Some Sad News - and Dublin

My beautiful wee cat isn't pregnant. I took her to the vet's today (with much meowing and looking forlorn in her cat carrier) and he said she'd probably absorbed her kitties back into her body. He said it was unusual for a female cat to reach 3 years old and not have had a litter so there must be a problem with her. We came home and had some girl time cuddling on the couch until she felt happy again.Happier news - I'm off to Dublin tomorrow to meet my husband, who is flying in from Milan tomorrow night and then has two days off before the next gig. I'll arrive before him and settle myself into the hotel, which has a pool and sauna. The dilemma is, what do I take to do on the plane? Will I get knitting needles on? Or should I do some crochet? Or read? Or write? I haven't been anywhere for ages though so I'm looking forward to it. Meg is being looked after by Karen who likes cats so I'm sure they'll be fine.

Our friend Rik is the sound engineer for Iggy and the Stooges, so I was very excited to watch (from the comfort of my own living room) Iggy playing Glastonbury last Saturday night. It was an amazing gig; Iggy has so much energy, and I loved when he invited the front of the audience onto the stage. It reminded me of gigs my husband's band do, when the music is so energising that people from the audience climb onto the stage, and then stage-dive back in. I love when music uplifts and transcends and people are spontaneous. I wonder which shampoo Iggy uses? His hair looks so silky.

Confused? You won't be after this week's episode of SOAP

Does anyone remember that from the 80s? It used to be my absolute favourite TV programme. Until Burt was abducted by aliens. Then it all got a bit surreal. Not that I mind surreal but it was a bit odd three years into the programme.

Anyway, MY confusion is all to do with my little cat, sunbathing here on the coal bunker yesterday:I took her to the vet two weeks ago and he told me she was 3-4 weeks pregnant. So, after the initial shock I was very excited and started asking very nice people if they wanted a kitten when they arrived. The vet reckoned she had three or four kittens inside her, possibly more.

Then yesterday she started acting like she was on heat again. And tonight when I got home from work there was no sign of her, which is most unusual. I went looking for her, down the back lane, and even into next door's garden where Basil has a disused outbuilding and little secret garden round the back, where I know she likes to hang out, but she wasn't there. I was getting quite worried about her when she turned up just after 9pm, wolfed down a pouch of food and went straight out again.

So, I'm guessing she isn't pregnant, or else something's happened to her little kitties. I'll make an appointment for her at the vet tomorrow and make sure she's okay.

At least I should get a good night's sleep tonight, but I'd much rather Meg was home bothering me.

My husband came home from tour on Sunday night for a couple of days. I was so happy to see him. He very kindly gave me this!

Thunder and The Kitchen Table Microcosm

This has been our weather for the past few days. Torrential rain, thunder and lightning. I went into town yesterday morning and it was clear blue sky when I left. Then I was sitting in a cafe having lunch when the rain started hammering on the roof and bouncing off the pavement.

Today I'm planning to tidy up the house for Hagos coming home!! There isn't much to do but when I came down for breakfast this morning and looked at the kitchen table I thought it said a lot about how I've been living this last week: Material and sewing machine to make skirts; Oxygen and The Memory Keeper's Daughter; yesterday's Guardian; a present from a friend; receipts to sort; magazines and books stacked at the end of the table for reference; a manuscript of a book another friend is writing; and satsumas to have with porridge for breakfast.

It sums up how I spend my time. The table would have had a ginger cat on it too if she hadn't been out hunting.

Skirt # 3

I finished Joyce's skirt and she's really happy with it. I thought the moss green waist band really lifted the colours in the material, which is Amy Butler Coriander Olive.

Meg has taken to sleeping beside me on my bed, which I really like. I woke up this morning to find her already beside me, after she'd been out hunting.

My Friend Meg

I love Meg.

Mouse, Missing in Action

Meg brought a mouse in at ten to six in the morning a couple of days ago. I always know she has a 'friend' as she brings them up to the landing outside my bedroom, where we have a little office area and my bookshelves, and it's also where I hang my CLEAN washing. For some reason Meg likes playing with her little friends in amongst this clean washing: underneath the clothes horses and in the shelves where clean bedding and towels are kept. Anyway, I get up, only the mouse's tail can be seen dangling from Meg's mouth. I usher them both downstairs, Meg goes under the kitchen table and drops the mouse. The mouse looks completely DEAD. Limp. Lifeless. Broken. So I go to the bathroom to get tissue to pick up the mouse and when I come back through Meg is eating her breakfast and the mouse is GONE. It was obviously only pretending to be dead hoping to escape. An old ruse. I couldn't find it anywhere. I even picked Meg up and walked round the living room and kitchen with her, holding her close to the ground, hoping she would pick up the scent, but she just seemed a bit puzzled.

