Day 87 -14 Easter Sunday

You'd think from the photos that we were in the middle of summer but I'm writing this on the laptop in front of the fire!! It was gorgeous here all afternoon but with a bit of a cut to the wind and then it suddenly went cold and cloudy at around 5pm just when we were due to go to drinks at Sammy and Vickys' place (based in the garden of course!). So, in true British stylee, we've all been standing in the garden in coats and jumpers with freezing hands from holding cold drinks!

Luckily being on the diet I could have a hot drink rather than feeling honour bound to guzzle the free champers but, on the other hand, being on the diet I'm freezing all the time anyway. Win some, lose some.

It was a nice evening but I have spent too long in the pub this weekend so I left at 8.30 before the rest of them headed to the pub and am now enjoying checking out blogs and writing this in front of the the Masters (golf) on the telly. Bliss!

We've had a really good day today. Up late and then spent a few hours in the garden. D has nearly finished his path and I've cleared the herb bed and generally tidied up and swept the new patio. This is the first time since we started that I feel that the work we have done is actually making the garden better. When you're doing these remodelling jobs you spend ages making it worse, digging up and leaving great heaps of muck and rubble everywhere. Because we had to stop over winter I've been feeling as though this job will never end but today I can finally see the end in sight.

It's actually very similar to the diet - there's a long way to go but I'm definitely on the downward slope!

After gardening we headed out for a lovely walk at the back of Hathersage. The church in the picture is Hathersage church which, local legend has it, is where Little John is buried! He's not there of course but a nice story.

Shelagh had a lovely time swimming in this fairytake old mill pool at a ruined paper mill near Lees Hall just below Stanage Edge. It's really clear and deep and full of waving green weeds so it looks like one of those old Pre-Raphaelite paintings. It's a magical place - one of my favourites. Lees Hall is a great old NT country house. Charlotte Bronte was meant to have stayed there while writing 'Jane Eyre' and named her heroine after one of the local families. There are still loads of Eyres round here including 2 of our friends. Love that sort of history - where you can see and touch places where little things happened. Not dates and figures but houses and mills and quarries where people lived and worked and which are still around today seeing all the changes which have happened.

Anyway, getting a bit carried away there.

After the walk we went off to Sammy and Vickys' and now I'm home as I said before. It's great not feeling that I have to go out and stay 'til all hours as I would have done pre-LL. I've now got the self possession to stick to my guns with D and come home when I want to. Usually he would pester me and guilt me into staying out with him but I really didn't want to stay out late tonight and he's much more willing to let me do my own thing now without nagging. I suppose it helps that he can see the diet working and appreciates that I need to look after myself a bit. I must make sure that continues too!! Writing this has remined me of a post I wrote right at the beginning of LL where I was complaining about having to stay in the pub later than I wanted to. The times, they are a'changing...

Anyway, this has been a bit of a rambling one. Hope I haven't bored you into submissiion Also hope you're all having a nice Easter. No nibbling on any stray eggs!!