The time has come. I thought I would keep going until she chose to stop, as I did with RoRo*. RoRo stopped of her own accord at the same time as she dropped her nap, but she’d already cut it down to one feed a day – to get herself to sleep for the nap. LaLa has a bunch of ways to go to sleep – including the occasional dot dot (breastfeed) – and she still has a fair bit of dot dot. She has some in the morning – but usually two or three feeds. If I’m around, she’ll have some in the afternoon just before her nap and will often, but not always, fall asleep at the same time. She’ll have some in the afternoon, when she gets home. And she’ll ask for some whenever she’s upset. She tends to have more if she’s feeling unwell.

And, honestly, I can’t see her letting up of her own accord for a good long time. As she says “Dot dot is my favourite and my best.” She asks very nicely: “Please may I have some dot dot? Just a tiny bit? Please?” If I say no, for whatever reason, she’ll cry, but very briefly and it’s the same cry she’ll give if refused sweets or TV or other such stuff. So, yes, not about to drop it voluntarily.

Last night, I was up half the night with her. She woke up at just gone midnight and pretty much decided it was morning. She was asking for dot dot most of the time. She’s not allowed dot dot in the middle of the night – because it just leads to her waking up with the purpose of having dot dot, rather than sleeping through happily like she usually does. So I spent most of the night saying no and plying her with cow’s milk and juice and water and books and toys and TV on the netbook. The rest of the night was spent with her saying she wanted to go to bed and could I carry her upside down (one of her latest ‘things’) and put her in her bed, whence she would climb approximately one minute later declaring that she was ‘not tired’ and it was ‘time to get up’.

In the end I gave in – yes, I know, giving in is my downfall and I repeat it time after time, because I do not have the patience to deal with screaming and crying when I know I can avert it with the judicious (or not so judicious) application of dot dot, sweets or TV – and gave her dot dot, and she fell asleep – at four in the morning. But before I did we had a little chat about dot dot and I said that tomorrow (i.e. today) we would be stopping dot dot.

And she hasn’t had any since four in the morning. In the morning, I went back to bed and Chris took over, so it didn’t crop up. When she came home RoRo had a friend round and there were Friday treats to eat, so she didn’t immediately ask for dot dot. When it occurred to her to ask, I reminded her that we had said we’d been stopping and offered milk or juice instead and also reminded her of her sweets and the existence of people to play with. She was distracted for a while and then asked again, this time with a bit more vehemence. She was allayed by pink milk. Further into the afternoon/evening, she was fobbed off or distracted by the DS, some TV, the rest of her sweets, some pudding, a bath, bouncing on our bed… and then I disappeared to watch Pirates of the Caribbean with RoRo while Chris put LaLa to bed, so the issue was removed again.

We shall see how things go tomorrow. The mornings will be the most challenging, but I think if I work on the distractions and my high-pitched exaggeratedly cheerful voice we’ll be fine. Most reports of stopping at this point say it only takes two or three days. So, hopefully we’ll be done by the end of the weekend.

Wish us luck!

* In case you missed it, at my eldest daughter’s request the girls are now referred to by nicknames on the blog (RoRo = the eldest; LaLa = the youngest).

I was sent this a couple of months ago now and used it for probably around six weeks before taking a yet-to-be-curtailed break for Christmas (and ‘stuff’!). I loved it and I know that once I’ve done a couple of sessions I will be fully back into the Zumba rhythm, with all the enthusiasm I had at the end of last year. … … I just have to take that first step.

Contents of the Zumba Fitness DVD Exercise Kit

The kit comprises two toning sticks, four DVDs and a workout guide. The workouts on the DVDs are Basics, Express, Sculpt and Tone, Cardio Party, Flat Abs and Zumba Live.

The Basics workout is 60 minutes long and takes you through the steps and moves. As a very unco-ordinated person, I spent three hours replaying each bit trying to get the steps right, before I realised that an approximation would be OK and I’d probably improve over time. Now I can do most of the steps pretty well, but there are a couple that I just can’t do fully – mostly these are Salsa steps and I’ve always found Salsa steps hard. However, I do them well enough to get benefit from it, so that’s fine by me. So, I would say don’t worry about trying to get your steps perfect before you move on from the Basics workout – just do it once or twice and then jump in.

