The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

Walking in Barcelona

Last weekend I went to Barcelona to hang out with my pal Coach Julia Jones. We had a great time eating tapas and working on our new Up & Running half marathon e-course, which we're launching next week (squeak!). 

After our Brussels work-a-thon last summer, I was awed by how she packed her running shoes and exercised and ate mindfully... rather than seeing a few days away as time for sloth and scoff-o-rama. Six months on I reckon I'm getting there too! I enjoyed my tapas and some incredibly decadent chocolate pastry thingos but whoa baby, I savoured the whole shebang. Half the fun is hunting down the perfect thing to eat - following your nose through the narrow streets, oggling fancy treats in the windows, taking a photo or ten before finally tucking in. That's how I did it til I lost my way... be selective, then savour. It feels good to get back to what works.

Pigeons near the Sagrada Familia

The exercise went well too. On Sunday Julia suggested we each head out for 40 minutes - a run for her and a brisk walk for Granny Knees me. It's been years since she coached me but OBEY JULIA remains a mantra... I cranked up the GPS and Walkmeter on my phone so I'd be able to show her proof that I'd walked and not just sat under a tree eating cake. Again, it is very useful to know what really motivates you - in this case, a need to please and a love of gadgets! ;)

In my eagerness to "make good time" some how I got a bit lost on the way back!

The Gambler

Just advanced warning... I'm really tired today and bordering on delirious so this may not make any sense whatsoever :)

On the weekend I was browsing at a department store beauty counter. A twenty-something sales assistant sprang out from behind a mirror and said, "Can I help you? How about this primer?" She waved a tube in my face. "I think you'll love it. It's great at smoothing fine lines and wrinkles!"

Yeah, thanks very much lady!

This trifling anecdote is the only way I could think of to start writing about the tangled pile of stuff I've been thinking about lately. Ageing and health and relationships and work and meaning and whatnot.

At times I've lived like I had a neverending bucket of time. Like no matter how poorly I treated my body I'd have time to Ctrl+Z the damage. But really, it's only luck that I've escaped relatively unscathed (thus far).

Recently I've been humbled by how fast life can change - seeing how the most healthy specimens can become fragile overnight. We humans are really are so vulnerable. It's left me feeling quite rotten for gambling with my own health so much.

Another thing that's brought clarity was hanging out in Brussels with my Up & Running compadre, Julia Jones (better known as Coach Julia to the ladies she bosses around with her virtual megaphone!). The premise of our meeting was to do lots and lots of work, which we did; but I came away feeling like my brain and heart had been dismantled, scrubbed and polished, then put back together again like new.

I dunno, maybe Julia hypnotised me or something? But hanging out with her makes me look forward to being 50 years old. She is kicking arse. Not just because she finished a freaking half iron man a couple of weeks ago, but because does things with purpose, thoughtfulness and consistency. She lives with the kind of structured mindfulness I've been striving for. She squeezes her running shoes into her carry-on luggage - it wouldn't occur to her not to move her butt on a long weekend away. She orders exactly what she wants and relishes a yummy restaurant meal, but eats lighter and healthier at the next meal without making a big thing of it. She works hard, on projects she cares deeply about, but knows when it's time to down tools and chill out. She gives so much to people, but she knows when to draw boundaries. I admire the hell out of her approach to life.

Does this post have a bloody point, woman? you may be asking. Yes! Sorta! I guess lately I'm feeling very conscious of time passing, and the cumulative effects of my thoughts and actions. I'm seeing this Making Healthy Choices thing in a different light. Sometimes a slice of cake is just a slice of cake, but when scoffed too often cake numbs; it dulls the edges and clouds the thoughts. I'm trying to be more thoughtful about what's going on when I reach for cake and what happens afterwards... both the immediate sugar crash and mood plummet, and the effects arteries years down the line.

Likewise when I choose to lift some weights, or go for a bike ride, or eat a salad... sometimes a salad is just a salad. But when it's bursting with colour and flavour it almost feels like a declaration of intent...

I want to live a long life
I want to have strong bones when I'm an old lady
I want to spend my days doing meaningful work
I want to walk for miles without hurty knees
I want to be a strong, clear-minded partner, friend, daughter, sister, business partner

And I really don't need a £30 tube of primer!

(I could really do with a nap, though :) )

New Year Goals Check-In: February

I'm doing monthly updates on my New Year Goals. 1/6th of 2011 is gone. Yikes.

