Let's get started
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Bracken, absolutely well done and very inspiring you have lost 2.5 pounds! With all the dreadful weather you are having it shows your commitment that you have still managed to lose so much. "Cracking". (which is said a lot in Wales and means brilliant/fab and I thought appropriate for a Cracker!0
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Oh my word, I just spent an age typing my longest mail ever only to lose it somewhere, only the first paragraph has shown. I am beyond gutted and will have to type again later as I feel like throwing this ipad out of the window. ( laptop on charge and couldn't reach where I am sitting) Grrrr, I am so annoyed!0
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Bad luck BM. Every so often as I go along I "select all" and "copy" my post. That way, if it disappears I can "paste" it back in. If It's very long I do sometimes paste it into a note in the Notes app on my iPad as I go along. Hope you manage to rewrite it, I want to know what you were saying now!
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Yay well done Bracken - a triumph!
Your walk sounds lovely LMV. I do try to ensure there is refreshment on my routes when I go walking - although I can rarely resist the little treat that goes with it..... Having said that I just had a capucino at Waitrose when I went there yesterday.
On the maple syrup issue - if it says Canadian style maple syrup its is very probably fake maple syrup I'm afraid. You have to watch these manufacturers as they often describe something as 'style' to disguise the fact that it is a fake and still charge ridiculous amounts of money.
I heard a report on the news today about a town called Crickhowell where they are rebelling against big firms who cheat on their tax (e.g. Starbucks). They have set up their own offshore company and are 'paying' it to avoid corporation tax - I think this is brilliant and hope lots of small firms will sign up. If it gets big enough the UK govt will have to crack down on the weasels and make the law less easy to get round. Support your local shops and get these big companies to toe the line!
Political rant over.
talk soon Crackers! and keep up all the good work all of you. I'm very envious. Just two weeks to go now though!
PB xxx0 -
Afternoon Crackers!
I've potatoes cooling so just time for a quick post before I do my upper arms muscle toning exercises; crushing 18lbs worth of potatoes!
I read whilst still in the UK an interesting article by Mimi Spencer (she of the 5:2 dieting craze along with Michael Mosley) about dressing in your 40s and beyond (she was in the fashion business) apparently although now everyone just wears what they want regardless 'there are still rules'. 'As she quoted Quentin Crisp 'fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.' Once you've got a handle on that a sense of style emerges according to her.
So number 1 on her list of rules pick a palette. A key neutral to suit your complexion and colouring and act as a base layer. So my key tone is obviously navy LMV!! And then with that as your anchor you ensure the rest of your wardrobe is on friendly terms. So all my many shades of grey and splashes of bright pink makes a happy wardrobe!
Find your signature and remain faithful to the style so I can stick to my cigarette trousers! Ignore trend 'burps' as a rule they're quirky and cute and suit only people who need ID to be served in a pub (i.e. the daughter!) Buy new jeans every year - right now a pair of high-waisted slender jeans in an inky, indigo blue. Listen, try, buy.
Invest in your hair, great colour and a fab cut will always steal away the years. Another great quote from Nora Ephron 'the amount of maintenance involving hair is genuinely overwhelming. Sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside to death.'
Understand true value of quality this is a matter of basic maths. The cost of one expensive investment item divided by the number of times you actually wear it gives you the true value. Spend more on fewer things.'
I found this all very assuring I did go jean hunting as my own trusty pair are just way too loose with the 1/2 stone I've lost but as I wasn't at target (straight after Christmas) whilst I could get in them I didn't like seeing how tight they looked. Of course I now know I should have bought them as I've re-lost the pounds gained over Christmas so I will order them as an incentive to hit 9.5 again because at 9.5 I realised I don't have issues with my legs!!! Who would have thought 2 pounds could make such a difference! And I've ordered a bright pink handbag for Spring!