The Express workout is 20 minutes long and is ideal for doing daily (not completely daily, of course, as it’s important to take a couple of days off for recovery in any exercise programme). You can fit it in without too much hassle – in the evening after the children have gone to bed, in the morning, while they’re eating breakfast… – but it’s long enough to make a difference to your fitness.

The Cardio Party workout is hard work, but very exhilarating. You can definitely feel that it’s working and I would make sure you did a week or two of just the Express workout before jumping into this if your fitness level is pretty low to start with.

The Sculpt and Tone workout uses the toning sticks and if you’re anything like me your arms will ache at the end.

I haven’t tried the Flat Abs or Zumba Live, but I’m sure they’re as effective as the rest.

My ideal programme would be to do three Express, 1 Cardio Party and 1 Sculpt and Tone each week, with two days off for recovery. Usually, though, I’ve tended to end up doing two Express workouts and 1 Cardio Party or Sculpt and Tone.

How I found the Zumba Fitness DVD Exercise Kit

This is by far the most fun exercise DVD I’ve ever tried. Every other one, I’ve done two or three times and then given up. With this one, when I finish a workout, I’m already looking forward to doing another one the next day. I tend to still be dancing a bit in the shower afterwards. I remember a lot of the steps and sometimes put on some Merengue and do some steps while cooking or dancing with the girls. The music is great, the steps are fun and, while the presenters can sometimes come across a little irritating, they’re actually very motivational and positive.

As I’m not a very co-ordinated person and have a very changeable schedule, I really appreciate the ability to do this at home in my own time, rather than in a class. I am very self-conscious and really hate exercising with anyone – even Chris or my sister! I’d also recommend it to get to grips with the steps first if you’re just a bit unco-ordinated, or to do extra sessions at home on top of your weekly Zumba class.

As with all exercise DVDs (or routines or programmes), though, you have to keep it up for it to have an effect. While I kept it up for longer than any other exercise DVD in the past, I did stop when it wasn’t really necessary. My schedule had been to do my workouts while Chris took the girls to school three days a week, so it fell by the wayside over Christmas. However, there really was no reason not to just change the schedule around – do it in the evening after the girls were in bed, for example, or do it when they were around and let them join in or watch.

You can buy the kit on Amazon for (at the time of writing) £29.99 or from the Zumba people themselves for £59.98 at www.zumbafitness.co.uk.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of the DVD Exercise Kit to review and keep, but the content of the review is my own and based on using the kit.

An old school friend of mine writes a blog about what she sees and thinks about when walking her dog. If you’re not a dog person, you might not understand the whole dog-walking thought train, but if you are and regularly walk a dog, you’ll probably recognise the feeling.

I’ve taken to walking Wesley every evening after Eleanor’s gone to sleep and while Chris reads to Rosemary. It’s usually a half hour walk, or round-about – to the edge of town and back. It’s a half hour to think about whatever I want to, which is weird, scary, empowering and all kinds of words like that.

Sometimes I use it to run over things that have happened during the day. If I’ve shouted at the girls, I might be thinking about what I could have done differently to prevent that. If some work has gone badly, I might be thinking about how to fix it the next day. I quite often have arguments with people – Chris, clients, the girls, random shopkeepers or car drivers – who have wound me up during the day and tell them what I wish I’d said then. And every now and again I congratulate myself on what went well – getting out the door in the morning on time and with no shouting from anyone, meeting a deadline – or three – spending quality time with Chris, making a nice meal, booking in a new job, getting lots of hits on a blog post…

But mostly what I do is dream. I make up scenarios, usually about our life and future. I don’t think there’s anything especially new or different about these fantasies or dreams. They frequently centre on winning some money on the lottery (just a £500,000 Thunderball win, nothing outrageous like a Euromillions rollover, mind), or getting a huge advance for that novel I still haven’t finished writing. But sometimes they’re slightly smaller scale, like working out a blog redesign, imagining how to move the furniture around in the bedroom, picturing myself sewing up all those clothes that need fixing. OK, so they may well be as unlikely as the lottery win.

And then I picture us living in one of the houses I pass on my walk. One of the big houses that would probably require a lottery win, and quite possibly one bigger than that Thunderball. There are a few contenders, but there’s one in particular, right at the edge of town. It’s quite big, though not outrageously so. It looks like it would comfortably house a big family – in fact, I have a feeling the Bennets would have been quite at home there. It has arched sash windows and a big arched door. A walled garden. An annexe that would make a perfect office, or studio, There’s a driveway and quite possibly a paddock, though that’s just a guess.