Once again I'm late with the monthly update. Aside from feeling lame talking about this stuff with earthquakes and tsunamis going on, I've also been in the kind of overly emotional mood where it's best to steer clear of blogging. The kind of mood where one says or does ill-advised things, as per this hilarious tweet I saw from writer Sali Hughes:

February was a good month with some nice small victories.

• I spent a long weekend in Paris with Dr G (my birthday gift to him - "Here, have an Easyjet ticket! Yeah, I'm coming too!" Everyone's a winner.) and I didn't put on any weight. Blow me down with a feather, I ate mindfully in the land of pastry and cheese.
• I started a Pilates class! For the past four years I've pined for the weekly class we had when I worked at the House of Sport. I finally found a place on a Beginners course (yep, back to Beginner level, d'oh) and really loving it.
• I lost a couple of pounds.
• Food diary still going strong.

Things that didn't go as well:

• Very inconsistent with exercise in the early part of the month.
• Got sloppy with meal planning post Paris. It really helps to buy some bloody groceries!

I am happy with my glacial progress. I'm working more on the exercise and planning this month, but overall it feels like I'm devoting the right level of brain power to the task. There are still the PMS-y moments of I should do more panic, but I know that would mean taking away time and energy from other parts of my life and would no doubt trigger nutty behaviour and serious overeating. So I'll keep plodding along.

It felt like amazing progress to walk around in Paris and not have my guts knotted with regret for stuffing my face nor fear that I'd blown a diet. Instead, somehow I was able to switch off the lard-related chatter in my brain and focus on being there. It sounds cheesy but for the past few years I've not properly savoured some really cool moments because I was too caught up in angstypants thoughts.

This time I tried to focus on all five senses, not just taste. The tiny details of the Notre Dame. The echo of our voices when the river boat went under a bridge. The bright smell of a Vietnamese dinner. The flaky pastry of a chausson aux pommes dissolving on my tongue. The icy night air in my lungs as I raced Gareth around the Louvre pyramids on our bike tour. Gareth's yelp of pain when I accidentally rode too close and stabbed him with my handlebar. The unfortunate stink of that dog poo I failed to ride around.

Good times, people. Good times!

This photo is rubbish but you get the idea!

Baltimore Bound in 2011

I'll be getting drunk with blogging pals and/or speaking at the second annual Fitbloggin' conference in Baltimore in May 2011. Fitbloggin' is a conference "for bloggers interested in fitness, wellness, good food and a healthy lifestyle", organised by Roni Noone, fitblogger extraordinaire.

I was all set to go this year - I even bought a Boston guidebook! This is why you should read websites and not just idly scan them. Yeah I recall seeing a capital B on the Fitbloggin site. Must have been Boston. Clicky click, add Rough Guide To Boston to shopping cart.

I seem to have some kind of mental block with East Coast USA - I mixed up the White House and the Capitol the other day. But this year I've read the information properly and I'm confident that the conference takes place in BALTIMORE.

The schedule is still being finalised but the tentative title of the panel I'm on is Ditch the Diet - Eat Mindfully!

Despite the panel subject, I must confess when Roni gave me the green light to be a speaker the ye olde inner dieter was whispering urgently in my ear, "Hey lardy! 204 days til Fitbloggin! You could drop a good 30 pounds by then. Shall we cancel all birthday cakes and Christmas dinner with the in-laws?"

But I am just too old and grumpy for that crap now. The mindful eating is going so well and I don't want to screw that up. I'll be at the conference in whatever state I'm in, all fired up to see old and new friends. And to finally meet my podcast comrade Mizfit in person. Wonder if we could figure out how to record live? Rock and roll.

The Forbidden Eclair

Highlights of the past few weeks:

Kicking off a mission to bake 50 different kinds of bread before I leave this earth.
This is brown soda bread, which is like Bread for Dummies since you just use baking soda - no faffing with yeast. It was bloody beautiful, especially dunked in Reassurance Soup.

Looked after the kids.
It's still a "shove random things in pots and cross fingers" approach because gardening books and websites just make me scream in confusion after awhile. But it's all looking green, so rock on!

Watched Scruffy, my new favourite Eating Disorder Pigeon, potter round the yard.
Maybe he got into a brawl or a cat tried to take him out. He was pretty much ignored by the other EDPs...

... but recently began to pursue a pretty little bird.

A week later and they are inseparable, guzzling seeds and wandering side by side down the rows in the veggie patch. Until Dr G yells out the window, "Oi! Get arf my parsnips!"

Dr G and I also spent a couple of days in Belfast and saw a Metallica gig.

And Dr G ate a chocolate eclair the size of his head.