So, two days later, the mouse is still MISSING IN ACTION. I expect a smell will reveal its hideaway eventually.

Apart from that I've been ordering and receiving more lovely material:The Kaffe Fassett 'Paperweight Algae' is to make skirts for me and Mo. It reminds me of the bracelets I had as a kid. The Amy Butler 'Eyelashes' on top is for a skirt for me. It's actually a bit more yellow than I was expecting. I thought it was more olive-coloured.

I've already finished Mo's skirt: It's really lovely, and has turned out better than the original skirt I made. I'm getting the hang of the zips now, still not perfect though but CLOSE. I know at some point I'll have to learn to make a different type of skirt or garment but for now I'm having fun with this one-and-only shape.

I also received the material to make Joyce's skirt today: I do love this coriander line. And I have to give credit to Cottonpatch. There was a slight mistake with my order and they sorted it out immediately. So I will definitely be ordering from them again.

Hagos is in Norway today. Good news is that he's flying home a week on Sunday for a couple of days, unexpectedly. They're playing in Holland early that day, so he's flying direct from Amsterdam to Norwich. Yippee!

Gingercat Biscuits

I bought this cookie cutter when I went to V's cafe for lunch yesterday: I'm planning to make gingercat biscuits, probably to take into work as I don't want to eat a whole trayful myself!

Of course, guess who had to get in on the action when I was photographing:

Bee Time and The Sewing Empire

It's bee time at our cottage. Every year the bees turn up for three to four weeks and the bush outside our kitchen window buzzes all day long and their furry little bums groove up and down and their legs are covered in pollen. I love the bees.

I finished my skirt and I'm really pleased with it:

I took it into work and everyone I showed it to immediately asked if I would make them one! So far I've agreed to make one for Joyce and Mo at cost (they are acting as guinea pigs after all) but in different material. Joyce is having the same material as mine but in different colours (kind of olive and muted yellow) and Mo is having Kaffe Fassett material, I think it's called Paperweight

Algae. It's greens and blues.

I've also made a bag:

I've ordered myself some Kaffe Fassett Paperweight Algae as well, and some more Amy Butler Eyelashes material. I'm fortunate enough to work near the fabric shop in Norwich so I go there for bits and pieces and I've also seen material I like but I'll wait until the online stuff turns up.

I've also agreed to make my sister a skirt for her birthday in July. I sent her a sample of the fabrics she can choose from. I know she'll find some of them funny.I'm taking Meg to the vet on Monday. It's seven miles away and I'm not looking forward to getting her into the cat carrier and taking her in the car. Luckily she was already registered with that vet under her previous owners so they've moved her medical records into our name now. I thought it was funny when the vet's receptionist asked me if Meg's previous owners knew she was living with us now. Like we'd stolen her. (Which we kind of did - well, gentle persuasion anyway, she didn't need much encouragement to be pampered and given loads of attention.)

I'm having another easy day. I'll finish making the bag (it's designed to carry a paperback book; so often I want to take my paperback to a cafe and don't have a suitable bag to carry it in). And I'll watch a little bit of The Darling Buds of May and read Pride and Prejudice.

Hagos is in Lithuania today. Estonia tomorrow, then they move into Scandinavia and central Europe. There's a chance I'll join him on tour in Dublin for three days. We'll see.

I made a skirt!

I've had a great weekend. Today I went out for a walk in the rain to Reepham Station. It's about fifteen, twenty minutes away. The old station, to the right, houses a teashop and sells odd things like jams and marmalades and boxes, like this: and this: Then I went across to the building on the left, where there is more variety of objects, including pine furniture that's made on site.

I then came home and got stuck into making my skirt.