Actually I'm amazed I lost any weight this week as I made a batch of brownies to celebrate the husband's birthday; 400g of dark chocolate (that's my only vice these days LMV!) full of good intentions of freezing half -never happened we scoffed the lot over the weekend! For my best friend's birthday I've made Nigella's 'Salted Chocolate Tart' it's in the fridge chilling as I type. So there is no way I'm going to get away with a 2nd loss! However as I'm in the zone as you so rightly put it BM and currently 0.6lbs off my target weight (my scales are Salter LMV) I'll happily settle for a STS. I will make sure my friend takes home at least half with her! This is the same friend who has now lost 14 kilos since Easter eating raw vegetables and fruit! But we're on the same wave length when it comes to birthdays and celebrations we do it in true style - with lots of calories!
Right I must press on with my potatoes. Bracken well done on your loss brilliant! PB - hang in there!
Be good Crackers!0 -
Hello Crackers. I feel better already after reading these posts- a real tonic after a most frustrating day. I decided in the name of being sensible and following good advice, including Cracker advice to phone my Doc and see if I could get an appointment today or tomorrow. I hardly ever ask for one on short notice and don't think I need much time. So, a morning phone call immediately defaulted to voice mail. Then the waiting game as I don't want to be rude by being persistent. Afternoon comes, one, two, three o'clock and no return call. Then I phone our Telehealth, thinking that I could get an answer to my two main concerns. My foot seems to be improved since Sunday but I have been wondering if in fact I should be wearing the aircast, or perhaps only for so many hours at a time and if doing some light cycling would be ok given that the pain is reduced. The path to Telehealth is long and tortuous, all opening instructions of course in both official languages, then a message about recording the conversation, followed by instructions that I could or could not choose to give my health insurance number to be used for possible followup, then someone who took my story in detail, only to pass me on to someone else, the story retold, many questions asked clearly being read from a prompt sheet, no comment on the my questions about the air cast and the cycling, ending with a recommendation to make an appointment with my Doc. So I phone my Doc's office and this time get the office manager who tells me I have just reminded her that I called earlier- forgot. I tells her my story and that Telehealth advised seeing my Doc. She tells me Telehealth workers are afraid to make any definite statements because of fear of litigation. So why are we paying millions of tax dollars to fund this service? She also kept saying I should go to Emerg or Urgent Care ( where we are constantly being told in adverts that we should not be going unless it is an emergency). In the end she advised me to listen to my body and that was it. I do not blame my Doc in this. She is an unbelievably hard working physician who keeps long office hours including two evenings a week and visits her elderly patients in nursing homes. The practice consists of just her and the office manager and I certainly do not want to alienate anyone but I have been a patient for over 30 years and I only wanted a few minutes; I would even be satisfied with having my questions answered on the phone. Going to Emerg or Urgent care would involve quite a lot of walking, most of it outside, and I would have to drive myself there. Well, PB, I think I've outranted you - probably not something to brag about! So rant over!
On more pleasant notes, thanks all for supporting my weight loss. MITM, I really enjoyed what you've said about clothes and fashion. Loved the quote about fashion. I wear a lot of neutrals,
but would not say I have stuck to one as a base. Black might be the most consistent, but I went through a big brown phase a couple of years ago. One colour I had never worn until two years ago is grey and now I really love grey. I also gravitate to the mossy greens. Years and years ago, when having your colours done was first around, a woman at my school organized a session with someone who did your colours and I went. She chose colours on seasons and I am an autumn. I definitely think she was right and those are the shades I like although I steer away from the brighter autumn colours like burnt orange and find it hard to find a shade in the purple range that suits me. BM, sorry you lost your post and looking forward to that long one also.
Must off for now.0 -
Evening Crackers,
I am now in Hertfordshire with my parents. Tomorrow morning I am going with a friend to the Waitrose cookery school in London for a Healthy Baking course. I'm not sure there is any such thing as healthy baking, but I'll let you know afterwards!
We drove past Crickhowell today PB and it is BM's home town (or close to it). As a retired accountant who specialised in corporation tax, I would just tell you that it is a complex issue which the majority of the press and politicians do not understand. At times I see politicians saying stuff that simply isn't true - I understand why, they believe their advisors and it makes a good headline/soundbite and very few people know enough about tax to challenge them on it. I'm absolutely with you on everyone paying their tax (reminds me I must submit my tax return in the next 10 days) but don't believe everything you hear/read.
