I went to West Middlesex University Hospital yesterday for one of my routine IV Iron top-offs, Usual pre-proceedure routine of assorted blood tests, and other standard measurements like BP and weight.
Nurse turns to me smiling and says, "you've lost over 10 KG since last time you were here."

Yay!!  Diet is working! I weighed 12.3 kg less than the last time I was treated at West Mid. Not bad for about 4 months and absolutely no feelings of deprivation. It's slow but as long as we stick to the changes we've made since February it will keep adding up. I'm really pleased. Of course, when I arrived home and announced the good news to Alan he said, oh yes, his GP mentioned to him last visit to the surgery, that he'd lost a couple of stones.

Anyway, in a generally depressing landscape of illness and aging anf other associated crap of the human condition, this was a bit of delightful news.

Now Alan just needs to find a new job.

This is my stringy. There are many like it but this one is mine. My stringy is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my stringy is useless. Without my stringy I am useless.

Rosie - February 2016 - London

Finally, day 1 diet. Completed. I had planned and hoped to start earlier but life doesn't always work as you want it to. I think for me it was just to actually get it started. And to keep it going through the day even when I screwed up or strayed off plan a bit. It's done. I did it. Tomorrow I will do it again. I guess it's like AA in some ways - I take it 1 day at a time and just focus on getting through the day.

So hooray! Day 1 belongs to me!

I've been smoke-free over 4 months now so tomorrow morning I'll finally start a real diet. Basically I'll follow the 16/8 plan. Take it a day at a time and see how things go.

Marmalade Day

Alan spotted fresh Seville Oranges at Sainsbury's and brought home a bag of them - good move because those oranges have an ultra-short season and go out of stock in a flash. We're fans of homemade marmalade which is nothing like the commercial stuff. So I was delighted to fuss about in the kitchen and fill the first batch of kilner jars with tart golden deliciousness. I'll start batch 2 shortly.

Sunday Brunch - Homemade Eggs Benedict! Yes, that's right, homemade. Specifically the hollandaise sauce! And OMG! was it good - lemony, buttery, silky. Breakfast perfection; the egg yolks hot and liquid, the whites firm but tender, crisp medallion of bacon, toasted muffin and the hollandaise sauce spooned generously over it all. Yum!

I'm so pleased I've finally cracked the hollandaise conundrum. There's no alternative for it. It must be homemade from scratch or crossed off the home kitchen choices list because this sauce cannot be reheated from a jarred source. You can buy jars of the sauce in supermarkets but it tastes disgusting and not to be considered. So I've been trying on and off for years to make it but never produced an acceptable quality. At last, my time has come.

Yay!!

Turnabout is Fair Play.

It's bad enough that I'm subject to profound pain that comes and goes without warning to make it worse, I have no way to anticipate or predict the level of pain ahead of time. So regardless of what I plan, that can change without warning or reason at any time. I accept that this happens and just stay patient; my GP accepts that this happens and makes sure I have breakthrough doses of my meds; Alan is convinced that this is deliberate on my part, and caused by bad planning, laziness, and inconsideration. As far as he is concerned, if I casually mention that I would like to make fish pie for dinner tomorrow, then come hell or high water I should damn well be up and in the kitchen making that fish pie at the appointed time.

So, this afternoon, I suddenly was in very bad pain and really bad shape. Nothing helped and I knew I'd have to excuse myself from preparing our meal and the usual miserable scene would play out - and it did. Absolutely no explanation was accepted and my only choice was to drag myself into the kitchen and start to prepare dinner shaking and stumbling thru the pain or accept Alan's offer to wash and massage the painful foot area because it's a sort of voodoo he believes in - his quick little one off massage heals whatever it is at the moment. I accepted the massage and it actually helped surprisingly well this time - we think a bit of cat litter or pebble might have gotten lodged in my sole.

Anyway, I went into the kitchen and made the fish pie mix from scratch -gorgeous stuff made from scratch, even the white wine fish stock cream sauce. Pie mix complete, I filled a deep dish pie plate and set it aside to cool. Later Alan would make the mash, top off the pie plate and finish it in the oven.

