Shame Diet

February. One month into the year and only six months until brother- in - law &co tie the knot. No wedding stone has been left unturned. It looks like it will be the wedding of the year. Yet again I am faced with the envious prospect of dressing myself on a shoestring, a rather wide shoestring at that.

So I have once and for all decided that enough is enough, I must take the bull ( being me) by the horns and sign up to a slimming club. I really would rather poke my eyes with pins than partake in weekly public shaming ritual, I have never been a fan of humiliation.

No doubt none of these slimming clubs would suggest doing such a thing either, but frankly for me to stand on scales in front of myself is shame enough without doing it in a hall full of people! Shame-dieting has got to be worth a try.

Maybe just like an alcoholic or a drug user, admitting publicly that I have a problem is probably the first step to recovery.

With this in mind I head out the door with sulky toddler to my first weigh in.

First impressions are not too bad, I see an orderly queue leading to a rather slim clipboard lady forwarding fellow dieting cattle to the scales. Thankfully by the time I reach the front I see a sign warning others to stay back while one is being weighed. I attempt to exhale as much as possible to ensure accurate reading from scales - all that extra air has got to take off at least half a pound. Much to my disappointment the only thing this seems to achieve is light-headedness, a beetroot complexion, and an extra pound.

I move on to hear motivational talk. This is not really doing much other than make me feel hungry and provoke wailing toddler. Giving an apologetic nod to the speaker I make moves to manoeuvre tantrum from hall. In haste he trip’s and gets nosebleed. Great.

On the bright side with all the embarrassed sweat I lost I must have rid that pound.

Roll on next week, or should I say rolls off please.

Romantic Gesture

Now that sweet valentines day is over I finally feel the pressure to be romantic goddess is now off.

After a months worth of being faced with love hearts and roses I was nauseous at the prospect of participating Valentines alone - the man being sent away on a course by work.

It is no secret that out of the two of us I often don’t manage to find the time to invest in romance. I often leave it all very last minute - then to complain obviously if he doesn’t make enough effort! So this year I have decided to really pull out the stops.

I decided that if we could not be together in person then I will be in spirit - via secret romantic notes that I would stash in his belongings! Ha, he would never expect that. A foolproof way of ensuring that the day would not pass without constant reminders of my undying love.

First things first, I find some little cards on which I write one line slushy gestures to succeed in my romantic plan. If nothing else I could see it being a sure fire way to make the man smile and possibly lead me to a rather relaxing weekend of pampering on his return.

Cards done, I proceeded to plant my (many) gestures throughout his belongings mainly in his kit bag, admittedly get slightly carried away. Wash bag, trouser pockets and almost any other sneaky place they could fit in. Lastly I placed a humorous card alongside his pants for the finishing touch.

All that was needed was for them to be discovered and for the man to be bowled over by my amazing act of romance.. I wished that I could see the surprise on his face.

The cards had been found, only not by The man. In my scrambling to hide the cards without being caught I had not paid much attention to the stuff in the bag, maybe If I had I would have noticed that it was actually his boss’s kit bag that the man had offered to bring for him.

Well at least it put a smile on his face even if it is an embarrassed one! Maybe I will stick to cooking a nice dinner next year - as well as avoiding his work till then too, hopefully by then the red from my cheeks will have faded.