(I had a custard tart with berries on it but the photo was blurry; hands shaking from anticipation)

Gareth is usually indifferent to sweets so I was surprised when he said, "Oh man, I'm having that eclair!"

"Really?" I said.

"Oh aye. I always wanted to have a chocolate eclair when I was a kid and Mum never let me have one so now I'm going to have one!"

"Dude that's a slippery slope," I joked, "I spent years eating all the stuff my mother never let me have when I was a kid and I'm still paying for it!"

He only got halfway through before threw down his spoon in defeat, saying that maybe his Mum had his best interests at heart after all.

I want to be a French librarian

Now these are the kind of working hours that I aspire to. I was briefly in Picardy, France for the day job this week and saw this sign at a library:

It's good to be back home. Once I've tackled my mega pile of laundry I'll wrote a proper entry. Bon weekend, mes amies!

Greetings from the Lake District

Dr G and I have escaped to the Lake District this week. Hooray for holidays!

I was planning on a week of tea and scones and reading books but of course with Gareth around it's always slightly more strenuous than that. So we stomped up a wee hill and I must confess I did a bit of bitching and grumbling because it was raining and it was windy and it was slippery and there were loose rocks and I forgot to bring my sticks.

My main issue was that it was steep, because who would have thought a hill could be anything but flat and gentle? Honestly it was such a pathetic display that I cracked up laughing at my own ridiculousness. I really do try to like hillwalking for the sake of our marriage, but some days you just can't even fake it! :)

On Monday we played Pitch n Putt golf. I'd not played golf before but both my grandmothers were ace golfers so surely it would be in the genes? Not quite. I came this close to manslaughter charges. On my very first shot, somehow I whacked the ball into the safety barrier net thing, which I still do not understand as I was clearly aiming for the green. It freakishly whizzed through a tiny gap between the net and its metal frame, ricocheting off the frame then smacking hard into the wall of the golf shop... missing the head of a little old lady by an inch!

She had been quietly sitting on the veranda of the wee shop well behind what she rightly thought was the safety of a GIANT SAFETY NET. I rushed over to make sure she was okay and apologised profusely and she really was far too gracious about it. She was laughing! Maybe a brush with death makes you laugh? I would have demanded I buy her a KitKat at the very least.

Meanwhile Gareth had dropped to his knees - I thought he was shaking from laughter but he said it was sheer relief because he saw it all in slow motion and thought I was off to jail, for sure. Holy crap what a terrible moment. Very Nice Lady, if you ever find this website somehow (perhaps by googling "pitch and putt ginger menace") once again, I am so sorry!

Incidentally Gareth kicked my arse, 2 holes to 7.

So I'm keeping things low key for the rest of the week. Thank you everyone who listened to the podcast! We have no idea what we're doing but we're having a lot of fun doing it. Once I'm done with hols and a work trip next week, we'll get cracking on a podcast website and a new episode. Thanks again for giving us a go!

Crazy Eyes and Cold Comfort

While in Australia at Chez Mothership, we came across a bulging folder of all the "stories" I'd written in kindergarten.

It was clear as a five year old I was already disgruntled with my appearance. I had very short red hair and hated it so much. As if my inability to hold a pencil properly wasn't already holding me back, but cropped ginger hair too? Dude.

I was spewingly jealous of my follically-blessed classmates. There were at least a dozen stories about my long blonde friend Marnie. This is Marnie, I would write. Marnie has long blonde hair. Marnie is very pretty. I like Marnie. I love Marnie.

Holy crap, run for your life Marnie!

In this story I daydreamed on an Ideal Me, all flaxen locks and pretty bows.

Sometimes I would attempt a more honest depiction of my appearance, as in the April 1983 masterwork, "The world is big and we live on it".

Although if you look closely you can see the madness in the eyes.

Another highlight of our Australian jaunt was the consumption of this here chocolate thickshake at Gus' Cafe in Canberra. There must be half a pound of ice cream in there! Just wrapping your paws around that frosty metal cup feels like home.

I'd already had a thickshake at the magnificent Paragon Cafe in Goulburn but I had to squeeze in one more in before heading to the airport. It tasted all the sweeter because The Mothership, Rhiannon and Gareth were there too... the first time the four of us had been in the same place since I introduced the future son-in-law on Mum's 2004 Scottish tour. I think she can actually understand what he's saying now.

Hei Suomi!

Hello world! I know some folks get annoyed when I write about Book Stuff but I assure you this is the very last Dietgirl translation and it would be rude to give shoutouts to Germany and Norway then ignore poor old Finland. 

