Plodding Along And Hitting A Plateau

Guess it happens to the best of us really. No matter how well we seem to be doing, at some point the progress begins to level off and you find yourself stuck at a point where you can't seem to move the digits on the scale for all your efforts. It's something that happens to anyone who attempts a diet of any kind – the human body is programmed to hold onto any body fat we take on board, for dear life and hates giving it up – but it seems especially prevalent in those of us who follow VLCDs (Very Low Calorie Diets).

I know that the trick to getting the body back on track, is by shaking up the intake a little here and there so that it doesn't think that it's in starvation mode. I need to up the calorie intake to a maximum of 1000 a day for a while, then maybe go up to 1200 for a couple of days, then down to 800 for a couple of days, back to 1000 and then down to 700, before returning to the 500 cals a day intake. I also need to make sure that for one day a week I do have a 'cheat day' with lots more calories than normal, just to keep the body and brain confused enough to allow my metabolism to burn off the excess fat and allow me to lose weight. 

I also need to quit purging too. I know how that can just fuck up the body and force it to stop losing weight from time to time. I know you'd think that if you puked up everything you ate that it would mean you would lose weight due to the lack of calories being consumed. But if there's anything a seasoned dieter knows, it's that 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2. The human body isn't a precise machine that always runs exactly the way you want it to, and sometimes it just does exactly the fucking opposite to what you're expecting. Hence sometimes, puking up your food isn't any guarantee that you're going to lose weight. 

I just feel so blah at the moment. Trundling along, trying to eat as little as possible, eating crap in small amounts, throwing up the huge amounts of crap I binge on, not drinking enough water (only because it's so cold at the moment that all the water that comes out of the tap is freezing and hurts all my sensitive teeth!) and waiting for the increase in anti-depressant medication I have been prescribed to kick in and hopefully help pull me out of the mire of depression I have been suffering lately. I know that most of my moods are down to the depression and it's still something the doctor and I are working together on finding what works.; but it's frustrating. I need for my mood to be in a good place in order for me to be able to approach dieting and weight loss in a positive light; but I need to have the weight loss and dieting thing in check in order for me to feel positive about it. It's a Catch 22 situation really. 

But plod on I must. My head feels just so totally overwhelmed by all the various problems I have going on on right now. There's the dieting, the purging, the depression, the anxiety and the drug addiction. I know that deep down the answer to it all would be to seek some kind of professional help and work through the root cause which is bound to be responsible for all of them, but the reality is, I'm just not ready to go opening any huge cans of psychological worms anytime soon. I don't have the energy to deal with it all and I know I'd only be doing myself more harm than good, If I tried to throw myself into something I'm not fully mentally ready for. It would overwhelm me further, make me feel pressured and distract me from all of the other things I have on my mind at the moment.

On a plus note, I have been in regular contact with a fellow blogger and friend, Ruby Tuesday who is currently in treatment for her own eating disorder issues at the moment. She's been in treatment for about three or four weeks now and she's been going though the mill a bit recently; but I sent her a little 'survival package' to help cheer her up a couple of weeks ago, and she finally received it a couple of days ago. Why it takes so long for an item to get to Ireland I don't know, but it seems to have gotten there at precisely the right time, to put a bit of a smile on her face. It was only a couple of books to read, a new purple journal and some purple pens (I know that purple is one of her favourite colours!) but I wanted to send her something that would allow her to tap into her creative side a bit and hopefully do some writing to help process what's going on inside her head. 

It's weird because this is someone who I have never before met, but whom I got to know as part of this whole blogosphere of contacts. We're the same age and have shared some similar life experiences, which perhaps makes us more likely to have struck up a friendship, but I was really surprised at how much I felt as though I'd gained a real friend, just from visiting each other's blogs every day. As it is now, we text and email and now write a bit, but I really miss reading her posts on here every day. Obviously I'm glad that she took the scary step of signing herself into treatment and is now getting the best help she needs, but part of me wishes that she was back out on the outside and easier to stay in regular contact with. Because she was the first person, whose words made sense to me when I read them. I actually felt a huge sigh of relief when I got to know her because it meant that I wasn't alone, wasn't mad, and wasn't a lone old hag in a sea of much younger Blogger contributors!!

I did ask her if she fancied writing a guest post for this blog whilst she's in hospital, so that she could still let her regular readers hear how she's doing and whatnot. She said she'd definitely like to do that, so hopefully, in the near future, I will have something I can type up and share with all of you who know her, to help keep you all updated with how things are going for her. Watch this space!

Other than that. Life holds little of interest for me right now. The internal battles of mental health, inside my head seem to take up a lot of time with thinking and postulating and worrying and wondering....it kind of paralyses me from being able to actually DO anything with my days. I find it hard to read, hard to write, hard to concentrate and just generally hard to do anything other than vegetate, watch television and curl up on the sofa with my other half. I have been thinking about entering some online fiction writing competitions to give me something to do and focus on, but I'm not sure if I have the mental energy or capacity to concentrate on writing anything at the moment. Which is a real shame, because I love to write and I have promised myself time and again, that I will make a concerted effort to start entering these competitions. But, as with everything else in my life, it all just seems like far too much of an effort to deal with right now and I end up putting it on the back-burner permanently and forgetting all about it. 

I sound pathetic don't I? But that's what happens when mental health issues get stuck in your head. They take up all the space that you would normally use for other cognitive processes or creative endeavours, leaving you more like an automaton than a real human being. It's all you can do to get through the day unscathed. Achieving anything else just doesn't seem possible. My mind is filled with anxieties. Anxiety about my weight, about food, about calories, about purging, about not purging, about codeine, about running out of it, about being discovered, about having to admit to having a problem, about wondering why my other half is with me, about whether or not I've locked all the doors at night, about whether or not everyone is staring at me when I leave the house, about whether I'll have a panic attack if go out at all....urgh....it's as if I'm constantly plagued by thoughts that drive me insane. Meh. I hate being mental....it's so exhausting!

Anyways, that's pretty much all I have to say for today. Tomorrow I begin to switch things up a little bit with the calorie amounts to try and jump start that bollocksed metabolism of mine. Perhaps a little Ana Boot Camp Diet is in order!

Wish me luck!

x

My Head Is Full Of Meds....

Every now and again you come across a song which just seems to fit in with your mood so perfectly, you'd think it had been penned as the soundtrack to your head. This song today is by a guy called Elliott Smith (who you will either know about or you won't - as obvious as that sounds!) who wrote some really awesome tracks before his rather unfortunate (and sketchy) premature demise. I've had a few of his albums on my iPod for years now and it was only today that I sort of stumbled onto my collection again for the first time in about two years. 

