The Christmas goose is getting fat...

...Sadly, though, it's not just the Christmas goose that's put on weight. Although I was down to 82.9 kilos three weeks ago, I'm now up to 84.8 kilos. It's my fault, really – I've spent the past fortnight in an orgy of cooking, eating and indolence (highlights have included a fantastic fore-rib of beef, served with spuds roasted in goose fat and pillowy yorkshire puds, and a slow-roast shoulder of lamb that just fell apart at the prod of a fork).

I'm hoping, though, that the weight that's gone on so fast will come off again equally quickly. My knee is also on the mend and, over the past few days, I've been running again. It's amazing how quickly you can lose condition thought – I did two miles (3.5 km) the other day and nearly died in the attempt. Five ks looks almost as unachievable as it did a month or so ago... Still, one step back and two steps forward is the order of the day, so I'm about to go for the third run of the week. If I don't kill myself out there, I'll be back in the next day or two with some updates.

No excuses – well, maybe just a couple

I'm sorry, I've been totally crap about posting anything on this blog for a while. I could put it down to the end-of-year rush at work, or I could lay the blame at the door of my computer – it's been getting slower and slower for a while and I eventually took it into the workshop to have the hard drive cloned and then doubled in size. That's when I was told I'd nearly knackered it by only having four gigs of hard drive space free. Anyway, the new drive was re-installed with no problem, but getting some extra RAM into the thing proved challenging – it was on order for days before it finally came through, and I was computer-less for over a week, something I'm not used to and which makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable...

Added to which, I had an exercise triumph – I managed to plough my way through five kilometres, although it took me nearly 40 minutes to do it – quickly followed by another exercise nadir. When I woke up the day after my five-k run, I could barely stand. I'd done some damage to my knee that left me limping. It's taken me almost a fortnight to be able to walk on it without getting a twinge, and it turns out that I'm not the only person to suffer a similar setback just at the point when everything seems to be coming together on the exercise front. The next posting on this blog will come from James, who has a theory as to why this might be...

Patron of the yartz...

When Mark and I had our post-wedding party last month, we wondered for a while about what kind of wedding present we should ask for. We knew we didn't need pots and pans or towels and bed linen and all the usual kind of stuff newlyweds get landed with. We certainly had more than enough toasters and kettles between us, having merged our two households a couple of years ago.

So we hit on the idea of asking our friends for a contribution towards the purchase of a painting. Today, with the grand total burning a hole in our pockets, we went to the Affordable Art Fair in Bettersea Park – and fell in love with the Lady with the Candelabra (left) shortly after we arrived (I think she was on the sixth booth we visited). Inevitably, she was more expensive than our budget had allowed for, but she was so beautiful that she stayed with us as we trailed round the rest of the fair (the picture doesn't do justice to the glowing colours of the paint or the intricate texture on the canvas). Mark and I saw some wonderful pieces, and we could easily have spent our money four times over, but we kept coming back to her.

Luckily, after a bit of haggling, we arrived at a mutually agreeable price that didn't compromise the art dealer's commercial instincts or our ability to pay. So the lady with the candelabra came home with us. I still think she's beautiful – and I'll carry on believing it for the rest of my life.

A big thank you to all those who helped us buy her...

Locked out!

So there I was on Monday morning, pootling round the house, getting ready for my session with James, when the rubbish men came. After emptying out the wheelie bin, the rubbish men left it out on the street. So I thought I'd do my civic duty and bring it in to the front garden. My trainers were upstairs, so I slipped on Mark's slippers – a pair of plastic flip-flops – and, latching the door (or so I thought), stepped outside to get the bin. It was a windy morning, as some of you may remember, and the wind caught the door and slammed it behind me. Had it actually been on the latch, as I was convinced it was, it wouldn't have been an issue – but it closed behind me with a bang. I was locked out.

Not a problem, I thought. Two of my neighbours have a key and, given that it wasn't quite 8.30, I thought one or the other must be in. In fact, the lights were on at Ann and Patrick's place next door and Anne's car was still parked out on the street. So I nipped through their gate and rang the bell. And rang the bell again. Nothing.