The brownies sound lovely MITM and I made the Nigella salted chocolate tart for some friends before Christmas and sent them home with half of it. It is really intense! I'm sure you will like it. Your friend sounds like she is doing really well and hopefully her success will be helping with the depression (assuming it is that friend). Good advice on the fashion front. I'm not sure what my basic wardrobe colour would be. I would love it to be bottle green, but you can rarely get it. It happens to be in vogue at the moment, but it will probably be 20 years before it is available again. Brown is more readily available, but again goes through highs and lows. Black and grey are always available as is navy so it would have to be one of those. Black and grey are complete no-no's for me as an Autumn, but warm navy is good so perhaps I should opt for that.
I'm feeling quite pleased with myself tonight as I have declined all alcohol, completely ignored the cheeseboard whilst those around me were tucking in, and refused all other dessert options offered. This level of commitment won't last, but I'm making the most of it while it does. It's my Mother's birthday tomorrow so I will have a glass of champagne with her tomorrow evening to celebrate.
Bracken, I know ages ago you asked if any of us watched Borgen and I kept forgetting to mention it. They started showing it in the UK some years ago on a minor TV channel and it passed us by. However we stumbled across an episode and thought it was brilliant. We then bought the box sets on DVD of all three (I think) series and watched them. We really enjoyed it. The real former Danish female PM is married to Neil Kinnock's (a former leader of the Labour Party in the UK) son who is the MP for a constituency near ours. We also enjoyed The Killing series which is a Scandinavian police drama. We bought the box sets for those too and tend to watch several episodes in one go on dark winter evenings or rainy week-ends. Currently we are trying The Bridge, another Scandinavian police drama set between Denmark and Sweden. We recorded series 3 on the TV and loved it and are currently watching series 1 on DVD but I am finding it a bit slow. As you can tell, we come to all these things quite late! We really should try and keep up with the times!
Right, well I must sign off, it's an early start for me tomorrow morning.
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Just had to add former PM - Helle Thorning-Schmidt more famous for her selfie photo with Obama and Cameron at Nelson Mandela's memorial - ok my rant over!!!!0
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Absolutely quickest pop in ever, just off shopping. I have received an Email off John Lewis and my 3rd set of Portmeirion have been broken in Transit. I just do not believe it. In fact I am wondering if they even bothered to send the 2nd lot and are just hoping I will accept a refund! I have written a scathing email to them and just cancelled that and other orders I am for off them.
Sorry for the rant Crackers, it seems to be a day or two of rants for most of us! Xx0 -
Hello Crackers - well lots to respond to in there! i'm an Autumn too - had my colours done back in the 80's when I was climbing the greasy pole and how you looked was considered very important. Oh thank goodness those days have gone. On the hair front, I stopped colouring my hair because it was thinning and I felt the chemicals weren't helping. As a result, I've found that there are colours that I wouldn't have wanted to wear when I was younger that now appear to suit me. purple is a very good colour for me as I have hazel eyes and pale skin.
On the tax front I agree its a complex issue - I think my point was that the Crickhowell small businesses have got together to highlight the unfairness of the situation to honest small businesses who can't afford flash lawyers and tax advisers. You are absolutely right that our politicians are only interested in cheap journalism and headlines that fool the more stupid citizen - you only have to look at the garbage that is currently being spouted about muslim women learning English (what about hindus and Buddhists? surely they may find learning English just as difficult?).
BM I'm appalled by John Lewis - surely they can figure out that there carrier is not doing their job properly (probably Yodel - they are absolutely the worst I've come across). I don't blame you for cancelling your order - I'd avoid them altogether in the future. Simply not good enough.