This track, as soon as it kicked in, sounded like the cotton wool padded, fuzzy, detached sensation I'd had in my head for the past few days. It's not the lyrics, more the intentionally unsettling off-key notes; the floating, dreamlike, music-box tinkling and the one-two-three, beat timing that makes the track a waltz....they all come together to create a song that actually sounds as though it was composed to reflect my current state of play!

Y'all should definitely hit click and give it at least one listen, because it's a truly beautiful song and one you can easily drop off to sleep listening to it, wallow in your own miseries in it, or just go out for a stroll in the low autumnal, late afternoon sunshine, letting the ethereal quirkiness wash over you, perhaps even making sense of your own day:

Enjoy!

xx

The Truth About Having A Nervous Breakdown

As I've mentioned on here previously I've been going through a kind of mini-breakdown. I have Stress Related Depressive Disorder, which is basically a kind of anxious nervous exhaustion, brought about by an overwhelming amount of stress from external factors, pulling me in various different directions and wreaking havoc on sleep patterns and eating habits. I was never the kind of person I would have imagined would suffer from such an illness, but I guess this has made me realise that I'm only human, just like everyone else. And just like everyone else who tries to take on the world and win, sometimes even I have to stop, take stock and take a little bit of time out for healing, rest and recalibration. 

Thankfully, one of the issues that was taking up a lot of my time and energy has now been rectified, so that's one less thing to be worrying about. But I made the mistake of thinking that the moment it was settled, I'd feel an immediate sense of huge relief; a palpable change in my psychological outlook. But that was just me being the hundred mile and hour freight train I need to try and stop embodying. I can have all the time and patience in the world for another person, but when it comes to me, myself and my own issues....I want a resolution NOW and I want to sort it all out myself. I know I need to work on going a little easier on myself and stop expecting nothing but 100% perfection all the time, but that's just something that will come with time and possibly with seeing a behavioural psychologist who can help break through my stubborn, self-reliant, super-woman complex.

It was incredibly frustrating for me to not feel that immediate change, the moment that particular issue was resolved, but thanks to my ever-present, doting, amazing boyfriend, I have had my little frombie hissy-fit, wailed, seethed, cried, laughed and let it all out of my system. It's the frustration that's the worst. It's knowing that despite how smart, clever and capable you are, right now there is NOTHING you can do to make this all better, right away. It's feeling useless, restricted, held back, impotent and angry, on top of a layer of sadness, distress, failure and despair. You can't see where your brain is broken, so you can't just reach on in and twiddle with a few bits and fix it like you would a broken circuit board. It's intangible, ephemeral, impossible to nail down; yet you can feel it right there in the forefront of your mind and in the deepest recess of your psyche. 

It's a total contradiction in terms and no two people will experience it in the exact same way, so you can't even follow a regular user's manual or medical textbook and expect that if you add (A) and (B) prescribe (C) and avoid (D) that you will magically improve and turn out fine. I've learned that, just from having had to try a variety of different medications that my doctor has prescribed for me. My doctor is a wonderfully patient, intelligent man with kindly eyes and a peacefulness about him that puts me immediately at ease when I go to see him. That in itself is quite a feat, because dealing with people full stop right now is not something I'm comfortable with or capable of. But my doctor is lovely. He talks me through the ins and outs of this disorder, doesn't patronise me and takes the time to tell me all about the medication he is going to try me on, how it will hopefully impact on my symptoms and of course that if it doesn't work, not to lose hope; because there are a whole host of other different medications out there that we can try and it's very much a case of trial and error with psychotropic treatment.

Right now I'm not sure that the two or three types of drug and varying dosages we've tried, have had a particularly successful effect on my illness. One of the latest combinations had me go from 3 day awake mania, to sleeping for up to 22 hours. I have very little memory of the past few days because of this! My doctor being the incredibly insightful man that he is though, pre-empted me upon issuing me with the first drug we tried. He knew straight away the kind of person I am and he knew that I'd be expecting to feel cured after the first two weeks on the first drug, ready and raring to go back to work. He told me right from the start, not to get my hopes up with any one drug; that it was all about fiddling around with the exact medication, the right dose and the right combination, all of which would take time, patience and a lot of just letting go of trying to be in control of the situation. And of course he was 100% right. I actually tried to return to work after about three weeks absence, because I was just so bored of being signed off and felt utterly useless. I hated that I was letting my team down at work by not being there and I'm just not used to sitting on my arse doing sweet FA for days on end. For all my complaining, I love going to work. I love being a part of a bigger machine and knowing that my small contribution to that huge mechanism might only be one tiny cog, but it's every bit as important as every other cog in the machine. 

Being in full-time work really does give not only shape to your day, but it gives you a sense of purpose. It's that reason to get up, dress, put your face on and go out to face the world - as opposed to just sitting around in your nightie eating cake and watching daytime television till your brain cells atrophy with the banality of it all! So after three weeks of treatment, having tried just one dose of one type of medication, I decided to go and throw myself right back into the workplace, desperately wanting to just be able to get my head down, do my work and get back to feeling 'normal' again. But it was ridiculously too soon and if I'm honest, deep down I knew it wasn't time to even think about trying to go back, but stubborn old super-woman was having none of it, so I rocked up at work on what should have been my first day back.....and promptly dissolved into a full blown panic attack, right on the spot. 

From the minute I walked in through the front door it felt like the walls were closing in on me. My throat started to feel tight, my temperature started to soar, my head was swimming and I struggled to breathe. I ran to the bathroom, ran the cold taps, tried to drink it and splashed it on my face. But it didn't work. I felt dizzy and pressed my back up against the cold bathroom tiled wall, before sliding down to the floor hyperventilating. Thankfully, nobody came in whilst I was like that and it took me a good fifteen minutes to start getting a grip and begin breathing properly again. I took another three valium and a second beta-blocker to try and get my heart rate down and fixed my face as best I could, ready for my return to work meeting with HR.

To this day I have no recollection of how I actually got up to the fifth floor and into that meeting room, but I'm assuming I took the lift. Fuck knows what I must have looked like to anyone walking past me, but I made it into the meeting and sat down. What was said in there still eludes me, but it did result in my manager taking me to the doctors for an emergency appointment, where I was promptly sedated and sent home in a zombie state. And this is pretty much where I've been ever since.

