My walks with George these days cover maybe a quarter of the distance they used to but take roughly the same length of time giving me plenty of opportunity to choose and eat the finest blackberries.
A couple of weeks ago the blackberries on the tip looked parched and hard; today, following the rain they're big, fat, juicy and sweet. And there are loads of them. But I didn't collect any. If I do I'll have to make crumble and I'll have to eat it - with cream or custard - and I'm supposed to be dieting. (The emphasis being on the word 'supposed' as I had ice cream in Verdi's for lunch today.)
But, I thought, I could post a photo on FaceBook and tell my friend, Maggi, where to find them as she makes blackberry wine every year. Then I remembered she's not on FaceBook. She's not on the internet at all and doesn't use a computer. She's one of those people who 'makes do' with real friends.
She's lived in the village and worked in the local chemist all of her life and she knows everyone and everyone knows her. She chats to everyone and has a smile and a kind word too. She's the happiest person I know, always game with a laugh and smile. (She went skinny dipping on her own at 1.00 am the other week and someone alerted the police, who turned up in force and asked her to come out of the water. She couldn't stop laughing.) She's genuine and while she doesn't have a big house or lots of money she's very rich in love and friendships.
But I can show you my blackberries.
A lovely weekend in Surrey with Elder Son and his family. Good weather - but not as good as in Swansea and that is very unusual! - great barbecue and wonderful grandchildren.
Now I don't know if the mirror in the hotel was one of those funny ones - that's what I'm hoping - but I felt hideously fat. Now I know I'm not actually hideously fat but I feel much better when I weigh about a stone less than at present so today I signed up for a Rosemary Conley online slimming course!
I did RC classes a few years ago and was successful at losing weight but they weren't online, we had a brilliant and fun teacher in Cherie, and included an exercise session, so I don't know how well I'll do with this. It's mainly the incentive value: I've paid for the quarter so I should jolly well make sure I lose weight.
Hence my shopping list for Sainsburys this morning included very low fat cheese spread, very low fat sausages and two packets of Mug Shots. Even as I'm taking them off the shelf I'm thinking, 'These are going to be horrible,' but I'm not very good at lunches. I like something quick and there are only so many days you can eat ryvita. And they contain less than 2% fat. In fact they probably contain very little of any substance or worth but I'll let you know what they taste like when I've sampled them.
Oh, that's a good idea: I'll copy and paste this writing into my Middle-aged, fat and frumpy blog.
And I've not blogged. I'd like to say it's because I lead such an exciting life but in truth nothing exciting's happened.
Let's think. Monday work. On the plus side I didn't get locked out, find ants in my tea-pot or break anything. And I didn't die during one of the hardest circuits we've endured for a long time, not helped by the fact that there were only three of us so it was practically personal training. When I first started going along we'd do an exercise for maybe 40 seconds - actually I think it was 30 in the very beginning - followed by a breather of 15 seconds; now we do 1.5 minutes with no breather.
Tuesday, great start, discovering I'd lost 2.5 lb. I'd had a good week and am trying to get my weight - or more particularly my eating - under control again. Exercise, after weigh-in and the motivational chat, was almost as hard-going as the previous night, made worse by the heat and the speed and the fact that I was already aching.
Leading the study in Zac's so went home after slimming and made a Black Forest gateau (a birthday cake for Nigel) and finished preparing the study. (Yes, I do prepare, unbelievable as that may seem to people who attend.)
For once it was a quiet and small group, and the study went well. It was an easier topic - what sort of fruit are we producing?- than we've been dealing with recently (love your enemies and not being judgemental) and I wanted it to be very affirming, which I think it was - until ... there always has to be an until in Zac's.
One gentleman - no, man - decided it would be appropriate to give something that should have remained private a public airing. I couldn't make myself heard over the resulting rumpus to bring it to a halt until Kay yelled at everyone to shut up. He scuttled off at the end and, apparently, still seems to think that he did us a service. Afterwards it was a shame that discussion of the rumpus replaced what should have been more encouragement and affirmation leaving a slightly sour taste. Even the deliciousness of the cake didn't altogether wipe out the memory.
Wednesday and Thursday in Devon looking after grandchildren. Thursday morning GrandDaughter goes to pre-school so we take Grandson2 to singing at the library. Nowhere is the difference between boys and girls - at least in our family - more noticeable. GrandDaughter would sit, join in the action songs, look at books; GrandSon2 wanders around, stares at people, escapes while looking at me with a naughty smile on his face. 'Look what I'm doing! Are you going to chase me?'
Then it was swimming in the afternoon. I don't know how well the children slept that night but Husband and I were out for the count.
Work on Friday then today a start on all the cleaning I put off while the sun shone with just a short break to listen to the Lions rugby game. Oh and blog.
See? Busy, fun, enjoyable, but not exciting. In fact the most exciting thing was when I thought George had eaten the chopped chillies I'd left out in the kitchen. Sadly - because it might have taught him a lesson - he left those and instead ate the mound of grated raw courgette I'd prepared for my crab and courgette linguine. I despair of my dog.
Last week Husband and I set targets to lose 5 and 4 pounds respectively before we go to Italy in September for the wedding.
This morning's weigh-in showed me to be on target losing 1 pound; Husband lost 3.4 pounds. (I told him he has more to lose than I do.) He has raised his target to 7 pounds.
At slimming class the scales claimed I'd only lost .5 pound.
I hate pretty much everyone this morning.
I'm plucking up my courage and going back to slimming class this morning.
My weight has gradually been creeping up so I need to get a grip before there's too much to grip! I want to lose about half a stone - again - and I've concluded I can't do it without the incentive/threat of a weekly public weigh-in.
The class is fun actually, combining a short informative chat with exercise, and it's only because it's been such a long time since I last went that I face it with such dread. We usually do Riverdance around St. Patrick's day and I love that!
Then it's back to make my diabetic cake-making.
