Days 58 and 59 -43/42 - London weekend

Hi all. I've just come back from my weekend in London, well the leafy bits of Middlesex to be exact and checked up on my blog. I'm touched by the lovely comments added to my last post when I was a bit disappointed about only losing 2lbs. You're all dead right and I've put it into perspective now and had a wonderful weekend to boot.

I felt great in my size 18 evening dress on Saturday night but, unfortunately, my mates aren't great photographers (hope they never have to do a wedding!) so these are the best shots of me in my dress. Hey ho. The girl is Nicola and yes, she is really tall. I'm 5'7" and wearing 3 inch heels so that makes her 6' and wearing 2inch heels - a tall girl! We were at her rowing club annual dinner dance so there were loads of really tall strapping women littering the place - I felt positively delicate in comparison! There were 3 of us going as Nicola's guests: me, Jim (my footie buddy - the one in the photo by the river) and Nic's ex-boyfriend and now really good mate Craig. Despite us not knowing anyone apart from Nic we had an excellent time. We went to support her really as she doesn't know many people down south and is trying to get social life going. Not sure how sucessful that will be but you've got to try.

Anyway, the boys were in great demand with legions of single strapping (female) rowers and I was having a blast laughing at them and saving them from the really scary ones and dancing like a mad thing. The food was not a problem - soup and bar at the table and gallons of sparkling water - it's easy when you know how!

The boys are good dancers and pretty hot at salsa and ceroc so I was in dance heaven being swung round the place - I never would have been able to keep up if I hadn't lost the weight I have and would have been miserable, hot and sweaty. Thank God for LL!

Before the do we spent the morning in Notting Hill at Portobello Road market and then went onto the Sheffield Wednesday away game at Loftus Road against QPR. Not the greatest game as we drew 1-1 but not bad. It was a good day though. One snag was that once we got to Portobello Road I realised that I had forgotten my foodpack and shaker (left it on the table where I had left it ready to take with me - Doh!). I had eaten brekkie at 9.30am and there was no way I could last until when we got home at 6pm, expecially as we were walking all around town and to and from the footie ground etc. Too far to go back. Dilemma. In the end I decided to eat and had a vegetable soup in the pub with them when they ate their lunch. I picked out the croutons though and didn't have any bread. It tasted gorgeous and wasn't very big. I didn't have the 4th foodpack that day so I'm hoping it won't make any difference. It certainly taught me to check stuff a bit better - maybe you get a bit blase as the diet progresses.

Anyway, apart from tht hiccup I was spotless: no booze, no mouthfuls of anything - a saintly LL'er!

Also, on both Saturday and Sunday mornings I got up early and went for a jog along the Thames. I managed 45 minutes both days and felt fab. It's lovely and flat down there which makes a pleasant change which is probably why I managed to carry on for longer. Nic joined me on Sunday morning and enjoyed it too so hopefully she'll keep it up after I leave. Not that she needs to as she's lovely and slim but it's good to get out and appreciate your surroundings I think and the river path along the Thames is special. We saw a group of parakeets this morning. I had heard that there are loads living wild in London but have never seen them - looks really weird to see such exotic birds flying along the muddy old Thames and perching in English trees.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm going to cuddle my dog and watch Crufts. Have a good night everyone!