So... hello any Finns out there! I've already heard from some lovely Dieettitytön huimat seikkailut readers (thank you!) who said they particularly appreciated the passionate love story. Not Gareth, but rather Finnish chocolate. 

It was a brief but intense affair - just three days in Helsinki almost five years ago. But I still wake up drooling from Fazer chocolate dreams, especially the Tupla and Geisha bars. I think the chocolates got more adjectives in the book than poor Dr G.

Apart from the chocolate and the reindeer with mashed potatoes, my other lingering memory of Helsinki is of wind. Not the excess-broccoli-consumption kind, but rather the wild stuff that blows things over. I was still in my Avoiding Cameras phase back then so the only photographic evidence I've got is a self-portrait beneath the Sibelius Monument that still makes Dr G bust a gut laughing. A ferocious Finnish breeze is all you need for a stunning Flock of Seagulls hairstyle.

The book looks very cool - hardcover with lots of vowels. The acknowledgements are slightly confusing. In the UK version, I thanked Gareth in the last paragraph and ended with, "YOU RAWK" - the Finnish translation of this sentence is "SENKIN LIVERPOOL-FAN!" Very strange!

(Thank you Meri for your help with the entry title!)

Telly Report

The night before I laid out my outfit three different ways. First in a long line across the hotel room, in correct order of putting-on-ness. Then in alphabetical order. Then finally draped over a chair in formation, like I'd been flattened by a truck - dress splayed, tights dangling beneath, boots waiting below, bra and knickers in the right spot; I even balanced the earrings on the top of the chair. Just in case I couldn't remember how to get dressed by the time morning rolled round.

Yes, yes, the nerves again. I know you long-time visitors are bloody sick of hearing about them, but I still get frazzled before Big Unknown Events. I learned from the kickboxing grading that being ultra-prepared helps, so I slept better knowing that the clothes were in position and there were two alarm clocks and a wake-up call keeping them company.

I woke up by myself at the crack of dawn. Got dressed and then it was 6.15. Two hours to kill before I was due at CBS. I perched on the edge of the bed and practiced not slouching. All the different advice I'd been given played on a loop. Be calm. Enjoy yourself. Don't say anything stuuuupid!

Finally it was time to go and I walked with Christine the Most Excellent Publicist to the CBS studios, past the snow and stinky horses at the bottom of Central Park. We were taken to the Green Room, which was actually blue. It was full of televisions and coffee and food but I decided it would be best to not touch anything, knowing my tendency to scatter breakfasts on my chest. 

We chatted with the charming Green Room man then the makeup wizards spruced me up in three minutes flat.... zing! Then I paced and wrung my hands and let the terror and excitement buzz through me. Then the lovely producer arrived to go through the segment and I asked many panicky questions. 

"I can do a mock interview right now if you like," she offered, perhaps smelling my amateurism. But I said we'd best not, because if I answered questions now I'd use up all my brain juice and have no words left for the real thing!

The rest of it is a blur. It's like your wedding day, without the booze. I remember feeling like a goose for wearing a dress. If you wear a top and a skirt or trousers you can discreetly pull the microphone up the front of your top then attach the big lumpy battery thingo at the back on your waistband. But with the frock I had to dive right under it to pull the wee mic through, then they pulled the cord behind me and hooked it onto the belt of my dress, which meant I had walk across the set with the dress all hitched up in back, like when you see some lady come out of the loo in a restaurant and she hasn't pulled her skirt down properly and everyone whispers, Dude, poor lady's got her skirt tucked in her knickers. Shame job, as we used to say at my high school. Shame job! This was American Telly and they no doubt saw dress-wearing ninnies all the time, but still, thank goodness for 60 denier tights.

I sat down on the hot seat and looked around. It was so unreal. I wanted to laugh but stuck with shaking like the proverbial shitting dog. There was a teleprompter and cameras and bigass microphones and people with headsets and now a dainty lady sitting across from me, smiling in a calm and reassuring manner. This was Maggie Rodriguez, the anchor. We chatted for a few seconds and then she cleared her throat. Holy crap this is happening what's her name again what's MY name? Concentrate, concentrate! 

She asked me a question and I said something and my heart went brrrrrrrrrrrrt and I tried to tune out everything but her voice. I was full of wit and juicy soundbites the night before, in the hotel bathroom talking to myself in the hotel mirror - interview style, not Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver style. The real effort felt fine, competent with no real clangers. I was just getting into it when Maggie reached out to shake my hand.

I untangled the mic and restored my dress to the correct position. Job done, baby! Time to breathe again!

