Easter Weekend

Easter Monday and the pool is shut. And yet I felt a bit listless this morning - I think I actually missed it! Heavens! Am off this week, so getting out to swim might be something of a challenge, but Flâneur is determined that I should head out at least one morning this week, if only so he doesn't have to put up with my tetchiness from lack of a good swim!!  ;o)

I'll need to do it though - I'm sooo close now to falling on to the other side of a stone number, sitting as I am around X-1 stone and 0-1 lb for the last week or so...  So frustrating!!  I really really want to get to that next number down.  Not sure I can afford a treat for getting there this time, but I'm so close now that maybe an incentive is needed!  Especially as I'm back on the chocolate now.

For the last 9 years I have given chocolate and sweets up for Lent.  Not for a particularly religious reason, but I like the opportunity it gives me to test my will power over a six week period!  Temptation is often put in my way (the year I was in Dublin the girls on my course tried to persuade me the St Patrick's day didn't count...), but it's important to me to not let any small slither of the sweet stuff to pass my lips regardless of the excuse for a 'day off' it.  We're talking will power here.  And every year it's quite hard, but I do manage it.  

I am determined this year, however, not to fall off the wagon with the huge whump that I usually do once Lent is over. So no cheap chocolate for me now... or something...  I don't miss chocolate so much after the first couple of weeks, especially as most of it is just so sweet and sickly. But what I like is some good quality chocolate and all that I really need is a little of the good stuff every now and again. So out with the Cadbury's and in with the specialised stuff!  Particularly Amedi. Yum! Flâneur was given the instruction just to get me a small Easter egg, preferably not one of the sickly usual ones. He always tries to get me a nice one anyway, so my little Charbonel and Walker egg with three of their champagne truffles was just superb!  I did eat it all yesterday, so maybe that stone marker will be a little further off yet...

I got him some mini eggs from Coco de Bruntsfield, a lovely little Edinburgh chocolate shop.  They do some lovely lovely interesting flavours in good quality chocolate, and I picked us up a bar of their rose and cracked black pepper 64% chocolate too, which was tasty. It's nice to just have a couple of squares of something really nice rather than stuff my face with something that is largely unsatisfying! But I'm sure there are readers out there who will disagree with me...

Chocolate is not the only food that has been consumed lately though (and I've still not finished all my Coco champane truffle mini eggs that Flâneur also bought me, so spoiled!). On Friday we had HAL and BC over for dinner, where I cooked (for once!). Knowing that we wouldn't have an Easter dinner on Sunday, I did roast lamb, cooked to the recommendation of the Butcher, who was much nicer than the last one I dealt with. He suggested rather than stuffing it, which had been my intention with the lovely piece of shoulder than I bought, I marinaded it over night with fresh garlic and rosemary and salt and pepper and a little oil. So simple, so tasty! And a really lovely piece of meat... Did the good old roast spuds, with asparagus and green beans...

Hmm... making myself hungry here!  It all worked very well and we finished it off with a Lemon and Prosecco cake that Flâneur had made (and will make again! God it was good... and light!) and some dessert wine that I had been given as a birthday present last year (Quady Elusium Black Muscat, just delicious!). We had good chats on a variety of topics and had an all round good evening! HAL and BC left after midnight, so I think they had a good time too!  

On Saturday we were out at RL's for dinner - and it was a proper dinner party! With people we didn't know so well and everything!  As well as meeting the fabled G, RL's boyfriend of 6 months, we were joined by two other of her friends, one whom I had met before briefly when living with her and the other who I had not. We'd not been to R's flat either, which I really liked.  It's not massive but has good character. Loved the living room (which will be R's bedroom when the flat's owner comes back from NZ next month, which is almost a shame as it's a great living room) and it's nice to see her somewhere with central heating again!!  We'd been expecting a heavy dinner again (hence no plans for a big Easter Sunday dinner), and were pleasantly surprised to be served fish! Both as a starter and as a main. It was all so good. She'd gone to so much effort, and we had a really good time. The company was great, the conversation flowed and so did the wine.

God my head was fuggy on Sunday morning. I really just can't drink more than a couple of glasses of wine anymore... Especially not white! I can't remember how much I had, but I wasn't much use to anyone on Sunday!  We didn't get home until after 2 either - can't do those sort of late nights either! urgh... Still, it was a great evening and we really should do it more often...

