Where have I been?

Yep, I guess you've been wondering where I've been? Yip, so have I. But I tell you what that spaceship was really wacko. I reckon if I replicate some of the interior I could easily make a killing at the next Ideal Homes Exhibition. Cos let's face it some people have more money than sense don't they? I mean who'd want a toaster shaped liked a bidet?

Yeah, alright I was telling untruths again. It's a bad habit. I wasn't captured by aliens. Although, to be honest being fed and watered and not having to do the the housework really appeals. I could put up with prodding and an intelligence test in exchange for a nice room and decent spread once a day.

On second thoughts...I suppose it might be false representation if I pretended I was a typical example of  life on planet earth. I mean, I have two legs and two arms but brain-wise there's not a lot going on upstairs at times. Know what I mean? Still, I guess if aliens took a look at me and thought that they could invade us easily (not knowing we've got some real brainboxes like Stephen Hawking) we should be able to surprise them with our nukes.

Sounds like a script for a Hollywood blockbuster. Maybe I could get the lead role? I can see it now; Earth is about to be attacked so we must convince the aliens that we are a harmless race of morons so President Obama  recruits The Housewife Extrordinaire........

Yeah, so I've been busy. Doing stuff far too tedious to tell you all. I'm still on my diet but failing a bit on the exercise - my excuse is the weather. I look out the window and see the wind and the rain and think to myself Do I want to go walking in this weather?

 Answer: No.

Hmm... I  know I could exercise in the home but it's not so easy at home is it? Not when there's always all the other stuff to do around the house which seems to take priority. Anyway, I'm still losing weight - I'm up to 9lbs which is not as good as I'd hoped but bearing in mind the lack of exercise I can't complain. I've still a few days left so if I can find the time I will up the tempo. (No chance.)

Yep, so things have been kind of busy lately. I know this because when I get busy I start to make even more mistakes than usual. (So that's a lot then obviously.) Take this for example ;

Friday afternoon I pick the boys up for school so we can rush off to tennis. They're approaching the car just as I'm getting back from a quick dash to the nearby store. I open the car, get in and wait.....

Jacob (opening the car door): Umm....Mum?

Mrs T: Yes?

Jacob: Why are you sitting in the passenger seat?

Mrs T looks around her in bewilderment.

Mrs T: Um... ( reality dawning  )...um... I'm driving aren't I?

Jacob: Yes. Unless you want me to have a go?

Mrs T gets out of passenger seat and goes round to the driver's seat.

Mrs T:  I'll pass on that offer Master Jacob.

Mrs T sighs and puts car in gear.

Mrs T:  Right,  let's go! The tennis centre here we come!

Benedict (whispering to Master Jacob):  Do you think we'll get there alive?

Okay, well I think that little story illustrates my current mental state. I have another very busy week and then things should be calming down so expect to hear from me then. Hurrah! ( Or not as the case may be!)

How do you gauge getting old?

So just how do you gauge when you're getting old?

Is it how many wrinkles you've got?

Is it when you get more aches and pains than you get birthday cards?

Is it when you have more dead friends than alive ones?

Is it when the doctor says There's nothing I can do. You'll just have to put up with it ?

Is it when your children ask you where do you keep your will?

Is it when you consider buying a Skoda because it's economical?

Is it when you go out to buy an evening dress and come back with thermal long johns?

Is it when you watch The Antiques Roadshow and realise you are actually older than most of the so called "antiques" on display?

Is it when you request a book at the library and the assistant directs you to the large print section?

Is it when you stop saying You'd never catch me dead wearing that and start saying That looks comfortable ?

No Dear Readers it is none of these. It is the middle of the night. I have insomnia exacerbated by a bad cold. I just switched on the PC to read the news and I have had the defining moment. I read the following headline:

Irish Actor Confirmed for Arnie Remake

Yes, that's right. They are going to make a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall.

That's it. I'm officially old.

Bugger.

Teenage Sons, Insomnia and Day 5 of the Weight Loss Challenge.

Huh. I was going great guns with the diet and then on Day 5 I lost no weight. Nothing. Not even a flicker of movement on the Wii scales.

So I did only do 45 mins exercise instead of the 60 minutes BUT I should have lost at least half a stone through the worry of having a teenage son. Seems only fair doesn't it?

Yep, so late afternoon on Thursday Young Sam springs it on me he needs a lift to the local big town for a pub crawl. The journey there and back is the best part of an hour and en route we discuss how he is to get safely home. He proposes to catch the last train back with his mates just after 12pm and then two of them will share a taxi home. I say I will wait up till 12ish in case there is a problem with the train and then I will go to bed. The proviso is he is to ring me if there is a transportation problem as being a light sleeper/insomniac I am most likely to wake up at the sound of the telephone ringing or I'll be awake anyway.

So we get to town. I pull in and wait for him to send me a text that all is well and I can leave.

Note - AT THIS STAGE HIS PHONE IS WORKING.

