RIP 34s

Yesterday, I rolled the dice - with Dad comparatively calm and stable, I went to London on the UberCommute. The thinking was "go while the peace lasts, because it may not be guaranteeable in future, and you might need to not go another week."

Which was kinda like stepping onto a frozen pond and trusting it not to crack under you - necessary, but not the most confident of premises on which to commit to your day.

As we're living with Ma this week (having all been rather spooked by the middle-of-the-night hospital call), d had packed a bag. She had demanded my trousers off me, and they'd gone into a wash, but had emerged in one piece and were ready. These are the big old fat fuck trousers, secured with the second of the two belts, which I'd been wearing around the place much as one wears a comfy old pair of pants - just because they're there and are full of memories and space. There were also two pairs of size 34s.
"Wear the big ones honey," said d, holding them out. "They'll be comfier for travelling..."
"Nnnnnnnah," I decided. "Wanna feel a bit connected to the older thinner me."
d raised an eyebrow. "Reeeeeally?" she said, waving the comfy pants at me in a moderately seductive manner.
I picked up the 34s, slid into them, breathed substantially innnnnnnnnn, zipped up and fastened the button.

It strained, rather more than somewhat. I could almost hear it grunting, digging its own little sulking trench into my no-longer-size-34 gut.
And off I went, walking with a kind of delicate John Wayne tread, not to put undue strain on the poor, put-upon (or at least put-on) 34s.

Got to Paddington in dire need of a pee, after two bucketfuls of decaffeinated pointlessness at Cardiff, and popped, as is my wont, into the Paddington Hilton to use their bathroom.

There are some moments in life that, if you saw them in a movie, you'd dismiss as funny but contrived and hokey.

I unzipped the 34s,  reached in, discovered that the trousers were  hiked too high to allow me what, for want of a more frankly filthy word we'll call access and pulled the 34s, still buttoned, down a little way to get everything correctly aligned. I reached in, got a hold of myself, and breathed out, relaxing in the knowledge that my pee-need would soon be no more.

There was a ping.

A little...something...flew past my field of vision, then dropped away. It pinged off one side of the toilet bowl, danced over to the other side, jumped a little in the air and then dropped with a discreet plunk! into the bowl, just as the arc of my pee-stream coloured the water a rich and vibrant cider-colour yellow.

The button stared back up at me. I could almost see it grinning at me. Hell, it was almost giving me the finger. Fortunately of course, the 34s were so crammed to literal bursting-point that they stayed up perfectly well, and rather more relaxedly than they did while under the enforced discipline of the button.

So I did the day with my trousers bulging open at the top, and technically, at least until it's worth getting a replacement button, the 34s are dead. They have ceased to be. Which doesn't make you feel particularly good when you're on a quest to lose your next 28 pounds.

Today though, I went to weigh in, and had something of a shock.

16 stone 10...dead. So somehow this week, I've lost 2.75 pounds. Granted, losing 2.75 pounds when you've put on 26 of the buggers is still hardly a reason to celebrate, but still - at least this week it appears to be moving in the right direction. 3 pounds and I reclaim the 4 stone sticker in my sad little collectormania heart. 7 pounds after that and I'm only a stone over where I'm claiming I "got to"...and on it goes.
Tomorrow night - apparently, badminton. For the first time in decades. That'll be fun!