Bracken - your tale of trying to attract attention from your doctor resonated with me. We have a 111 service which is similarly useless and basically passes everything on to the emergency services. Having said that your foot/leg may not be an emergency but it is a serious problem and you really should go to your local A&E for help. They will not consider you to be wasting their time. We have nurse practitioners here who can do quite a lot but even then I was sent to A&E for confirmation (to get an xray we have to go to a hospital as few GP surgeries have Xray equipment). Please, please get it seen to you as you will do damage by leaving it. You are doing the right thing.
take care Crackers
PB xxx0 -
Hello Crackers,
Weigh in day and I am absolutely delighted to have lost 3.75lbs. Hurrah!!
Went up to the cookery school this morning and half a great time there. It is a lovely light, spacious facility with a comfortable demonstration room as well as cooking and relaxation areas. So, healthy baking, as I suspected not really healthy at all but healthier. We made a chocolate beetroot cake and a Nutella type icing which has made an excellent birthday cake for my mother. The cake used rapeseed oil instead of butter, 0%fat yogurt, agave syrup, eggs grated beetroot and wholewheat flour. There was still a small amount of brown sugar in it and some dark chocolate as well as cocoa powder. It was really delicious and moist and not sickly sweet as all. We sliced the cake into three layers and filled them with the Nutella which was made from toasted hazelnuts, coconut milk, vanilla and melted chocolate. We spread Nutella around the sides and put some melted chocolate on the top. It is decorated with fresh raspberries, blueberries, cherries and a sprinkling of dried raspberries. It looks lovely. We also did apricot energy bars, a light banana tea loaf and buckwheat flatbreads. It was very well-organised so I am definitely planning to do another course there.
So, it sounds like a lot of us are Autumns! PB, I too have hazel eyes and pale skin. I came out as a dark Autumn so my top colours were chocolate brown, peacock blue, pine green, deep purple and russet red. They are colours I love but you cannot always get them in the shops. The friend who I did my colours with came out as a pastel Autumn so she had dusty rose pink, pale leaf green, lizard (a greyey green colour) and peach amongst her top colours. All warm/muted colours. I was told if I wanted a day off work to wear flannel grey as it made me look totally washed out and ill!
Bracken our posts crossed. Sorry you are having a frustrating time getting to see the doctor, but put your foot down and insist on an appointment with her. I hope you get something sorted soon.
MITM - I didn't even know the Danish PM's name or about the selfies. Sounds like the fictional PM is better lol
BM - I know you are cross with John Lewis, but I predict that you will return to them once your fit of pique is over. Their service is normally exemplary as you know. Escalate it up to management level and get someone senior to sort it out for you and apologise!
Right must go and get my glad rags on ready for birthday celebrations.
Be good Crackers
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Hello Crackers. Well I feel in much better frame of mind than yesterday. My foot feels so much better, so much so that I pulled my exercise bike out of the closet to try using it and to test my leg a little. I did not demand a lot from it as at first I could only find the lowest resistance level (it plugs in and has a computer thing to run it) and thought that perhaps it would not function. I did not time it but did at least 15 minutes and can feel it in my quads. Then I started to fiddle around with it and found that I can set different resistance levels. In theory there are all sorts of functions but I am well pleased if I can have increasing resistance as desired and peddle merrily along. The other factor that made for improvement today was receiving a DVD in the mail yesterday that I had ordered about ten days ago (it came from
the U.S). It is a so-called virtual walking DVD which I primarily bought for using with my treadmill. I came across a reference to these DVD's and found a company which makes them for many different places all over the world (if anyone is interested the DVD's can also be downloaded on computer); they also make stock footage for films and have some info of films that have use their company. The DVD is filmed in a first person manner such that you can imagine you are walking along the routes being taken. I was quite impressed with the company because on their website, they suggest if it is your first order to only order one DVD in case you don't like it; the price is reasonable and if you order three you can choose a fourth
free. Mine can with a handwritten note hoping I would enjoy the DVD- I was suitably impressed. So now I have a virtual walk through some Cotswold villages, two of which I have been to. Of course, it pales in comparison to the lovely Gower etc. walks that you are actually doing, LMV but on a -9 day in January, it is more pleasant than cycling to mindnumbing daytime television! If anyone is interested in checking out their site, they are called vitadigitalproductions.com.