I've sewn it together now, just the very top band to hem. In my usual fashion I just got stuck in and learned as I went along. It's been about 20 years since I last used a sewing machine. The zip attachment is very cool, though I need more practise at inserting zips... Unfortunately it is a wee bit tight. It does fit but I could do with losing a few pounds before it will be really comfy. I used a skirt I really like as a template. I actually couldn't have made the skirt any bigger as I had ordered too little material. Next time I'll order more. As a learning experiment it was great fun though and I'm sure I'll improve next time round and it'll fit!

I'm tired and hungry now (when I sew something I have to make it in one go, otherwise I don't finish it for four years). I wanted to finish it to show Anna tomorrow.

Knitting Is DEAD - Long Live Sewing

Look what I bought today! I've been wanting a sewing machine for ages. I'm so excited.

I've been inspired by a lot of sewing blogs recently, mostly SouleMamma. There's an apron blog spin-off that got me very excited (not sure why?) and I've seen people making things like coasters and tops and dresses and skirts. I particularly like matching items, when the whole family has clothing made from the same material. I don't think Hagos will let me make us matching items though, might have to persuade my sister instead. We are similar in other ways: we both have an infectious laugh, we both sway backwards and forwards when we're standing still, we both hum absently to ourselves, and we both have short-term memory loss. Jacqueline recently told me a very funny story about taking money out of the joint bank account she has with her husband in the morning, forgetting about it, then wondering where the money had gone when she later went with him to take the money out again. The best part of the story was when her husband found an emergency phone number to complain. THEN she remembered.

Anyway, I digress.

My husband has now gone on tour. He flew to Russia on Saturday morning. It's their first gig tonight. He's away for six and a half weeks. So Meg and I are cosying ourselves in at home to make the most of the situation. I have BIG PLANS of THINGS TO DO while he's away. The sewing machine is part of it, but I'm keen to turn the whole house into a creative venue.

I also went food shopping today. My diet is very simple when Hagos is away. I eat fish, vegetables, fruit and I buy myself little sweet treats. Today I got some meringues from M&S, which I'll have with raspberries and cream.

Though it is raining, I was glad of the weather today as my Doc Marten summer sandals have a broken clasp, and my Animal sunglasses have lost one tiny little screw, thereby rendering both unwearable!!! Luckily my Rocket Dog boots are fine: I think I'll take it easy the rest of the day. Might do some more house-setting-up. Also want to critique some writing a friend gave me to look at. I'm very impressed by her dedication. Will also have a bath and see what I feel like after that.

Meg is better now after being on heat again. She got a rather nasty love bite between her shoulder blades. I had to put special plasters on her to stop her reopening the wound every day. She put up with it very well. She's been so sweet since Hagos left, not too clingy this time, a nice balance of cuddles and separate time. She made me laugh yesterday when I gave her new biscuits for her teeth. She was so eager to eat them she stepped in her soft food to get at them!
Little cuddly cat is THE BEST. I saw what must have been one of her relations looking out at me from a house when I walked through the graveyard yesterday. Both me and the cat did a double take, and if I hadn't just left Meg asleep on the couch at home I would've wondered what she was doing in someone else's house. Then I remembered Meg has several relations living in her previous house (her previous owner went to the same cat mum to get more kittens). I see cats that look like Meg frequently. They have her face and eyes if not always her colour. But this cat was small and ginger and had the exact same leg stripes! It reminded me of my own relatives back home in Dumfries. My mother has a large, extensive family and I frequently bump into people with brown hair and brown eyes who look like me.

Risk!

This is what was happening in our house on Saturday night. Our friend Robert came to stay. He is due to move to Germany in two weeks' time so this was a farewell visit. Our time with Robert always follows a well-worn course: drinking, playing Risk and 'troughing' (when Robert eats an entire packet of Bombay Mix from a bowl).

I've had a cold for over a week now so I had a couple of gin and tonics then drank water for the rest of the night. Robert won the game of Risk by not drawing attention to himself while we were playing (a virtually unheard of occurence). We wish him success and happiness in Germany with his band and family.

My cold has remained constant every day since I got it, that horribly heavy, sore body feeling. Sore throat, shooting headaches. Really nasty. Last night I was raging hot in bed and woke up today feeling better for the first time. Unfortunately I also woke up with a strange stomach thing. I had it last night too. I couldn't eat much dinner. This morning I had breakfast but haven't had any lunch and I'm not sure if I'll manage dinner (this is almost unheard of for me!). But at least I can function with a funny tummy. Better than having a cold.