No worries, I'll thought, I'll try Rob and Jamie's. But the blinds were closed and I couldn't even hear the yapping of their neurotic little dog Connie.

It was at this point that James came cycling up the street, a broad smile on his face (no doubt in anticipation of whatever session of sadism he had in mind for the morning). Hating to disappoint him (not), I gave him the bad news – but I got no reprieve and found myself out in the park, doing step ups onto the bench and a series of boxing moves in Mark's slippers (how glam, not).

Lucky for me, it turned out that Ann was home after all – she'd just been in the shower at the point when I got locked out. Shame I didn't find out until after an hour's heavy exercise in my plastic flipflops. Next time I get locked out, I'll try and make sure I'm wearing my trainers...

What I did with my weekend...

For one reason or another, time seems tight at the moment (isn't it funny how, given that time is an elastic concept, it can be tight or stretched, but never seems to be loose or slack?) We're at the peak of tasting season (I'm meant to be going to eight tastings this week, and could easily add another five or six), I'm travelling at the end of next week (to Geneva for a couple of days) and the beginning of the week after (to Bordeaux for a day and a half), have three articles to write this week and have eight people coming for lunch on Sunday (to give up my social life would be to admit defeat, I feel).

And so it was that I realised that unless I tasted all the wines I needed to taste for the article I have to write this week over the weekend, it wouldn't happen and there would be an almighty car crash of a missed deadline. So on Saturday afternoon I spent an hour unpacking the cardboard boxes that cluttered the hall (merely stripping off all the packaging tape, getting rid of the foam sleeves or pebbles that cushion the bottles, labelling the wines with the names of the company that sent them to me – it's amazing how many people send in bottles with no information, as if you'd recognise who they came from amid the dozens of other bottles you're dealing with – and deconstructing the cardboard boxes so that they can be put out with the rest of the recycling is an exhausting job in itself). I squeezed close on to 30 bottles of white wine in the fridge so that they could chill overnight and lined up the reds (see picture above).

The next morning, after a breakfast of two scrambled eggs, a slice of multigrain toast and some smoked salmon – yum – I made a start on the whites. I was done by lunchtime and was hoping to plough on with the reds in the early part of the afternoon, but Mark then reminded me that we'd been planning on going to see the Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern. When I suggested it might be better for me to finish my work, he sulked, so for the sake of marital harmony, I went to the gallery. I'm glad I did, it was a splendid exhibition. The only flaw was that the galleries were chock-full of people and I feel that Rothko's canvases are probably best appreciated in silence, in a place where you've got the time and space to meditate on them in peace. No matter, they were still awe inspiring.

On our return home, I went through the 36 or so bottles of red I had waiting for me. I was so exhausted at the end that I could barely uncork the last bottles (another reason to vote for screwcaps). My teeth were stained black from the tannins (never a good look, particularly because advice suggests you wait at least an hour after you've finished your tasting before you brush your teeth as the wine acids soften your tooth enamel and you're in danger of brushing it away if you clean your teeth too soon) and I've never been so grateful to sink into a warm bath (perfumed by Ren's brilliant rose bath oil, an affordable luxury for this recessionary world).

Thank goodness the weekend's over. I don't think I could stand the pace for much longer...

Hampered by a friend

I have a friend who I love dearly but who, it has to be faced, is a bit of a flake. I've known him ever since I was a teenager – so for an embarrassingly long time – and in all those years, he's committed one social gaffe after another. This social ineptitude doesn't stem from any lack of intelligence – he's one of the brightest people I know – but he just can't seem to 'read' people and therefore has little sense of what is or isn't socially appropriate.

It was only a few months ago that he turned up for a Sunday lunch (for which I had planned, shopped and cooked to feed precisely ten people) with his two teenage sons. All well and good, apart from the fact that he'd neglected to tell me he was bringing them along. As a result, we didn't have enough chairs to seat everyone at the table and, worse yet, there wasn't quite enough food to go round.