I do feel rather apologetic about not pursuing the Doc at the moment, especially having been given such heartfelt concern and advice to do so. I do have an appointment with my family physician in just over a week and will talk to her about my foot. I do intend to be very careful with it until then. I am quite amazed at how quickly it seems to have rebounded and almost feel as if I was like boy who cried wolf about my foot but it was truly painful on Sunday and of course, it was made worse by feeling that just as I was doing so well I would have this happen.
One thing it has made me think about is that I know I have a general weakness in my feet and should be always mindful of them (I am reminded of a piece of wisdom about horses: no foot, no horse); It is not like I wear great high heels ever but I do mainly go without shoes in the house and I know I have read that a podiatrist says you should always wear shoes in the house. I shall try to make that change. I hope you do not think I always disregard well-intentioned advice!
Today my youngest sister stopped by and I gave her the carrot soup and salmon loaf I had made her. She is a very kind person who always feels she must reciprocate and it is hard to tell her no. She brought me three muffins she made from a new recipe and a serving of a winter cobbler with cranberries, apples and walnuts. I am pleased to say that at the moment they are in the freezer, along with that other tin of cookies I was recently gifted. I know part of what helped me put them away was thinking of you, LMV, and your recent determined acts of resistance. I feel a strong sense of commitment at the moment but as you say, it will undoubtedly not always be so great; however, the thing to do is to seize it at the time.
There are a number of things I would like to respond to from all your latest posts but I really must leave off. However, I can't go without saying congratulations to you, LMV, on your terrific weight loss this week. Take care all.
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Echoing Bracken - well done LMV that's brilliant. Keep it up. Bracken it sounds like your foot is improving but you may just be learning to live with the pain so don't forget to bring it up with the doctor.
I'm going to try and climb the stairs later today - wish me luck!
PB xx0 -
Hello Crackers,
Well, I went a little bit off piste last night celebrating my Mother's birthday. Champagne, birthday cake, crisps and some cheese! But, straight back on track today and a determination to be good this evening. We are going to an Itlian restaurant in London with some of my former work colleagues. I shall drive to the station so I am not tempted to have any alcohol. I will not delve into the bread and oil. I will only have a main course and I shall choose something light like fish.
I got a walk in today so my step total shouldn't be too bad today and there will be more walking up in London this evening. I love the sound of your DVD's Bracken and shall definitely check them out. It's a really good idea.
PB hope you got up the stairs OK.
Must go and get ready for my night out. Will post my steps total later when I get home
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Hello. I posted my modest return to exercise but was pleased to at least do as much as I did and to feel that I had at least used some muscles. It continues cold and raw here. After the hawk incident, my birds have gradually returned to the feeder and yesterday I had a beautiful male cardinal, the first this winter and today a downy woodpecker. The squirrels continue to make good use of the feeder and it is quite comic to see the gymnastics they go through to get seeds. They are very agile and determined. I also see beneath the feeders footprints, rabbit I think, that must come at night to get the seeds the birds or squirrels scatter to the ground.
I have found the colours discussion most interesting. I too have hazel eyes but my colouring is quite somewhat ruddy and I have a few freckles mostly on my nose. In my salad days I had true auburn hair; now in my sixties it is sort of a ginger colour with the occasional hint of its former glory! I have never coloured my hair, largely because I am rather lazy I suppose and
perhaps cheap although I am quite religious about a regular cut. From your descriptions, LMV, I seem to fit into that pastel autumn as a lot of those colours are ones I like and feel suit me, especially a dusty rose and a peach for lighter colours. I love many shades of green but particularly the mossy greens, and kakis. I was surprised by your statement that you never wear black and it made me wonder if black was ever given to me in my palette. I now want to root around and find those swatches and see if black was in them. I wear black a lot and think I look fine in it but I do notice I don't like a bright black if that makes any sense but rather blacks that are rather muted. So I avoid the kind of black one sees in Christmas outfits. I love taupe type shades that are often hard to describe exactly but they are always of an earthy tone.
LMV, I hope you enjoy your time in London. You seem to have a good plan to keep on track
and surely the walking will help.