My only regret is that aside from the Green Room pic, I forgot to get photographic proof of the occasion. I walked back up to the CBS building right before I left for the airport and took some pictures through the window while some dude rolled his eyes at me. It's mostly a reflection of the Crate & Barrel store across the street but you can sort of see the spot. Top class!

I've been a rubbish blogger this week as I attempt get back into the swing of things at work and training, but wanted to say thank you for your comments and emails! Also a huuuuge thank you again to Christine and Pam and Jeanette and all the HarperCollins vixens for everything you've done for the ol DG book. You rawk!

Crumbs

I can't wait to tell my sister Rhiannon that there's a chain of bakeries over here called Crumbs. Back when we were kids we used to play Barbies, as you do. The Barbies lived in a dinky dollhouse with doors that only came up to their waists.

But the fact that the Barbies had to crawl around their own house did not stop them pursuing their dreams. They didn't just lie in bed tangled up with Ken all day; these dames were entrepreneurs. They turned the kitchen into a restaurant and it was called Crumbs.

It was a fine establishment. It even had an elevator made out of string and an Avon perfume box. I lived vicariously through the whole operation - the Barbies could cook and eat whatever they wanted. If they whined about being hungry, nobody rolled their eyes and said, "Just have an apple!"

Rhi and I had big plans for Crumbs and the Barbies. They were going to expand overseas, Crumbs International. They would move from the tiny dollhouse to a swanky skyscraper. But that was 1985 and now some bastards have beat us to it!

I bought one of their red velvet cupcakes today. It wasn't a cup so much as a behemoth pint glass of a cake. I've gotta hand it to Crumbs - they may not have flowing blonde tresses and plastic legs up to their armpits, but they make a tasty cupcake!

It looked really pretty too, until I squashed it my bag.

Early Show Update Update

This is getting a wee bit silly now... I've been postponed again. Should be Thursday morning now! Fingers crossed.

At the very least I have had a grand old time in this city. Today I soaked up the inauguration atmosphere in Times Square then guzzled orange juice and cold tablets in the hope of downgrading my nose from Rudolph Red by Thursday.

Now I just have to grovel to my boss again then go out and buy some more knickers!

Dinners with Bloggers

I did some quality blognobbing while in New York. Meeting bloggers always turns out to be the highlight of my travels. Aye, even better than the food!

When I started blogging in 2000 people would gasp in horror if you mentioned meeting Internet Folk. Axe murderers! Unwashed nerds! But now everyone spews their guts online so it's cool.

Gareth has come to enjoy tagging along, too. We rock up to our destination and he says with infinite patience, "Any appointments? What stranger are we dining with this evening?"

Seems Brooklyn is where the bloggers are at; we spent half our time over there. On our second night we met up with Pamela in Park Slope. We've been blog buddies for yonks and finally met at BlogHer last year, so I was dead chuffed to see her again.

We started off with a spot of neighbourhood window shopping. I fell in love with a robot sculpture in a hipster boutique - it had a ye olde box camera for a body and flash bulbs for eyes. But it was $600, dammit. We also rummaged through vintage clothing shops, in which I realised I'd need to drop at least another twenty pounds for vintage clothing to be really viable. Then I decided I couldn't be arsed and would just have to stick to H&M.

Soon we were joined by Michael, Pamela's dashing Scottish husband. Pamela had planned a fine evening of venue-hopping for us. First we went to a groovy bar for a drink. We seated Gareth and Michael together so they could yap in their wacko accents while Pamela and I gossiped about blogs and other important matters. Then we had some oysters! My very first and quite tasty.

Then we made a detour to Chez Pamela to say hello to her kidlets. I got to hold gorgeous baby Rory while three year old Calum impressed us with his toy crane-driving skills and jumping-off-coffee-table athleticism.

Next stop was dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The food was delicious and so were the margaritas. I forgot that tequila makes me completely rat-arsed, until I heard myself laughing in that horrible loud BWWAARRR HAARR HARRR table-slapping kind of way.

By the time we moved down the street for pudding, the jetlag and alcohol combo had taken hold. My legs and brain felt wild and wobbly and I clung to Doctor G to stay upright. He didn't realise I was pished; he just thought I'd gone choc-o-mental because Pamela had brought us to The Chocolate Room - a chocolate boutique and dessert café. Hubba hubba. What a concept!

Michael had a selection of chocolates while Pamela, Gareth and I all went for the chocolate brownie sundae. Oh lordy, it was so good. A fudgy brownie with a slightly crusty exterior, delicious vanilla ice cream, deeply-chocolately-without-being-sugary fudge sauce, all topped with a plop of whipped cream. Oh. Yeahhh. I took a photo for you all, but in my excitment I blinded it with flash. There's a more accurate portrait on the Chocolate Room website.