In the run up to the post-wedding party, Mark and I had sent out 'save the date' emails in early March, to ensure that the people we most wanted to celebrate with would be free on the evening in question. Then, in late June, just before we sent the invitations out, we emailed everyone to get their correct addresses. Then the invitations went out in July. I even had a long conversation with this old friend of mine (let's call him Bob to preserve the blushes of the not-so-innocent) in mid-July where he explained that he'd nearly forgotten to tell his wife about the invitation, but had remembered in the nick of time.

You could say that we'd given people adequate warning. So I was hugely pissed off when, eight days before the party, I got an email from Bob to say that he hoped I wouldn't mind that his wife couldn't make it. Why? Because she'd got the dates wrong and was going to spend the weekend with a friend of hers in Stockholm instead. So, not a happy bunny.

Injury was then added to insult when, to make amends, a Fortnum's hamper arrived. It was a wedding present from Bob and his wife. Now I love a Fortnum's hamper as much as the next girl (in fact probably more than the next girl), but this one was stuffed full of tea-time stuff like biscuits and jams. Absolutely delicious. But possibly not the best thing to give a dieting bride...

Every girl's dream...

I've just returned from my honeymoon in Sicily with an extra-special gift – an attack of gastro-enteritis that has laid me low for much of the past week. Really, this is the gift that keeps on giving...

No – I'm not going to go into gory details. I'm sure you've all succumbed to something similar at one stage or another. But the fact that I've been off my food for the best part of a week (not to mention the other, more indelicate effects of the bug) has meant that despite the over-indulgence of the week of the wedding party and the fact that I ate (ahem) a few pastries and ice-creams while I was in Sicily, I haven't put on a gram.

And a quick chat with some of my girlfriends has revealed that, for most women, the upside to having any kind of lurgy is the fact that weight comes off with remarkable ease when you're not well. They do say that clouds have silver linings...

I'm feeling guilty...

No, not about my weight... I'm feeling bad because I haven't had any time in the past ten days or so to make any postings on this blog. You may feel slightly less angry with me if I tell you that, for the past couple of weeks I've had to write a couple of thousand words a day (as an average).

What – weekends as well? I hear you ask. Ah, well, last Saturday was the date of Mark and my post-wedding party, where we got to say our vows in front of many of our friendss, rather than just our mums, who were the only people present the first time round. Sunday? Well, Sunday, as you might expect was a recovery day, then my nose was firmly back to the grindstone from Monday on.

Why am I working so hard? Because Mark and I are off to Sicily on our belated honeymoon tomorrow, and we won't be back until the end of the month (potential burglars should be aware that Laszlo the guard dog will be staying, as will some friends). I promise that when I get back I'll return fired up with enthusiasm, ready to post some fab new recipes, courtesy of some inspirational sunshine. Until then, have a good September.

A tale of two Sundays

This picture, on the right, is of Mark and Laszlo basking in the afterglow of a very pleasant picnic last weekend. When we woke up that morning, it was clear that it was going to be another beautifully sunny day – much the same as the rest of the week. Because so much of this summer has been patchy, we hadn't yet had a picnic – and picnics have become a regular fixture on our annual calendar. There's something a bit lacking, I feel, if we haven't picnicked by August – se we cut it fairly fine this year.

The first year Mark and I were together, he was co-opted onto a jury at the Old Bailey. It was absolute hell (he was involved in a murder trial, and I don't think it can have been very pleasant listening to the gory details day in and day out) – but the silver lining to the cloud was that he occasionally got an afternoon off. We'd head out for Hampstead Heath (often with my sister's dog, Baloo, in tow), having stopped off at Ottolenghi on the way to buy the food. (I don't know if you've ever been to Ottolenghi, but I can't recommend it highly enough – there are now four branches in London, selling the best ready-prepared salads, cold dishes, breads and patisserie I've found since I left Sydney. It ain't cheap, but it's worth it as a once-in-a-blue-moon treat. The recently published cookbook is pretty ace, too.)