Time passed and the dinner hour approached and I noticed that Alan hadn't done anything of his part of the dinner prep. Twice I reminded him with only a grunt in response. At 6:30pm I pointed out to Alan that it was getting very late  for him to get all his share of the prep work done and even if he started right now the fish pie would be way overdue. I didn't really care one way or the other but since he'd made such a huge fuss that he had been promised fish pie and it was fish pie that he wanted for supper tonight and nothing else would do, then he damn well should get up and get to work. So he headed off for the kitchen grumbling and muttering all the way.

Turnabout is fair play. (And it was a delicious pie no question.)

By the way, the attitude is not unique to Alan by any means. It really feels like it's ubiquitous and universal. Utterly infuriating and frustrating and nothing to be done about it.

Apple crumble tomorrow if you're in the mood for it, folx.

I stayed up to watch Big Ben and the fireworks welcome in the new year 2016. As a pleasant surprise, Andrew joined me online and we chatted in the new year together - it was only 7pm for Andrew so easily enough done.

Anyway one day this week I'll start my Intermittent Fast diet/eating pattern. To my surprise, last week Alan brought it up over breakfast and after some discussion he announced that he would like to join me on the diet, too. He was interested in the diet because it not only helps to lose weight but also balance metabolism/body functions like improving Diabetes Type 2. I'm really pleased as this would make it a lot easier on me not having to compete/conflict over foods.

I' committed to starting the plan this week; just haven't picked which day. I'll know when the day arrives just like how I started my stop smoking plan.

I canceled my car insurance today and sent in the papers to the DMV to transfer ownership of the Honda to the new owner. One less burden to worry about.

Tomorrow I'll update Alan's CV on all the websites he has it posted then it's up to Alan to run his job hunt. I hope he gets something pretty quickly.

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 What do Hiroshima and Tehran have in common?

Nothing, yet.

Our Christmas Day dinner was absolute perfection. The Chateaubriand roast came out the exact rare state from edge to edge we were hoping for. Bravo me and my roasting skills.  The horseradish sauce was stunning with the beef. We had our favorite take on peas - petit pois french style - with lardons, shallots, lettuce, and cream. Mashed potatoes, beef gravy because Alan always wants gravy with his dinner, and an indulgent French Bordeaux to sip. Later we had Christmas Pudding with cognac cream sauce and brandy butter. A peaceful and delicious Christmas meal.

It was all in all a quiet and nice day. We chatted with family on phone and online. Tasty nibbles and drinks during the day, too. Our cat Rosie approved of the food after she taste tested it all.

Boxing Day we gave away our Honda Civic to a nice local young woman through a neighborhood recycle/reuse scheme we support. Alan hates cars anyway and I'm not driving lately so it was a huge waste of money and useless hassle to maintain a car here in London. The Honda was old but in excellent condition with very low mileage. It was the right thing to give it to someone who needed a friendly hand.

Tomorrow, the 29th we're having a friend over for dinner - it's Roast Goose leading the menu. Crepes Suzette for dessert.

We had a great Christmas Eve Dinner tonight - roast duck with stuffing and home-made bread sauce. This was the first time I've ever made bread sauce from scratch - AMAZING taste! I've always disliked it because we used the packet stuff but tonight with the homemade genuine article I understand what the moaning and fussing is all about. it was just gorgeous. Since it was actually pretty simple to make, we'll never use a packet again.

Anyway the duck dinner was a perfect way to start the holidays.

Btw the day actually started as a complete disaster with Tesco getting their whole specially ordered Christmas delivery wrong. They didn't deliver the lobster or the roast for Christmas dinner and got other things wrong. Lordy, lordy! I gave them a piece of my mind at customer service as soon as they opened this morning. I understand it wasn't just me; lots of other people who ordered their Tesco Finest Christmas Show stopper whole lobster also found themselves without the promised treat. I hope they also called Tesco and demanded reparations.

Hoping all my family and friends have a great Christmas night and a wonderful Christmas day tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
First thing in the morning at 5am Macklin Bros butchers opens and Alan will be there to collect 2 racks of baby back ribs and then at 7am we get our last Tesco groceries home delivery before the holiday goes live. The groceries were almost completely paid for with my saved up Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

I've completed over 2 months smoke free. Bravo me! I have to get some friends to stop by for drinks and nibbles so they can tell me if the house is starting to smell fresher and the smoke smell is dissipating.