Knitting news: I'm knitting another sock in mustard-coloured DK Alpaka with purple 4-ply and Debbie Bliss Maya details. So it's a mix of DK, 4-ply and chunky wool. Quite bizarre but I think it'll turn out okay. It's a half-hearted affair though.

My husband leaves for a six week tour on Friday. The first few days are always the most difficult. Adjusting to him being away, getting used to being by myself at home. Meg getting used to him being away too. I envy him travelling though. I used to tour with him, about ten years ago. We mainly toured in Europe, but I also got to go to Japan and America. Japan was by far the coolest place I've ever been, though I love Europe and Scandinavia too.

Haircut

I had my hair cut and coloured today. My hairdresser, Claudia, came to my house instead of me going to her as I realised my appointment coincided with my husband going away for a few days with the car.

I was glad to have it done as my hair has been strangling me in bed, and it got so long it had no body or life to it, it just hung like curtains.
I've been feeling alarmed by my appearance lately (pre-haircut - hopefully this is the first step to recovery!). I took a couple of photos of myself last week and was shocked by how tired and old and sad I looked. Kind of like that programme Ten Years Younger, before any work has been done.

I think we've had so much going on lately, with my husband coming and going and various appointments and stuff I've had - I feel like I've been going through the motions this month and just ticking stuff off once I've done it instead of really enjoying each thing. I feel like I'm on the home run now. The build up is all towards Hagos going away on tour at the end of the month for six weeks. My work life is so busy and full-on (even though I only work four days a week) that I can't be too busy outside of work otherwise I start feeling claustrophobic. So, for the rest of the day I shall be bathing and maybe watching some gentle comedy, and steaming some vegetables and cuddling my cat.

Blue and Red Socks; Cats absent then present again!

So, we have moved offices, and I'm glad to be out of crown court (and all the panicking people) and back in with some old friends and colleagues.

These are what I've been knitting on the bus this week:
I designed the colours myself! LOL. I really like them, only problem is, one sock is two rows longer than the other, because I was so blase about the pattern I read the foot length part when I was knitting the leg part. So I may have to knit two more socks the same to be able to pair them properly. The blue is Jaeger Baby Merino 4 ply, the red is Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply.

My little kitty has been on heat again this week. This is as much as we've seen of her since Saturday:Little paw prints on the floor. When I came home from work tonight though she was in the house sleeping. Then I sat down and she got on me, put her front paws high up on my chest, made me lean back so she could climb high up on my chest and lie on me there! It was SO nice to have her home though. We miss her so much when she's not here.

She's still a little energetic but I can see the hormones are leaving her system and I expect by tomorrow she'll be sleeping all day to catch up on the last two weeks. I'm DEFINITELY taking her to the vet this time. It doesn't seem fair to make her go through this every four weeks. She's still a stunning little ginger surprise though.I'm just about to have a bath. Then will hopefully have an early night, and maybe I'll take a whisky and ginger ale into the bath (my new favourite drink). Or maybe I should just have decaf earl grey tea. I'm SO happy it's Friday tomorrow. I'm looking forward to a relaxed weekend.

Skirt material, New Selvedge Magazine and Relaxation!

I finished my second red and green baby sock, but I didn't bother photographing it as it, obviously, looks exactly the same as the first. You'll have to take my word for it.

I received my Amy Butler material in the post mid-week, and was very excited!

I'm hoping to have a little left over when I've made the skirt, to make some kind of bag (this is a vague, unformed idea). As soon as it arrived I was straight onto Cotton Patch's website looking at the other material I want to buy. I figure I can have LOADS of skirts I like for about a tenner a time (once I've spent a fortune buying the sewing machine, of course).

Today I stopped off at the art gallery to buy the latest edition of Selvedge: I haven't read it yet, I'm saving it for tomorrow when I can sit at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers and spend the whole morning reading and dreaming.

My husband is away working for a couple of days and I've been doing lots of stuff that I like: reading, bathing, walking, drinking coffee, knitting, reading knitting blogs, pottering around the house, and visiting John Lewis. I also bought lots of salad stuff from M&S today and had that for lunch, then had steamed vegetables, houmous and pitta bread for dinner.