I have no idea what it looks like inside, but I have a very clear picture in my head. The large kitchen, with the huge scratched wooden table, double range, scruffy but cosy sofa, dresser full of tea pots and large mugs, hanging rack draped in copper pans. The utility room with the muddy boots cluttering the corner and coats hanging by the door. The lounge with the roaring wood fire, flanked by walls of books, and the large mirror reflecting the dark red walls and floral wallpaper. The playroom strewn with wooden toys and Lego and train sets and kitchens and garages and blackboards – walls papered with bright and colourful pictures…

I’ve even gone knocking on the door to ask if it’s for sale – in my head, of course – and had the fortuitous conversation with the woman who’s splitting up with her husband and so has to sell the beautiful house they’ve lived in for eight years. I’ve gone and sat in her kitchen and drunk tea and sympathised and chatted about the coincidence that we’re both children’s book illustrators (in addition to my thriller-writing career, of course, which has provided the funds to enable me to come knocking on her door). I’ve moved in with all the family and had parents from school come round for tea and even drinks. I’ve seen Wesley running around in the walled garden, finally happy to wander without having to bark at passing dogs.

Some people set the world to rights while walking the dog – solving the economy problems, ending war and famine… some people meditate… some people watch the skies and the trees and nature… and some people spend huge amounts of money furnishing houses that are far too big for their family.

Hmm… that does make it sound bad. But there we go, that’s what I do. When I’m not writing a chapter of my novel or a blog post, that is.

One of the first questions people ask me when they find out I’m vegetarian is ‘But what do you eat for Christmas dinner?’ And the answer to that is along the lines of ‘Anything I want to’. To be honest, I think being vegetarian actually opens you up to more adventurous meals – the everyday ones as well as the special ones. It’s quite easy to come up with seven varieties of meat (or maybe fish) and two veg to get you through a week, whereas it’s less so to do the same without the meat (and fish – let’s get something straight right away: if you eat fish, you are not vegetarian). These days, you can probably manage it with a variety of Quorn products or vegetable burgers, but for the most part, if you’re vegetarian you’re still more likely to be preparing and cooking your own food (yes, I know there are plenty of exceptions).

It’s easy, too, to fall into a tradition of what to eat for Christmas dinner – and, actually, that’s not exclusive to meat eaters. So many people seem to have roast turkey (and all the trimmings) or roast chicken (and all the trimmings), with the odd leg of pork thrown in. We always used to have a mushroom and nut wellington. My aunt’s family usually have a sweetcorn, potato and cheese pie. And we all still have these with all the trimmings. Christmas dinner really isn’t the same without roast potatoes, is it?

I try to do something different each year – both for the big meal at our house every other year (where I’m cooking for my folks who are vegetarian) and when I’m up in Scotland with Chris’s family, where I’m the only vegetarian (though it’s always important to make extra, because everyone wants a taste of whatever I do) – oh, and we usually have a second Christmas on New Year for my folks on the years we’re in Scotland. But I do really only ring the changes with the centrepiece. I still do (or share) roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips. Sometimes I have a traditional (but veggie) gravy and sometimes a different sauce, such as cream of red pepper sauce, or cream of asparagus.

Here are some of the centrepieces I’ve made over the years. The majority of them are wellingtons of some kind (that is, something rolled up in puff pastry), though there is an occasional meander of this path.

Mediterranean Wellington

Halloumi surrounded by couscous and wrapped in roasted Mediterranean vegetables (courgette, aubergine, pepper), all wrapped in puff pastry – looks beautiful when sliced (which is one of the main things to look for in a vegetarian centrepiece, in my opinion). (Make it vegan by leaving the haloumi out – you could replace it with some vegan cheese, but I don’t think that would be necessary. Or some tofu might work nicely.)

Nutty mushroom and sausage wellington (vegan)

This one is closer to the one we had when I was little. Large Sosmix (vegetarian sausage mix that you can get from most healthfood shops and a lot of supermarkets) sausage in the middle, either with stuffing inside or wrapping it, wrapped in fried garlic mushrooms and then coated in crushed nuts. Again, the whole thing is wrapped in puff pastry.

