About my weight and horrible fitness level, that is. Even the word ‘fitness’ is a bit of a joke here, I have to say.

First let me get all the excuses off my (not inconsiderable) chest.

1 – I have an underactive thyroid. This makes losing weight incredibly difficult.
2 – I have fibromyalgia. This makes exercise incredibly difficult.
3 – I have multiple allergies and food sensitivities. This makes planning weight-loss menus incredibly difficult.
4 – I’m stressed and grieving. This makes getting into the required mindset incredibly difficult.
5 – It’s winter. Enough said.

About five years ago, I began losing weight for what I was convinced would be the last time ever. As the weight dropped off I became more and more convinced that it would be the last time ever. I felt so much better! I looked so much better! I had more energy and life was more fun all round. Why would I want to put it all back on again?

And then, towards the end of 2008, several things happened.

1 – There was a big meltdown and clash of personalities on a small, closed internet forum I run. It was unbelievably stressful and upsetting, as anyone who has experienced such a thing can testify. Two people I had considered friends became enemies overnight. Other friends took sides and some of them I never hear from now. The two original friends-turned-enemies and I eventually patched things to some extent but we will never, ever be close friends again. None of us are the people we thought we were.

2 – I had extremely painful shoulder surgery which took a whole year to heal. By which I mean that it was a year before it ceased hurting enough to stop me doing things and before I got most of the range of movement back. OH did remarkably well looking after me for the long period before I could really begin to cook again, but he isn’t a chef. We ate a lot of ready-meals.

3 – Both of my beloved greyhounds had to be put to sleep within five weeks of each other.

The deaths were from unrelated problems, both of which went undiagnosed by my vet. The beautiful Princess Renie had a soft-tissue tumour which spread into her spine and caused her unbelievable pain over that Christmas, and my sweet, funny little Captain Jack began having terrible breathing problems shortly after she left us, which my vet and his succession of European assistants wrongly diagnosed as several things, including ‘heart problems’ which I knew was not the cause.

Then he collapsed at 2am one morning and my own vet did not come out. Eventually, we found a vet who would see him and who saved his life that night (and is now our new vet). However, the true diagnosis of multiple embolisms did not help us at this stage and he never came home from the hospital – he went off his legs three days later and turned his face to the wall.

Maybe if he’d been given the right medication from the start he’d have lived a little longer and his death wouldn’t have been so traumatic. Maybe if Renie’s tumour had been found early enough, we could have had it removed and she’d still be with us. Who knows. All I can tell you is that I have tears in my eyes even now when I talk of them, three years after of losing them both.

And more recently:

4 – I developed stomach problems which required several hideously traumatic gastroscopies (it proved to be a complete myth that the valium injection would ‘completely sedate me’ and I wouldn’t know anything about it or remember it. I did, and I do – it’s still vivid in my memory, unfortunately).

5 – I suffered an episode of Transient Global Amnesia, which was terrifying.

6 – I was put on two successive, additional BP medications, one after the other, both of which proved to cause horrible side-effects which virtually crippled me with pain and fatigue and I had to come off both of them.

7 – Several family members have died, including, this year, my mother.

And so, during all of this, I began comfort eating. And as the ‘life events’ unfolded, I continued eating and eating, throwing all caution to the winds. I ate carbs, I ate puddings, I ate biscuits and cake, and I ate sweets by the bucket load. I drank a lot of hot chocolate. I ate bread with butter (and jam, and honey), which I hadn’t really touched for a long, long time. I switched back from 70% cocoa chocolate to the sweet milky variety. And the pounds crept back on, until now I’m just as heavy as when I began to lose that weight.

I might actually be heavier. I dare not get on the scales.

So what I’m going to do is this. I’m going to try to get back to where I was before all the horrible stuff happened. I looked good. See?

This is not a New Year’s Resolution – it can’t be, since I’m still suffering from this wretched flu and can’t exercise or eat normally yet – but I hereby put it out there for the record: I am going to begin to eat more healthily and start to exercise again, and I’m going to blog about it.

I’ll try not to be boring, I promise!

New Year’s Day, lunchtime.

Someone had a good time last night, although it seems that someone can’t remember an awful lot about it.

Someone also has a bump on the head they can’t account for.

And – would you believe this? On my very first dog walk since Christmas, still struggling to shake off the remnants of the flu, ‘someone’ and I tried to duck out of the walk and have coffee instead in the park café, and we found that it was closed!

How could they? If only they could see this face, huh?

If ever I saw a face in serious need of a coffee, this would have to be it, and they selfishly decide to go and have their New Year bank holiday and leave us coffee-less and sitting on the icy cold, bird-poop besplattered bench outside their icy cold, heartless, double-locked doors.

This is the Lovely B, good sport that she is. She happily posed for these photos today knowing that I was gong to post them here. Probably she also knows that – unlike some people I could name* she still looks pretty damned good, even with a killer hangover.

* Me. Although I don’t drink enough to have real hangovers these days.

OK, so who got a houseplant for Christmas this year? No? Well, then maybe you are thinking of picking one up in the sales next time you go to the garden centre, DIY store, or even the supermarket?

Think carefully.

The plant up at the top there is a cycad Sago Palm, and apparently is on sale all over the damn place as a houseplant because it’s attractive and easy to care for. Unfortunately, it’s also highly palatable to pets and has pretty, bright orange seeds which might also be attractive to children.

‘Unfortunately’, because the cycad Sago Palm is extremely toxic, and there’s an estimated 50-75% chance of death if you (or your cat, dog, or child) eat any part of the plant, the seeds being the most lethal. Fortunately, because I read the Poodle And Dog Blog link on Facebook this morning, I now know this, and so do you.