This entry has turned into much more of a crazed rant than I intended, but it really angers me what crap I've being put through at a time when I can barely remember what day it is. I just wish that I could turn up to work with this amount of fury and assertiveness behind me, but the truth of the matter is, I can only ever feel like this right now, when safely ensconced within the sanctuary of my home. The minute I try to leave I become as vulnerable as a small child and the words of hope will just die on my lips. The room will spin, my head will throb and my heartbeat will increase until I either throw up or collapse. That's how it is right now and that's what I have to try and work around.

So there you have it faithful readers. The real truth behind just what has been afflicting me of late. I don't want this to be a 'poor me' post because I'm really, truly not looking for sympathy. I just want more people to know and understand what it actually means to be under the dark cloud of a mental health disorder. People don't 'get' it; they lack empathy because they're too stupid to look beyond the exterior and they react badly because they fear that which they don't understand. They said stupid things like “why don't you just try to focus more?”, "look at all the great things you have going on in your life right now”, “pull yourself together” or “Stop being such a miserable goth.” Okay, so I made the last one up for K-Dog, but you know what I mean!

It's not all doom and gloom though. Far from it. Despite having this current glitch in my mental health, this is not going to be forever. Thankfully, I have, as I've already stated, a wonderful doctor who has great experience in trying to help treat various mental health disorders. Together, we will work at getting the right combination of medications, at the correct doses, to try and help correct the chemical imbalance that is currently plaguing this otherwise wonderful brain of mine. Once we work out just what it is that I need, we should start seeing an improvement in things like my sleep patters and eating habits. I will gradually find coping with seemingly simple everyday tasks, that little bit easier, one day at a time. I'll have fuck-ups and failures and shitty days along the way, when I just want to slam my head on the nearest breeze-block, but I'm going to get there; and one day, when I'm just sat on a bus or a park bench reading my Kindle, enjoying the book oblivious to the people around me, I'll realise that I'm okay. I'll be out and about and doing everything I used to do and it'll be okay. The world isn't going to come and get me and I don't need to hide under the duvet any more. But that's going to take time and I just need to learn how to be a bit more patient with my own rate of recovery and remember to thank that boyfriend of mine, every single day, for being the most amazingly solid, dependable, caring person I could wish to have by my side, bonkers or not!!

I've probably painted a hellish picture of my life right now in this post today. That's not entirely true. When I'm at home with my other half, I'm in my 'safe place'. The phone is on silent and if the doorbell rings we just both ignore it until whoever it is fucks off and learns to text ahead to make an appointment first! When I'm home with him, I do feel safe. I can laugh at something on the television and smile at a text from a friend, but there are of course a lot of times when I find myself in a heap on the floor in tears, because something has triggered me off. I have good days and bad days and I'm lucky to have someone who just allows me to hand over all my stresses, worries, tasks, issues and errands onto him. I think that's the key to being able to deal with a mental health problem. You can't do it on your own and you need that someone, be it a parent, sibling, best friend, partner, therapist, chaplain or someone you meet as part of a group, just to be there for you. You need to have someone to take the strain, listen to you, not judge you, be patient with you, indulge you, but also tell you when you're just being a dick! Oh yes, I very much have days when I need to be told that I'm being a total dick! But having that someone there, so you're not trying to deal with all the stresses alone, is an essential part of dealing with your mental health problems.

Like it or not, the big bogey-man of 'Mental Illness' will touch most of our lives in one way or another at some point in time. It won't necessarily be the big names like Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Depression or Tourettes, but something smaller, verging on more of a neuroses like an eating disorder, a problem with shyness and blushing, a fear of germs, feeling a bit morose in the darker winter months, self-harm, PMT, post natal depression, bereavement, self-esteem issues....I could go on and on because the banner of 'Mental Health Issues' spreads so widely over so many problems. If you go through your entire life without experiencing even one minor issue with mental health, you will be very lucky indeed because I really do believe that it can and does, affect almost all of us, in one way or another, at any one time in our lives. It's more of a spectrum of disorders than a singular list of problems. Some will suffer more than others. Some will experience more severe symptoms and have it affect their lives much more than someone else classified under the same heading. The important thing is to recognise when you have a problem and not be afraid to ask for help.

Over the years we've demonised the issue of mental illness to such a point that we're afraid to admit when our brains aren't quite working the way they should be. If you look back throughout history at the way in which people with mental health problems were treated, you would be horrified. Cast out of society, locked up in asylums, experimented upon, abused, considered to be the work of the devil and just generally disregarded by most, it's no wonder that even in more enlightened times like today, we're still feeling the echoes of times gone by. Society IS getting a little better at accepting that mental illness is just as valid as a visible physiological condition, but we're not quite there just yet. Perhaps in another couple of generations time, we'll see an increased awareness, understanding and acceptance of mental health issues, but until that day comes we should all just try to be a little more compassionate and not freak out at the mere mention of 'mental illness'. 

Maybe some of you who read these rants right now are suffering with your own personal mental health battles - to all of you, I offer you my own sympathy, empathy and a salute to the strength I know you have to be in possession of, just to make I through the day. It is true that this particular kind of disorder - Stress Related Depressive Illness - is an affliction not of the weak, but of those who have been strong, for so long, trying to keep all of life's plate's spinning, but slowly running ourselves into the ground. We who end up in this predicament are generally life's dependables. The ones who cope in a crisis and who everyone else turns to when the shit hits the fan. We take on too much for our bodies and brains to deal with and sooner or later, our overloaded mental circuit boards blow a fuse and we shut down. By our very nature, we are not the sort of people used to having to ask for help; we're super-woman/super-man remember? But that's exactly what you have to get used to trying to do. As hard as it is to acknowledge our mortal vulnerability, it is essential that if you find yourself getting more and more overworked, overloaded and stressed out to the point where it's having an impact on your eating, sleeping and moods, you seek help immediately. 

Talk to a friend about any concerns you might have. Confide in a parent or your doctor or your minister or a therapist. Tell someone that you just don't feel as though everything is working the way it should be. That you're beginning to feel overwhelmed, stressed out, unable to cope. Seek medical help and try to offload some of your responsibilities to other friends, family members or work colleagues. Tell your manager at work that you're currently going through a period of stress and need a little understanding. See if you can take some time off; holiday time, compassionate leave or perhaps a restructured working day with reduced hours, until you're feeling back to normal again. The sooner you acknowledge that you're not well, the sooner you can work towards getting better. Don't make the mistake that I - and so many others - do, by keeping it all in, letting it all build up and allowing it to cause you to have a full-blown breakdown. It's not undo-able if you do, but it's a lot easier in the long run if you identify an underlying issue sooner rather than later.

