I don’t know about you, but when it is cold I crave comfort foods.  All the old favourites that normally I would never think twice about.  Of course, when it is hot, I crave ice cream, but that’s another story!

I have to stay strong, and when the family (all very slim) eats that hot pudding with lashings of custard tonight, I will be eating my apple.  I’ve found cutting it into slices makes it last a lot longer, but I still crave the naughty stuff.

Oh, I’m not the only overweight one in the family. The wee cat we adopted late last year, isn’t so wee after all.  We were told she should lose it when she got all the exercise of living in a house with a garden, but in fact, she’s actually gained a bit of weight.  She prefers to lie around on kitchen floor which has underfloor heating or laze by a radiator in the sun.  Can’t say I blame her, but she is too heavy and needs to slim down.  Apparently she should weigh 4kgs and she is 5.2kg (about 11lbs).

Here she is on Christmas Day. She’s on a light diet food and we’re running up and down the stairs like lunatics and around the house with her chasing a feather on a string.  Hopefully both cat and I will be slimmer soon.

I haven’t been online for a while, and thought I better give up an update.  I haven’t been as good as I should have been.  It’s been hectic, but that is not an excuse.  I look at Nancy’s blog and progress and I although I feel bad I haven’t done as well, I see her as a great inspiration.  She started higher and is almost at goal.  There are so many success stories on here, I realise anyone can do it if they believe in themselves enough.

Okay, time to get on my bike and get work on those flabby bits.   I am a wee pig at times with my trotters and snout in the trough, eating more than I need.  I really have no excuse.  I am not force fed, I am in control of the grocery shopping, I have plenty of time to fit it in exercise, so I need a kick up the backside to keep me on track.

 Juliette

To explain to my US buddies, we don’t really celebrate Hallowe’en (apart from a few retailers who try and push some tat onto the gullible) so this is our night for standing about outside freezing our bits off remembering someone’s ill-fated attempt to blow up the houses of parliament over 400 years ago.

Actually, the tradition is to have a bonfire and burn a guy (an effigy of Guy Fawkes which is a straw filled scarecrow), and let off fireworks.  Often this is done by a whole village, or a school or community, but sometimes it is just a group of neighbours, friends and family.  Village celebrations are the best, with torch parades, costumes, prizes for children, and of course the bonfire, fireworks and traditional bonfire night food.  It’s great fun.

Loud bangers/crackers and jumping jacks from my childhood are no longer sold which is much better for the pet population, but we still have all the old favourites - sparklers for writing our names in the air, sky rockets, catherine wheels, fountains/cakes and barrages of sparkling colour.  It brings out the kid in all of us, especially grown men.

Sausages/bangers (link sausages) usually slightly charred, cinder roasted potatoes, hot soup, marshmallows toasted over the fire, parkin, cinder toffee, treacle toffee, toffee apples (candy apples), hot cider, hot chocolate, beer and all manner of goodies warm us up from the inside.

 So light the blue touch paper and stand well back to enjoy.

Click on the link if  you want to know more about our Guy Fawkes traditions

http://www.geocities.com/traditions_uk/bonfire.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_4524985_celebrate-guy-fawkes-night-uk.html

I know it is celebrated in other parts other commonwealth countries, so, if you are never experienced it yourself, why not start today.  After Christmas, it’s the best thing on our celebratory calendar for fun and good times.

I still haven’t got new batteries for the scales, so I have no idea how much I weigh. I don’t know whether I am up or down, but guess I could be a pound or two up.  Hopefully no more than that.  I need to get back on track. 

There’s no excuse, but my head has been a bit of a stressed zone lately. I had two families staying with me for the past couple of weeks. They each had a child at the hospice. One family went into a family room at the hospice last Monday when it became free. Their child died a few hours later and the other family lost their child on Wednesday, while they were still with me.  It’s very, very sad and a total waste of young lives, and devastating for the parents.  I know that you never get over the death of a child, regardless of what people say.  It just seems so unfair, and these are the things that make me a humanist. 

My husband has been in the middle east and finally got back to the RAF base on Friday and had to immediately go to Africa.  If you follow the news, you will be aware of the crisis  regarding Congo.  He was on British soil for only a few hours. I dropped everything and went up but I only saw him for 35 minutes. My son, who goes to University not that far away from the base, cadged a ride from a friend and came down, and saw him for a little longer.  He was really disappointed as well, especially as he they are very close and are great mates. My children are actually my husband’s step children but they treat him just like a dad, with all that entails!  I know it is selfish of me to be worrying about my husband being away and that he couldn’t watch my son play rugby yesterday.  It seems so trivial when other parents have lost their children and will never, see them again, let alone do all the family things we can do, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.  I put on a bright face for my husband and children, but inside I am just crumbling. I need to get out of this funk.  I was making oatmeal cookies at 02:00 hrs this morning, and ate four before I went to bed. I don’t really enjoy them at times like this.  It’s almost like a compulsion to consume something sweet. 

