One of my little pleasures is sitting in a good cafe, enjoying coffee and food and good company.  Sometimes (rarely) I can resist the temptations lined up on the counter but I often don’t.  This weekend I spent time in 2 cafes on Saturday and enjoyed it very much.

The first was in Hastings on Saturday morning.  I had made a decent breakfast of scrambled tofu so I wasn’t hungry and I had no excuse for eating cake.  But I did.  I was out shopping with Harvey and suggested a coffee on the way home – we went in to Cake Room on Robertson Street.  I have never been in Cake Room before and I liked it very much; the decor and furnishings are 1950’s vintage and the space is large, light and airy.  The coffee was great and the vegan gingerbread a tad dry but flavoursome and enjoyable.  Harvey had a huge slice of sponge cake, generously loaded with berries and a hot chocolate.  I will be visiting Cake Room again, but just for a coffee!  Very good coffee.

The gingerbread sufficed for lunch and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with about 10 ladies at Hartley Dyke, on the road up to Cranbrook from Hawkhurst,  It’s a pleasant spot, attached to a large deli, overlooking Kent apple orchards.

I meant to take a photo of everyone but the tea flowed, the chatter never stopped and time marched on so  by the time I took my phone out some of the local lovelies had left.  Then this lot wouldn’t pose properly!We got there in the end.  That was a very pleasant 3 hours.We managed to time our exit to see the most spectacular sunset.These two were taken at Hartley Dyke.This one was taken at least half an hour later outside Waitrose in Hawkhurst so it was a spectacular and long sunset.In the evening I did not do well.  I have done far worse but I did have a large bag of popcorn and then three slices of wholemeal bread, with humous and tomatoes.

Today was a new day and I did much better.  I started with a 70 length swim; half breaststroke and half front crawl.  That is 1.4 km (0.87 miles).  I really enjoyed the swim, mainly because I had a lane to myself for the first 44 lengths.  I also took time afterwards to really enjoy the sauna and I had one of the outside jacuzzis to myself which was lovely.I was hungry when I came home.  I had a banana, followed by a slice of wholemeal bread with half an avocado and a tomato.Followed by a second slice spread with Vitalite and peanut butter.Lunch was very simple; half a baked sweet potato with 1 tsp Vitalite, mixed lettuce leaves, cucumber, radishes, pickled beetroot and sauerkraut with 1 tsp Vegenaise.After lunch we took the dogs to the park.

Supper was from the freezer.  I hadn’t labelled it and can not remember which recipe I followed but it was rice, black beans and chick peas with lots of vegetables.  I added 1 tbsp lime pickle to mine.  Other than that it was all free or speed foods.In the evening we went to the Old Town to go on a Ghost Walk.  Instead of driving down we walked so on top of my swim I also walked nearly 14,000 steps today so I am happy with that.

The Ghost Walk was great fun and we both really enjoyed it.  I particularly enjoyed walking through part of the Old Town I had not discovered before.

So Sunday was a good day.  I have no idea how many syns I ate on Saturday and am not going to lose sleep over it.  I did ok today and feel optimistic about this week.  My syns were higher than the 15 I aim for but I am hoping I will lose weight because I did so much exercise today.  The scales will show me if I am correct on Friday.