Egg and vegetable wellington

This is what I did last year for Christmas Number Two. Different vegetables cooked in different ways and spread on puff pastry in separate layers, include a couple of layers of egg. Vegetable layers can include honey-roasted carrots, spinach and ricotta (or goats cheese), garlic mushroom, olive oil and olives with courgette, sweet peppers and butter… or anything you or your family particularly likes. Bright coloured vegetables make this one look particularly spectacular. (Leave out the egg and swap the butter for marge or olive oil, and you have a vegan version.)

Here’s a recipe for a version of this.

Roulades of courgette and goats cheese and sweet potato and red pepper

Make roulades with pureed vegetables and egg white spread out in a Swiss roll tin and baked for about 20 minutes on a low heat. When they’ve cooled roll them up with a filling – goats cheese and rocket, red pepper and cream cheese, avocado and chilli… whatever you fancy and will go well with the matching roulade. Once prepared I then sprinkle with some parmesan and sesame seeds and reheat for maybe 15-20 minutes. You then serve a thick slice of each to everyone. They look pretty stunning.

Puff pastry pasta cake

Make a cheese pasta – with macaroni or smaller pasta. Roast some vegetables – could be seasonal ones, such as carrot, swede, butternut squash, etc. or Mediterranean, such as courgettes, peppers and aubergine. Put a large circle of puff pastry on a baking tray. Put a layer of the pasta at the bottom in a circle (leave a really good amount around the edges – maybe 10 centimetres), then add the vegetables in layers. Top with the pasta, and then try to spread the pasta around the edges too, so that the vegetables are completely surrounded. Put a smaller circle of puff pastry on the top and then fold up the edges and seal round the edges. Bake for around 35-40 minutes on a medium heat. Serve like slices of cake. (You can do the same but wrap it in roasted aubergine slices, too, rather than puff pastry.)

I’d serve all these with the usual Christmas Day trimmings – roast potatoes and parsnips, with carrots and Brussels sprouts. I’d serve the sausage and egg wellingtons with a traditional gravy (I make mine with a stock of marmite, Kallo veg cubes and a bit of tomato puree and then thicken it with cornflour and water mix). I’d serve the Mediterranean wellington and the roulades with a cream and red pepper (pureed) sauce, and the pasta cake with a tomato and courgette (pureed) sauce.

I should really try to ring the changes a bit with dessert too, though. I’ve served up Delia’s chocolate roulade for the past few years (with a Chantilly and preserve filling, rather than her chocolate mousse). I did make a very nice one many years back, which was individual panetone bread and butter cheesecakes – panetone and butter base, topped with mascarpone and sugar cream and finished off with a berry puree of raspberries and strawberries.

I hope this is of some use to anyone trying to come up with something to cook for a visiting vegetarian, for any vegetarians looking for something new to cook – or maybe even to some meat-eaters who would like an extra centrepiece to accompany the goose or fatted calf.

If you are cooking for vegetarians, take note that a lot of us will not eat roast potatoes and vegetables cooked in the same oven as the turkey (or whatever you’re having). Chris’s parents have a double oven, so when I’m coming to stay the veg gets cooked in the little oven, but before they had their new kitchen I got sauteed potatoes instead (par-boiled then deep fried). You could also roast some in advance and then just give them a quick zap in the microwave.

Whatever you do, do not serve a vegetarian roast potatoes cooked in goose fat – they might be the most delicious thing ever (so I’ve heard, anyway), but they are most certainly not vegetarian. (And while we’re on the tips for cooking for vegetarians, don’t ever use chicken or other meat or fish stock – there are plenty of vegetable stock cubes available, these days (Oxo vegetable stock cubes aren’t very nice, but Kallo are fantastic – just my opinion). A lot of vegetarians also want to have vegetarian cheese (made with vegetable or synthetic rennet, rather than the cow-derived stuff), watch out for jelly which often contains gelatine (try agar agar flakes or there are quite a lot of veggie jelly mixes available these days) and check the ingredients on sauces, sweets and even cakes and any ready meals. If you see the words ‘suitable for vegetarians’ you should be OK, especially on pre-packaged food.

If you’re feeding a vegan, please be extra careful. Honey is not vegan. Eggs and dairy are not vegan. You should also be very careful about cooking utensils and serving dishes (though you should be if you’re feeding vegetarians, too!).

If you’re vegetarian or regularly feed vegetarians for Christmas, I’d love to hear what you have made or are making this year.

And I hope you have a lovely Christmas Meal, whether it’s vegetarian or not.