I had to check the latest branch of Ottolenghi out for the foodie guide I'm working on, so it seemed clear that the fates wanted us to have our first (possibly only, if the weather doesn't get any better) picnic of the year. Once we had our food, we headed for Battersea Park, spread out a sheet under the shady branches of a tree, and tucked in. I was fairly good – I avoided the temptations of the patisserie and stuck to salads, including aubergine dressed in yoghurt and pomegranate seeds; chickpeas and fregola pasta; grilled aubergine with a herby dressing and a mixture of crunchy radishes, celery and cucumber. Yum. We washed it all down with a bottle of fizzy water, which I'd infused with some green tea leaves, fresh mint leaves and a squeeze of lime – really refreshing.

Once we'd enjoyed our meal – and Laszlo had run himself ragged playing with a small black dog – we sat and read the Sunday papers for another hour or so. I can hardly imagine a more perfect Sunday afternoon.

This Sunday could hardly have been more different. We awoke to overcast skies, which threatened rain – but held off until I'd been for a run (I'm very thankful for small mercies).

Mark has been feeling rather poorly for much of the week, so I thought the best thing for it would be a bowl of soup – another variation on the Asian chicken soup theme. Even though the rain began falling shortly before we tucked in, it did make the day feel a little bit happier – and I like to think it made Mark feel a little bit better.

Another Asian chicken soup for two

800 mls Asian chicken stock
a small thumb of galangal, peeled and sliced into discs
2 stalks of lemongrass, trimmed and bashed about a bit with the flat of a knife
a few dried kaffir lime leaves
1 small red chilli, sliced thinly
juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp fish sauce
50g wide rice noodles
150g shitake mushrooms, bottom end of the stalk trimmed, then slice the caps and remaining bit of stalk
a bunch of asparagus, sliced into 5-cm lengths (discard the tough, fibrous bit at the bottom)
2 chicken breasts, skinned and sliced thinly
4 spring onions, sliced
lots of chopped fresh coriander, with rather less mint and basil (if you can get Thai basil, so much the better)

Put the stock in a saucepan over a medium heat and stir in the galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, lime and fish sauce. Bring to the boil, then allow it to simmer gently for 10 minutes, in order to allow the flavours to infuse into the stock.

Meanwhile, prepare the rice noodles according to the instructions on the packet (I had to pour boiling water over mine and allow it to stand for a few minutes before draining).

Stir the mushrooms into the stock. After a couple of minutes, stir in the asparagus. Once the asparagus is starting to get tender, stir in the chicken and cook until opaque.

Spoon into large bowls, then stir in the spring onions and herbs.

The long, dark teatime of the soul

I've always loved this title, which I've nicked from a Douglas Adams book (see left); it seems to capture the feeling of limitless gloom that comes with any internal struggle. I've been doing a fair bit of internal struggling over the past few days. Mark and I went away to Devon for our birthday weekend (conveniently enough, his birthday is on the 5th of July and mine is on the 6th) and I don't know whether I was suffering from birthday-itis (it's my birthday and I'll darn well celebrate any way I want to, even if it means coming off the diet); having reached the fuck-it zone (the weight's not coming off, so what the hell) or a bout of self-sabotage (you've lost 10 kilos, you're doing just fine, why struggle any more), but I tucked into ice-creams, a delicious apple and raisin cake, plaice in a buttery sauce, pork with crackling... You get the picture.

Having lost control of myself, though, I found myself waking up in the middle of the night and fretting about it. I am committed to losing the weight – even though it's tough going at the moment – apart from anything else, I don't want to lose face in such a public way, but my progress is slow at the moment. Has been for a while.