If any of you feel like you're going through something like this and just need to talk to someone there are contact numbers for the Samaritans, crisis lines, suicide lines etc in your area and you will find them either online or in your telephone directory. Whatever you do, don't just keep it to yourself. Talking is the key to getting this demon under control and there are always people there to listen. Just don't suffer in silence because you don't have to. No one has to.

And with that, I think I'm going to sign off now guys. This was a fairly short post I know - for me! But it's something that I didn't just want to try and sum up in a brief cursory nod to the subject. It's something I want to be open and honest with everyone about, because it's not something to be embarrassed or ashamed about. It's just another kind of illness and it happens to the best of us. Hey, you all know what a bad ass mofo I can be, so if it's hit me (and hit me hard) it really can hit anyone!

Take care of yourselves and don't be afraid to not only reach out and ask for help if you need it, but to also reach out and OFFER help/friendly ear if you think someone you know might need it.

Much love

xx

And Just Like That, It Suddenly All Became Real....

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING POST IS A TOTAL MUSH-FEST SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP OVER, OR AVOID ALTOGEHTER! IN IT I WILL BE GUSHING SHAMELESSLY ABOUT MY BOYFRIEND AND HOW AWESOME HE IS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

Well, I know I've mentioned it on this blog once or twice before, but for those of you stumbling upon my bilge-fest for the very first time, I am engaged to be married to the most awesome guy on the planet - as of my birthday, earlier on this year. I hadn't ever believed that he would have been up for the idea, as he's already been divorced once and having been burned, has always proclaimed that he'd tried it once – never again. Myself, well I'd always gone through life assuming that I would never get married. Partly because of the self-esteem issues that wouldn't allow me to believe that anyone would ever want to, but secondly also because I'd never felt anything 'real' or 'special' or 'right' about any of the relationships I'd found myself in.

The fact that I knew without a doubt that I was never going to have children also kind of fed into the notion that I would remain a spinster all my life. I'm pretty old fashioned in some ways - despite being very liberal and forward thinking in others - so in my mind I would never consider having a child outside of marriage. That's just the way I feel about my own standards and situation. Getting back to the marriage thing though, it just never appeared to be 'in the cards' for me. And I'd accepted that; was happy with that even. But then I'd never met a guy like my current fiancé before and I'd never experienced the kind of relationship that we have right now.

My other half, blew me away the night I first met him. I can honestly say I fell for him, the moment I'd laid eyes on him and that is SO not like me! I'm an incredibly down to earth and pragmatic kind of person who never before believed in any 'love at first sight' tales that other people had shared with me. I didn't believe in symbols or signs (of which there were three on that first night of meeting him, that pointed to him being my perfect match and destined to be in my life and future) and I didn't believe in 'soul-mates' either. But then he turned up and made me question all my own philosophies about love and relationships. 

I had however come out of a very bad long-term relationship with my toxic ex-boyfriend, about six months previously and I was in no way looking for a boyfriend when I met my current fiancé. I had been hurt too much....far too badly burned and let down to ever believe that I would be able to entrust my heart to another man ever again. I didn't think I would ever be able to trust another man. I knew that the repeated cheating of my ex would always have me doubting, worrying and being paranoid that I was again being cheated on. I couldn't imagine allowing myself to be vulnerable in the presence of another man after I was so emotionally scarred by my ex. In short, I was not looking for anyone to come into my life. 

Funnily enough, neither was he. He was sort of dating a couple of women on a very casual 'no-strings' basis because he didn't believe that he had anything left inside to give to a relationship. He was still hurting from when his wife had cheated on him, plus he had also had to deal with a full-blown psycho of an ex-girlfriend who was so paranoid (after having suffered abuse as a child) she used to follow him to work, spy on him when he went to the shops and come home suddenly in an attempt to catch him off guard and up to no good. He thought women were all fucked up harridans (and to be fair, for the most part, he's actually right! There's a reason why I don't have many female friends.)

A spark of chemistry went off between us that very first night, when I invited him to come back and stay at my apartment (on the sofa of course!!) rather than fork out a fortune on taxi fares. We sat up all that night until the early hours of Sunday morning, when I finally tucked him in on the sofa and turned in to sleep. I couldn't believe the conversation we'd had; it was incredibly personal, deeply revealing, intense, wide ranging, intelligent, goofy, honest and above all, fun. There's that episode of 'Friends' where Joey sits up talking to a girl all night and when he comes home the following morning to tell Monica and Rachel, they tell him that he's just experienced 'the night', i.e. that one night when you find yourself opening up to the person you've been seeing and connecting on a different level. We had 'the night' on the first day we met. 

I couldn't believe how much we had in common, from our political views, our educational history and our interests, to our taste in music, food and film. Turned out we both also loved Peanut Butter And Marmite Sandwiches too (which was one of the 'signs' I took to show that we were meant to be together!) which made me laugh. It was one of the best evenings of my life as I found myself instantly falling for this guy I had only just met. Everything he told me about himself just made me like him more. I loved that he was a little bit of a 'bad boy' massively into motorbikes, but also a bit of an old fashioned gentleman who believes in honesty, integrity and mutual respect in a relationship. He loves to cook (and I of course very much like to eat – mores the problem!) didn't want any children (I've never wanted to have any brats), was a bit of a science nerd (nerds are actually quite sexy....well, they are when they ride fast bikes and look super cute!) and has the most beautiful, intense, big, brown eyes that I couldn't stop looking at! 

Looks-wise, he was everything I find attractive in a guy. Tall (6ft 2in), athletic looking (that perfect upside-down triangle shaped torso, with broad shoulders, well defined arms, a flat stomach and a trim waist with that hot girdle muscle....he'd been in the pool at the party we met at so I got to see all the goods first time I met him!!), dark haired, smoking hot dark eyes and that perfect designer stubble look that makes him look effortlessly cute.....Yum! Now I'm by no means a shallow person, but I can always appreciate it when a wonderful person with an amazing personality, also comes with a very attractive exterior, making them the total package. And this guy was just that.

Great, silly, sick and surreal sense of humour? Check! Just the right mixture of right-wing sentiments with left-wing sensibilities? Check! Dress code casual, bordering on the scruffy/cool side? Check! Perfect balance of self-confidence and humility? Check! Easy to talk to and easy to listen to? Check! Intelligent and knowledgeable whilst never appearing like an arrogant know-it-all? Check! Cynical, sceptical atheist? Check! Ability to just totally blow me away the minute I laid eyes on him? Check!

