this could go one of two ways

So ladies (gents?), I am about to go on holiday for two weeks. This is great news, and also, slightly panic-inducing.

Not that I'm ungrateful for the wonderful holiday. But I am slightly panicking about its effect on my diet, which despite my best efforts, has seen me hover around the same 5lbs for about two months now.

I am surprised at myself for being so bothered. I am both desperate to relax, and desperate not to regain this damnable weight. I can't believe I am worried. I'm disappointed in myself for feeling this way, though will feel mighty disappointed in myself if I gain weight too.

Part of me is planning to make butter, on the basis that I can only eat what I make, and making butter involves a large physical effort, and I'll feel quite proud of myself if I manage it.

Another part of me is planning to go running and walking up massive hills, so that I can eat some cake.

I've never been this worried before. I've always just sodded it and enjoyed myself. I don't really like this at all, and I can only assume it's the natural progression of dichotomous (real word?) thoughts from the post below.

Yes, I am on a diet that allows me to eat as much as I want of most foods. I can have figs, artichokes, wild musrooms, risotto, pasta, potatoes, steak. But sadly, the list doesn't include criossants, stinky and disintegrating french cheese and red wine. Those count. I can have them, but I can't have them with abandon.

Why am I depressed about this? I don't know. I feel pathetic, but may actually cry if I gain more than a couple of lbs.

some things i've learned

Some things I've learned about dieting:

(image from here)

- it's not that hard. You can do it, you just need to follow a few rules.
- it's damned hard. You have to follow the rules for a long time. I will probably have to sort of follow them forever.

- it's not just about food. There are bigger things in your life and you can appreciate them more once you've broken down that relationship a little bit.
- sometimes it's about a lot more than food. That cheesecake my friend baked to celebrate buying his first flat? Yeah. I'm going to eat the piece he cut for me. Who wants to be that girl, the one who turns down a small gift, a celebration. Food has meaning greater than satiation. But not all the time.

- some things can be turned down easily. It's just about saying "no".
- life is not about saying "no". It's about saying "yes", and living, and enjoying yourself. You need to go out to dinner.

- you can speed up your weigh loss by eating more fruit and vegetables
- in order to speed up your weightloss, you HAVE to eat more vegetables. And no, you can't put butter on them.

(edit - i thought of another one:
- small things don't matter. This bit of salad dressing/bit of x, y, z won't hurt.
- all the small things together? Yes, they matter. They are all that matters.)

Life is not just about looking a certain way. But it makes a lot of things in life easier (climbing stairs, shopping for clothes without crying) if you err towards the regular sized end of the spectrum. I'm all for being happy whatever size you are. But I wasn't.

Everyone, I would suggest without exception, is too hard on themselves the majority of the time. I would like to find whoever came up with the idea that you can have 'fat ankles' and give them a smack. They are ANKLES. They perform a useful perambulatory function and hold your feet onto your legs.

Life is full of dichotomies. You want one thing, but you know you should do another. Self acceptance versus empowerment and change. Diet Coke versus wine. Short-term enjoyment versus long-term satisfaction. The fact that I've always loved my body and been grateful for all of it versus the fact that I have still cried in changing rooms. How do you square that?

Anyway. Sometimes there isn't much coherence to things and that applies to writing blogs too. Random thoughts today.

PS All of this makes me glad that I found the best damn blog in the world. Eat the Damn Cake by blogger Kate Fridkis makes me overwhelmingly happy. When I see a new post appear in my reader, I save it up for later, for time when I've got a cup of tea and can fully digest and appreciate her words of wisdom and joy. Kate writes about how she never understood why anyone should feel unattractive, while understanding that we do, and we're human. And she advocates remembering that sometimes (all of the time?) you should just eat that slice of cake and be happy. A message we can all get behind, I think.

urgent help needed

OK so it turns out the register office I formerly suggested was 'grotty' now only has two slots available, and even those are squeezing us in. And I checked it on Google Street View and it's not actually that grotty at all - or better than I remember.

I have to let them know today which is better (and neither is ideal):

10.15am, at which we get married in jeans and then go back to the venue and relax and get ready

11.45 am, at which we get married in wedding attire and then go back to the farm and wait for guests to arrive before we do the bit up on the hill

I need to let them know by 4pm. Help! Which is better? J still doesn't care if it's the day before but I do. Will I care if I do it in jeans? Help!

the process of actually getting legally married...

...is turning out to be harder than we thought.

One of the things we learned during our visit to the venue at the weekend was that our plan to go to the nearby registry office in the morning before the outdoor ceremony will probably not work. This is given that it's a Saturday, the office is in a small market town and the traffic is always horrendous. Just to get there, we'd be looking at an hour. Then an hour back afterwards. I don't want to be sitting in traffic for two hours on the wedding day.

But here's the thing. There is another registry office closer. But it's horrible. Horrible building, opposite a supermarket car park in a town that is often dominated by the odour of the nearby chemical plant. It's not what I had in mind (the other registry office is in a beautiful tudor building).

There's also a local hotel that will just do the ceremony. The room hire is £180 - reasonable. Getting the registrars to come out - £320. Making the total cost £500. Not reasonable, given that going to the small room at the registry office is £43.50.

J thinks we should do it the day before. He feels that it's 'just a piece of paper, just signing a contract' and I know that this is a totally logical position. But I really can't feel the same, no matter how hard I try. I really don't want to be married when we go to sleep the night before our wedding. It feels like a sham. We can't afford £500. So the grotty registry office it is. (For new readers - hello! - we are being married up on a hill by a friend that afternoon. This is the real wedding - the declaration in front of all our family and friends, but we have to do the legal bit first.)

So ladies, and any gents that might read this, I urge you to sign the ANY campaign petition, set up by photographers Tino & Pip, which needs to reach 1000 signatures in order to be delivered to the government. This campaign urges those in power to reconsider the laws that state you must be married between the hours of 8am and 6pm, in a building with foundations and a roof.

Fellow bloggers - will you help spread the word?

thank you gaynor!

Just a little post to say a big THANK YOU to Gaynor at Our Day By Design who has informed me that I have won her blog competition for a £50 voucher from CSN Stores!

Thank you Gaynor and CSN! I shall enjoy trawling through the sites to find something to go with my cow rolling pin...