Back on home soil and only 1 kg heavier, which can’t be bad. Hopefully it will disappear in the next week or two (or with my luck and weird metabolism before next Christmas). The old bod went into automatic dinner-only mode after eating cake on our first full day and feeling as sick as a pig. Dinner consisted of packet soup and a slice of toast.

Holland was lovely. Great people, beautiful architecture, excellent driving behaviour, which unfortunately means Him Indoors only has me to shout at. Have no fear. I shout right back. One complaint about things Dutch, though. What museums tell you on their website about opening hours doesn’t always reflect reality. One closed an hour earlier than stipulated so we missed it – after an unpleasant exchange of views with probably the ONLY nasty woman in the whole of the Netherlands who was behind the desk. Another, devoted to the Dutch contingent of the Pilgrim Fathers which I really wanted to see, didn’t open at all.

This carry-on was more than compensated by the wonderful Indonesian restaurant where we spent our last evening before leaving for home. It being Christmas, they were only offering their set festive menu. I mentioned to the charming (and very dishy) waiter about my shellfish problems and he duly informed the kitchen, where they very kindly made a few tweaks and even a couple of replacements so that I didn’t have to deal with any unwelcome critters.

Got home to find some bugger had managed to get hold of my debit card details and apparently bet it on the geegees. Hint for anyone banking with NatWest. Go to their Web Chat page – as far as I can see it’s not accessible via the bank’s home page, but you can get straight to it via Google. They are very helpful and efficient. I shall have my money back by 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Hermaj – sorry about you debit card problem. It may not be someone physically entering your home, but – quite apart from the money – it a must feel just as intrusive. Glad the bank are doing the decent thing, but it must be horrible. Thinking of you……

Hi Purple and all

Happy New year aka Hogmanay. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🍷🍷🍷

Glad you had your white Christmas. We are in Shepparton Victoria where it was 38 C at 7 pm tonight. I just kept remembering what it was like to travel in this sort of heat (100F) when we were kids. Wet towels around our necks with Windows wide open as we drove along.

Cheers, Bay

Belated Happy New Year (Hogmanay) Maintainers.
Still travelling, still within wriggle room, still trying any strange food or drink I can find. 😊
I made venison burgers for us last night. Delicious! Interestingly, Mr P finds if he eats Cullen Sink, fish soup, his blood sugar responds very well. The things you learn from travel!
Back to the heat next week. 😦 P

Hi fellow fasters

I take it as a good sign that posting on here has become intermittent. We have celebrated well through the festive season with friends and family, and then we travelled for a while.

Confession time. I fasted yesterday for the first time since 1 December. It was a black coffee and water day until fish and salad for dinner. The fast was a huge success and a great motivator for continuing with two fasts a week through Summer.

I spent the day washing floors and up and down the ladder picking apricots and cooking them. Around 12 kg so far, for freezing and giving some away. This year I netted the trees a week earlier and the cockies were hugely frustrated, giving vent to screeches all over the neighbourhood. 😉😉

While indulging in sugar and floury foodstuffs through the festive season, I had put on 2 kg. I am aiming to lose that by 25 January which is my second anniversary on 5:2. Easy come easy go, I say.

Hope you’re all going well

Cheers, Bay 🌞🌞

Hi Bay,

Good to hear from you!

I think I’m sinking into depression…the constant rain…the near permanent twilight…the short days… Although the evenings are drawing out now – 16.30 now!! And we’re forecast a cold snap next week. Great, that’ll make a change, frozen water 🙂

I’ve just completed my second fast of 2016, as I gained a bit over the festive period too. Like you though I’m pretty relaxed about it. When I slip over 60kg now I just convert to imperial. Hey presto, under 9st7 sounds better than over 60kg 🙂

Did you really not leave ANY apricots for the cockies…?!

Happy, Sending you lots of sunshine. 🌞🌞🌞🌞☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️ Bay

I like your thinking Goosey! I did a similar thing myself a few years back. A dear friend was burgled and lost all her beautiful jewellery so converted her insurance payout into 1 or 2 good pieces she wore all the time. Smart lady I thought to myself. And then I heard the story of someone else who’d been burgled and burglars found a very precious watch hidden in a packet of laundry powder. When I heard that story I thought I’m crazy having all these bits and pieces of jewellery around and so had all my significant rings (engagement, eternity) remodelled to include all the stones from my other rings. I wear these every day. Reduces the risk.