Yup, as you can see I was just totally smitten with him from the get-go. That following afternoon when awoke, I found that he'd made me a cup of coffee and placed it just around the corner of my bedroom door, which I thought was really sweet. We sat chatting for another couple of hours before he had to head off and catch his lift home. I knew that this guy was something special and that I couldn't just let him walk out of my apartment and out of my life, not knowing if we'd ever cross paths again. We'd met somewhere that he'd never been before, was only there because he was the plus-one of his mate who was invited because he worked with the daughter of the couple throwing the party we were at. It was highly unlikely that he'd be there again anytime soon. So being way more forward that I ever am normally, I offered to give him my phone number so that we could meet up again and go for a drink sometime. My heart was literally beating in my throat as I waited for him to respond. I thought he might just try to brush me off, not wanting to have to make any future excuses for not wanting to meet up with this fat ugly lump. 

But to my utter surprise he was really eager to swap numbers, which we did, shortly before he left. When he closed the apartment door behind him, I sank back on the couch with the whole 'butterflies in the stomach' thing making me giddy. I totally fancied this guy. I was kind of surprised at myself for having even had any thoughts of wanting to be with another guy, since my negative experience with my ex had made me want to swear off men indefinitely. But it was there. After just one evening/night/morning of chatting, I just felt that there was such a connection. And....it turned out, he felt the same way. We texted each other for a couple of weeks, getting more and more chatty and flirtatious every day. We were texting from morning till evening, spending a fortune topping up the credit on our phones just to text one another until the day finally came for him to ask me to come out for a drink with me. Gulp.

Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I was so floored, even though I'd been longing for this for the whole fortnight. I immediately started to worry about whether he remembered just how ugly I was, or if he'd had too much to drink that night. What if when we met up, he actually threw up in his mouth a little as he realised just how much of a munter I really was? I was in such a panic as I got ready to meet him that evening after work. It was a Friday and I remember getting changed in the office bathroom and doing my make-up at my desk, the whole time thinking I could just drop him a text and tell him I'd changed my mind. But I couldn't do that. Not only was I excited at the prospect of going to meet him again, but he'd had to get a lift to bring him into town from where he lived about 15 miles away. I just had to bite the bullet and go with it. 

When I walked in to the place we were supposed to meet up, I entered through the back door, glanced around the place and not seeing him, strode as determinedly as I could through the back bar, on through the front bar and out the front door to the smoking area, so as not to let on to anyone in there that I'd been stood up. As soon as I got outside, I lit up a cigarette and started chastising myself for actually believing that he'd show up. Of course he knew how ugly I was; naturally he remembered how fat my thighs were and had just decided to dodge a bullet and not show up. As I stood there puffing away like a proper nicotine addict, I hopefully checked my phone in case there was a message telling me that he'd been held up or something. But there wasn't anything. I ummed and ahhed about texting him myself to see where he was. I didn't want to sound desperate or anything, but I wanted to know for sure that he wasn't coming so I could make my way home via the pizza parlour, to drown my sorrows on my living room floor in a carbohydrate haze. I was just about to type a light hearted message saying I was just heading down to the place we were supposed to be meeting, to give him the chance to tell me the score when I felt someone tap me on my shoulder 

“Don't suppose I could borrow your lighter could I?” 

Not really paying attention to this fellow smoker, I rummaged around my bag (which like all women's bags is constantly full of shit) to try and find the same lighter I'd literally just used myself, only for the person to say 

“You don't recognise me, do you?”

Say what? I looked up and fuck me, it was him. Only he looked really different to the last time I'd seen him. He'd changed his hair from a longer style, to a short crew cut, which if anything made him look even cuter than he had, the night I'd met him. He'd been in the bar when I strode in looking like I had 'much more important things to be doing than hanging around a bar' – his words, not mine – and when he saw me leave without having so much as glanced his way, realised what was going on and quickly followed me out. I felt like a total dick. But then I'm really bad at seeing anything more than a metre away from myself. I'm supposed to wear glasses, but just don't need anything else to add to my grotesque fat face.) He did look different though. So I was forgiven for marching past him in the bar and not recognising who he was.

That night was fantastic. Just like the first night we'd met. We got on like a house on fire and were chatting away constantly, as well as meeting up with some other friends of mine who just sort of accepted us like an already established couple. He asked me if he could hold my hand on the way home that night which I thought was really sweet, so naturally I accepted. For the next four weeks, we sort of met up regularly on a 'friendly' basis. We hadn't slept together – hell we hadn't even kissed. We had some mad party-drug-binge-nights where we just got totally fucked up together, then he befriended my housemate who helped him get a job with the building firm he worked for, so I started to make him little packed lunches to take to work with him and told him to come round to the flat after work for a proper decent hot dinner. He was at my house more than he was at his own place and had even started sleeping in my bed – on a purely platonic, no-touching kind of way.

But after four weeks of ridiculous chemistry, flirting and sexual tension, we just gave up on the whole notion that we were 'just friends' and ended up jumping each other's bones!! From that day on we were officially a couple and that date became our couples 'going out together anniversary'. The fact that he was sleeping at my house every night and hated having to make the long bus journey back to his place to get clothes or shoes or music. It was totally pointless him paying rent at that place when he was never there. So after a month of us having been together as a couple, I moved him in – going against all the principles we both held about not rushing into things in any relationship that we wanted to succeed. Yes we were being total hypocrites, but it didn't feel too soon at all. We'd already dropped the L-bomb – him a week before me, but then I DID want to make sure I meant it before I said it – and we were technically living together anyway. It just seemed to make so much more sense. 

He saved money on rent by moving in with me and my housemate and only having to pay a share rather than the whole rent amount he was paying on his own separate apartment. Even when the housemate moved out to move in with his own girlfriend, it was still cheaper to be paying half the rent. Then there was all the money spent on getting between properties and work etc. But of course, the main reason was that we just knew that we were meant to be together and wanted to spend as much time together as possible. And that included being able to just wake up and go to sleep next to each other. 

I know a lot of people thought that it was an incredibly rushed whirlwind of a relationship, with him moving in just way too soon. But he's been here ever since and we've never once regretted the speed at which we moved in together. He's been here just over five years now and I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. I remember our first year anniversary, our second year anniversary, but then all of a sudden it was five years together!! We've been incredibly lucky in those five years. Yes, we've gone through quite a few crises and issues external to our relationship that have put pressures on us both, but our actual relationship has actually grown stronger, the more time we've spent together and the harder life has tried to make things for us. In one way I'm amazed that this utterly awesome guy would have looked twice at me in the first place, never mind be with me for five whole years; but in another way I'm not surprised because of the strange premonition I had the second I laid eyes on him, which flashed a weird cinema reel of future footage of me and this guy living happily ever after, past my eyes, before I'd so much as said two words to him!