PB, I hope your attempt at the stairs was successful. With my much less severe injury than yours, I still found stairs a strain and going down was much harder than going up. A very dear aunt, my mother's much older sister, always used take her stairs "sideways like a crab." I have found myself doing likewise especially on ice covered steps here.
BM, lovely to see how much exercise you have been working in, especially in your very humid weather.
MITM, I'm sure you are very busy thinking of your recent accounts of what you've had to do. I hope no unexpected heating, plumbing etc. problems are surfacing as you have had much with which to cope recently.
Regards.0 -
The attempt at the stairs was I'm happy to say successful - so last night I slept in my own bed (in which I was rather hot as the weather turned mild). this morning my 80+ year old parents moved the bed back upstairs - much to my horror and impotent protestations. They are so independent and so convinced that they can do anything its quite worrying.
So, another step on the road to recovery although Bracken I find going up stairs much harder as I have to lift myself on my butt and then at the top get into a position where I can haul myself upright without using my broken limb. Coming down is easier as I swing myself and hop down each step for the first part and then down on my butt again for the final few steps and haul myself into a standing position using the banister on the left and the kitchen door frame on the right to get myself in a position to hang on to the frame. The shower is similarly now mastered!
Today I'm going to my local for lunch with a friend which I'm looking forward to as they do really good food. Mum and Dad are off to Felixstowe as mum is getting her hair permed (a regular ritual).
Tomorrow i'm off to Felixstowe for supper with a friend whilst Mum and Dad go to the bingo (my idea of hell). Then on Sunday (if mum feels up to it) we are going to drive up to their house so they can pick up their post etc. Monday it is time to visit the GP and request a return to work.
Only 9 more clexane injections to go - it feels like a life time but the end is in sight!
Enjoy London LMV.
I think I'm a more muted Autumn. Colours that suit me well include olive green and burnt umber. Funnily enough as I get older I do wear more black and I think it suits me but whereas once I would choose a black or navy ball gown I'm more likely to go for a brighter colour now (weird huh?). No Hunt Ball this year as they are going to the same place they went to last time and none of us was really impressed. It was expensive and the band barely played for an hour. My friend maria still hasn't stopped complaining about the lack of vegetables (it was very haute cuisine!). So we are going to a local gastro pub for dinner instead on the 6th February which I'm very much looking forward to as I won't have the cast on then. No idea what I will wear though as until I can check my wardrobe and weigh myself I don't know what will fit! Still no costly ball gown hire and dinner will be far less expensive. No dancing either - but I probably wouldn't be able to dance much anyway. We had hoped to go to a restaurant called the Froize (its Suffolk for Friars) Inn and is very good but unfortunately they've chosen to take a holiday from 1st Feb. Still I'm sure this place will be good too. There will be 10 of us so a good night should be had by all.
Well that's all from me now
take care Crackers and keep at it!
PB xx0 -
Hi Crackers,the saga of my life continues! I can't help but to smile about it and think "what next?".
John Lewis emailed me yesterday informing me that regarding our telephone conversation......What phone conversation? it has all been done by email. They want me to return the plates in a saleable condition for a refund....I never even received the plates and they are broken anyway. They then advised me in future to make my returns to my local store.... My local store is 7000 miles away..... Needles to say I have given them very short thrift in a reply and demanded a full refund immediately. Strangely enough I have had no reply even though they received my email before 9am Friday Morning. I then went on their front page of Facebook (I am not a member of Facebook) and just as before Christmas the complaints regarding their online store are still plentiful. Very sad really as they have always had an outstanding record of customer service. I will certainly shop instore again. It is like the mother ship to me. However I am very wary of purchasing online again.
Onto tonights saga now!........ I was quite determined before going out to stick to a salad and 2 small glasses of wine. I ordered a Caesar salad minus the bacon and just a little dressing. When it arrived the waitress almost put it on the table, looked at me and took it away. I knew immediately they had put bacon on it, you can probably guess the rest. They sent it back out to me and as I carefully picked through it before even tasting it there were still some bacon bits in it. Typical of Singapore standards of hygiene, the dirty, lazy chef had I believe just manually picked the bacon out. I was furious. So we went out at 8:30 pm and were back by 9:15. I have however had my two glasses of wine and am now having tea and a piece of toast for my supper! OH reckons if I didn't have bad luck I would have no luck.