This was washed down with a fine glass of port, #2 on the list of Drinks That Make Me The Most Spannered. Gareth had a seriously hardcore Black Chocolate Stout from his beloved Brooklyn Brewery. It made Guinness look like tap water - inky, thick and reeking of Marmite and cocoa.

It was a great ol' night. Pamela is such a good egg; so lovely to talk to. I quizzed her and Michael about how they met; a grand trans-Atlantic tale of romance, complete with marriage proposal on a rainy Scottish hilltop. Swoon!

Finally we said our goodbyes and Dr G and I jumped on the train and rambled all the way back to Manhattan. Weren't they nice, wasn't that cool, how about that chocklit, bless the internets, why can't we just do this all day long instead of WORK and all that?

Crikey it's time for bed, I'll wind it up for now. Hope your week is going well, comrades!

Delirious in Dunfermline

Two alliterative blog entry titles in a row! Where and what shall we be tomorrow? Ecstatic in Edinburgh? Topless in Toronto? Maudlin in Madagascar?

So we're back in the Dunny. We zoomed out of New York at Thursday 8PM and somehow six hours later, it was Friday 7AM in the ol UK. When I started writing this entry it was 3PM and I was determined to stay awake til 9PM at least, to assist my return to the land of the living! In the end I was up until 3AM, watching the US Presidential debate thingo. Then slept for twelve hours.

. . .

Nerves aside things went well at Harper Collins; they were all lovely people. It was great to put faces to names after emailling for so long, and now it feels real that soon the ol DG book will exist with color instead of colour, chips instead of crisps and ASS instead of arse. Actually I don't think we changed the arses.

For a book nerd, it was brilliant to stickybeak behind the scenes at a publishing house. I got to visit Transworld in London last year and it was much the same - an endless maze of corridors, posters of bestsellers hanging proudly on the walls; wee offices with editors peeking out like Kilroy cartoons from behind vast stacks of books. Hella cool :)

. . .

Gareth spied these Wo/Men's Health magazines on a newstand. How come the men see results in 8 days but the chicks have to wait 12?!

 

Nervous in New York

Hello dear comrades, it's your trusty foreign correspondent again. I am slightly malnourished after a weekend upstate at a music festival where there was nowt to eat but gyros and candy bars, I shit ye not. Woman cannot live on rock and roll alone unfortunately.

The thing is, my stomach KNEW there was danger ahead. It said into me on Friday morning, "shauna, there is danger ahead. Go to the wee deli round the corner and get some fruuit and veg and sarnies or similar, otherwise I will be growling with pain and turmoil for the next three days."

"Aye right," I said. "we'll be fine!"

But lo, the stomach knows all and the food was really bad and I paid the price. But the music was fab!

Now we're back in NYC for one more day, lots to say but must go to sleep as I am meeting the lovely folks at Harper Collins tomorrow morning to talk about the us dg book which is out in December and if I wasn't typing this on a telephone with one finger I'd tell you about my bundle o nerves and wondering if I should have spent the last six months getting totally svelte and glam and whiter toothed so i'll be more impressive rather than saying "umm...I got an A- for my orange belt, will that help with our marketing at all?"

Hope you're having a great week, luvvies.

Best wishes from my right index finger,
DG

Dance Everybody Dance

Hello comrades! Lacking in imagination, we've come back to New York for our hols this year, combining business with lee-sure. I am tapping this out at snails pace on my phone, no links or cut n paste or edit... fark!

On the plane we got peanuts with five different kinds of sugar... Is that a world record?

We went to the park to watch the nannies and squirrels roam; a pug attempt to mount  labradoodle.

Back to the hotel at 6pm, 11pm back home, to rest our eyes Just For Five Minutes. I said to G, "what do you fancy doing now?" and he mumbled, "Dancing. Studio 54" and suddenly... it's now 6AM!

Must've been tired. Such wild party rockets we are.   

American Cycle

Gareth has decided that he prefers to remain an enigma, so I'm afraid it's back to verbose ol' me again!

My gut was sore from laughing at his entry; it took him all of twenty seconds to tap out yet he'd managed to distill seven years of public babbling and a lifetime of lard-related angst.

I'd been feeling self-conscious as it is lately, doing press for the book and sometimes being struck mute mid-interview thinking, What a ridiculous thing, to spend so much time going on about the size of ones arse.

But I'll keep on anyway, because I've been meaning to tell you about what was quite possibly The Greatest Day of My Life. Woohoo!

