Hey ho and off we go

We’re off to the boat tomorrow, which means the Christmas holidays are here! In fact, it’s been so quiet this week that I think everyone’s got fed up and buggered off early. There’ll be a few work things to finish off on Monday and Tuesday but from then on, it’s books and coffee and chocs and roasting tootsies…oh no, sod it, no chocs. Bummer. I am determined not to undo any (well, not much) of my good work on the dieting front so while I shall be laying about me and demolishing a big dinner on the good day itself, the rest of the time I shall be sat there muttering dark things under my breath as A unwraps yet another Quality Street.

Looking on the bright side, I’ll have a fantastic head start on my New Year’s Resolution (the same one every year) to lose a few stone and I’ll be a couple of weeks nearer my target. If I’m brutally honest, I’m not actually getting a huge kick out of my weight loss this time round – don’t know why, I’m getting lots of support, lots of nice comments, my clothes look like they no longer have a grudge against me, but I can’t get excited about it. I think there is some physical and emotional correlation between eating and mood isn’t there? Well, limiting my intake is giving me the pip more often and not and I’m not exactly bursting with joy. Mind you, in one sense this is a good thing. The last time I dieted on this scale I got so into it that I repeatedly bought new jeans in progressively smaller sizes just because I could. Cost me a small fortune as those were the days when Levis set you back about 50 quid a pop!

I shall also use the holidays to continue my new regime with the dogs. This week I have been dividing the midday walk into two halves – a regular 30 minutes for a gang of 3, then an hour for a pair. My thinking is that if I exercise them more – and in manageable numbers – I will improve our relationship, have more control, make them work a bit harder for things (which is a good thing in doggyland) and generally enhance my leadership credentials and their obedience and passivity. Certainly walking with reduced numbers has been a real pleasure – I’m more confident, I can pay more attention on a one-to-one basis and can assert myself more easily. Monty was so tired after his hour yesterday that he went straight to bed – at 2pm. Today it was the turn of the two fawns, Arthur and Ranger, and they did pretty well, although Ranger was starting to flag on the way back, throwing me his ‘not impressed’ look. I said he should think himself lucky that we’d only done an hour – I could get Caxton Lesley down here and then you’d be gone all day. Every day. That shut him up.