I don’t normally use this blog as a vehicle for warnings, and I don’t usually post chunks of someone else’s text, but I’m going to this time because a) I think it’s a good warning, and b) I have what feels like flu, and therefore no energy to be creative. So this is from Wikipedia:

“Cycad Sago Palm is extremely poisonous to animals (this includes humans) if ingested. Pets are at particular risk since they seem to find the plant very palatable.[2] Clinical symptoms of ingestion will develop within 12 hours and may include vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, seizures, liver failure, or hepatotoxicity characterized by icterus, cirrhosis, and ascites. The pet may appear bruised, have nose bleeds (epistaxis), melena (blood in the stool), hematochezia (bloody straining), and hemarthrosis (blood in the joints).[3] The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center estimates a fatality rate of 50 to 75 percent when ingestion of the Sago Palm is involved. The incidence of Sago Palm ingestion by pets has risen by over 200% in the last five years.[4] If any quantity of the plant is ingested, a poison control center or doctor should be contacted immediately. Effects of ingestion can include permanent internal damage and death.

All parts of the plant are toxic; however, the seeds contain the highest level of the toxin cycasin.”

Admittedly, there are many, many toxic houseplants, and there are many, many toxic garden plants. However, plants which are equally toxic – eg the Yew and the Laburnham – do not seem to be so palatable, and don’t get eaten so often. Also, the aril of the yew (the ‘berry’), is pretty much the only part of the tree which is not poisonous, so although they are bright and attractive and taste sweet they won’t actually kill your dogs or your children*.

Unlike these things.

The cycad Sago Palm appears to be very tasty and is eaten quite often by pets. This is a quote from the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) (it’s American, so they use ‘veterinarian’ not ‘veterinary surgeon’ but it’s the same thing):

“I swear, it seems to me that dogs are attracted to sago palms. In the cases of toxicity I see (several each year), it seems to be the only plant in the yard the dogs chew on. … I think we need to be more proactive in trying to warn owners they should not have these plants at all.”

If you follow the link, you’ll see there’s one particularly sad and cringe-making story there about an unsuspecting owner who unwittingly killed his dog by playing a game of fetch with the seed pods. How bloody awful for them both.

In case those of you here in the UK are thinking that we don’t need to worry because we don’t have them here – yes we do. I quickly found them for sale at a nursery in Norfolk where they state that they were ‘probably the food of dinosaurs’. Being highly concerned that this might give people the false impression that these palms are harmless – or even edible, God help us – I sent them an email with the appropriate information link, and the Managing Director got back to me very quickly and said they would amend the website, alerting customers to the danger, bless his cotton socks.

It’s so nice when people do actually listen and do something. Well done, that man!

I didn’t used to worry too much about house and garden plants, although I took out all the Monk’s Hood and Laburnham when we moved in. But Ranger does chew on plants and I’ve had to chase him off my day lilies more than once.

So you can bet your bottom currency note of your choice that I will not be buying one of these things.

* Or so I’ve read. I haven’t actually tried them, and I wouldn’t advise anyone to do so. Just for the record.

And actually, despite feeling really rather ill, I enjoyed the day.  See, if this isn’t flu* it certainly feels close and it developed fully just in time for Christmas Day.

Both sons came over with their girlfriends (though one was missing for the morning since she had to work) and Great Fun Was Had By All.  No, really .. even me!  I managed to cook a turkey dinner with a side order of lamb in red wine and rosemary sauce and three choices of dessert (a fourth being provided by Son No. 1) and it all went down very well, even though the bacon and chipolata rolls were a tad singed and the turkey leaked grease all over the worktop which then seeped into my nice turquoise tunic top while I carved it.

All the gifts were greeted with delighted exclamations of surprise and/or glee, and I have to say, two of the most notable were from me to OH.  Viz: one hard-to-find replacement for the favourite mug he broke recently and was mourning, and a Tuesday sock.

A Tuesday sock (singular)?

Yes.  You see, OH was given a pack of days-of-the-week socks some time ago, and fell in love with them.  He loves orderly things, and it gives him great satisfaction to wear these socks on the correct day.  However, a couple of weeks ago I found one in the washing machine with a load of my stuff and I kidnapped it.

OK, more explanations.  OH likes to use fabric conditioner and I don’t.  Also – and this is quite funny – he accused me of losing his socks in the wash some time ago and began to do all his laundry himself so he could keep track of things.

So when I found a Tuesday sock in my laundry, I immediately went to taunt him with it, and then hid it and refused to give it back.  OH became quite nervous about what he would do when Tuesday came around and there was only one Tuesday sock left, and I had the brilliant idea of wrapping it and giving it to him back in his little pile of Christmas gifts.

His expression was priceless, and quite made me forget my own personal misery for a while.

“But .. hang on, this is MY sock!!’

Towards the evening, of course, I began to feel worse, and when the chaps and T went out with the dogs, I curled up in my chair wrapped in a fuzzy warm blanket and dozed.  I felt so rotten that I felt totally unable to play Mah Jong with Son No. 1′s brand new set when they got back.  Ah well, another time.

This morning I feel a tad better.  My temperature has gone down to near normal, but I’m still full of gunk, aches, coughs and sneezes and my chest hurts.  Gah.

I hope I’m OK for our ‘official’ Boxing Day on Tuesday.

* Yeah, yeah.  I know.  It isn’t flu, clearly, or I wouldn’t have been able to function at all, and certainly wouldn’t feel the slightest bit better this morning.  But sheesh. This is Christmas!  I didn’t need a feverish cold, either!