Bay where do you live? We’re inadelaide and have been having really hot weather but doesn’t cool down at night. One night it was 24 degrees overnight. That’s what does my head in. If you can sleep at night it’s not so bad.

Happy I know what you mean about the short days. We lived I southern England for a while and what I couldn’t cope with was finishing work at 4.30pm and when I came out it was already dusk!

Sounds as though everyone is doing very well with maintenance. I’m also doing OK, getting back below trigger point very quickly and fairly painlessly! Love it!

Hello all, happy new year, and may all your maintenance be successful. I can report 3lbs gained, 2.5 lost – but since I’d given myself extra wriggle room before Christmas, I’m now smack in the middle of maintenance range, so a happy bunny. Oddly, though, having worked hard pre Christmas to make that happen, I’ve noticed in the last few days an ‘oh sod it, just eat it’ attitude, which I shall have to address if I’m not to reverse all the above!

Like you, Happy, the constant murk , cloud cover and waking up in the dark are beginning to get to me – perhaps that explains the ‘oh, sod it’ – but not sure the promise// threat of possible snow next week helps a lot – I’m a wimp about icy underfoot. At least the slighter later dusk is now beginning to be noticeable – when it’s not dark just because it’s raining. Normally at this time of year the first snowdrops fill me with hope: this year there are daffodils already in bloom half a mile up the road, which confuses me somewhat. I hope you’ll be feeling better soon -SAD is just horrible.

Love the prospect of your beautiful ring, Goosey – minute description required when you get it, please. I definitely agree that the safest place for lovely things is on their owner – as long as you don’t take it off to wash your hands! I have a beautiful gold and amethyst bracelet which was my grandmother’s – have hardly ever worn it in 58 years, as I’m terrified of losing it, and it also feels a bit ‘special’ for every day. But I’ve recently decided that (even assuming I may live to a ripe old age) there aren’t enough years left to keep things for ‘best’ so I’ve done the sensible thing and had a safety chain fitted, and now have the pleasure of wearing it – and remembering her – every day.
I guess 5:2 has been partly responsible for my learning that lesson, as I have worked my way down the clothes sizes. The ‘everyday’ new stuff I’ve bought has had a reasonable amount of wear between re-fits, but I’ve given away some really nice things worn only very few times because my ‘best’ occasions came round more slowly than I lost weight. (Not that I’m complaining, you understand – just using it as a learning experience…)

Keep fasting, gang: SH types, do it while it’s easy; NH ers, do it because Spring can’t be far behind..

Hi gang
I danced around in snow falling softly from the skies yesterday. Pure magic! We didn’t even attempt to walk the streets of Glasgow, even though they were salted, early yesterday as there was a thick layer of ice everywhere.
I had to replace my old trusty travel boots as I kept slipping on wet paving and cobblestones. Their grip had worn smooth. I have deep respect for walking on ice or mud. No way do I want to fall.
Back to sunlight next week. 🌞 P

Oh, the sheer wickedness of stollen-buying husbands…! Ours (stollen, not husband) is stashed in the freezer, along with the remains of the Christmas cake and ice cream, and I think I might have been saved from myself, in the form of a hulking great huge-appetited, triathlon-performing, much-loved nephew who has invited himself and his new fiancée to stay next weekend. That should sort it..

The Gucci specs sound fantastic, hermaj: go for it! Interesting discussion starting here, I think, about individual variations on luxury of choice, and ‘how would I spend a windfall?’ fantasies . What are other people’s?

For me, yes – with you: def books ( keep trying to tell bank manager that money spent on books isn’t real money) and yes, too, to silver earrings (never wear gold, except for Grandma’s bracelet, q v) – lost count of pairs. But not Amber, for me – black / white / grey / red / pink / purple is my preferred spectrum. I find eBay a useful source – one much-admired pair cost me 50p! – but if someone can be persuaded to lash out for birthdays and Christmas, I can think of nothing better than a sack full of earrings and book /kindle tokens!