EDITED TO ADD: This post is getting a lot of visits from people searching for something to cook for vegetarians and vegans for Christmas. I’ve added some notes on a couple of the ideas for how to make them vegan. If you want me to do a separate post of any of the recipes in full, leave a comment, and I’ll try to do so before Monday 19 December, so you have time to plan your shopping.

Rosemary recently had her first A&E trip. It was a big adrenaline rush with an anti-climactic, but reassuringly simple, diagnosis. The thing is though, when I was winding down in the evening, what I did was blog about it. I didn’t phone my mum or my sister to tell them (I think I probably would have if she’d broken a rib or something, but who can know for sure?). And then, in the morning, when I was handing Eleanor over to my mum, I just asked if she’d seen the post and we discussed it a bit. The first my sister knew about it was a tweet link the next morning. 

It struck me then that, since my mum and sister are now on Twitter and Facebook and both read the blog, I’m less likely to call them to tell them something or just have a chat. I assume they’re reading blog posts, tweets and Facebook statuses and can ask for further elucidation if necessary. And Chris has been bemoaning for a while now the fact that he finds out some things the girls (or I) have done first on my Twitter feed rather than directly from me. Fair enough. Sometimes it’s more immediate to tweet ‘Eleanor just took her nappy off and peed on the lawn’ or ‘Rosemary just did a picture and wants to sell it for a pound’, than running upstairs to tell Chris in person. And, well, I’d forget if I didn’t record it right away, wouldn’t I?

Of course, in some ways, social media like Facebook means we are seeing and hearing more about people than we otherwise would – there are lots of people from school whose children’s photos would otherwise have remained hidden until the 25th reunion. There are relatives who I’d probably only see at weddings and funerals, but who I now chat with and share silly stories and happy news. This is lovely (though I know not everyone thinks so).

But what I’m not happy with is how social media is actually distancing me from those closest to me – my sister, my mum, even my husband, and from some of my closest friends, who I haven’t spoken to in months or years, but whose holiday snaps and business successes I have followed with interest.

So, I’m going to try to phone one friend or relative a week and talk to them properly rather than relying on status updates and mobile uploads. And I’m going to try to make sure I tell Chris more of the funny and clever stuff I see the girls doing before tweeting them or putting them on Facebook. Probably. I will try. And my sister and my mum will definitely get a call next time I have to go to Casualty!

I remember a few years ago (eight, to be exact), when we were all turning thirty, a friend bemoaning the arrival of wrinkles. I hadn’t noticed any on her and certainly hadn’t been looking for them or worrying about them on myself. When I noticed my first few starting to show, I was excited rather than depressed.

Because wrinkles are beautiful. They are the books that tell the stories of our lives: frown lines weave tales of money worries and health scares; the lines that cross the forehead tell of a life filled with wonder and awe; the laughter lines around the mouth show us a joker and the soul of the party; the smile lines around the eyes wax lyrical about a life filled with love and care; the lopsided forehead lines depict the wit of the sardonic eyebrow raiser.

A face without wrinkles is a blank book, showing only a life not yet lived; innocence and ignorance, where wrinkles speak of experience and wisdom. Facelifts and creams and magic potions: they serve only to hide the book, lock it away where no-one else can read it; they deny the life you have led, the things you have learned and experienced, the loves you have known, the laughter and tears that have shaped your world.

My dad spent the majority of his life hiding behind a big bushy beard, but the lines on his forehead and around his eyes, while only allowing a glimpse of one or two volumes of his book, showed how much of his time he spent laughing and smiling. My gran’s book is thick with writing – there are plenty of tales of worry and hard toil, but the smile lines shine through, playing out the huge family saga for all to see and soak up.

My book has only just started, but I relish the words that will fill it up over the next forty or fifty years.

Article first published as Wrinkles are Beautiful on Technorati.

Before I go any further, this is not a sponsored post. I just have to share this with you – crazy though that might seem.