(Warning: I'm really knackered therefore beware of rambling and excess exclamation!)

You may recall my road cycling debut of mid-October - tears and trembling and brown underpants. It was a crash course of sorts, because the following week we were off to New York and I'd booked us on a cycling tour.

At first it seemed like a crafty way of disposing of Gareth for a few hours so I could do some shopping, but then I decided I wanted in, too. Sure I have no peripheral vision and I cannae hand signal but I've done twenty minutes on a Scottish country road... LET THE MUPPET TAKE MANHATTAN!

We assembled at a bike shop near Union Square – me and Gareth, three chicks from Kansas and a Melbourne lad with wholesome soap star looks. The two tour guides helped us chose a bike. I'd hoped they'd all be pretty pink ones with baskets on the front, but it was a random tangle of scary Sporty Ones. Where was the BELL? How would I cry for help?! My beast had a terrifying 21" frame with a really high crossbar. I called it the Crotch Masher 2000.

There were two guides. They were former couriers, with that lean sculpted-calf appearance that, if a pathetic amateur, might leave you intimidated and tugging at your husband's sleeve, "If you ride off on me, I'll KILL YOU!"

We were told to keep in line behind the front guide and he'd make hand signals telling us when to go or stop or slow down. Nae bother. As we set off I kept my eyes glued to the guide in front and totally blocked out the fact I was in New York otherwise I would have vomited. I couldn't look anywhere but straight ahead and I couldn't change gears because they were twist grip gears and I never knew there was another kind of gear!?

But after five or ten minutes I calmed down. I looked up at a street sign and it said 5th Avenue and I thought Hee hee heeee I'm riding down 5th Avenue! Then a bus whooshed up beside me and I could feel my ribs rattle. The adrenaline kicked in and I spent the next five hours in a state of joy and delirium!

Some highlights:

• Brush with death in the West Village! As we approached an intersection I caught sight of a pet shop with a windowful of tiny yapping dogs. "GARETH, LOOK AT THE DOGS!" I yelled and sailed on towards them, at the same time Gareth yelled, "SHAUNA, LOOK AT THE TRUCK!" Luckily the truck had good brakes and the information is now branded on my brain: Americans drive on the right.
• Bruising my lady parts every time I dismounted gigantic bicycle to take another squinty Holding Camera At Arms Length Shot
  
• Bruising lady parts due to inability to ride in anything other than a straight line therefore barreling through every pothole in the Meatpacking District
• Powering along the Hudson River Greenway - sweet merciful taxi-less bus-less cycle path!
• WALL STREET!
  

• Riding across the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun was setting and laughing in deranged manner, I can't belieeeeeve I'm on the Brooklyn Briiiiiidge on a biiiiike!
• Dismounting on Bridge then looking back to see the skyline lit up and falling in love with New York for the 457th time that week
  
• Zooming past the Supreme Court building and making the DUN DUN! noise from Law and Order
• Weaving in and out of traffic in Chinatown, teeth chattering in terror, completely overwhelmed by all the crazy honking and colours and chickens but loving it!
• Scoffing dumplings and sesame pancakes at a nice hole-in-the-wall type of place
• Riding down a grotty little street that could have been anywhere in the world then looking up to see the Empire State glowing in the distance!

So this happened two months ago and only now can I talk about it without getting teary and/or giggling hysterically. I know people ride bikes in cities all the time; my Amazing Adventures may be your tedious commute. But I had never felt so deliriously happy in all my life...

(even during the last half hour of the tour, when the guide that was supposed to stay at the back of the group drifted forward, leaving me and the Old Lady of Kansas to swear and scream and dither when the lights went amber, as to whether to stop and get left behind or go forth and pedal to our deaths)

... I suppose on some cheesy level it was a bit of a Wow I used to be welded to the couch now look at me moment but more it was so deliciously surreal to see places that you've only known from the telly, while on a bicycle, when you used to ride over sheep poo in Australia. It just makes my mind explode sometimes, life and all its possibilities. Now I wish I could go back to every city I've ever visited and see it again from a two-wheeled perspective.

Bagel Belly

Here I am back on British soil. Damp, dark British soil! But it's nice to be home. While we were away, the leaves were busy morphing into even toastier shades of gold. Those leaves still left on the trees, that is. Bare branches against a grey sky are always a beautiful sight, anyway.

So, I LOVE AMERICA. It always shows us a good time. The people are glorious. I want to go back nnnnow! I can't decide if San Francisco or Chicago or New York is my favourite city so far. I think New York has the edge right now; I still feel so hyper and exhilarated and grinny. It's like those dizzy days when you first fall in love and everything in the world suddenly seems more colorful and sexy. What a town!