So while I am waiting my eyes fall upon a crumpled bag of sweets one of the boys has left in one of the compartments. I am mesmerized by its pink and white stripes. I focus on the music playing, on the people in the wine bars, but all the time I am consciously aware of this bag of sweets which seems to have the allure of George Clooney clothed in a jock strap which is a size too small......

Oh God. It's so tempting. Delicious, yummy forbidden sweets are in the bag...What am I do? Just me and a little itsy packet of sweeties. Together. Alone.

I can't resist. Game over.

I reach over and take a peak..... A heavenly aroma ascends my nostrils.... sweet, sugary, forbidden goodies...

Okay, so the strawberry bon bon had passed its best. 3 weeks left in the car being constantly frozen and defrosted in our present weather had kind of affected it but it still tasted pretty darn good. As did those couple of other unidentifiably manky sweets.....

Mmmmmmmmmmm...

Fortunately, Sam's text arrived before I got stuck into one of those reels of sugary chewy laces. It had sort of melted and reformed but we were still going to have a real good conversation....

Anyway, so I get home. I wait up. 12 o'clock comes and goes. I amuse myself by watching Al Murray; (Not for those easily offended!)



And then England winning The Ashes...



There is still no sign of Sam. One o'clock comes and goes. I doze a bit. When I wake up it's 1.50pm. Oh dear, he should be home. What if he's frozen, lying in a ditch somewhere?

I send a text. No reply.

I try not to panic. Sam's a sensible lad. But, nevertheless, I have visions of him in danger. At 2.20 I ring his phone - perhaps he's gone to a nightclub and didn't hear the text.

Again, no reply.

It's 2 .40. I go upstairs and open up my PC. I can look up the early morning trains and find out when he might be back.

Suddenly, I hear a car pull up outside. I look out the window - it's a taxi. He's home. I start to shut down the PC when I hear a gentle tap on the door. Hmm... why doesn't he let himself in?

I go downstairs and let him in. He's sober and happy and has a good time with his friends. He even has a tray of yummy looking chips and onion rings.

"Where's your key?"

"Oh, I forgot it."

"I tried phoning you."

"Oh." (Pulls phone from pocket.) "The battery's dead."

There's noting like being prepared for all eventualities is there? Anyway, there wasn't much else for me to say but;

"GIVE ME YOUR CHIPS!"

 I tell you what they were darn good chips too. Nice and fresh. With tomato sauce. Yummy.

So Sam and I tiptoe upstairs. We stop on the upstairs landing for a moment.

"Listen," I say, tilting my head to one side. A huge roar suddenly erupts. "That's your father snoring. See what I have to put up with."

Sam grins. I put cotton wool in my ears. We go to bed.

So Day Five was a dieting disaster. I worked hard yesterday on Day 6 - weigh in is in about 4 hours. But for the moment it's back to bed and pray for sleep.

Weight Loss Challenge Day 4 and a grumpy Mrs T in London

So the boys and I made it into London yesterday to see The Lion King which turned out to be a fantastic production. My boys were totally mesmerized - which is more than I can say for the young lad next to me who spent the entire time scoffing sweets, drinking fizzy pop and worse - breaking wind constantly after the interval. I tell you, I thought Young Sam's underpants were a deadly weapon but by the time that lad grows into a adult he is going to find it seriously hard to find a girlfriend. Yep, as soon as he goes out on his first date it'll be over cos no woman can take that kind of nasal assault for more than a minute. And as for kid behind me who kept kicking my chair.....

 Hmmm.

And the tourists who kept talking...

Arggggghhhh....

What is it with these people? Why pay a serious amount of money to go for a wondeful experience and then spend the entire time talking, eating and being a general nuisance to everyone around them?  I managed to put up with the kicking of the seat for about 10 mins and was just about to throttle the child when he stopped - hopefully his mother pointed out that what he was doing was rather naughty - although I'm inclined to think he just wore himself out as I would have noticed my boys doing that kind of thing immediately.

We British are a funny lot though. We put up with things that other nationalities just simply wouldn't tolerate. It's that stiff upper lip mentality, particularly amongst the middle classes. Anyway, although there were people sitting closer to the tourists in the end I could stand the chatting no more so I turned around and made that universal gesture....

No, no. Not that universal gesture. The other one - fingers raised to the lips meaning "Be Quiet."

Although (cough, cough) when I was raising my finger I was thinking of the other gesture.......

Anyway, so yesterday I completed day 4 of my weight loss challenge and lost another pound. So that brings my total to 6lbs in 4 days. I'm pretty pleased as yesterday I did no exercise- although any trip to London requires a good deal of walking. And just to keep the heart pumping the boys and I walked up the 193 steps at Convent Garden tube station. Well, the boys walked... I moaned....

Mrs T: Oh My God ..How many more steps? Surely, surely, there can't be any more... 

Master Jacob:  Just another few flights.

Mrs T: Give me water......... I'm dying.......

Master Ben: But this was your idea Mummy.

Mrs T: Never listen to me again!

Master Ben (slyly) : Okay

Mrs T: Oh My God, I'm cramping!  Give me water! Help!

Master Ben: Sorry, I can't hear you.

Mrs T: Just remember it's your birthday tomorrow, Sonny Jim.