I have been struggling with shaving my legs for many, many years. Ever since the first time I tried…

My mum and dad and I were visiting a friend one weekend and I went to the loo. For some inexplicable reason (possibly down to my mum’s constant warnings that the minute I started to shave I would never be able to stop and I would have incredibly hairy legs, or possibly just out of the kind of curiosity you have when you’ve just started secondary school and so much in the world is new again) I thought I would use this friend’s razor to try to shave my legs. Only, like my dad, he had one of those old-fashioned razors that you fit with individual blades yourself. And I could only find a blade. I figured it couldn’t be that difficult and tried to use this bare razor blade to take some hairs off my calves. Oh, boy, that was stupid. Beyond stupid. Of course, I cut a great big bloody chunk out of my leg and was spurting blood everywhere. I got a whole load of toilet roll and wrapped it round my leg like a bandage, with extra bits where the cut was and then manoeuvred myself back into my skinny jeans. Ow! And then I mopped up the blood in the bathroom and went back into the living room and pretended not to be in pain. I had a huge blood stain on my jeans. How no-one noticed, I don’t know.

I do have extremely hairy legs, as it turns out. I don’t know whether that was down to this early foray into shaving or whether it was just genetic – I think the latter is most probable. And I have a hideous time getting rid of the hair. Waxing and epilating and the like don’t work very well, because it grows back at different rates and I usually have some stubble within a few hours, let alone a day. With shaving, I’ve always had the problem where I have to it every day or once a week, because the stubble between one day and one week is of the consistency that it pulls the pores up and means that I end up in a similar situation to that first attempt – pouring with blood. Whether I do it in the bath, in the shower, with shower gel, cream, soap or nothing. And it’s a real bugger to shave with shower gel and stuff when there are children in the shower with you, as happens far far far too often. They want to play with the shower gel. They want to play with the razor – I don’t particularly want them to dive into the depilatory pool as young as I did, let alone five years earlier. And you always end up having to get out with only one leg – or even half a leg – shaved, to wipe soapy eyes, put a child on the potty, empty the bath of poo or some equally fun task.

At least, until I discovered Wilkinson Sword’s new Intuition Sensitive razor. It has a built-in block of moisturising soap, which lathers your skin before shaving it and moisturises it afterwards. It also has three blades. It shaves so smoothly that it feels like you’re just running your hand up and down your leg. I have not had any bleeding, whatsoever – which is pretty much unheard of for me. Not even when it was cold and my pores did stand up – normally something that would result in at least one or two cuts. And, most importantly of all, I’ve been able to shave after one day, two days, three days, or four. Not that I’ve wanted to leave it for that long, because it’s so easy and so smooth and so painless that, for the first time ever, I am actually inclined to have smooth legs all the time. You get three blades in each refill pack and one blade is lasting me three or four shaves (something else new – one and a half shaves was usually my limit). Oh yes, and I can use it when there’s a child, or even two, in the shower with me. Because I’m not lathering up with shaving foam or gel, they don’t notice. And it’s quick, so they don’t notice.

Anyway, sorry for this rather odd interruption to normal service, but I just had to share this with you, just in case there are other people like me, who have such ridiculous problems with shaving. Try it. I don’t think it’s for everyone, but it’s most certainly for me.

Can I repeat that this really isn’t a sponsored post in any form whatsoever. I decided to try the razor out myself and went into Boots (or maybe it was Wilkinson’s?) and bought one. I’ve paid for every blade (or whatever the replacements are called) myself. No-one has paid me to write this, nor has anyone sent me samples to try.

What shaving (or other depilatory) system do you use, or do you not shave your legs? Have you had any problems? Have you tried the Wilkinson Sword Intuition Sensitive razor or any of the other similar new soap-surrounded razors and, if so, what do you think? Or could you not give a toss about leg shaving and are going to run away and hide under your covers until something sensible like Sunday Reading comes along?

Chris and I are trying to lose weight and get healthier and fitter and, in terms of diet, we’ve found aiming for a low- to medium-GI diet works well for us. We had both lapsed considerably over the summer and are trying to get back on track – both in terms of our diet and exercise. I’ve started running, doing sit-ups and have been sent a Zumba DVD to try out, which I started yesterday (and today everything aches). Chris is jogging with the dog, doing sit-ups, doing a weight-lifting routine and going on long walks.

Chris’s version of the low-GI diet is high in protein and very low in carbohydrates and he has a lot of choice because he can have various meats, fish and seafood. It’s a bit difficult to do high protein when you’re vegetarian, though, especially if you want to keep the high-fat dairy foods to a minimum. Eggs are great, but you can have too many of them. So I am using Rose Elliot’s Low-GI vegetarian Vegetarian Cookbook as a basis, which doesn’t cut out carbohydrates entirely. You can keep the good ones (the slow-release energy ones, essentially) such as oats, wholemeal bread, al dente pasta, buckwheat and quinoa (though bread and pasta should be kept to lower quantities when trying to lose weight).

