New Year, Same Me, but Slightly Improved (ish)

Happy New Year!

Today is my first day back at work after a 2 week holiday, a 2 week Christmas break that saw me rediscover the delights and joys of all the foods I’ve spent the last year avoiding.  What is it about Christmas that suddenly makes us think, “Lets eat as much food as we can until we feel sick?” After all it’s really just one day and it’s really just a Sunday dinner with a few more vegetables. Yet for some reason we get the urge to eat peanuts by the bucket load and a whole tin of chocolates before we’ve even brushed our hair (just me?)

  Our Christmases are slightly different now; after Mum died we decided that we didn’t want to spend Christmas at home. None of us could stand the thought of sitting round the dinner table with an empty seat and then watching the Christmas episode of “Eastenders”, where someone would get dumped, killed, have their house burnt down or something equally cheerful, all accompanied by shouts of “get out of my pub” We decided to get as far away as possible, so off we went to Cancun.

  We’d never spent or even contemplated Christmas in the sun, so we didn’t know what to expect. As it turns out we had an amazing time and it was the best thing we could have done and as a result we’ve done it the last 4 Christmases. Weirdly there's a group of people in the hotel, who just like us go every year. After 4 years we still don't really know anyone's names, but we smile and say hello and this year we actually took bets on when the others would arrive! These are our favourites;

• Boss Hog and Nigella - They're from Texas (we think) and they strut around as if they own the place, from the moment they arrive they dominate the staff, push in at the bar and generally strut around. To quote my Gran he walks in a fashion that suggests "here's my head, my arse is coming" and she looks a bit like an older Nigella Lawson and has a sun hat to match every swimsuit.
• Mr & Mrs Essex  - A lovely couple from Essex who have a son called Scott, who makes a guest appearance at some point during the holiday.
• Padre and Mrs Padre - We're not sure if this is his actual name or a nickname that he's universally known by, he may actually be a padre. He NEVER shuts up! And as a result his wife can be seen face down on a sun-bed with her headphones on letting him talk to other people. I think she probably has enough of him wittering on throughout the year. At approximately 3.50pm everyday, Padre tries to make everyone in the hotel gather for water volleyball. So far he's never managed to convince us, our excuses have ranged from "I'm recovering from wrist surgery" (me) to "maybe tomorrow" (Lucy) to "no" (Dad)

Yet this collection of weird and wonderful people are our Christmas companions and although I think we occasionally get a pang that our family Christmases are no longer the same, particularly when you see pictures of pressies under the tree ready for the children to open, but in our Pollyanna state of minds, the sunshine, cocktails and hot stone massage we had on Christmas day, soon helps us feel better. We just have a new normal now.

Merry Christmas from the Trinders!

  It’s this 2-week holiday that has led me to have “scales fear” next Tuesday. I think wherever you’ve spent Christmas, you probably started off with good intentions and then before you know it your paper hat is askew, you’re knee deep in Cadbury’s Heroes wrappers and developed a love of figs, which you must eat by the pound in any one sitting, despite not eating them at any other point in the year! 

  I too started off my holiday with good intentions, picking fruit and yogurt for breakfast and then a seafood salad at lunchtime. By the time a few cocktails had been consumed, I was saying stuff like “one desert wont hurt and then no more till Christmas Eve” This lasted all of a couple of days and before I knew it, rather than fruit I was having pain au chocolate and my salads were becoming laced with coleslaw and cheese and then I was just picking whatever I fancied off the menu as opposed to the healthiest option. The menus even had these little green apple symbols by the healthy options, so there was no excuse really. I started swimming everyday too, but then I got fed up of dodging the heavy petting couples in the pool, so eventually I just swam to the bar, rather than risk getting caught up in an inappropriate situation!

Me trying escargot, which really just taste of chewy nothingness

Hotel surf & turf burger, which are amazing!

  Since getting back I have avoided the scales and am dreading my first weigh in of 2014, but I guess if you do the crime, you should be prepared to do the time!

  I have however had a word with myself and today it’s back to normal and my normal is actually a healthy way of eating. I want to continue with my Slinky mission more than I want to eat chocolate (yes you did read that correctly!) So yesterday I organised myself, made sure I had plenty of fruit, salad and vegetables in the house, de-junked my fridge of the naughty New Year’s Eve buffet and prepared a healthy stew for tonight’s tea. I also met my friend Debbie for a game of badminton, which even after a break of 3 weeks we managed to not play too badly! So I’m hoping by the time next Tuesday comes I’ve undone some of the damage.

 Wish me luck and I hope 2014 is all you want it to be and a lot more besides!

Lucy and me, one of my favourite pics from the holiday