I am just off to finish my toast now, i am also being quite naughty and having real butter on it, quite thickly too. I am way under my calories for the day, so why not? lol x
Wishing you all a far better weekend than I am having, BM xxx0 -
Evening Crackers,
Congratulations BM on another amazing weight loss this week. You've really got the bit between your teeth now. Keep it up. Did you manage to avoid getting your husband's cold? You haven't mentioned it so I hope that's the case. It's such a shame about your crockery and the problems you are having resolving it really surprise me. It is so unlike John Lewis and I have never experienced anything other than the best service from them especially when anything goes wrong. If there are lots of complaints then clearly something is amiss though. I hope you enjoyed your buttery toast and wine and that you felt a bit better after it after the disappointment of your Caesar salad.
PB - I'm glad you navigated the stairs safely. I was going up and down the stairs on my bottom last year when I sprained my ankle. It's quite hard work isn't it? Still, at least you will be burning some calories by doing it. I hope you enjoyed lunch yesterday and your supper tonight. Did you make good choices?
Bracken, how is your foot? I hope it has continued to improve. Re colours, the company that I had the analysis done with said that only one season has black in their palette and that is Winter. My "black" is chocolate brown. Unless black is in your palette and suits your skin tone it tends to make you look washed out and then you need more make up and blusher to try and counteract it. I was never a big lover of black anyway so the only time I wear it now is for either choir or a funeral.
MITM - how are things going for you? I guess you are busy with your potato thingeys.
We travelled back from Hertfordshire yesterday in pouring rain most of the way but there were blue skies and sunshine here when we got home. We were committed to a quiz evening in a local village last night. It was very well supported with over 100 people there. They did a bangers and mash supper half way through which was delicious given how many they were cooking for. I didn't eat it all as it was quite a big portion and I completely ignored dessert. Each table was given a platter of mini cream puffs, shortbreads, profiteroles and doughnuts. I wasn't even tempted as I just thought about how bad the sugar would be for me and how once you have it you just want more. I ignored the wine as well so I'm right back on track. I didn't get much exercise in yesterday because of all the driving but did go out for a nice walk today.
Hope all you crackers are well
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Morning Crackers!
I'm just off to bed (but had to first catch up with the posts!) life is just busy, busy at the moment - work, work and more work!! However I keep wanting to ask did anyone else watch the fly on the wall 'Christmas Shopping Fever 2015 John Lewis documentary?' Very interesting. I've checked and it's on Youtube BM and worth watching. I love John Lewis and I've never (touch wood, touch wood!) experienced any problems with my many orders to Austria however their online complaints system is outsourced to another company they don't deal with it. So if I were you BM 'Escalating Complaint' if after contacting us you feel we still haven't resolved your complaint satisfactorily, please email our Head of Customer Service: Head_of_Customer-Service@johnlewis.co.uk and I would list your whole sorry saga from start to finish and miss out the middle man. Right now I can retire!
Keep being good Crackers I'm so impressed!0 -
A brief pop-in as I wanted to post my exercise on the other thread. I managed over 5000 steps with shopping, intentional walking at the mall and a short walk with Nellie. It was a good start and my foot feels good but I will try to not overdo it. I had a a busy family day today as in the a.m two of my brothers and my sister-in-law dropped in for a little visit and then a sister phoned and suggested a movie which was very nice.
PB, negotiating those stairs of yours sounds like real work. You must be really counting the days and hours now until that cast is off.
BM, it sounds as if you managed well with the frustration of your meal out really; although you did not have a nice dinner as planned at least you didn't turn to poor overeating. I think that is success.
LMV, you too are giving inspiration with describing how you handled being offered so much food and how you thought through it.
MITM, I hope you'll get a bit of break soon. You must be exhausted.
Regards all.0