My favourite colours of wool at the moment are petrol blue (like my toiletries bag) and (hm, how do I explain this) a saturated, off-pink colour. I think it's Rowan Cashsoft DK. My friend Anna made a hat out of it and it's so lovely.

I was looking for inspiration in John Lewis; partly in mind was finding bright orange wool to knit my colleague Laura a cardigan for her coming-soon baby. She mentioned she has bought bright orange shoes and she'd like a cardigan to match! I didn't find any though.

Instead I bought reduced Jaeger 4-ply Baby Merino and started knitting more baby socks straight away:

I'm planning to knit the toes in red and the rest of the sock in blue. I'm also wearing a wrap-around dress, which I LOVE. I bought it in a sale in Top Shop and it's so comfy. I really like dresses and need to buy more. Complementing my outfit are my beady bed socks.

Finally, the sweetest thing I've seen, EVER.

Small but Perfectly Formed

I know it isn't much, but I knitted this baby sock on the way into work on the bus this week. It's a perfect project for me at the moment as I get such quick results.

I'm sorry to say Gemma fell by the wayside quicker than even I thought it would. I might wait until my husband is on tour again before I attempt to continue with it. That way I can leave it spread over his side of the couch so it's easy to pick up.

I inherited my husband's old phone last week as my clam shell spasmed-out and deleted most of my phone book and all of my messages. I now have the Banana Splits theme tune as my ring tone as this was on the phone already, and I love it. It makes me so happy when my phone rings. I loved the Banana Splits when I was a kid, it was so silly.

I've been reading more lately. I re-read books five and six of the Harry Potter series, ready for the final book being published in July. Then I read Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy. I was curious because he was paid an advance of £1,000,000 for it. I think the characters are well-named and there is some snappy dialogue BUT the plot is very weak and cliched and NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS.

Now I'm reading Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan. I think it's totally amazing. I'm loving it.

Cats, walks and haircuts

I'm SO tired. I had about two hours sleep last night. And had to work today, so I'm barely functioning.

This was me and Meg in my shed on Monday. Usually she stands right in front of me when I'm working on my laptop, but on Monday she suddenly plonked herself down as you can see and fell asleep. I think she liked the warm vent that her belly was covering. I tried to switch the laptop off before I went to lunch but had to push my finger underneath her head, which she didn't like. I got hissed at.

I have no knitting to show, though today I started a pair of baby socks on the bus into work. I'm using leftover wool, green and red Rowan cashsoft. No recipient in mind, I just felt like knitting something very easy and very quick and very light to carry.

Hagos and I have a busy period coming up. He has various work commitments and will be home and away a lot, and my office is about to move buildings this weekend. We're moving out of crown court and back into my old office building where I have lots of friends, a few of which are knitters. I'll still be doing the same job but the idea is that our workload will be spread among more people.

We took a walk to our little stream on Monday too. It's where we go when we want to think.

My hair is ultra long at the moment. When I saw Mariella on the book show on Sunday I thought I might like to get this done next time I see my hairdresser. I have an appointment for mid-May (she's in demand) and I can't wait.

Okay, I'm off to bed!

Trims

My husband rejoined his tour on Tuesday, flying to Copenhagen from Stansted this time. He flies back into Norwich tomorrow and I'll pick him up after I finish work.

On Monday I bought these lovely trims from a sewing shop near where I work. Of course, Meg had to get in on the act:

Immediately after I took this shot she jumped on the trims. Then we had a few seconds of battle with me trying to scoop them back into the bag and her trying to play with them. It often happens while I'm knitting that she'll be sleeping beside me on the couch, then I'll notice that she's watching my wool dangling out of the corner of her eye. I have to stop until she falls asleep again. If I don't I suddenly get pounced on and the jumper gets chewed.

Last night she was very clingy with me, so I took her up to bed with me and she slept sweetly beside me until half three in the morning. Then she started jumping on the furniture, so I put her out onto the landing and shut the bedroom door. She left me alone till I got up for work.

I took this photo while we drove into town the other night. I often wish I was living in the mountains of Scotland but occasionally I appreciate the flatness of the Norfolk countryside, and feel a fondness for it:

It's My Birthday!!!

