Making it to the Top of My Own List

Friday’s packed lunches are always depressingly sparse.   One of us does the food shop (also known as The Big Shop)on a Friday, which means by Thursday night when I make the lunches for the next day (really, who has time to make it in the morning?), there are slim pickings.   Not for Daughter, of course.   She has the same every day – sandwich (egg or ham on strict rotation, and the exotica of egg has been a fairly recent addition), bear crisps, a mini chocolate bar that is apparently approved by mums due to the high milk content, apple juice and until recently a well-travelled pot of grapes.   It was well travelled in that she very rarely ate them and they went back and forth.   The lunch-box police would probably take me away, but they want to try living with a fussy eater.   So of course there is always everything that she wants, and let’s face it, I’d do a midnight run to the supermarket in my slippers if I discovered something missing for her.  ...

I have 24 cans/bottles/sprays etc of hair product on my shelf in our bedroom, so this of course doesn’t include the ‘wet’ hair products that crowd the bathroom (at least 9 that I can think of from the top of my head, pardon the pun). I know what you’re thinking.   You’re imagining me with a different hairstyle every day, all carried off with that ‘just stepped out of the salon’ shine and gloss.   Wrong, wrong, wrong.   I wear my hair the same EVERY DAY.   Loose and straightened for work, palm tree style with fetching fringe clip when I get home.   So what’s with all the stuff?   I’ve got nice hair, if it’s not too big headed (there’s another one!) to say.   But I live with the desire to have nicer hair.   Glossier, fuller, straighter, curlier, more defined…and clearly those 24 products have promised me a variety of those desires at some point.   And have they?   Mostly, no.   Do I keep falling for the promises?   Yes. ...

Daughter and I enjoyed a bit of retail therapy this weekend.  Well, when I say enjoyed, perhaps I should say 'participated in with only minor levels of discomfort' . First stop, Primark. I'd forgotten our sunglasses and it was a glorious day in Liverpool today, so in we went to splurge a couple of quid on some sunnies.  Despite having promised myself I wouldn't buy any clothes until I've lost some weight and saved some money, I don't get into Liverpool very often and the lure of city centre shopping was too much for me, and I had the clearly ludicrous idea of having a quick look. And quick it was, because Daughter was keen for me to know she didn't really want to be there. I'm used to her moaning, so I could have put up with that, but she tried to wander, and there's nothing to send my stress levels rocket higher than Daughter being more than about 10cm away from me. My fear isn't that she'll fall over or get lost, it's that she'll be...

Doesn’t time fly when you’ve set yourself a time-bound goal?   I’ve now got nine full months to the big birthday, and after the positivity of my last post, I’m afraid it’s all bad news for this update. I’ve had a major, major dose of the lurg.   I may have mentioned it, although it’s not like me to share my suffering, ha ha.   I’ve been off work for four weeks with a nasty chest and lung infection (so definitely not the catarrh the first doctor said!) and it’s knocked me for six.   I haven’t been able to get to my classes for a month now, and although I barely ate for a week (and hit my lowest weight for about three years!), once my appetite came back, the scales crept back up.   The bits that were feeling firmer are feeling soft again (much to Daughter’s joy that the bingo wings haven’t gone) and I’m a long way off buns of steel.   I’ve stuck to Choc-Free Feb though, as long as I don’t count the numerous chocolate digestives I snaffled yesterday. ...

I was blow drying my hair the other day and I saw it.   Just hanging out there, like a hard-faced silver interloper.   Yes, there it was.   A grey hair.   Now, don’t get me wrong.   At 39, I know I’ve had a good innings, and it’s not actually my first.   I’ve got a couple of baby fine silvery strands at my right temple, only visible during the most extreme episodes of tying my hair back (pretty much just when I put a face pack on).   But this devil was on my part.   And as if to mock me even further, it hid when I brushed my hair, smug in the knowledge that I know it’s there and now I can’t find it.   I’m on high alert, ready for it to pop up at any point.   The good thing for me is that I’m nearly 6 foot tall, so not many people see the top of my head, but now I know it’s there and I wish I carried a hat off with more panache. I know I’ve done well to get to this age without more grey, and all my forays into home colouring have bee...

I'm off work ill. I've got a chest infection. A chest infection that Dr 1 said was catarrh. This was while he was writing me a prescription for both an inhaler and ' something to relieve shoulder pain'. The something was ibuprofen gel which, for the unasthmatic amongst you, the average asthmatic cant use. Me included.  A chest infection that Dr 2 upgraded to an upper respiratory virus. A chest infection that Dr 3 finally identified, perhaps because I virtually crawled in there. A chest infection that has set a tooth off that I had root canal two years ago, like an old war wound. Did you know some root canals never settle? No, nor did I. Wish they'd told me that first!  Despite the eventual identification, the antibiotics don't seem to be touching it and I feel Very Poorly Indeed. If only I'd walked into the ER at Grey Sloan Memorial, they'd have had me sorted at a glance. Of course I probably would have been diagnosed with some incurable tropical disease...

As the first month of the year is limping to a close, I thought I’d update on the Fab at Forty plan. I’ve succeeded in the Dry January challenge.   Well, counting chickens really, but at lunchtime on the last day of the month I think I’m safe to say I’ll make it!   Sister was very keen that I kept my participation in Dry January quiet for fear of sounding like Oliver Reed (showing my age again).   I don’t usually drink very much, so it wasn’t a hardship, and I’m glad that for once I’ve met a challenge like that.   Many a Lent has seen me break a giving up pledge! The fitness side is taking shape (no pun intended!) and I’m going to Zumba twice a week run by the lovely Ellen at http://www.heatonefitness.co.uk .   I absolutely love it.   I could only go once this week due to work commitments and I missed it.   The only downside is the Zumba high on the night when the class finishes at 9pm – reasonable bedtime is futile!   I’ve even bought som...