Renovations...

Well, after three weeks of salads and wraps and flopping exhaustedly on the exercise bike each day (and sometimes even using it), I have managed to shed the grand total of one point one kilograms. I was going to try those over-priced Celebrity Slim Shakes (no, I didn't buy them - my slim as a reed daughter did, and then promptly forgot about them) but a plague of weight-conscious mice got to them first, devouring all the chocolate and the vanilla sachets and then zumba-dancing over the mouse-traps with their slim little feet. The odd thing was not that our mice are weight-loss-savvy, but that they were distinctly fussy in the bargain. Even when they had consumed every last shred of chocolate and vanilla powder, they still didn't attempt the strawberry-flavoured ones. So if dieting mice are rejecting the latter, then I'm taking the hint.

But the lack of weight-loss is made all the more frustrating by those contestants on The Biggest Loser who seem to shed kilos just marching single file to the weigh-in room. Or being yelled at by Michelle, or having a breakthrough moment with Shannon, or being dojo-ed by the new Blondie. Whose intensity levels suggest some underlying issues of her own. Plus she really needs some new material, I've only tuned in three or four times and I've already heard her say that whole treat-your-body-as-a-temple-not-a-nightclub line twice. A nightclub isn't even a good analogy - too much fun and frivolity and high heels and glad rags and daft pick-up lines and cheerful early-hours exhaustion. I'm thinking an all-you-can-eat restaurant, or maybe even one of those ancient Roman lounges, where plump patricians in togas recline languidly while being fed delicacies from silver-plated trays.

But it started me thinking about what sort of structure I would use to describe myself and I came to the conclusion that I'm very much like my own home: rambly and messy and comfortable and in a perpetual state of partial renovation. The good news being that we can both still scrub up okay, the bad news being that it now takes a bit of effort. And I decided that from now on, whenever I do something for the house, like buy a plant or a painting or another sarcophagus, I'm going to do something for me. Maybe some new clothing, or a foot massage, or a bar of decadent soap. Something vaguely equitable, just to add value to us both. We deserve it.

Which is all excellent timing as the mission-brown, termite-nibbled, been-falling-down-for-years front fence is finally getting replaced next week. 32 metres in slim-line Windsor picket with non-exposed posts and a new letter-box complete with lockable flap and catalogue insert. Hmm...