Easter is almost upon us. And bringing with it the usual press and media contradictions, know what I mean? You open any paper or women’s magazine and half of it is dedicated to seasonal supermarket ads for Easter eggs and hot cross buns and recipes for Easter cakes while the other half flags up dire warnings of growing obesity and tells us that sugar is the new fat.
I’ve been saying that for years!
It’s no secret that my first novel, What’s Eating Me, is semi-autobiographical in that I’ve struggled with my over-eating compulsion all my life. And I knew years ago that sugar was my drug of choice. I read John Yudkin’s Pure, White and Deadly back in the 70s and could relate to everything in it. I knew what sugar was doing to my body both physically and mentally, yet because I was addicted to it, couldn’t stop eating it. And I was told by more than one GP that sugar ISN’T addictive! Yet I knew it was; it had to be, or my inability to live without it made no sense. Of course, that’s what addiction means: continuing to use/take something to deal with life even though it’s ruining your life and killing you in the process. And usually denying that you have a problem.
And, of course, as the world is finally cottoning on, sugar is in EVERYTHING. Take a little look at this, it will surprise you:
http://gma.yahoo.com/video/fed-tackles-food-industry-health-051721481.html
Of course, everyone is different and there are people who eat loads of sugar who don’t put on weight or suffer any of the mood swings and highs and lows it produces in people like me. Without a doubt, fat does you little good either but so often fat and sugar go hand–in-hand and low-fat or fat-free foods are packed with sugar to make them palatable. I’ve found the best way of dealing with sugar is just not to buy anything that contains more than 4% per 100 grms. After all, if I was a recovering heroin addict I wouldn’t keep anything that contained large amounts of it in the fridge, would I?
And so, Easter is upon us and bringing great Spring weather with it. That means sorting out clothes, something I hate doing as I’m a bit anal as far as clothes are concerned. Since I discovered those wonderful places that pay you for taking your old clothes to them I’ve been better, though. Prior to that my clothes fell into three categories; those I wore day in and day out; those items I could wear for a short while when I lost a couple of pounds, before putting them back on again and the clothes that I would wear if I woke up one morning and found a miracle had taken place during the night and I’d lost three stone in my sleep! So, this Saturday I plan to have a look for some summer trousers.
My week has seen two great launches; the first last Friday was of the paperback version of Singles and Spice and on Tuesday the wonderful Kim Nash, aka Kim the Bookworm, kindly agreed to be my first guest interviewee on my new blog feature Hot Holidays! Great fun reading all about her heavenly holidays and her disasters. And I’m thrilled to say that my guest next Tuesday is the very talented author Nicola May. Yay!
Sunday saw read-through of the final final draft of Singles’ Holiday. I was more than pleased with it and thank all the amazingly talented actors who gave of their time to take part and am delighted that David Milner is coming on board to direct. After a couple of months hanging around for theatres to bother themselves to get back to us, it finally feels as though we are moving forward with this. My problem is, of course, that I want everything done yesterday! I’m alway chomping at the bit.
And I have another Retailer’s Raspberry to award today. It goes to B Wallis and Son, Funeral Directors. We have had to wait for the ground on our parents’ grave to settle before putting back the kerb and headstone and, obviously, now that it’s ready for us to do so, we want to add Mum’s name and details to the stone. To do so costs more than £1700. When we discussed what we wanted last summer we were told by B Wallis and Son, Funeral Directors, that it had to be money up front, paid there and then, even though they would not be starting the engraving until ‘after Christmas’. We talked to them about it, querying why we needed to hand over our money several months before they were going to do the work and they agreed we should pay half then and half when they started. ‘After Christmas’ has now become April. Okay, it rained a lot and that affected the grave, I get that. But when the Brother rang last month to ask when we could expect the work to start he was told it would be in April, but only if we paid up the remaining £850 by the end of March. How can you justify asking for the whole amount a month before work starts? It’s not as if they’ve had to invest in lots of expense on our behalf as the gravestone is already there with Dad’s details on it. And if we hadn’t argued last summer, they’d have been sitting on £1700 of our money for seven months. They are dealing with grieving relatives and while I accept they are running a business, this money-grabbing attitude does them little credit. So, Retailer’s Raspberry to them!
Elaine we had a similar issue having my nans name put on the side of the existing family grave. It never cost anything like your parents grave. In fact about a third of the cost. E.Langley & Sons. The workmanship was poor. Letters out of line. And we also waited months and paid upfront. Big raspberry’s to these awful undertakers