The builders are coming back this week. I wish everything was sorted out but we need this work done, so I’ll just have to put up with the mess and disruption again. 

It’s been bitterly cold and looks like rain for much for the week, including bonfire night/Guy Fawkes day on Wednesday.  This is the date on which we set off the fireworks here.  We have a big bonfire with neighbours, eat hot sausages (link sausages), and jacket potatoes cooked in the embers. Also toffee,  toffee apples (candy apples) cinder toffee and parkin!  Not great for the waistline, but I we will also grill corn on the cob and courgettes (zucchini) on the barbie.  Yum yum.

I fly in and out of Heathrow all the time.

Plane passengers shocked by their x-ray scans

AN X-RAY machine that sees through air passengers’ clothes has been deployed by security staff at London’s Heathrow airport for the first time.

to not show photographer information –> to not show image description –> to not show enlarge option –>

From the article, it seems that these haven’t been deployed in the US yet, but we haven’t been so lucky.  It is probably in more airports than we realise; it just isn’t public knowledge. Here’s the article in the Times.

The device at Terminal 4 produces a “naked” image of passengers by bouncing X-rays off their skin, enabling staff instantly to spot any hidden weapons or explosives.

But the graphic nature of the black and white images it generates — including revealing outlines of men and women — has raised concerns about privacy both among travellers and aviation authorities.

In America, transport officials are refusing to deploy the device until it can be further refined to “mask” passengers’ modesty.

The Terminal 4 trial — being conducted jointly by the British Airports Authority and the Department for Transport — became fully operational last month and is intended to run until the end of the year. Its deployment has not been reported until now since new security measures at airports are not normally publicised.

If the new body scanner is able to cope with large volumes of passengers, improves detection rates and, crucially, receives public acceptance, it is likely to be rolled out across all Britain’s airports.

At Heathrow, passengers are picked to go through the body scanner on a random and voluntary basis. Those who refuse are subjected to an automatic hand search.

The scanner, which resembles a tall, grey filing cabinet, operates in a curtained area and passengers are asked to stand in front of it, adopting several poses, for their “naked” image to be registered. Once checked, the images are immediately erased.

Security officials claim it is a far more effective way of countering potential terrorists because it detects the outline of any solid object — such as plastic explosives or ceramic knives — which conventional metal detectors would miss.

Managers at Heathrow also say the new technology does away with the need to subject passengers to potentially intrusive hand searches. However, travellers who have been screened — and have asked to see the images — have been surprised by their clarity.

“I was quite shocked by what I saw,” said Gary Cook, 40, a graphic designer from Shaftesbury, Dorset. “I felt a bit embarrassed looking at the image.

A female passenger, who did not want to be named, said: “It was really horrible. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination because you’re virtually naked, but I guess it’s less intrusive than being hand searched.”

In a similar trial at Orlando international airport in Florida in 2002, passengers were shown a dummy image before going through, and at least a quarter of them refused to volunteer.

In America last year, Susan Hallowell, director of the US Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) security laboratory, showed off her own x-ray image to demonstrate the technology to reporters.

“It basically makes you look fat and naked, but you see all this stuff,” said Hallowell, who had deliberately hidden a gun and a bomb under her clothes.

The TSA has decided not to deploy the device at American airports until manufacturers can develop an electronic means of masking sensitive body parts.

I’m finding it hard to keep on track this week.  My eating is all over the place.  I even ate some sweets yesterday.  I fell off the cheese wagon as well. I forgot I wasn’t even supposed to be eating it.  I had a pact with Rachel to not eat cheese again before Christmas and by week two I totally forgot all about it.   Normally when my husband goes away, I work because that takes my mind off it.  I can’t this time because I have a full house.  I feel physically sick every time he goes, and usually with little or no advance warning, and, because it is classified. Often he can’t tell me where he has gone until he is there or home again, and usually I don’t know how long he will be gone, but I’ve got a pretty good idea now by following BBC news and the Internet.  I don’t breathe easy or sleep properly again until he touches down again on British soil, and often at an RAF base miles away.  