Master Ben: Oh...... I don't have any water Mummy. But you can have my fizzy pop and the sweets that I was going to annoy people with at the theatre. Will that do?
___________________________________________

You Know, you just can't win when you have kids. Although I admit - I do try really, really hard.

Evil laugh

The Weight Loss Challenge Day Three

Right, so after 3 full days on the diet I am 5lbs lighter. And I haven't even cut off my toenails yet - how good is that?!

I'm also suffering from no side effects like headaches, tiredness and queasiness as so often happens when starting a new dieting regime. In fact, I feel more awake than usual which is bizarre as I've added a hour of exercise each day which I haven't done on a regular basis since the clocks went back in October. I ought to be completely knackered  but I'm not -although irritatingly my insomnia has returned with a vengeance these past three nights and I've barely slept a wink. Now it could be my metabolism speeding up again and taking a few days to settle down or it could be I'm going to descend into another few months of the eternal sleepless hell. At the moment, I don't feel particularly tired so I'm coping well without the rest but that could change at any moment and by next week I could be wiggling my ears, talking gibberish and marching to school with my pots and pans spouting diatribe about the state of education. Okay, I do that anyway but sometimes without any sleep I can go off the rails a bit more than usual....

Anyway, talking of pots and pans Mr T has been eyeing up saucepans whilst on his vacations. In particular, he has expressed an interest in the non stick variety with durable silicon handles. Ha! There is no pan immune to the cooking disabilities of Mrs T! So let Mr T spend his money on pans: I will be spending my cash on some nice undies. (The ones with the lock and key obviously.)

Here's one I burnt earlier - well about 6 weeks ago. I'm still working on chipping off the charred remains of a white sauce. When I get a moment I'll go to that thing called "The Shed" and find the steel wool. This is a stainless steel saucepan - they burn nicely but you can still save them - no can do with that stuff they call non-stick and nobody can convince me otherwise!

Well tomorrow is young Master Ben's 10th birthday and the day he returns to school. He always misses out with a birthday so near to Christmas so later today I am taking the boys into London for a special treat - we are going to see The Lion King in the West End. It's a while since I've been to West End for a stage production so I'm really quite excited - I just hope I'm not overcome by sleep deprivation by then and nod off during the performance! I think The Lion King is one of my favourite, if not my very favourite, Disney film and although I'm not a huge fan of Jeremy Irons I think he articulates the part of Scar brilliantly. Here's one of my favourite clips;



I just love that line; "It's clear from your vacant expressions, the lights aren't all on upstairs."

Wonderful!

Mrs T's Weight Loss Challenge

Firstly, belated Christmas Greetings and my very best wishes for a Healthy and Happy New Year to you all.

So you want the good news or the bad news first?

Okay, so bad news is more interesting, so let's get that done with first...

Over Christmas I had a tummy bug. I'll try to put this diplomatically without offending those of you with delicate sensibilities....well you know the post I wrote here about being caught short. Well it was kinda like that - only on Christmas Day and I was just about to sit down for my roast turkey!

Now it could have been worse - I could have got the squits AND run out of loo roll. But I didn't. Hoorah!

Anyway, do you want some more bad news?

Yesterday, I started yet another diet. Groan. However, being the eternal optimist hopefully I will have more success than my Hot Dish Diet and my Mad Axeman Diet.

Yes, that's means Dear Readers you will be subjected to hideous accounts of my periodic starvation followed by even more hideous accounts of my self indulgent gorging. However, the good news is this diet will only last precisely 26 days as later in the month I am off for a family wedding - which is why I need to shift the excess pounds. Now my goal is 14lb. That's a stone or about 6.35kilos (for those of you under 40 who have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Now my first weigh-in was yesterday morning. I expected bad news and boy did I get it. I know, I know, I should have weighed less having had the runs but I encountered a small problem - or 6 - as the boys got 6 tins of chocolates between them for Christmas - and naturally I had to eat all the chocolates they didn't like- except the strawberry and orange creams which I shall be donating to the Women's Institute. I might even decorate a bra with them in the upcoming W I "Decorate a Bra Competition."  (I'm not kidding folks there really is such a competition - and believe me I have some seriously good ideas which I may inflict on you in due course. By the way, just in case you are concerned, I will not be posting pictures of myself in a bra decorated with applique patches of Daniel Craig.)

Now I can hear some of you folks out there saying 14lbs in 26 days is a totally unrealistic and unnatural target and to do that Mrs T would have to become bulimic. Now let me say that there is absolutely no chance of me sticking my fingers down my throat - I mean why would you when you can use a spoon? No seriously, I just like to set myself big targets. There's psychology involved in this - which I could explain but basically it would be far too long winded and boring so let's just say I'm nuts and let's see how it goes.

Okay for anyone whose interested I will be following the basic principles of the Dukan diet. I will, however, be upping the recommended exercise margin.

Right, I weighed in today, after just 1 day and I'm already 2lbs lighter. Onwards and upwards!

If any of you folks want to join me on this masochistic diet or perhaps share diet tips or dieting successes and failures with me then please do!