But now I'm thinking of all those other unexplored states. In my alternative lottery-winning fantasy life, I have jacked in my job and I'm driving around America for months and months in an obnoxious tank of a vehicle until the immigration people kick me out. Look out people. Toot toot!

. . .

In days of yore, I always came back from holiday and filed a report en blog re: What I Ate Abroad, often footnoted with loathing and remorse. But these days it seems I can be let out of the country without gnawing everything in sight. In fact I was so overcome with excitement and delirium (or drink?) in the first two days in New York that - gasp - I lost my appetite. We had dinner with a friend on the second night at an Argentinian place and I barely nibbled a third of my main course. Then when the manager presented us with a free mega platter of spectacular desserts and I all I could muster were a few idle bites. There just seemed to be too much else going on to bother with food. All those sights and sounds and craziness!

But by day four the stomach was back! I made my way through my Things To Eat In NYC list. Things I'd read about in food blogs, mostly, like famous cupcakes and pizza and burgers. But I was very modest and had just one of each of those things, instead of multiple sortees. A much better way of doing things, methinks.

(TANGENT: Every time I ate my lunch in a New York park, I would casually fluff my hair and look around in the hope of seeing the Elastic Waist dears filming an episode of Are You Out To Lunch. That's where they ask random punters to guess how many calories are in their lunches. It's my favourite thing on EW, and not just because the Nutrition Data Center guy is foxy. ANYWAY, despite sending ESP messages and thinking very hard about the calorie content of my Shake Shack burger and making sure I didn't get it all over my face, etcetera, I didn't see Sarah and her microphone. Hehe.)

ANYWAY, methinks I've gained a bit of lard. It is so bloody annoying how small my threshold is. Despite being choosy and walking a bazillion miles a day, I was still eating far more than I would at home. And a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast at the hotel each day is far more stodgy than I'd normally have. But bloody delicious, mind you :)

After five days of bagel brekkies I could feel my UK size 14 jeans clinging unpleasantly to my thighs and belly. This was the same day I tried on a size 10 US petite dress and it was too big... so that ego trip didn't last long, mwahaha. (And I really liked that bloody dress too. I thought if I crossed my fingers and stared hard at it, the power of my mighty thoughts would make a petite size miraculously grow long enough to cover my podgy knees... WRONG!)

So now I am back home and faced with the task of getting back to normal. And all I can say to that is (Homer Simpson voice) - BORRRRRRRING! There is nothing more tedious than that Home From Holidays thing, where you realise the fun is over and you have to plan the meals and order the groceries and wash your skanky clothes and resume your exercise routine. Life... it keeps rolling on!

My exercise routine has been pathetic for the past few months - sporadic heroism of bike rides and mountain climbs with very little everyday grunt sessions in between. So I am going back to how I did things earlier this year - before I descended into Manuscript Deadline Hermit Hysteria - and that's the good old Weekly Exercise Plan. It starts on Monday evening with a return to kick boxing class. I booked in this afternoon. I am committed! Woohoo!

This weekend may involve some walking and weights but mostly socialising because I turned 30 yesterday! I grow old, I grow old. But thirty feels good, I tell you. At the start of this year I was still obsessed with the idea that I had to get a certain number on the scales before I turned 30 OR ELSE I would be the biggest loser in the universe. But writing that darn book made me look long and hard at my life helped me let go of that freaky dieting mentality for good. So I say let's dive into them thirties with a delicious sense of sanity and joy and pride and healthiness for living in this ol' body of mine.

This entry was brought to you by the letter J for JETLAG!

It's A Wonderful Town

Hello lovelies, I'm in New York and it's 12.46AM, also known as 5.46AM in the good ol' UK and extreme delirium has set in. I've had far too much to drink tonight but just wanted to say HELLO! Thank you for your kind comments on the last entry; I really didn't want to post something so blue but it's always such a relief to be honest because once you turn these eelings into words they always feel so much easier to sort out. And a change of scenery has been bloody marvellous too!

ANYWAY, whoa. Too much delicious, rosy red wine tonight! I've been blogging about our day at WNP and hope to keep doing so during the trip instead of taking six months to write Wot I Did On Me Hols, dodgy wifi connection pending. Hope you are doing fine and dandy! :)

Across the Pond

Have you ever been to New York City? Fancy sharing your ideas or tips with two hapless foreigners? I know I could get on the Goog but asking real people what to do on your holidays always gets better results! There's an entry over on my non-fat blog where any scraps of information will be gratefully received!