Well, this is odd; five:two diet (update)

I still haven't lost that much actual on-the-scales weight on this here five-two diet; just over a stone, in around six months (and that's including a month off after the flu and a couple of shorter breaks).  But I have changed shape so much; it's really quite odd.

My boobs are still the same size, hurrah.  But I've had to take two pairs of trousers in at the waist.  And when I tried on the two shirts I thought I was going to have to let out - to see how much I needed to let them out by - I found that I don't need to let them out anymore.

And three pairs of jeans that were close-fitting, bordering on tight, all through the upper third are now comfy at the waist and loose in the thigh.

I know raving about diets is a problem for some people.  I've never been a dieter before, much less a diet fangirl.  If you know me, you know I'm definitly not a closet anorexic with horrendous denial issues...  But it is really satisfying to lose weight, off the bits that needed to lose it, painlessly and straightforwardly, like this.  And to feel so healthy on it (at least now I've shaken off that miserable flu and its aftereffects).  

I'm enjoying my days off, although aware (from the degree that I've slumped) that I had indeed got very, very tired lately.  I'm doing some writing and some sewing, I'm having a lie-in in the mornings, and yesterday I had lunch out and made a batch of fudge (which came out a bit funny, but still tastes good).  Writing, sewing, cookery; all very fulfilling creative acts.

Life is okay, yep, I think so...   And realising how tired I've been getting has made me decide that if I possibly can, this year, I'm going to have a full two weeks away in Greece, instead of the one week I have ended up with the last few years.  It's worth committing a bit more money to, to get that utter peace, the pine-scented clean air, and the swimming in the sea and reading as much as I want...  So if I get the chance, this week, I'm going to try and book that.

"Onegin"s and observations

 

I saw the ballet "Onegin" last week, and the opera “Eugene Onegin” last night.  What a joy the first was; and sadly, what a muddle the second...

It's one of my favourite ballets, and I've burbled about it before.  This was one of those performances when the principals are hugging one another by the end, with that air that suggests they know this was a good 'un.  They were simply out of their skins (and I was crying into my binoculars).  

Well, and it’s also one of my favourite operas; after all, this is such a classic story of unrequited love, loss and regret – things most of us have experienced at some point in our lives; and then, in the opera you get some of Tchaikovsky’s most fabulously rich and heartfelt music. But where Cranko’s ballet is a perfect distillation of a perfect story (and was perfectly performed by a perfect cast), this new production of the opera just couldn’t seem to find its balance.  It was as if the director just couldn't make his mind up: Straightforward realism, or wholehearted expressionism? - oh, f*ck it, I can't decide; I'll bodge the two together and see what I get...

The answer, of course, is that, rather as in carpentry, bodging the two together produces a mismatched piece of furniture that won't stand up straight and collapses when you put any weight on it.

I went, because my Favourite Baritone was singing Onegin and it’s a role I’ve wanted to hear him in for some time.  He was, as I had hoped, excellent.  More of this anon (to my delight he made it worth going to, all on his own.  Top bloke).  I had heard of the Tatyana, Krassimira Stoyanova (I think I’ve spelled that right), and she was okay, though not great; Amanda Echalaz could give her a run for her money, and is better-looking and a better actress, too (though I have a feeling she may be a bit on the tall side for Mr Keenlyside, who is after all only my height!).   I had also heard of the Lensky, Pavol Breslik, who was excellent, and rather ornamental in a baby-faced way.  

I had heard of the director, Kasper Holten, because he’s the new director of the Royal Opera as a whole.  On the evidence of this, that’s a bit of an oh-dear...

The production had some strengths; it looked good and the crowd scenes were well-shaped (there was no milling about on group exits, something which always gets my goat, and the formal dances in the penultimate scene looked good and were cleverly used to emphasise Onegin’s sense of disconnection from his surroundings).  On balance I felt the use of stage doubles for the young Tatyana and Onegin was a booboo, as it was terribly distracting and got in the way more often than not; but it did have a few benefits.   It emphasised their sense of grief and regret, and in particular Tatyana’s compassion for her idiotic younger self.  And, by setting the bulk of the story firmly as memories rather than “now”, it served to bring out the way that for each of the two principal characters, the memories are different.  For Tatyana, the crucial moments of that summer were her falling in love with, and being rejected by, Onegin, and for him the crucial moments were his argument and subsequent duel with Lensky, and the latter’s death.  

If you think about your own "lost love and regret" type stories, and imagine a situation where you could find out how the other party or parties involved viewed them, there's a pretty good chance the results would be similar; that something absolutely central to you would be tangential to them, and vice versa.  It was effective, and psychologically acute.

