The River is Up

We have had so much rain that the river was on red boards (Caution strong stream) last weekend and today the river was deemed too dangerous to row on, so my friends went for a walk and I went to the Legs, Bums and Tums class that does me good on a Monday morning.

I felt very FAT so I started a diet today. It was inspired by an article in the Saturday Times about how to lose weight fast because you are heading towards being diabetic. I think I need to do this 800 calories a day diet or I will have to live with all this excess weight and I am beginning to find it a real problem. Can't bend over without gasping! I have always lost weight before if I wanted to. Post-menopause it seems so much harder. One of the problems is my lack of vanity. Before I was terribly aware that I needed to look as good as I could and I was ridiculously vain. Post-menopause I feel I'm too old for anyone to lech over and I can I either be a skinny old lady or a fat old lady and it hardly matters which. EXCEPT for health reasons and exercise reasons - in that I feel too heavy and cumbersome to exercise well.

Last week I went to meet the other skiffers in a cafe after their walk, but they weren't very friendly to me so I didn't bother today.

This weekend we entertained friends whom we had not seem for many years, and the husband was a very old friend of my husband but I didn't really know much about the wife apart from that she was pleasantly chatty and quite unusual in that she's very earnest and has no sense of humour. She is one of those people who finds an oblique way of criticising you to your face, which is quite funny. As we were shopping she made a remark about thick fluffy towels which made me realise that I had lent them towels which were not at all up to the mark! She also said "Isn't it lovely when you've washed your hair in the morning and it feels all lovely and fresh" and she must have known I had not washed my hair, but she implied that I should make a habit of it. She gave me a tip for making salad dressing and I realised she was mildly disappointed that we had not served any raw veg the night before because she is a vegan food nut. She believes that eating the right food can cure every kind of inflammation, and she has some proof of this because her mother came to live with her and the family about ten years ago and was at that time suffering with rheumatoid arthritis amongst other things and the family eating regime was foisted upon her with the result that she lost loads of weight and all her ailments cleared up. But then alas, she got vascular dementia and died anyway! I asked my friend if her mother had expressed dismay at the lack of cake etc, and her enforced weight loss, and she said, no, her mother was very "compliant". Compliant!!! My mother would have shouted the house down, which is why I never seriously suggested having her to live with us (of course I suggested it but I was not upset when my OH vetoed the idea. She was always rude to him.)

But my friend was interesting to be with because she is so different from me, and all her oblique criticism is meant to be kind in a life-coachy, you can do better than this, sort of way.