Never knowingly underweight

When your doctor replies to the question, "Should I do some exercise?" with the following answer, it's probably a sign:

"I wouldn't recommend it right now. You'd probably keel over there and then."

When you get to the stage where a person you don't really know - literally a step away from being a complete stranger - feels able to pat you on the stomach and say: "So when's it due?" that's almost certainly a sign. (I didn't smile back at her. She probably thought that being my size I could at least have had the good manners to be jolly.)

When you can't find clothes that fit you easily, that's not necessarily a sign. But when you can't even find a belt that fits, that's a sign. It's a great big sign. A great big fat sign, if you like.

The doctor was very nice, by the way. He showed me lots of numbers on his screen. There was the cholesterol one which was high and needed to be lower. Then the vitamin D and calcium ones which were too low and needed to be higher. Very low, they were. I have the vitamin D of a cave-dwelling emo teenager and the calcium levels of an 80-year old, bizarrely. Heaven help me if I have a fall.

The doctor, after warning me against exercise until I lost some tonnage ("Your knees would outlast your heart") gave me some diet advice. And it went like this:

"All the things you like to have? Stop having them. And all the things you really don't like, you need to have more of them. If I see you in Greggs, you're a dead man."

Before you ask, I'm pretty much quoting him word for word.

He prescribed me some calcium tablets to be taken for the next year. I wonder if it's possible to overdose on them? Would you go all stiff-limbed and grin at everyone? Who knows.

So this is why, after a last calorie-laden blow-out on Saturday evening, Sunday found Katie and me in the supermarket, looking at green things. We bumped into a friend; I told him we were strangers to the vegetable aisle and he thought I was joking.

I was not joking.

I'll tell you something, though. Those people who say, often in a breezy, carefree manner, that you can eat healthily and pay no more than eating junk? They're talking arrant bollocks. I've got a weekly shopping bill some three times my normal amount as proof. I feel that some adjustments might be necessary for next week.

But we'll make the adjustments and go on. Because there was another set of scary numbers over the weekend. An 18, followed by a 1. 18 stone, 1 pound (or 253 pounds if you're American).

We've been here before, haven't we?

Not the same thing at all

My wife, the sainted Katie, She Who Must Be Obeyed, sometimes reads this blog. I suppose someone has to.

I often don't know about it until weeks afterwards. I'll have written something and then, when I've practically forgotten about it, she will ask questions. Of course, when I say "ask questions" what I mean is "deploy interrogation techniques that would put the Stasi to shame".

Potato, puh-taht-o.

A month or so ago I wrote about our experience when buying a bed. I know, I'm like Ernest Hemingway without the rum, aren't I? If you've not read it, I freely recommend it. It's a right riveting read, a roller-coaster from start to finish. In the posting, I complain how difficult it is to just go out and buy something. How tricky it is to simply part money without the salesperson trying to get more of your hard-earned out of you with additional sales, related items, extra charges, delivery, etc.

I think I made a well-reasoned point. Which is why I hope Katie doesn't read it. Because if she does, I'll be hoist upon my own petard. The moment I find out exactly what a petard is, I suppose.

You see, the truth is this. The day after we paid for the bed, I went and bought a camera. This was a planned purchase. I knew the make and model - I'd even reserved it from the shop beforehand. Both Katie and I knew exactly how much money was going to change hands.

So it was a little unfortunate when the well-meaning folk at the camera shop told me about this fantastic new deal they'd got on. How I could get an additional lens for Not Very Much At All. And of course, you need another lens, don't you? I might as well get a case, too. You're not going to go around without a case, are you Sir? It would be a shame if any damage happened to this camera, just because you didn't take this LowePro case that we just happen to have on offer? And what about a memory card? You can't do anything without a memory card, can you?

Stitched up. Like a kipper. I walked out of that shop, my wallet feeling like it had been violated. So if I moan about spending extra on getting a bed delivered, you must take it with a pinch of salt. Because at some point Katie will read about it, and an eyebrow will be raised.

Still, as long as I haven't spent all this money on a camera just to take pictures of the cat, all's OK, isn't it?

Oh dear.