My next project is a new diet. I'm not looking for nor interested in a "sensible and moderate" diet like the weight watchers sort or the usual 1-2 lbs a week food pyramid sort. I saw something that looked more my sort of thing called "Intermittent Fasting" and after doing some extensive reading on it; it looks just my sort of thing.

Just as I stepped into cold turkey to stop smoking directly, I intend to slide into Intermittent Fasting to diet and lose weight as quickly as possible. Sounds like a miserable way to begin the New Year and worse so if you realize I also don't drink. (Not teetotal but fairly close.)

I'll keep up progress posts as things move along.

Back to Xmas - I'll be cooking and baking from scratch so if you pop round you'll find there'll always be assorted goodies awaiting you.

On the family front we're still waiting for the contracts of Tom & Andrew's country house to be signed and the keys turned over.

My grandson AJ:

Andrew and Tom's new country house:

Two days ago was my birthday; I turned 65. Sound the noisemakers and poppers. A quiet and pleasant enough day. It's almost 2 months now since I stopped smoking. Haven't cheated, still moving along with it. Diet starts right after New Years.

And the big news, the GREAT news - the mortgage for Tom & Andrew's country house got the final approval Friday morning. It's all engines on and full speed ahead now. Closing will be scheduled in a few days and the house will be theirs for Xmas. Yay!!!!!

I am so happy for them. I am kvelling like crazy for them. Absolutely shepping nachas for them. They have all worked so incredibly hard to reach this point. This is such a great way for Andrew & Joanna to go into the new year.

In other excellent news, my daughter Astrid has a new terrific job. Her base is in Basel, Switzerland but she'll also be working out of several other project centres including NJ this week. So yes, Asti is in the Metro NY area working this week and visiting family during her down time.

I presume I'll hear more news from other family members at some point. I refuse to allow facebook to take over family communications. I loathe how people utterly expose themselves on FB. This blog is as public as I plan to get.

Enough for now. I need to look through some seed catalogs.

It's almost 6 weeks since I stopped smoking. No lapses, still going clean. But now finally after all these weeks I'm experiencing deep cravings for a cigarette. I push the feelings behind me but they are undoubtedly miserable. I'm hoping they start to fade away or lessen soon.

Today.
Three Weeks.
Smoke Free.

Not bad.

Made to-die-for chopped liver today. Alan liked it so much he had no complaints. He just shut up and ate and ate. If you know Alan, you understand how unusual that is. I posted the recipe to our family cooking blog.

2 days short of 3 weeks no smoking. Ugh I'm yearning for a cigarette. Not often but now and then - so much.

It will pass, it will pass....soon I hope.

Day 17. I had expected the quitting side-effects would be easing off by now but instead, topsy-turvy, from nothing at first it's growing to sudden episodic bursts of craving. I'm taking it one day at a time, one hour at a time. This too shall pass.

Meanwhile the weather here is non-stop miserable - cold and raining. Alan made a pot of his world class French onion soup today. I made latkes for breakfast and we had the soup for dinner. We're transitioning to a much healthier lifestyle lately; now we just need to get a ground floor flat and we'll be set.

Tomorrow is day 14! Two weeks no smoking. Not fun. Not fun at all.
It's not nicotine I crave; it's the pleasure of fiddling with the cigarette, the texture and experience of exhaling the smoke. Playing with the smoke is the prime smoking experience for me as I never actually inhaled. I know people always claim that but I was sure of it and double checked with my son Andrew who agreed that he always noticed how I didn't inhale. In fact, if I on a rare occasion somehow mistakenly did inhale, that was very noticeable because I would choke and sputter and cough.
Anyway - tomorrow - day 14.

I thought it was supposed to start getting easier after not smoking for a few days - not so here. After a fairly mild first week I'm suddenly and rapidly developing physical withdrawal symptoms. They're the miseries I'd been warned about loud and clear. I can only hope they're a last hurrah and by tomorrow morning they start fading away. Otherwise it's going to get ugly around here.