Lazy slug...

That is what I have become.  I haven't even checked back on this thing to see when the last time I actually did some exercise was.  It would be too depressing.  I have been walking a bit (though lazy, drag me from bed mornings mean not as much as I should be), including a nice long walk last Saturday with my Flâneur, Wastrel and SAM, the latter of whom had come down for dinner the night before.  But other than that - zilch.  I haven't even been to the pool, and I love swimming!

Eating has been a bit of a theme as I cooked a lavish three course meal for my Flâneur for his birthday on the 19th.  It was a little stressful as I had chosen to be a little bit more complicated than my usual "shall we have pasta...".  I made goat's cheese and red onion tarts to start (served with some salad to pretend it was healthy), following by shoulder of lamb stuffed with an apricot stuffing (which was much nicer than I had anticipated).  Was a bit pissed off that the annoying butcher, who pointed out it's called shoulder in Scotland when I asked for neck (which I'd seen used on Masterchef, how was I to know that's what 'the English' call it!), that he had said to me - oh if you're stuffing it, with this piece you wont need to tie it.  Well that was not true and as I checked on it part way through I realised it had sprung apart and the stuffing was starting to char.  So I had to take it out the oven and try and tie string round a hot piece of meat in a desperate attempt to make it cook properly.  Anyway, this was accompanied by dauphinoise potato (recipe on the potato council website, of all places), and asparagus (cooked in butter...hhmmm...).  By this time I was pretty well stuffed as we just don't eat that much anymore, having cut our portions down quite considerably.  But we weren't done, as I had decided to have a go at making chocolate mousse.  

The recipe for the mousse came from Jamie Oliver's "Happy Days" book, and apparently served "4".  As I wanted some for the next night too, I thought I'd do half the mix again and therefore have enough for 6.  Six piggies that would be!  It was a huge amount of mousse that I put into frankly the most enormous glasses I have (they're champagne bowls), and there was still some left over to make two other reasonable sized portions.  I felt really quite ill half way through, but ploughed on none the less.  ;o)  Maybe this is why I am so large....

All this was washed down with some very lovely Californian Zinfandel and some yummy Prosecco.  Hmmm....  Thankfully had taken the next day off, boy did I need it.  My tummy felt a little sore.  Spent most of it cleaning the flat though.  Just don't get the chance to give this place the clean it needs what with working and everything...

Had a lovely visit from Wastrel and SAM and was very pleased that my Flâneur was cooking and that he was doing fish!  He did a fine Japanese spread including gyoza (yummy), sake glazed salmon, greenbeans with a soybean paste and toasted sesame topping, Japanese potato salad and of course, rice.  Washed down this time with a nice Sake and green tea.  Oh, and of course, finished off with Mousse.  That's what we all were - fished off by mousse!!  Only SAM and I managed to finish ours.  Urgh...

So, yes, eating has been a real feature of the last two weeks, but not really exercise.  On the plus side it is now Lent, when traditionally I give up chocolate and sweets.  It's been pretty tough these first few days as I begin to realise just how much of a habit it has become!  This is the 9th year (I think) that I have done this and usually by Easter I don't really want chocolate, so hopefully this will be a real chance to cut right back.  I shall have to just make sure I don't gorge on Easter Sunday and therefore fall with a bit fat bump off the wagon...  Flaneur is under instructions not to buy me more than 1 Easter egg and to make sure it's a really good quality one...  

Lent should help with the weight loss though which appears to have very frustratingly stalled.  Not exercising probably has something to do with that, but I am bumbling along still at the X-1 stone 3lb mark, sometimes a bit lower, occasionally a bit more (v. depressing), but mostly just at the 3 mark.  That's still my stone marker, but it would be nice if it went down a bit, at least to get me into the X-2 stage... Sigh!  Am determined to get back to the exercise this week coming though - I will be at the pool on Monday, I will!!

On the sewing front, I did finish the front of my quilt, which was very satisfying.  Sorry no pics at the moment - have to down load them from the camera, which involves using a different computer...  Anyway, it doesn't look much different from the picture of it all laid out on the floor!  It's blooming massive, but looks great.  I'm really really pleased with it and now just need to get the wadding and backing fabric and finish it off.  It really hasn't taken me half as long as I expected...