The Woes Of Spring

If the waist band pinches, don't get rid of the trousers, get rid of the inches.

I wish I would listen to myself sometimes. I keep having all these brilliant ideas; do I put them into practice? Stupid question.

I've just had some pasta for lunch - lethal - , and what's even worse, a strip of chocolate for pudding.  It's been a long and boring winter, spent mainly in an easy chair, reading, or in front of my computer, either composing my magnum opus, or doing whatever we think we're doing in the blogoverse.  Even the dog's been in on the conspiracy to fatten me up: he's getting too old and arthritic for long walks and, after half an hour struggling through the mud, he looks at me as if to say, thanks for coming out, but how about going back now? He's very polite that way. There are the ramblers, peramblers and amblers (true, all three groups exist in Valley's End), but I can't see myself stumbling along and remaining civilised and sociable at the same time.

I have a large walk-in wardrobe, well, actually it is a long, slopey-ceilinged space under the roof, running along a massive bedroom, with two wide double doors. The lady who built this house was keen on providing her loving sons and daughters and their assorted children with enough space upstairs to keep them there during visits, while she was free to indulge her passion for bossing the village around downstairs. It made a mess of the house, but gave me enough room to keep my vast collection of shoes and clothes, saved for decades, most of it on the off-chance that the time will come, when a) the stuff becomes fashionable again, and b) that I'll actually be able to get into it at such time. Only about 20% of the clothes hanging on the rails fit me easily, all the rest is surplus to current requirements. Five kilos would do it, but where am I going to get the willpower to shed five kilos? The situation is depressing enough to make me reach for another strip of chocolate.

Chocolate and wine have been my solace ever since I've allowed myself to be locked away in the depths of inaccessible countryside. For heaven's sake, this is practically Wales! Chocolate is absolutely essential to my survival. As chocolate is also addictive, I cannot be blamed for my cravings. Or so I thought until very recently, when some misguided scientists, in the name of the advancement of human misery, proved conclusively, that chocolate is no more addictive than a cup of tea. It seems that the bit of the brain which lights up when you eat a piece of chocolate, also lights up, in exactly the same way, when you are THINKING about eating a piece of chocolate. If ever there was a research project which should have been stifled at birth, it is this.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. In my distant catholic past, priests and nuns at school made sure that we didn't indulge ourselves. I was a sickly child, so I was allowed protein in the form of meat, but sweets were forbidden on pain of eternal hell fire and brimstone baths. A lot of people hang their need for a reducing diet on the Lent hook, maybe I could join them. On the other hand, the compost heaps need turning and there's a lot of work coming up in the garden. But I am NOT going to keep anybody informed about my success or otherwise. Should I, however, in some future post, mention that I am looking forward to a clothes-shopping-expedition, you may draw your own conclusions. Either way, of course.