Well, it has not been healthy and there has been far too much of it.  So much in fact that I am really looking forward to the very austere diet I am putting myself on from April 1st until I go away at the end of July.

We had a lovely day on Saturday visiting Jeremy and Helen and their boys.  Harvey found some exercise weights which weigh 6kg each.  They felt so heavy and this helped me realise how I can benefit my body by losing a couple of those amounts by the summer, so that is my goal.

After lunch of sausages, mash and peas, cheesecake and fruit salad, we went for a walk.

Plenty of ducks and swans to feed.

Watch out boys – the glove on a stick may get you!

It was lovely being outside and walking round the lake, climbing tree stumps

and even some log balancing.

After our walk we had hot cross buns and chocolate Rice Krispie cakes and before we knew it, the wine was open again and the dips were out.

We had a spectacular dinner of Middle Eastern dishes.  Grated carrots and celaeriac with cumin seeds, halloumi in a caper dressing, home made kofta’s with yogurt dressing, couscous with roasted vegetables and my favourite was an aubergine dish with juicy tomatoes, feta cheese and creme fraiche.

This is the halloumi with lime and caper vinaigrette.  The recipe was from Delia on-line and you can see it here.   It really was excellent.

The char-grilled aubergine with roasted tomatoes and feta recipe was also from Delia on-line or just click here

Having looked the recipes up I an even more impressed as they look, dare I say it, even better than Delia’s pictures.  They would make a great lunch too and as a bonus they are vegetarian.Thank you Jeremy and Helen for such a wonderful day and for such a superb dinner.

On Easter Sunday I didn’t eat much variety but a gazillion calories.  I ate all of my Easter egg which was huge and 2 hot cross buns.  Our day did not go according to plan so we ended up having dinner instead of the lunch we planned.  Roast duck with roast potatoes, steamed leeks and carrots and sweetcorn.  Plus gravy and cranberry sauce (in lieu of the redcurrant and port sauce which had run out)

James had slow roasted the duck for about 4 hours so it was succulent and tender and just fell off the bone.  The cranberry sauce is one I made for last Christmas i.e. Christmas 2011 and it was fine and I lived to tell the tale.

This delicious duck was washed down with a very fine bottle of Pinotage then followed by cheese and biscuits in front of the telly – we watched part 1 of Labyrinth.

I have put weight on the last couple of weeks and eaten too much and eaten unhealthy food.  I feel grotty because of it.  So from today, I am going to follow a very strict regime.  You can read about it in the next post 🙂