I do not take for granted one iota, the fact that he chooses to be with me every day. I'm grateful for every day he chooses to be in my life. But over the past year or so, I'd started to think about the one thing I never thought I'd long for with a guy.....Marriage! I'd gone through life assuming that I remain single but it suddenly started to make sense to me: that idea of wanting to make a solemn, legally binding, vow of devotion to my other half. Wanting to be 'officially' bound together, written down in the annuls of time as 'man and wife', even me taking his second name so we became even more of a recognisable unit of solidarity, commitment and love. I was almost ashamed with myself for becoming so fucking soppy in my old age, but it just slowly became more and more important to me, to not only share the rest of my life with my boyfriend, but become joined to him in marriage, bound together forever, till death do us part. I'd never felt this way about a man before, but then I'd never been with someone anything like my other half before either. He really caused me to re-evaluate my perception of relationships, marriage and all that it entailed.

But like I said, as I was starting to have all these feelings about wanting to get married, I wasn't remotely confident that he felt the same way as he would always remark to those who asked if he'd been married before: “Yeah, tried it once, never again!” But I couldn't let myself go on feeling this way, not knowing if it would ever be a potential possibility in our future. My racing thoughts all came to a halt on my birthday, earlier on this year. As usual, every year on my birthday I look at where I am with my life and have all the usual regrets for not having achieved anything great with my life so far. I usually hate my birthday. Another twelve months have passed and in that time, so little has changed or improved work-wise/ambition-wise. I turned 33 this year and because that's like, just under a third of 100, it felt really significant, because assuming I make it to 100 (which for some reason, I'm pretty sure I will) I have now used up a whole third of my time here on this earth and I haven't achieved any of the things that I really want to accomplish during my lifetime. 

This feeling of inertia, of not making any changes for the better, kind of spurred me on to have enough bravery to bring up the topic of marriage with my other half, on the evening of my birthday. I can't remember the last time I've ever felt so scared or worried about the outcome of a conversation. What I was expecting, was that himself would agree that he did want us to spend the rest of our lives together, but that he just didn't want to get involved with the whole wedding thing, after his first failed marriage, due to his first wife being a cheating slag! But despite my thinking I knew how the conversation was going to pan out, I went ahead and told him that I had something important to discuss with him. Something that was really important to tell him, but might actually end up putting him off being with me altogether! He started to look really uncomfortable which wasn't a great start, so I just kind of blurted out that I was really sorry to suddenly be changing the goalposts, but despite having previously told him that I wasn't interested in getting married, I'd slowly over the past year realised just how much I did actually want to marry him and become his wife.

GULP! There it was. I'd put it out there for him to hear and feel terrified by.....I was just waiting for him to go 'WOAH!' and tell me in no uncertain terms that he was flattered, but no, it just wasn't going to happen....when instead, he just gave this massive sigh of relief and started laughing. “Oh, god I thought you were going to tell me something awful like you'd cheated or didn't love me anymore or that you wanted to take a break or something!” He was actually' laughing, partly in how ridiculous his presumption had been, but partly out of relief. Apparently, the way I'd gone about telling him that I had something to talk about, had sounded so ominous and sinister, he really was expecting the worst. But when he found out that I was thinking about us getting married, he said he really wanted to do it too and was going to get around to formally asking me himself, in the near future. 

PHEW!!!

I don't think that I have ever felt such an intense sense of relief, followed by such an incredible sense of euphoria before in my life – nor am I likely to again! It hit me! He'd told me he wanted to get married! He wanted to marry me! AAAARRRRRGGHH!!! I was bubbling up with giddiness and a stupid girlish kind of happiness. I'd been worrying about this for about a year, worried about how to broach the subject with my boyfriend and worried about what I thought was going to be his inevitable refusal. But all that worrying had been for nothing. This was something he'd been thinking about himself recently, what with us having been together so happily, for so long. I'd changed his mind about wanting to give marriage another chance because he knew that I would never be anything like his ex-wife. We sat and chatted about it for about another hour, with the overall outcome being that we became officially engaged to be married, with a specific date in mind for our actual wedding: we wanted to get married, seven years to the day that we officially became a couple!

We've now been engaged for a few months and it's a complete secret from everyone else. I can talk about it on here because no one knows who I am in real life here. This is somewhere that I can be completely honest, without worrying that people will discover all my problems, issues or secrets in the real world. The anonymity allows me to be as free as I wish when talking about stuff. And that's great because I partly want to scream it from every rooftop, that me & he are engaged to be married. But I can't because it's really important to me that no one knows about this engagement or marriage. I absolutely HATE weddings and cannot bear the thought of lots of people looking on as I make incredibly personal vows of love, commitment and devotion to the man I love. That is a private thing for me. I don't want to have people staring at me as me and himself take this step into the rest of our lives. I just want us to have this day, signifying the beginning of the rest of our lives together, for us and us alone.

He agrees. We don't want either of our families to know about the wedding beforehand, because ultimately everyone will want a say in it, there will all the usual bollocks of pomp and circumstance that you have at every other pathetically predictable boring annoying wedding. We're not doing all of that. We're going to run away to Gretna Green in Scotland, which is a famous location for eloping couples, who would traditionally run away to get married there at the Blacksmith's shop over the famous anvil, away from the prying eyes or permissions of family members. 

I love the idea of running off to our secret wedding. I love that right now I can call him my secret fiancé when I send him text messages. Your wedding day is supposed to be everything you want, done perfectly so that you are completely happy with every decision and remember it for the right reason for the rest of your lives. And the whole 'dress like a meringue for a long day of shit mass produced food, long, boring, unfunny speeches and a crap disco' thing does not appeal to either of us. 

If our families got involved they would insist on paying a fortune to have huge big, excessive affairs – no expenses spared. And that is so not us. I've probably said it before, but to us the concept of 'being married' is much more important that the notion of 'getting married' which seems to be the main focus of the majority of shallow women who get married these days. Urgh! No, we're going to take the train up to Gretna Green, where we will spend the night in their beautiful hotel, have a quickie civil ceremony the next day, go for a nice meal directly afterwards in one of the nice little restaurants in the area and then spend another night in the hotel before going off on our honeymoon, which will hopefully involve a week in Amsterdam.

This has all been discussed and chatted about numerous times before, but just a few days ago I sent the inquiry email to the wedding organizers at Gretna Green and provisionally booked our chosen date to get married!! I can't believe it! This shit is really happening! I mean, I always knew it was going to happen, ever since we had that initial conversation where it turned out we both wanted to marry each other, but THIS was making things official. We have actually planned the date, planned the day and provisionally booked it. I just need to forward them a payment to cover the deposit and it's officially 'our big day'! How insane is that? It really is happening!!