Other than that, small luxuries include expensive (therefore low sugar!) chocolate; proper coffee beans;a decent haircut (otherwise I tun into a Maggie T / Brillo pad lookalike); and I confess to regular shellac manicures – a real extravagance, which I justify because I can no longer cut my own nails, and you can’t ask a professional just to do that, now, can you? It goes without saying that I’d like to give children and grandchildren enough to get them started, but not enough to mean they wouldn’t need to work for it. First class train travel would be wonderful if money were no object, and there are so many places I’d love to see but probably never will – but on the whole I find as I get older that the big house / fast car sort of thoughts leave me cold. If I’m honest, the best fantasy of all would be simply knowing there was enough safely stowed to be able to live more or less as we do, with perhaps a few extra holidays /,theatre trips / etc thrown in, but nothing hugely luxurious, without ever having to think again about how much month might be left at the end of the money!

There must be some more creative thinkers out there. Come on – entertain us with your longings…

Hermaj- to be honest I wouldn’t have bought jewellery if cash had been an option. The replacement value of my jewellery in any jewellery of my choice, was the option. It did feel VERY extravagant! 😳 I don’t think I could have done it otherwise.
The thing was when faced with an identical engagement ring in the jewellers both OH and I got a lump in our throats, it wasn’t my ring it was never going to replace it, so we left, regrouped and decided on a totally new start. As we are now both grey ( well white really) we decided on a pair of matching platinum wedding rings and a diamond engagement ring, mine had been a ruby.
Fast- Windfalls, a couple of years ago I had an unexpected inheritance, it sat in the bank being a burden for a while! Should I just nibble away at it, or as I would never have such a lump sum again, buy something big ? – I never felt I deserved it, and the person who left it to me had led a fairly frugal life.
In the end we bought a static caravan in Northumberland for the use of all of the family, they pay the annual fee and we split the bills so it isn’t a an ongoing burden for us, win win. We all say we wish the person who left me the money had done it years ago she would have just loved it!
Sorry, that turned into a ramble😊 Goosey x

btw, Goosey, I was lucky enough to get an engagement ring and a posh new wedding ring on our 40th anniversary (too skint for the former, and had a very modest version of the latter, 40 years earlier). Both currently sitting in the safe as now (8 years later) so big on me that I can’t safely wear them! (One can be smallened easily, the other will have to be remodelled at vast cost. ) so currently alternating between no rings at all, new ones plus a smaller one in front to keep them on (actually very uncomfortable) and a plain silver ring which has nothing to do with anything, just happens to fit that finger, and cost £15!!! Talk about ‘full circle’!

First come, first served, Happy, and all very welcome – but since chances are either sub-minimal or fatter than all of us put together pre 5:2 (depending on how you like your metaphors) I wouldn’t waste valuable fantasy time on it! X

We fell in love with Hay in 1987, just before the first Festival, and have been every year since, for part or all, until a couple of years ago.i used to spend a chunk of my annual leave on it. Haven’t been to Festival for the last couple of years – it got too costly in terms of both money and energy – but I miss it dreadfully. We still try to go a couple of times a year in non- Fest times, when it’s quieter (and cheaper!) – it’s just about day-trip-able from here. I recommend the Blue Boar, and the sheep’s milk ice cream at Shepherd’s – but you won’t get inside the door of other in Festival week – another reason to go at other times! If ever I get my flat,( with patio or balcony big enough to sit and read, but not to require maintenance) you’ll be a welcome guest! And on reflection, the silver earrings can drop one place down the list…this is the one for the big win…

Goosey, Sorry about the burglary. Good news re the jewellery.

Fast, Happy, lovely stories about what to do with a windfall. Apart from helping our kids, and travelling in business class, I’m not sure what I would do. I feel very privileged to have the life we lead. We began with nothing, and by dint of sheer hard work and the good fortune of health, and the luck to be in this country at this time, we lead a very good life. We travel each year. I am grateful for our good fortune.

