I do love a family gathering, a chance to see what everyone is up to, relearn the names of copious number of cousins and enjoy in a bit of general revelry!
Revelry however, seems to include the consumption of much food and drink. After a very well behaved week last week I ruined it all in less than two days. On Saturday I thought I was going to do well on the self-control front. A glorious New Forest cycle to Beaulieu had us end up at a tea shop with a dribblingly good cake selection. After steaming up the glass-fronted cabinet like a rabid, panting dog I very sensibly chose to have Soup of the Day. I was delighted with a hearty bowl of chicken and cauliflower soup (complete with actual chunks of chicken!) and the thickest, tastiest homemade bread I have ever encountered. But even after licking the bowl clean and scooping up every last crumb I still couldn't take my mind of the cake. I caved and got a piece of rocky road, a small one mind! The cycle was a 46 mile round trip so I wasn't overcome with guilt at all.
Shortly after getting home, my sister arrived ready and raring to go for a family gathering that evening. She came bearing cookies. This is the point where it all started to go wrong. One cookie isn't so bad (especially a Tesco Finest one..) but when we arrived at the party and I laid eyes on the buffet, it was game over. I tried on the first attempt to get a mostly wholesome selection and even my second plate was loaded with carrot sticks, olives and celery. The real issue came when I moved down to the sweet selection and had my first homemade cupcake. They were small cupcakes, two mouthfuls if you were being polite. There was a selection of flavours too, and obviously you have to test one of each in case you miss out. I ended up just sort of hanging around near the food, and every time I spoke to a new member of the family I celebrated with another cakey treat. Suffice to say there were a lot of people to chat to!
So, stuffed full of cake (I forgot to mention the actual birthday cake and the bitesize cheesecake bits) we headed home and indulged in a bottle of wine.. and the remaining cookies.
We woke up surprisingly fresh on Sunday morning and managed to squeeze in a quick game of badminton. I'm glad we did as there was much more eating to be done. We started off well with a Waitrose brekkie before heading off to Poole to visit an Aunt and Uncle.
Now this particular Aunt and Uncle are excellent hosts, too good in fact. They do also love a drink and I promise I am not exaggerating whatsoever when I say that every room in their sizable abode is filled to the brim with more booze than you could ever imagine. We sat down and and were offered refreshments, I was thinking that a cup of tea would go down a treat. My Aunt had other ideas.. "Something light to start? How about a sherry?"
These are not the sort of people you can say no to, so the sherry came out (at just after midday, might I add). My sister was driving, but she also couldn't say no, so for this sherry and every subsequent glass of anything that was offered I had to sneakily get hers down as well. I took on the challenge like a trooper of course.
When lunch was served we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the delicious plates of salad that was being dished up. How silly of us not to realise this was only course number one! What followed was cake in slices the size of enormous and a cheese and cracker selection.
By the time we left at around 15:30 I was drunk, and would have fallen asleep in the car had it not been for the gift of a box of delicious crumbly fudge..
All in all a pretty heavy weekend, and further proof that family are unsafe when trying to maintain healthy standards! This is why I need to lose weight for Christmas!
We had our weekly weigh-in at work today and I was the same, which I was very pleased with. It means I am still on track too as I lost some extra pounds in a previous week. Now the weekend is coming and I'm off to visit a friend on Oxfordshire, so I'm sure more wine and naughties will be consumed. I decided as a result of this that I shall cycle there and back to even things out. Now that's a balanced lifestyle!
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