So I've returned to London fully committed to the notion of getting to grips with my inner demons. My diet has been at its most successful early in the year, partly because the diet shocked my system into losing weight and partly because I was in control of what I ate and when I ate it in a way that I'm not during restaurant review season. Given that it's going to be hard to stick to a diet (I can try, but I have to compensate for potential slip-ups) until September, and that I've decided that my goal is to lose 4.5 kilos to take me down to 80 kilos by the time of my post-wedding party on September the 6th, ramping up the exercise seems to be the logical way to go.

I had a word with James about it, and we've decided that my initial tactic (to go for two runs a day) isn't a realistic proposition. He thinks I'll just become bored very quickly and that it will prove to be a retrograde step. Instead, I'm going to up the intensity of what I'm doing when I work out by myself. James set me a running challenge (at least once round the outside of the park, then interval training for a second lap), which I'm already on to. He's also going to provide me with a skipping rope (it seemed so easy when I was a kid, but at the age of 44 it doesn't seem quite so much fun any more) and a couple of kettle bells. I'd never heard of kettle bells (right) before, but James explained what they were and said that they produce results pdq. I'm pretty sure that using them is going to feel like torture, but if they get me to where I want to go, I'm up for it.

Two very pleasant surprises - and one unpleasant one

I've just got back from eight days in Greece – following on from 10 days in France, with only two days at home in between trips to recuperate (I know I have the best job in the world, but sometimes it's nice to come back home and stay there for a while – when I found out that I don't have to go to Burgundy at the end of the month, as I had expected, I nearly opened a bottle of Champagne in celebration).

The Greeks are incredibly generous hosts, and as a result every meal was a belt-buster. We were up in the mountains, as well, so this was all country food: wild boar stews cooked in red wine and served with noodles, beef fillet with wild mushrooms and veal meatballs served in a creamy egg and lemon sauce. Few of the meals we enjoyed (endured?) featured fewer than four courses, all rounded off with desserts so sweet my teeth ache just thinking about them. There was wine, of course, plenty of it. And there were two meals like this a day. In the end, the relentlessness of it all was a godsend because I lost my appetite entirely by the third day of the trip and just ended up picking at things.

As a result, although I was dreading stepping on the scales this morning, I was delighted to see them read 84.8kg. So things are, once again, moving in the right direction.

It's obviously not just water loss, either, as I'm currently wearing a pair of size 16 Gap jeans I had to give up on two years ago because the waistband was too tight for comfort. True, I've got a bit of a muffin top, but the jeans are pretty comfortable.

The bad news is that I went for a run yesterday and barely made it once round the park. I've got a session with James on Friday – I hope I can do a bit better by then.

Predictable, I suppose

I've just got back from 10 lovely (if rainy) days in France – Mark, Laszlo and I took a much-needed holiday in the Loire and Burgundy. The trouble is that, between my healing knee and the good food, I've put on nearly a kilo. The scales this morning read 86kg.

To make matters worse, I'm off to Greece on Saturday for an eight-day work trip. I'll just have to gird my loins and learn to resist temptation once again.

You never know who's watching you in cyberspace

I spent all day yesterday at the London Wine Fair in Docklands – absolutely fascinating stuff, but hell on the old damaged leg, which is still in fairly poor nick.

No matter. What really got me glowing was that I ran into an acquaintance on one of the stands – someone I've met several times over the years in a professional capacity, yet not someone I know well enough to have told her about the blog. Anyway, not only had she tracked the blog down off her own bat, she was enthusing about the recipes on it. It turns out she's cooked her way through a food few of my postings and has loved everything she's tried. I was incandescent with delight.

I have to admit I did ask her why she never posted anything on the blog to say she'd enjoyed one or other of the recipes, and she just said that she wasnt that kind of a girl. It's heartening to know that although I don't get that many postings on the blog that there may well be a whole group of readers out there enjoying what I've got to say without necessarily making themselves known. Whoever you are, thank you!

Another week, another weigh in

85.2 kilos this week. I'm going to have to watch it, though, as I'm entering review season. For the next few months, as long as I'm in London, I'll be eating out several times a week in my role as section editor of a restaurant guide. Given that I can't exercise at the moment, keeping on track is going to be tough.

