The Start of a Beautiful Recipe

One and a quarter pounds.

That's the verdict from the first court of the Nazi Scales - I've put on one and a quarter pounds, which means today's weigh-in shows me as:
16 stone, 1.25.

Which, all in all, is nowhere near as bad as it could have been, or as I'd been forecasting to myself.

Another day of unboxing today. We're making order out of rectangular chaos day by day, like weird Cubist gods and goddesses - I found myself able to get to our dining table today, and had an apple in celebration.

No particular improvement in my dad, for those who've been kind enough to ask or send good wishes.

And then tonight, our little jewel-house had its first proper visitor. I mean, we've had family already of course - they practically put it together - and of course my pal Sian was here when we loaded it up with the boxes we're now doing our damnedest to get rid of - but the first visitor who's not blood, but who's been here since our arrival, was Karen (Pulley) this evening.

It was fabulous to see her, here, in this environment - we had friends in London of course, but never felt confident enough of our decor and our space to have people just dropping by. So it's kind of underlined our joy earlier this week in having decor in the first place, having someone in to share it. Plus of course, it was great to introduce d to Karen - they're fairly similar in a lot of ways, not the least is a shared love of cooking and food. After lighting the occasional blue touch-paper, I mainly sat back and watched as their friendship, already generated via Facebook, blossomed beatifully over talk of types of people and goats cheese tarts and lamb tagines-cum-casseroles and the like.

Frankly, all the talk of food left me ravenous, and ready to cast the one and a quarter pound limited damages to the four winds of a slap-up Chinese buffet...
When Karen left to deliver a trifle (I didn't ask...it seemed somehow entirely reasonable at the time), d and I donned our 'serious Winter gear' and headed out. There are two Chinese buffets within easy walking distance, but neither of them were open, two days after Christmas. I felt somehow personally chagrined at that.
"We're not in London any more, Toto," muttered d sardonically. It's difficult ot pull off sardonic through chattering teeth and below-breath imprecations to any god who's listening, but she managed it nicely. We returned home for hot turkey sandwiches and equally hot baths. All in all of course, this was far the more sensible Disappearing strategy, and it's about time I found one. Quite apart from anything else, this weightloss blog hasn't been remotely involved with weightloss for far too long now! So here's to a Disappearing future, and the beginning of a beautiful recipe for a friendship flan, co-produced by the woman I love and one of my oldest friends.

Did I mention - kicks ass to be home...