This is something I have always kept to myself and only my closest female friend knows.  We’ve known each other practically all our lives, so she is the one person I talk to about it because sometimes it’s almost impossible to bear alone.  Somehow it feels easier to write how I really feel on BuddySlim because that is the one place my friends and family would never look. I’m always totally supportive of my husband, and I don’t want him to be distracted or worrying about me and the children. 

I know this is his job, but it doesn’t make it any easier knowing he will be in one of the world’s hotspots because the situation has escalated. 

I also have a full house this week. I am a trustee for two hospices, one of which is a children’s hospice. Normally these take people from the local area, but sometimes we need to provide support for hospices in other areas who are over capacity.  If they can, they do the same for us, so it works out pretty well.  It doesn’t have enough family rooms for people to stay there, and when a family or parents from further afield want to come to be near their child, the cost of accommodation can be crippling.  So, like others, we are happy to open our house on those occasions where extra accommodation is needed.  I hadn’t had anyone for a few weeks, and this week I have two. One is the mother and grandmother and two younger siblings of 2 and 4, which are very lively to say the least!  The other are the parents.  It’s a really stressful time for these people and the last thing they need is more expense as often the parents have taken time off work without pay to be with their child.  The hospice itself is free, and of course, so is staying with us.  The hospice isn’t a sad place, and often it is just used as respite care, but for these parents, I don’t think that will be the case.  It makes me so thankful that I have healthy children.   However, cooking, grocery shopping, and just having people in the house under immense emotional strain is pretty exhausting, both physically and emotionally.  I also provide a taxi service if they need it.  Often going to pick them up in very late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Then they often want to talk when we get home and although I am happy to do that, it really makes me very tired the next day.  To be honest I just want to go back to bed today and sleep for a week.  I am really lucky to have a great cleaner who will do an extra half day or so when we need it.  Otherwise I would find it really hard to cope. 

Our new cat, Emma, is proving an enormous hit. Apart from me worrying about if she will disappear outside as people come and go, it has all been plain sailing.  I am so, so, so pleased we chose each other as she is simply perfect.

The children are well, and not complaining too much about all the work at Uni.  They will all be home in a couple of weeks because one will be having a birthday.   We’ve never been a  commercial consumption “shop ’til you drop” kind of family, preferring to do things as a family on these occasions.  Over the years, we’ve had some amazing times, sometimes very simple things, but the best thing is we are all happy in each other’s company.  I only wish those parents staying with me can have the same sort of memories.  Often, when a child is dying or when a relationship is not good, people want to buy lots of things to compensate. However it’s not what you buy your children, it is the things you do together, the simple things, the time you spend with them and support you give them that really matters.

Okay, I’m two months in and a stone (14lbs) down and now definitely into the 180s.  I remember when I thought I was overweight when I weighed 130lbs.  Seems a lifetime ago now.  I’m thrilled with reaching the 180s, although the weight loss this month has been slower than the first month.  I had a couple of hiccups, but I am back on track with my healthier lifestyle.

Thanks for all the advice and support, especially Karen, Rae, Blaithin, Debbi, etc.

the new cat has settled in and is sitting looking atme as I type this.  She is sitting on the sofa in the kitchen.  We have a big kitchen, and as advised, we are keeping her in just one room to start with.  The house is big and it is easy for a cat to get “misplaced” in it with so many hidey holes. 

There are over 40 stairs from top to bottom (now all refinished by hubby and me).  I guess all that sanding with hand tools burned off some weight.  I definitely could feel the burn in my arms.

I know a few asked for photos, so only read on if you are interested.  It was hard to get one that shows all the stairs in one shot.  It has large landings, and then much smaller half landings on each turn of the staircase, so rooms at one side/front of house have higher ceilings than the rooms coming off the half landings at the rear of the house.  This is  normal for detached Victorian houses of that era.  In all, there are five different levels, but it feels, and looks from the front, more like a three storey house, not including cellar.  It’s a quirky old place, but it suits us very well, as we are probably a bit quirky ourselves. The floors and stairs have character (aka they will never look perfect).

Here’s a view looking down from the top landing down to the next landing.  The stairs are actually more of a golden colour, and the white marks are gleams from the finish rather than dust!!   At least, I hope so.

We usually have Turkish runners/carpets on the large landings, so it normally doesn’t look quite as “woody”.  You can’t see from top to bottom at this angle, because we had the middle landing extended when we were extending the kitchen a few years ago. We thought it was a potentially too dangerous when the children were small.  The drop down the open stairwell from the top to the ground floor must be over 50 feet, and my children were climbers and slid down the balustrade/banisters when our backs were turned.