The damage

As predicted, Mark came home last night, took one look at my knee and put the kibosh on the idea of going out for dinner.

As a result, I spent just over two hours in my local A&E department waiting to be dealt with. The triage nurse, who I saw after about half an hour's wait confirmed that I'd need stitches, so I sat in the busy, noisy waiting room and, well, I waited. I'd sent Mark home, because there was no point in both of us sitting there doing nothing – I thought he'd be best of getting some dinner – but then he came back with a book for me to read, but instead we sat there and cuddled. I was feeling rather weepy, which is fairly unlike me – I suppose it must have been delayed shock – and my knee was starting to stiffen up and become sore.

Eventually I was shown in to a cubicle, where I climbed up onto a leatherette bed and a nurse practitioner peeled back the bloody bandage wrapped round my leg. Apparently I was lucky to have missed severing the tendon by a matter of millimetres, but as it was I needed five stitches, three to the large gash at the top and another two below. My leg is now swathed in stitches, steristrips and a big gauze plaster.

I'm under strict instructions not to do any exercise for the next 10 days or so. On the principle that you miss most that which you cannot have, I find myself craving an early morning jog.

The first rule of jogging

Today I learned something new. What I learned was that the first rule of jogging is that you must always, always look where you're going. As you can see from the picture above, I didn't.

I was out in the park with Laszlo, trying to loosen up my muscles after my last session with James had left me feeling a bit stiff (serves me right for not stretching right afterwards). James and I were due to go out on Clapham Common tomorrow morning to see just how far I could jog when I put my mind to it – the goal was half an hour.

So, there I was, being a good girl, pootling round the park, not really looking where I was going – in fact, actively looking over my shoulder because Lasz had stopped to play with a Jack Russell – when I tripped over a shallow hole in the path and went sprawling.

I've badly skinned the palm of my left hand, but that's nothing compared to my left knee – I've got a deep, deep gash just below my knee cap. It's really quite gory-looking in real life. I was meant to go out for a review dinner tonight, to Lindsay House. I was really looking forward to it, but I've got a sneaking suspicion Mark may come home in half an hour and insist I go to hospital and get my leg stitched up.

I'm also not convinced that I'm going to make the half-hour run tomorrow.

Drat, drat and double drat.

Still, if I ever wanted proof that journalism was the right career move for me, the fact that my first thought on getting home was that I'd better get a picture of the injury to post on the blog seems to provide ample confirmation.

And now for the bad news...

When I returned from Istanbul, my weight had dipped to 85.7 kilos, and I thought I was back on track. Now, 10 days later, I'm now back up to 86.3 kilos. I could kid myself that it's just a matter of water retention or something, but I have to acknowledge that I'm not being as rigorous with the diet as I was at the start of the year.

I've got plenty of excuses for relaxing my eating patterns: I've had a lot of work dinners, I've had friends round or been over to friends' places for dinner, and I've just started my annual restaurant reviewing rounds (I'm a section editor for one of the main restaurant guides). In other words, temptation's been placed in my path, and I've succumbed. Only slightly, but just enough to ensure that I'm not losing any weight. The time has come to reconsider my priorities, because I'm always going to have to face up to temptation. If I want to lose more weight, I'm going to have to stick a little closer to the rules. Darn.

A big challenge

I've spent a couple of days over the last week or so helping to judge at the International Wine Challenge, one of the three big wine-tasting competitions to run each year here in the UK. The picture, left, gives you some idea of the vast number of wines entered in such competitions. They're big business: big business for the people who run them (who charge a fee for each entry) and big business for the lucky winners (who get to put a sticker on the neck of the winning bottles in the hope that this will help them sell more wine).

