Good morning Ramsgate.

A certain someone was so keen to start his day we were up and outside before the sun had risen in the sky fully.  I love early morning, with all the promise of the day ahead so it was no hardship from my perspective.

The restoration of these lovely Edwardian shelters is nearly complete and they are looking good.  There are several of them along our road and it is very pleasing to see them nearly ready to be used.

The reason we were out so early is so someone could practise skateboarding.

We walked along here last night where it was decided this was a good place for skateboarding.

It would seem we were correct.

Our main plan for the day was a coastal walk from Ramsgate to Broadstairs which is about 2 miles away.  Stay for lunch and then walk back.  With the sun out I was excited about the walk.

Breakfast was meant to be a ham omelette but the 5th egg I cracked in to the bowl was full of blood.  Bright red with blood, not just a few specks.  I didn’t notice in time to stop it going in the jug with the other eggs and none of us fancied eating it so the eggs were thrown out.  I had my ham with an apple.  4 points for the 128 g ham.  Time for our walk which I was really looking forward to as I love being beside the sea.

Oh my gosh, how the weather changed!!!!  Less than an hour after getting back from our early morning stroll, the fog had rolled in and we could hardly see anything.

We went anyway because we all like being on the beach and in Winter it is so invigorating.  The tide was low so we could walk along the beach.  The beaches here are backed by chalk cliffs.

We walked along a combination of promenade and sandy beach.

When the tide is out, the remnants of the cliffs which have been eroded create a landscape full of rockpools.

The cliffs are continually being eroded by the sea.  This would be a great place for a geography field trip about coastal erosion.

At Louisa Bay there was a fresh landslide.  There are houses at the top of these cliffs!

Having stopped many times for photos and exploring caves and rockpools along the way, we arrived at a very foggy Viking Bay, Broadstairs.

I had my heart set on lunch at Pizzeria Possillipo but we had the dogs with us and couldn’t leave them outside anywhere we were comfortable with so we went back to Oscar’s Festival Cafe, remembering they have a garden at the back.  However, Graham, the Manager, insisted we keep them inside with us and gave them dog biscuits.  The water bowl outside meant they were fed and watered.  It was quite a squeeze in what is probably Thanet’s smallest cafe but they were happy enough!

I still had eggs on my mind so ordered granary toast with scrambled eggs and bacon.  I am not a huge fan of big black mushrooms so gave those to James.  16 points (bread = 5, bacon = 3, butter = 3 and eggs = 5).

With Weight Watchers, you have a daily points allowance.  Mine is 35.  Plus you get an extra 49 a week as extras.  Additionally, you can earn activity points.  With all the walking I have done this week, that earned me an extra 35 points.  I hadn’t used many of my extra points this week so I had 92 points to use today which is loads!  My week starts on  Monday when the slate is wiped clean and you begin again so it was a case of use them today or lose them.  So I decided I had earned a slice of cake.  The trouble was, which one?

We chose 3 and shared them: chocolate fudge cake, coffee cake and an Elderflower drizzle cake.  They were all good.  I wasn’t sure how many points they had so I looked up the highest chocolate fudge cake I could find and used that – 26 points!  I suspect that was far too many but I had so many points I felt generous 🙂

After a lovely brunch we walked back to Ramsgate.  Our house is one of those on the cliff top.

Unbelievably, the fog and clouds cleared and there was a little blue sky by the time we got home.

We were enjoying Ramsgate so much we decided to stay for the evening.  We had no food in the house so popped out to Pizza Express which is in a beautiful building overlooking the marina.

I use the Weight Watchers App which is brilliant.  I can track everything I eat and all my activity and it keeps a running tally of my points.  It also has points for most High Street food brands so it is really easy to sit with a menu and choose what to have and still stay within points.

I had a Diet Coke and almonds (8 points) to start with.  I thought the portion was quite large so I shared them.

Followed by a chicken Caesar salad which had 20 points.  This was quite a small salad but I think the points were high because of the croutons and dough sticks.

I gave 2 dough sticks away, didn’t eat the croutons (not nice enough to be worth the calories) and instead had a tiny sliver of James’ American pizza.

So I have ended my first week of 2013 having stuck to my resolutions of walking a mile a day and going back to Weight Watchers.  I still have 13 points left but require nothing more for the day so I very happily end the week in credit.  I am looking forward to getting weighed again tomorrow to see how much I have lost.  Which is a lovely contrast to how I felt last week when I was dreading going to see how much I had put on.  I hope I feel the same way this time next week.