New Start 6 - We're up to Nova Scotia

Hi all. As you can see, we're now up to Nova Scotia. At the top is my brother Graham, his wife Hadi and kids, Laila and Lachlan in front of thier new home in Wolfville NS. It was taken (for grandparents' benefit)on their way to their end of year speech day ceremony hence the naff school uniforms! The kids aren't that nerdy!!

Very Canadian Eh? They seem to have settled in there really well considering that they only moved in February of this year. The kids are in a great school and doing well and Hadi has made some friends already. Graham has been on the rig a lot but seems to like it. D and I checked out all the pubs which they haven't got to yet (don't understand!!) and now we know more people in the pubs than they do!

Below them is my cousin Susan who is fab. Such a livewire and a really genuine person. Love her to bits and don't see enough of her. We had a great day out with Susan hiking in an area known as Blomidon. It has the highest tide in the world which didn't sound very interesting to me either before I saw it but, believe me, 40-50ft tides are pretty impressive! Don't know quite why but it's something to do with the speed they come in and depart and the sheer area the sea covers or uncovers.

The rest of the piccies are of us on our days hiking round Wolfville and Blomidon. I had to include a snap of the lupins. They grow wild in NS and are absolutely everywhere - blues, pinks, white - just gorgeous. On the side of the Highway you'll come round a bend to see a massive bank of them and it just brightens up your day. We should have lupins over here!! D got a tad impatient with me after a few days as I wanted to stop every 5 minutes and take piccies of lupins but it was surprisingly hard to find good spots in decent sunshine!

Anyway, back to England. I went for my jog this morning despite being in very late last night. Kate was not lying when she said it was a killer run. On top of a massive steady climb which was really muddy and slippy, the last few hundred yards were straight up steep stone steps and it was relentless. We made the discovery that I'm probably faster than Kate going up the hill but she kills me on the downhill - no idea why! Still it was excellent and the dog loved every muddy minute. She was less impressed by me washing her paw out with salt water afterwards though!!!

On a general note, I've had a few perception adjustments recently. I was putting away laundry a couple of days ago and found myself looking at D's jeans. Next thing I had slipped them on! They fitted comfortably - were even a bit loose. So this is what it feel like for normal women to be able to borrow their boyfriend or husband's clothes!! I've NEVER had that opportunity. Never. It felt great - the jeans looked terrible on me - legs far too short - but they fit (for now...).

That then set me off to try on my fattest trousers. You know the one pair you keep until you've lost all your weight to do the naff piccies. Omigod. They were HUGE on me. They didn't even look like trousers. They looked like some sort of sheet or something. I will post a picture when I have an accomplice to take the photo handy. Despite the humour of the situation I was gutted inside. How COULD I have been that big?? It was almost shaming although I'm resisting that sort of judgement. But I was ashamed really. And sad. So, a mixed bag of emotions there.

And then, to lift the mood - I got on the scales this morning and weighed in (on my home scales which are 6lbs lighter than the LL ones) at 11 stone 12lbs! That's over 7 1/2 stone gone and half a stone lighter than I was when I went off to Canada. So no damage done. Also - I'm in the 11's which has not happened for well over a decade, in fact, nearly 2. I think it was my second year at Uni so that is 1989/90 (holy fat girl!). Now that is an achievement I can really get behind. there is a massive smile on my face as I type this.

Re weigh ins, you may be wondering why I haven't had one since I got back. Well, I consciously didn't go to my class on Wednesday. I didn't want a negative result when I knew I was back on track and I had a stack of packs and didn't want to buy any more. So I'm going to go again either next Wednesday or next Saturday. Prob Wed as I think I have visitors next weekend.

That's enough for now. Chores to be doing. Have good weekends - it might not even rain for the first time in living memory...