Beans and pulses are fantastic, because they combine slow-release carbohydrates and protein really well. Having at least one bean- or pulse-based meal a day makes a huge difference to me, reducing my desire for snacks between meals and they also seem to help the weight drop off. I’ve been back on track for only about a week and have already dropped 7lb (still 5lbs to go before I’m back to where I was before the summer slump, though).

The other big thing we’re doing is to have lots of salads. We like to have two or three salads on the go and normally make enough to last for at least two meals, sometimes three (any more and the freshness is completely gone).

Lemon juice and olive oil can reduce the GI of a meal, so if you have your salad dressed with this (vinegar works too), then you can have a bit of medium- or high-GI foods if you want (potatoes are the ones that I want the most).

For snacking, the best savoury thing is salted popcorn. Popcorn seems to have a miraculous weight-loss effect, though I can’t find any documentation to scientifically prove this. Oatcakes are good too, especially spread with lashings of hummus (pulses, olive oil and lemon juice!) The best sweet snacks are fruit, but I’m not very good at just eating a piece of fruit, so I like to have a fruit salad in the fridge to dip into. Chris likes a sliced apple with some Greek yoghurt – or the yoghurt with some breakfast topping mix. Special K is good too and I like to mix mine with some banana and raisins (though they’re not technically low GI). A couple of chunks of dark chocolate are good, too!

After a couple of weeks (I’m not quite there yet) you stop craving high GI stuff (not completely, of course!) and you also want less snacks in between meals. And I find the need to finish the girls’ meals dissipates, too – especially if they’ve got something with a high GI.

I’m not sure what makes us slide away from the low GI diet, though, as we did over the summer, because it honestly feels great when  we’re sticking to it – as long as you keep to predominantly low GI meals, you can have the odd baked potato, chips or ice cream. (One great and odd thing is that a low GI meal plays forward – a beany meal with lots of salad at lunchtime means you can cope with a high GI meal at dinnertime, for example.) But I think there’s still that underlying idea that it’s a diet rather than a new healthier way of eating, so you need to reward yourself by stuffing yourself full of the things you’ve denied  yourself.

I’m hoping not to slip down that route again.

Have you tried Low GI? What’s your preferred weight loss system? What exercises do you do?

Last year’s holiday – Rosemary has shorter hair, Eleanor has longer hair, and I’m a little bit thinner (I think!)

We’re off on Sunday for a week’s holiday in France. And, as always, this means we’re working like very crazy megalomaniacs trying to get everything finished in time – including, as usual, the gazillion last-minute things every client and their sister needs us to absolutely finish by the end of this week, because one week’s delay would cause the world to explode.

(I’m waiting for one thing to upload and another to download, while I write this, by the way. I am not slacking off to read eight or nine different social-networking sites.)

I just discovered that the cottage doesn’t have wi-fi. In my head it had wi-fi. Possibly because the one where we stayed last year did, possibly because one of the others we looked at did. I am now starting to get jittery about spending a week without internet access. No checking G+, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger.Ed, BritMums every couple of hours between tasks, no catching up on blogs, no using my phone to upload photos to Facebook and Twitter (not to G+ yet – do hurry up and make a Windows Phone app, please, guys!), no random searches of the internet for information, no Upsy Daisy and Charlie and Lola to *cough* babysit *cough* amuse the children.

Instead, there will be lots of time to read, to write (yes, it is possible to write without the internet, actually), to run, to swim, to play with the girls, to chat to Chris and his parents, to eat delicious food and drink red wine and eat cheese.

OK. I’ll probably have a lovely time, won’t I?

[And, yes, there will be someone in the house, so I feel safe telling the world we’ll be away.]

How would you feel about a week without the internet? Are you off on holiday somewhere this summer, or are you making your own fun at home?

Oh look at me, I’m Sudocrem’s Mummy Blogger of the Month. There’s a little interview with me there (I’d completely forgotten I answered these questions, so it was quite fun re-reading it).

We love Sudocrem and have been using it for nappy rash with both our girls since birth. Do you use Sudocrem or something else? It seems to me that it’s pretty ubiquitous and I rarely hear of any other nappy rash solution.