On top of that, we also picked out our wedding rings that we want too. We both really wanted titanium as it's a much more durable metal (symbolic hopefully of the durability of the relationship!) as well as being a lovely dark, shiny shade of gun-metal grey. I also want to get an engagement ring that will be made from titanium, with a solitaire diamond in it, so that the two ring bands sit next to each other, matching perfectly. I hunted around for a bit and found the perfect rings, which tonight we both decided were going to be 'the' rings. 

Again, this was something else that made it all just feel so much more real, tangible and definitely going to happen. This isn't just a daydream or a fairytale anymore....this is actually going to take place. We are going to get married. I am going to be his wife. 

I am unbelievably excited!

I am looking forward to being able to call this man my husband; to being introduced to other people as his wife. I can't wait to change my name and signature, so that we both have the same name. I am incredibly proud to be taking this man's name. There's nothing wrong with my current surname – I actually quite like it and have always thought it went perfectly with my first name – but I'm going to be Mrs _______________, married to Mr _______________ in less than two years! I really want to show him what it's like when you actually get it right. When you're married to someone you can love and trust and never have to worry about what they're up to. I want to be the best wife I can so he is glad that he made the decision to get hitched for the second time. 

Obviously, part of my being the perfect wife is making myself as physically perfect as possible for him. I've been floundering a little bit this past week, because I've been so happy. I know that sounds dumb, but with all the talk of our secret engagement and impending nuptials, I've allowed myself to eat really badly on about three or four days this past fortnight. But I know more than most that happiness in a relationship can be just as damaging as feeling miserable. You can binge eat out of depression in a bad relationship, but when you're in a good one and your other half is a real foodie who loves to cook nice - but naughty - meals for you, it can also have an effect on your waistline and weight. The binges I've had lately have been because of that euphoric feeling I've just had running through my veins; that sudden 'Oh shit!' sensation I've had creep up on me when I've been busy doing something else, that suddenly remind me that the wheels for this marriage have now been set in motion and it's really gonna happen!

I need to start thinking more sensibly though, because I cannot have himself looking upon me now as the best it's gonna get. I need to show him that I can be the better Thindarella Version 2.0 that he deserves to have on his arm. I need to get all the other stuff along with weight loss, like a boob job and a bit of botox done, before he has to commit to spending the rest of his life with me. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it – I've seen plenty of success so far when I've been taking it seriously, so it's time to get back on the wagon properly and continue to restrict until I get to the size I need to be in order to happy with the way I look on my husband-to-be's arm. 

So, with that in mind, I'm off to have a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. I'm really sorry to have bored y'all with this total mush-fest of a post, but I've just been feeling so overwhelmed with the whole wedding thing really happening, that I needed an outlet to vent from. This is the only place I can speak freely about it, whilst remaining anonymous, so I'm sorry if I've made you all vomit with my soppy, sentimental drivel. What can I say? I'm a real happy girl to have this guy in my life at all, so to have him tell me he wants to marry me, just about sent me flying 100ft into the air with excitement and euphoria. I'll try not to be such a mushy-mare, going forward, but there will of course be the odd occasional mention of the upcoming day as it gets closer and closer, but I just needed to use this post to get all the giddiness out of my system.

Ok. We shall now return to normal services.

Thanks for listening.

xx

Shooting From The Hip: Some Clothes Fit, Whilst I Inadvertently Strip!

That's a bit of a telling title there isn't it? Makes me sound like I've been carrying on like a Pussy Cat Doll or something! It's really not as exciting as it sounds. Well, it was kind of exciting for me, but for totally different reasons than you might assume. It was a couple of days ago and me and himself had been vegetating on the sofa for most of the day, sipping hot cups of strong coffee and huddling under the duvet, whilst the weather outside got wilder and wilder - to the point where I truly believed that one of the ancient, hundred-or-so year old trees across the road, might come crashing down through our living room window. It was my turn to get up and pop the kettle on and as I emerged from the duck-down cocoon of cosiness, I stood up on my tippy-toes to stretch, with my arms reaching up towards the ceiling making me a full two inches taller than my usual five-foot-fuck-all frame. Just as I was making the obligatory animalistic-groan that we all elicit when stretching, the little skirt that I was wearing slipped right off my hips, down onto the floor, giving my poor, long-suffering fiancé a nice full-moon, arse shot, about 12 inches away from his face.

Mmmm....yeah, real sexy. NOT! 

He just giggled like a schoolboy and sniggered in a sing-song voice “I saw your arse, ner, ner, ner, ner, ner. I was thinking about you and I MADE it happen!” Meanwhile a mortified me quickly squatted down to gather the garment up and redress my bare arse, as my face turned a rather fetching shade of magenta. I was so embarrassed. I mean hey, I've been with this guy for over five years now - hell we're engaged to be married in a couple of years time - and we're not exactly the type to have taken one of those scary religiobot Purity-Pledges over the duration of our relationship. It's safe to say that we've had more than a good few rolls in the hay over these past five years and despite my detesting my overall appearance, after the first 12 months I actually let him see me with my face free of make-up and my hair unbrushed – which if you know me and my vanity at all, you will be massively impressed at how much progress I've made (seeing as how I never let my ex see my face without make-up at all in the four years we were together and would even reapply it just before going to bed!)

I've shared a bed with this guy almost every single night since we first got together as a couple (Yeah, we broke all the rules and officially moved in together only four weeks after becoming a couple and had been sharing a bed as friends even prior to that, yet we still hypocritically tell every other couple we meet not to rush into it themselves - ha!) We've obviously seen and felt pretty much every square inch of each other's flesh at some point over these years; we've seen each other at our worst (when we've been ill - throwing up or having it come out of both ends during a bout of gastroenteritis! - too drunk to walk, off our tits on drugs and hungover or coming down like a tonne of shit the next day!) inadvertently walked in on the other getting changed at least once a day and checked each other all over for dodgy moles (one of those truly exciting – not – yet sensible things to do when you have that special someone at your disposal!) So it's really not like I just got my arse out in front of a total stranger or a guy I was just getting to know and trying to make a good impression with. I mean, for fuck's sake, he's rubbed Vicks Vapo Rub into my back and chest, made me a hot water bottle, tucked me into bed with a Lemsip as I coughed up lumpy chunks of catarrh and still told me I was beautiful! Bless! What a legend!

