Ages ago I put a picture on my blog of this bulb with just the roots coming down. Now it’s a lovely hyacinth, smells so sweet and looks good in my kitchen. All that time waiting. All that time sitting in a dark cupboard.

It has not been a good week for me. I got stressed at work and was rude to some of my customers. Okay, school holidays are a rough time and I think about 90% of the customers go through some sort of “stupid” ray before stepping up to buy cinema tickets, but I’m paid to be nice to them and my stress levels are not their fault. I’m thinking maybe I need to go back to taking 1 whole antidepressant tablet each day, instead of 1/2. Things have been a bit rocky this past month and a bit since I cut down. I have to be sensible about this and admit that the tablets were working. I did therapeutic shopping on Monday and bought all the rest of my cutlery. I will have to take a photo of the cutlery and show you. But yesterday it was bad and I bought a Mars bar and ate it up.

Today even worse. I upset one of my writing buddies (really didn’t intend to, but something that was meant to be funny got misconstrued) then went and had a blood test (yeah, sat up all night studying) and then went and got the 62 tablets that I have to take on Monday in preparation for the colonoscopy on Tuesday. And then I went and did my worst thing: trashy magazine and junk food. Yeah, I’m all caught up on Brad and Ange and the kids and Jen’s latest split up and Tom and Kate and I’m up to here in KFC (and I upsized, oh yeah!)

Then I got back here and started reading blogs and I feel so much better because you guys do so rock and I love your comments. Thank you.

I thought about why I am suddenly eating this junk and I remembered some more of Jon’s words of wisdom and that’s FAT: Famine And Temperature. Our bodies think that all stress relates too not enough food and it’s too cold (so we have to eat more) and funnily enough it is cold here. It’s bloody cold. It might even snow tomorrow. So I’m stressed and I’m cold and therefore my body is doing exactly what it’s been programmed to do for millions of years: eat more. And I haven’t sat in the sun and done my 10 minutes of peaceful thinking in the morning (Jon’s SMART™ mode) so I don’t have to go back to square one, I just have to pick myself up and keep on walking.

Thanks everyone too for your supportive comments about my decision to learn more about surgical options. I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions here. I am going to talk to Adam, the surgeon, about a lap band, not gastric bypass. Lap band is done through keyhole surgery. Basically the surgeon gets in there and puts a ring around the top part of your stomach. So you’ve got this little pouch at the top and once it’s full up, well, you’ve had enough and you have to wait before you can let any more get through. The lap band is adjustable and theoretically a reversible operation. You’re out of hospital on the same day or next day and after a settling down period of a few weeks (while the stitches heal the band into place) you are pretty well right. Visits to the specialist keep the thing in check, and you can have the opening made narrower or larger by addition or subtraction of a saline solution into a small reserviour just under your skin. Here’s a link to Adam’s website and this is what it looks like:

It’s sort of like the ukai fisherfolk of Japan who fish with cormorants. They put a ring around the birds’ necks. The birds dive down and catch a big fish, but can’t swallow it because of the ring. Only small fish will pass through, they have to give the big fish back to their handlers.

The drastic gastric bypass looks like this:

It’s a way scarier option and I wouldn’t like to have that sort of surgical intervention without a really, really good reason.

Anyway, with the gastric band, there’s still a whole lot of hard work to do. You have to take care to eat well, because if you decide you need a diet of Mars bars, well, it’s just not going to work. But before the operation you get all sorts of counselling, and there’s also counselling afterwards, I guess because the doctor really wants to have lots of happy patients who can say they have lost weight and are pleased with having paid him money to help them.

And I hope that’ll be me real soon. I would like to lose 1kg every 2-3 weeks. Not quickly, but a steady loss so that I can get back to running. So that I’m not lying about like a beached whale all summer.

Slow change but good change.

And now some visual inspiration.

It’s imbolg here, pre-spring and the  time of year when the natives are in flower.

This isn’t a native at all. It’s japonica or flowering quince and I do love it. Those bright, bright flowers on the bare stems. And that’s our house. all blurry in the background.

Still no frogs or taddies to show, but looky here:

Do you remember when we planted our mulberry tree? I always worry  little bit over winter, will that plant ever get leaves again? But here it is. The mulberry tree all thick with bud and leaves coming soon. I wonder how many seasons we’ll have to wait before it gives us fruit?

I hope to get back on the blog on Sunday.

I am looking forward to school holidays being over.