These photos were taken at my 3rd and 4th birthday parties. I always had great parties when I was a kid, thanks to my mum organising it all. Mostly the same people came (as you can maybe see from the photos!), i.e. cousins and friends and neighbours. My sister Jacqueline has her hands on my shoulders in the right hand photo. We had a great picnic of sandwiches, cake and juice, then played party games like pass the parcel and one game (the name of which I've forgotten) where everyone stands round in a circle, and someone stands in the middle to be the 'farmer' and everyone sings, "The farmer takes a wife, the farmer takes a wife, ee-oh-my-daddy-oh the farmer takes a wife." The person in the middle would choose a 'wife' from the circle to join them in the middle. The wife would then take a maid, and I don't remember what the maid took. Anyway, it ended with the last person who was picked being slapped vigorously on their back by everyone!

Today my husband took me to Ha Ha's for lunch:
And he and Meg bought me a digital photo frame for my birthday, which I'm very excited about and have plans for different folders already: I specially requested some Amy Butler material from my work colleagues for my birthday and plan to make an A-Line skirt fairly similar to this (this is the actual material): And now we're going out for an Indian meal. I don't think we'll be out for long. We both still feel full from lunch and are keen to snuggle up on the couch with Meg.

Padded Dress

I really like this dress and when I eventually get my sewing machine I may attempt to make something like it.

I also really like Amy Butler stuff, designs and fabric, but it's difficult to source in the UK. I've requested some Coriander Seagreen material from my work colleagues for my birthday this weekend. I'll make a skirt with it.

I'm missing my husband very much and looking forward to seeing him on Friday. Meg has been very sweet to me, and didn't wake me up at all during the night last night. I jumped out of bed just after 7am to go looking for her as I thought she hadn't been home all night, only to find her stretching and looking sleepy on the landing when I opened the bedroom door.

It's my birthday on Saturday, and my friend Deb's birthday on Monday. We were born two days apart, our mothers worked together, our dads were friends when they were boys. We were sat together on our first day at primary school and we're still friends now. I last saw her when her son was just a few weeks old - that was about six years ago! We keep in touch via text and email. I have a photo of us when we were about 10 years old, standing in my front garden holding a couple of rag dolls. I'll try to find the photo and post it.

On our sixteenth birthday we took the train to Glasgow very early in the morning. On the train we mixed lipgloss with dark eyeshadow and put it on our lips. This was during our Goth phase. We felt very daring to be spending the day in Glasgow, and I spent about five hours choosing a Cure T-shirt to buy from an outlandish shop (coming from Dumfries, all the shops were outlandish). Years later, backstage at a festival in Europe when I was touring with Hagos's band, Robert Smith was standing a few feet away from me, wearing his wonky lipstick. I was so excited!

Deb was much more original than me when it came to her look. She had bleached hair, with dark roots, and she made some sleeves from a pair of fishnet tights. We both made our own dresses, mainly from ripped bits of material, which we thought very avant garde. From the age of 14 we went to pubs every Friday and Saturday night, dancing to the B52s (Rock Lobster) and The Mission with a sideways, insect-like back and forth movement. Occasionally we would 'bag' the school, meeting up at our friend Annette's house as both her parents were out at work, where we would watch video recordings of Top of the Pops. Good times.

Easter Eggs, Warm Fire, Local Airport

We had been eating Cadburys Easter Eggs until seeing a TV trailer about exploited children working 14 hours a day on cocoa plantations to produce our Easter Eggs. So we switched to Green and Blacks just to make sure, though I think Cadburys has a fair trade policy anyway, and vaguely recall that Cadburys owns Green and Blacks? I must check with my friend Janie who knows about these things.

Saturday was a lovely day. Eating our eggs, sitting in front of a roaring fire: and reading my new magazines, Selvedge: which are totally amazing and inspirational. All about design. I also managed a bit more of Gemma, which I'm finding surprisingly easy this time round. I may even finish it!!!

Today I dropped my husband off at Norwich Airport for him to fly to Amsterdam to join his tour. Usually he flies from one of the London airports, so it was amazing to take him to Norwich International instead. It took 35 mins round trip. I miss him very much already! Luckily he'll be back on Friday so we'll have our long weekend together as usual. I always wander round the house a bit lost the first day he goes away. Takes me a while to adjust and get into my stride. Meg has already gone to sleep on his couch in his studio.

I'm now on my healthy diet of fish, veg and fruit juice after my little foray into chocolate.