Light and Dark

Light: Up early today to take my parents over to Norfolk. It was foggy at 5 AM, and the dawn chorus was already in train -- blackbirds, mainly. (At this point I usually comment on their looping, sweet, clear song, which cuts through the air like the taste of anchovies cuts through porridge. But I won't do that today.) Everything was still, and damp-smelling (not my trousers, of course), and the early morning felt...poised, as if something significant and beautiful was about to happen.

Dark: Being at my parents, I got on their scales before my morning wash. Got off them again. Checked the calibration. Got on again. Got off again. Took off my socks, shaved off all my body hair, planed down my rib bones until they were mere millimetres thick. Weighed myself again. Harraumphed. Decided it wasn't fair. Then... accepted reality: I am a porker. 14 stone and 6 pounds. Blimey. Soon, people will be shouting "fatty" at me from passing cars, and white van men will cease wolf whistling as I pass by in my Grease-era John Travoltaesque bun-hugging polyester slacks. Which would be a loss, obviously.

So...this week = anti-porker week. Except...I'm off to Paris on Thursday, innit?