When I tell the grandkids that we began life without a washing machine or refrigerator or telephone or television, they cannot believe it. They know we poor things didn’t have computers or mobile phones, but that we lived in a tiny house half the size of theirs, and with no mod cons is hard for them to believe.

Cheers, Bay ☀️☀️☀️☀️🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Haha, Happy

Sorry but I am really grateful for the good fortune of genes and health and good luck, and the upbringing that taught me that nothing is given to you in this life. You make your life and your future. I spent the better part of the 70s growing our own fruit and vegetables, making our own bread, yogurt, making kids clothes, and generally trying to live sugar free. It seems to me it was all easier when we were younger. 😉😉.

So, I don’t tell the kids how grateful they should be. I just give thanks. Do I sound smug? I feel the opposite. Very fortunate to have my family and friends. After all, they put up with a lot. 😉😉.

Another very hot day here. I shall be fed up with the heat by the end of the week. 😎😎😎. At night we are having a Sherlock fest. Christmas present of all three series.

Cheers, Bay 🌞🌞🌞🌞☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️ For you Happy.

Hermaj,

I grew up listening to ’70s David Bowie, courtesy of an older brother, and saw him live in the ’80s. A sad day indeed, but a life well lived!

The local news last night featured tributes from a few fans. One middle-aged lady, a bit portly and with a moon face, explained that she’d loved him to the extent that she’d even shaved her eyebrows when he did…only hers had never grown back! Ah, that explains the slightly surprised expression…. I couldn’t help but laugh 🙂

Neither do I, Purple. I’m growing old disgracefully and hoping to get worse. 🙂

Agree Purple but think hermaj has worked it out – not at risk because we’re just more clean living lol!

Barata – ‘fraid I ticked all the above boxes at one stage or another. Nothing heavy or permanently damaging though. 🙂

I’m convinced a misspent youth makes it difficult for one to morph into an oldie of the traditional kind. A bad attitude can keep you young, although I know from experience it can get you into all sorts of trouble. The “mustn’t grumble” philosophy doesn’t hack it.

I saw a women of 104 interviewed on a TV documentary. She was still right on the ball and writing a weekly column for a left-leaning magazine, which she dictated to a young man who word-processed it for her. Asked what kept her going and had enabled her to live to a ripe old age, she replied “Anger!” In the same programme viewers were introduced to a friend of hers who made it to 107. Also politically active, only months before her death she received a standing ovation after delivering a powerful speech to that year’s Labour Party Conference.

It’s difficult to believe too many of these ladies misbehaved. I may be wrong, though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26654759

This image, by the way, is a false media perception of women over 55!!! Maybe it would have applied back in the 1940 and 50s. See how 40- or 50-something mums are portrayed in the films of the period. The Beeb and other offenders should take a look at some of the absolute stunners on this forum, still in there pitching and looking terrific, partly due to their/our healthy lifestyle, no doubt.

Brilliant result thin! As you say a partial fast might be a good compromise for today. I found when I got back from holidays and not doing as much walking the weight piled on fairly quickly so we need to remain vigilante.

I’m off to Brisbane today to babysit the grandkids for two weeks and will be doing lots of hilly walking so not anticipating problems!

They’re young enough to wear me out Thin! Seven and a half and almost 4.

Have fun Carol.

Hi Bay and thanks! I don’t feel I can really claim much credit for self-discipline although I noted that I do now think about whether it’s worth it instead of shovelling food in and instantly regretting it. The main reason for the slight loss was the huge increase in activity. Our next trip won’t be so active so it’ll be a better test of my self-discipline. The anxiety and whinging about that will begin soon. Stand by.

Anyway, 3pm and the fast is going OK today. I felt I needed to do it just to remain vigilant as you and Carol have both indicated. If I could get away with one a week, that’d be a bonus. Thanks for being there.

Welcome back and happy new year, Thin! Well done on the food control, too. You must be very proud of yourself. The old adage, slightly changed, you can have your holiday and enjoy it too, works with just a bit of self control, doesn’t it?
After unpacking and washing the winter gear, we are off over your way on Thursday, but straight to Freo for lunch and then heading off down south. Too little time for a catchup this time, unfortunately.
Cheers everyone…off to bed. P