to the homes we are used to. For one thing, they had no doors, so the villagers seem to have accessed their houses via the roof! They had no streets, so everyone would have had to cross all the roofs to reach their own house. Most strange and not repeated anywhere else - other Neolithic villages had quite obvious streets between the houses.

I want to read more about this fascinating place.

Other things going on - the elections, the first referendum I've voted in (as far as I can remember, anyway), the cats have caught 3 baby birdies so far this season :(

I shall be making banana bread for tea - request of Daughter Number Two.

And I'm shortly off to exercise - kettlebells and stretches. Stretches are most important as I discovered just after Christmas when I had a full body massage and it was AGONY! The masseuse said I needed to stretch the muscles as the kettlebells were tightening them up and they were staying tight .... I had been stretching before, but had lapsed because it adds another 10 minutes on to my exercise time, but I've just got to do it, find those 10 minutes.

And then there's the weather - the perennial English obsession, but how much longer can this very early summer last? All my summer clothes are in the roof and I am wondering if I should get them out and put away all my winter clothes? I can't keep wearing the same very things over and over again when there's a box-full of clothes I could be wearing, stuck up in the roof. Well, that's something else for today, then!

Hasta luego.

So, lots of things happening - the local elections, the first referendum I've ever voted for, the continuing dry, hot, sunny weather ... the fact that I messed up at work on Friday and that I cycled 10 miles (5 each way) to a wine tasting that evening and somehow forgot all about it ;)
The cats have caught 3 baby birdies now; two died before I could rescue them and the third wasn't claimed by its parents so I let it go on the local common. It won't survive, but it's better for it to die quietly than be mauled to death by a predator. Poor little things. I actually shut the cats in the house all morning on Friday to give the baby bird a chance to get away; by the time I came home at lunchtime, the bird had vanished and the cats were desperate to get out into the garden. I let them out and within 5 minutes they'd found the baby bird again ... it hadn't gone, it was just hiding, so I rescued it again and let it go on the common land.
This is the one thing I don't like about cats. My two are very sweet natured, cuddly, put up with no end of mauling and carrying around, they come running to meet us when we come home and follow us down the road if we go out on foot. But they are monsters when it comes to baby birdies.
Anyway, tis exercise time - kettlebells and stretches - I was doing the kettlebells without the stretches, but my muscles were getting so tight that when I had a whole body massage just after Christmas, it was AGONY! The masseuse said I needed to stretch after exercise, so I started up again. I'd given it up because it added another 10 mins on to my exercise time, which may not sound like much, but it made quite a difference to how long I needed to set aside for exercising.

Various things that are bothering me at the moment

Quite a lot of things are rattling round my brain so if I 'spill' them here, maybe they'll stop rattling and feel they've been dealt with ...
Thing 1: I would LOVE to go to Aus and visit my oldest friend ... how can I achieve this? Financially I can do it, but time-wise it's tricky for a number of reasons.
Thing 2: I'm aware that time is running out - I'm running a Beyond Chocolate Get Started course in 2 Saturday's time and I've only just got the Protocol and the formatting is so weird that I'm having to re-type it.
Thing 3: Him Indoors has recently been bereaved and is not coping well with having to clear the house.
Thing 4: Number Two Daughter (NTD)is about to leave school and is unhappy about having to face the hysteria of the final few days ...
Thing 5: I find work frustrating but it is improving - it's a small office and I do wonder how long I can dissumulate.
Thing 6: I am about to start marking GCSE exam I've been marking for a while, but I lack confidence in my ability and every year worry about it terribly.
Thing 7: I'm about to sit my AS level in Ancient History and I really haven't done very much work for it at all ... I do want to get a good mark.
I don't expect solutions for this, but it may help to get it out of my head and onto my blog.

Something happened over this last Bank Holiday weekend which helped me to realise quite how far I’ve come since I started working on my relationship with food and my body with Beyond Chocolate. I spent the weekend in London; I went to The Globe with my parents and saw ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’, which was excellent. I went to visit my sister and small nephew and niece. Then, exhausted, I made my way to the hotel I’d booked for the night. (In case you were wondering, my parents were staying with my sister, and I decided one more would be too many).
When I arrived at the hotel, the receptionist was unwelcoming and uninformative, but I have stayed in many a hotel in my time and thought I’d find all the information I needed in my room. Unfortunately, this hotel wasn’t as organised as some of the others I’ve stayed in ... there was a room service menu, but no indication of which number to ring to access it. So I rang Reception – answer machine. I rang the Concierge – answer machine. I left a message on both to ring me back – no-one did.
Room service ended at 9pm, so at that point I decided to give up and eat the complementary fruit and biscuits and drink the complementary soft drinks and tea. It was perfectly sufficient. I don’t think you can possibly understand how significant those words are. I wasn’t able to access any food so I ate fruit and biscuits and it was fine. I’m still not sure I’m getting my point across here – maybe I can’t in cold print, maybe you’d need to see the incredulity on my face and the incredulous body language.
You see, I am the sort of person that would worry in advance about the provision and availability of food during any outing. The sort of person who would go into every cafe possible and would never pass a fast food outlet or newsagent without stocking up in case of future famine. The sort of person who would eat at cafes because they were there rather than because I was actually hungry. The sort of person who would have rushed out of the hotel to find a restaurant, even though (with hindsight) I wasn’t actually very hungry.
And that, I think, was the key this time. In the past I would have eaten an evening meal by hook or by crook, but now I am happier to go with the flow and, on occasion, eat what’s available and be all right with that. It’s a huge step forward for me. I feel good!