The guy has obviously not been as utterly repulsed by my appearance as I expect him to be and I should be totally relaxed and comfortable with the whole 'standing butt naked in the middle of my living room as he looks on' thing. But there are just times when it's easier to flash the flesh than others. It's normal to be starkers or semi-nude whilst you're shagging each others brains out; it's perfectly acceptable for me to go and scrub a rather naked other half's back in the shower and not be weirded out by the nudity; heck, I've even had the unfortunate joy of getting to converse with himself as he sits on the toilet taking a shit, with the bathroom door wide open! (Oh the joys of happily co-habiting!). But to find myself stood about a foot away from him and have my arse – currently at eye level with the poor bastard – suddenly revealed in all it's pasty-white glory, as my skirt slipped off in something resembling a dodgy Carry On Film scene....well, THAT was not something I was remotely comfortable with. It felt weird. I felt exposed. In my mind I was imagining him casting a critical eye over the slight dimpling of my slowly developing cellulite and suddenly realising what a lumpy, misshapen heifer he was shacked up with.

I started to panic. Genuinely. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I began to believe that this was it! The jig was finally up. This five year illusion of smoke and mirrors, constantly being woven in the art of misdirection in order for him to be lulled into the false belief that my body was somewhat acceptable, had finally come crashing down around me. I had nowhere left to hide. My bare arse was like the fabled 'Emperor and his non-existent 'New Clothes', finally revealing to the man I love more than life itself, that my being naked from the waist down was indeed hideous enough to frighten horses, repel demons and even make a grown man cry. And speaking of crying, I could actually feel the hot stinging beginnings of tears, pricking behind my eyes as I prepared to make a bolt for the bathroom, where I could lock the door and hide shamefully among the myriad empty toilet roll tubes, littering the nine square foot of floor. 

But then, as I sat contemplating the inevitable fall-out of a relationship unable to sustain itself after such a horrendous incident, something else hit me. A slowly dawning realisation that my skirt had fallen off me for a reason. Now, whenever I'm at home lounging around, I tend to wear a skimpy spaghetti strapped vest and a very short short, which most mothers would probably refer to as being more of a belt than anything else. It did once used to be a knee length ra-ra looking thing that survived the 80's, but in a fit of capricious abandon I one day just decided to hack a good six inches off of the bottom, leaving a sort of short flared skirt that most people would wear over a pair of leggings or something. Together, the vest and skirt comprise a perfectly respectable little outfit that I can lie about the house in and even wear to bed – making it the perfect outfit for someone who likes to go through rather lazy periods of lounging about the flat, sometimes sleeping on the sofa and just generally behaving like a sloth. So yeah, perfect for someone like me.

Only, when I first started to wear the two pieces together, the skirt was kind of tight around the waist and I sometimes worried that the button might undergo way too much strain one day, burst free from the prison of my flabby abdomen and fling itself a couple of foot to the left, blinding my other half in one of his eyes. Thankfully that never happened. Well, I say 'thankfully' but I can't deny how the idea of him losing the ability to see how gross I am with both eyes, was kind of appealling! I am of course joking....I mean, he'd still be able to see the 'goods' with his one good eye anyway, so it wouldn't actually help my cause much!

But yeah, I was beginning to realise how the skirt had come to fall off of my hips in the first place.

I'd lost weight.

And not just a few pounds that make the zip on one's jeans ever so slightly easy to yank up from one day to the next; this was a considerable enough amount of weight to make an item of clothing fall off unannounced. Fuck the unreliable scales that try to tell my I've gained half a stone in 8 hours, despite not having eating or drunk anything the whole time. My clothes were proof that my jelly-belly was actually shrinking. So I WAS losing weight! YIPPEEEE! I leapt off of the toilet seat, booted a rogue cardboard loo roll centre out of my path and proceeded to do a little happy-dance. The diet was working. The hard work was paying off. I was seeing results. Sure, my poor boyfriend had just been permanently emotionally scarred by the experience, but that arse of mine was also inevitably smaller than it had been a couple of weeks ago.

Cut to me racing out of the bathroom, back into the living room and yelling at my boyfriend that I'd lost weight! The skirt had fallen off because I was getting smaller. I was actually succeeding! I did also have to apologise to him for the total eclipse of my arse, but he just shrugged it off as if nothing had happened and said “It's only your bum, I HAVE seen it before you know!” to which I just grumbled “Yeah, but not without a decent bit of subtle low-lighting and enough strategically placed limbs, draped gracefully about the area to give the illusion of it being slightly less scary than it really is.” He just laughed though and I was happy enough after realising what the inadvertent stripping had been the result of.

So that explains the stripping reference; now onto the 'Some Clothes Fit' bit. About half a year ago, I purchased a few dresses online that were cut in the 1950's rockabilly-halter-neck style, because that particular kind of design is really flattering on my figure, making the most of my big boobs, whilst glancing over my 'childbearing hips' in a way that makes the widening skirt circle look like the expanding circumference is merely an intentional design, due to the voluminous petticoat! I'd bought three from the same company in my size and when they arrived, they all fit perfectly. Then when I was perusing another site, I found another dress in the same style being sold by a different manufacturer. I bought my usual size and when it arrived I was horrified to find that it wouldn't even get close to fitting me. I double checked the label to see if it was the right size – which it was – but when I checked the receipt, it said that the company was based in Hong Kong and I know that Asian sizing can be less forgiving than UK sizing. 

I was pretty annoyed, but I'd only paid just over £20 for the dress, so it didn't make financial sense to spend about £8 sending it back. Instead, I just ordered another one two sizes up which arrived after about 14 days. I hung the smaller one in the back of my wardrobe and mostly forgot about it, until 'Day Of The Arse' when I thought I might try it on and see if it fit me yet – and it bloody well did! Woo-hoo! Cue second happy-dance of the day. I now have proof, twice over that my arse is considerably smaller than it was when I first started this blog. That's all the motivation I need to keep on, keeping on.

What's that? I still haven't explained the 'Shooting From The Hip' reference? Er...haven't you been reading this ramble up to this point? I'm a very blunt and brutal person and when I retell a story, I pull no punches. So I have as you will now hopefully understand been 'Shooting From The Hip' the whole time.

And I think that might just be the best way to wrap things up here. Thanks for reading if y'all got this far, and another big thank-you to all my new followers. I really do appreciate you deciding to want to come back time and again and see what bizarre turns of humiliation my life takes on a regular basis.

Oh and before I go, I just want to give a big shout out to the lovely Ruby Tuesday who is currently in treatment, where she has just passed her first week's milestone! If any of y'all would like to drop her an email or two, spurring her on to do well, you can find her contact details here. Big hugs to you Ruby, you know I'm rooting for you!

And for now I shall bid y'all adieu

Much love, hugs and inappropriate gestures!

xx