Each day for the past fortnight, 100 or so experienced tasters – journalists, wine makers, wine merchants and sommeliers for the most part – have rocked up at one of the Barbican's exhibition hall. We get split into groups of between four and six judges per table, under the guidance of a panel leader, and then the tasting begins. The first week's job was merely to sort wines into three categories: Out (you really don't want to put that in your mouth, do you?), Commended (it's drinkable, but far from exciting) and Medal-worthy. This is done by tasting your way through flight after flight of wine – a flight is made up of anywhere from a couple to a dozen bottles of wines of a similar style (for instance, German Riesling or Australian Shiraz) – and then deliberating over the various merits of the wines.

The second week, any potentially medal-winning wine is re-tasted in order to determine whether it's worthy of a Bronze (good, but not remarkable), Silver (batting well above average) or Gold (outstanding). Yesterday was a week two-day, and my judging colleagues and I tasted our way through 75 wines, awarding one Gold, about three or four Silvers, numerous Bronzes and kicking a number of wines back into Commended positions.

After a day spent tasting like this, my teeth were stained black with tannin (which makes you look like your dentist learned his skills back in the 17th century) and I have to remember not to smile politely at anyone on the bus on the way home.

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Last weekend, Mark and I took my mum to Istanbul for her 70th birthday present (she's probably going to kill me for revealing her age – she discovered this blog because she was googling me. How embarrassing!).

Because it was a special occasion, we stayed in style at the Empress Zoe hotel, a lovely little boutique Byzantine job in the middle of old Istanbul, just round the corner form key tourist venues like the Topkapi Palace, the Ayia Sophia mosque and (inevitably) the Grand Bazaar.

Shopping played a relatively large part of the weekend (something Mark bore with remarkable fortitude, standing patiently by the door of shop after shop, with an ever-growing pile of bags clustered at his feet). I was relatively restrained, and returned home with an embroidered coat and a pair of shoes made from an old piece of hand-embroidered material (Laszlo has already had a good gnaw on one of them, but only managed to damage the sole, luckily).

We also spent a fair amount of time strolling through the Spice Bazaar. As a matter of fact, I think I preferred the Spice Bazaar to the Grand Bazaar: it smelled more interesting for starters, with its blend of sumac, cinnamon, thyme and rosewater. I almost bought a kilo's worth of mixed spice, and only managed to restrain myself in time (I've got all the spices I need at home in my kitchen), and mum couldn't resist buying bags and bags of almonds, dried fruit and loukoum – she said it was for presents, but I'm not convinced she wasn't intending to scoff half the goodies when she got home.

We ate well, too – although, as I discovered, a girl can have too many kebabs over the course of a long weekend. Our best meal, however, was the one we enjoyed at Körfez (left). Part of the treat was the drive through Istanbul's suburbs, from gritty inner-town concrete jungle to upmarket Hampstead-on-sea beachfront apartments, followed by the short boat ride across the Bosphorous to the restaurant. We sat down for dinner just before sunset, and as the starters arrived, the lights of the city started twinkling and soon all we could see of the opposite shore was a galaxy of lights and the vague outlines of the hills and buildings. The food was excellent, too, particularly the sea bass baked in a salt crust (although we suspect we were ripped off as they only served us half the fish but charged us for a whole one when the bill came).

Luckily, after an attempt to order a couple of glasses of wine on the first night, I wasn't too tempted afterwards. They were the worst wines I've tasted since I went to Cyprus on a work trip...

A ray of sunshine

Even though I feel guilty (see earlier post) about my lack of posting and my lack of weight loss, a couple of rays of sunshine have pierced my gloom.

The first is that, on Friday, I ran the whole park. By the time I got the whole way round, I felt like I couldn't quite get enough air in my lungs, but I made it. And, as James said, I was only four days behind schedule. My next challenge is to make it twice round the park – a distance of around a mile and a quarter. James reckons it's going to take me six weeks to do it. I'm determined to get there earlier if I possibly can, and aim to do as much running between sessions as possible in order to make it happen.

The other good thing that is starting to happen is that people who have no idea I'm on a diet are starting to remark on the fact that I've lost weight. Maybe things are starting to tighten up, despite the fact that the scales aren't showing any significant loss of poundage.