Back to our new kitty now.  Here’s a photo of her on her first night home.  Note how she has ignored all the soft throws we put on the kitchen sofa for her, and choose to sit directly on the linen upholstery. LOL  She is a real sweetie though.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

We got our new cat today.   I haven’t had time to take any photos, but here is her photo at Battersea.  She is absolutely gorgeous and is seems very happy to be here with us.

 http://www.battersea.org.uk/cats/emma.html

I did not do so well on my eating yesterday.  All went well until hubby got home.  He was late, hungry and we were going out to eat.  When he got in, he said “Where’s that banana cake, I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon” (see I told you he liked it). Well, he cut right into it and I made a pot of tea and, while he had a shower and got ready, I had a piece, not a wee “you are eating in less than an hour piece”, no I am talking about slab proportions….a BIG piece.  Then we went out to dinner.  Did okay with that…ish. No pudding but I did eat and drink more than I should. 

We got home and guess what, yep, I had another piece of cake.  Was I hungry?  No way.  Was I thinking straight - okay probably not, I was so full of bonhomie that I didn’t care, but that’s not the point.  How quickly I can slide back into old habits was a bit of a shock.  I will have to spend the whole day cycling to burn it off, but sadly (luckily??) for me I don’t have time. 

Repeat to self:  I will not have my snout or trotters in the trough today.  Marie Antoinette may have said “Let them eat cake”, but she was, most definitely not referring to me.

New day, new week. Okay, I didn’t get off to the best start. It’s my husband’s birthday, and about one minute after midnight he was already cutting into his birthday cake!  He loves banana cake, and of course I had a piece which I really enjoyed.  I ate it slowly with a cup of tea and it was really good, so I don’t feel guilty at all.   Normally I would have gobbled it down, before reaching for another, and then “straightened up” the edges of the cake (aka eaten more) before I put it away.  I’m relearning how to eat and enjoy food without over-indulging and feeling ashamed.  I’ve included the cake in today’s eating plan now, and as we are going out for dinner, I’m eating very light for breakfast and lunch and leaving an allowance for another piece of cake tonight, as there is no pointing in fooling myself that I won’t have a piece, because I know I will.

Oops, wrong photo.  That’s my birthday cake being delivered…I wish!   Is it me, or is that guy really, really young?  Hell, I’ve got underwear older than him.

Okay, that’s more like it.

I have to up my exercise though as I have been really lax over the past week. Apologies to my biking thread buddies.  Plus my water consumption is not high enough, and if I want to see the weight shift and the clothes loosen up I must address these two issues.    I’ve given up cheese again as I got totally out of control with my cheese eating last week.  Way, way, way out of control.  Rachel from NZ and I have a pact and we are taking it a week at a time.  We may be 12,000 miles apart but we are as one with our new found resolve. That’s the great thing about BuddySlim; we get to meet people who ordinarily we would never know.  We gain strength and advice and a kick up the backside from our fellow BuddySlimmers and it definitely helps me stay on track.  I also want to thank all those people who have put up recipes on BuddySlim, as there are some really great ones and I’ve really enjoyed them (mostly!).  I feel I should add more, but I don’t always have the time, but I do try yours. 

By the way, my husband got cards from all three children in the post this morning.  He hung around later than usual, and I just knew he was waiting for the postman, although I was smart enough not to mention it.  I know he was really moved when he got them, although he has this veneer of the stiff upper lip, boarding school, traditional Englishman, but inside he is not that way at all.  He had tears in his eyes when he read them, especially the one from our son who sent a card that said “World’s Best Dad” on the outside.  Whether the tears were from the front of the card or the inside which had him roaring with laughter, I’m not entirely sure.  Son penned a slightly risqué limerick inside about my husband which obviously I can’t repeat, but it was very witty nevertheless. Hubby did pretty well for presents from the children.  We are not really into the consumption culture so presents are not usually of the store bought variety. One daughter made a voucher he can redeem with her when she is next home for a meal she will cook for us, even though it did say in brackets (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE CLEARING UP!). Nothing’s changed there then.  My son said he would take him for a pint (beer) down at the Cricketer’s (the local pub) when he is home.  The other daughter has purchased a tools to dig a well for him.  Not for him to dig the well, but donated through Wateraid for people in the third world who need a well but don’t have the tools to dig it.  For Christmas the three of them chipped in, to buy a toilet for him through the same charity, so somewhere in another part of the world people are sitting pretty on his Christmas present, something in which he takes great delight, and always says it is the best present he has ever had.

Have a great week everyone and send me strength not to put my trotters in the trough over the next few days and pig out on birthday cake.  I could polish a banana cake off in a couple of days, honest.  Maybe even in one day!