The tiny touch of having Onegin try to screw up the courage to kill himself after the duel and not having the nerve was brilliant, too.  It served beautifully to illuminate the very unusual way that Onegin himself had been directed as an essentially sympathetic character.  Think about it.  Have you ever seen a Eugene Onegin you actually felt for?  Usually he's either a cold bastard, or a bit of a cypher.  This one was credibly foolish, and a coward, but not such a crud as all that; and it was made quietly but effectively clear that his rejection of Tatyana was due not to dislike or even indifference, but to panic; a knee-jerk reaction to her having forced his hand by writing to him. 

I have to say, though, Mr Holten was very lucky in his Onegin.  I can't think of many baritones who could have pulled it off.  But Simon Keenlyside, with his nervous intensity and battered good looks, and huge, quiet stage presence, could and did.  I have no idea if his Russian was remotely idiomatic, but that husky catch in his voice, that I have always loved, served him well, too, and at one point he hit a high pianissimo that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  

I just wish he'd had a more coherant production around him.  It didn't seem fair.  The last production I saw, at ENO, was also a mixture of "That idea worked" and "That idea didn't", and had a cracking good Tatyana in Amanda Echalaz and a bland, blank Onegin whose name I can't even remember.  This one had a cracking good Onegin and a fair Tatyana, and was a similar curate's egg as a production.   Grr.

Now, a fusion of the two, that might have been interesting.  But that sort of thing doesn't happen. So I'm glad I saw the ballet again, and done so superbly, too.  The two final pas de deux - between Tatyana and her husband, gravely loving and trusting of one another, a distillation of everything one would hope married love could be for a lass with such a rocky start to her emotional life; and the frenzy of the farewell between her and Onegin, hurling themselves into one another's arms and tearing themselves apart repeatedly - were both absolutely mind-blowing.  Hurrahs, deservedly, at the curtain call, for Gary Avis's gentlemanly, strong Prince Gremin, Federico Bonelli's powerful and sexy Onegin, and above all for Laura Morera who, for me, simply is Tatyana.

Meanwhile and moving laterally and onto other things entirely, I have some observations on the 5:2 diet, which I have been following since the autumn.  It's the longest I've ever kept on a diet, and it's proving an interesting experience.

It’s surprisingly easy to keep to, and if I slip (or have a week’s holiday) I find it’s easy to get back into.  It doesn’t seem to have, for me at least, the guilt issues associated with most diets and most attempts to reform one’s eating habits.  And it seems to be working; albeit not quite as I had anticipated.

I feel great.  I feel healthier and more active, and more energetic.  I am walking more briskly, running up stairs, hurrying across the Gardens running errands. I'm coming home and getting stuck into some writing, or some typing up, or a bit of each, instead of slummocking in front of the tele.  I feel physically and mentally good.

At the end of each fast day my body feels light and clear, as though I’ve cleansed myself inside.  I don’t feel hungry, except for perhaps the last half hour before my plate of salad in the evening.  I don’t feel deprived, unless I watch a particularly popcorn-y movie in the evening.  I sleep well and I don’t wake up hungry, either.

My “skinny” jeans are now comfortable jeans, my “comfortable” jeans now need a belt; and the belt I use with them now needs to be done up on the third hole instead of the first one.  A blouse I couldn’t get buttoned over my bosom last summer is now wearable again; close-fitting tee shirts look okay on me instead of showing off my bra bulges; and I can wear all my rings a finger along from where I could wear them five months ago.

But - according to the scales I’ve only lost five pounds. 

I find this very odd indeed, but I’m not complaining.  Feeling healthier and changing shape mean a lot more to me than the number on the dial.  And yes, I did check the scales; they’re working fine.  It’s not them, it’s me. 

I’m still no sylph, nor am I likely ever to be one.  But it’s good to feel energetic and ready for spring, instead of wanting to crawl under a stone and hibernate. 

A girl can dream...

I had another vivid dream last night.  I can only suppose that the damp, chilly weather and general wintry darkness and dimness have some kind of stimulating effect on the bit of the brain that initiates dreaming - the hypothalamus, is it?  This one started odd (i.e. normal for a dream), turned very nasty indeed for a bit, and then, as if to compensate, went completely overboard on the happy ending. 

I was crossing Kew Bridge on my way home, and I looked down and  saw someone in a bobble hat riding my bicycle along the mud banks beside the Thames, heading in the direction of the railway bridge.  In the dreaming world, my bike normally lived on a clothes-horse in the foyer of the block of flats I live in (in the waking world it has a different home!) & I hadn't lent it to anyone.  So I ran in pursuit, down the steps onto the river bank.  But by the time I got there the tide had come in, and I found myself falling, as if sucked inexorably, into the river.

People drown in the Thames every year; it's not a good river to fall into, and I'm not a particularly strong swimmer.  Clearly my subconscious knows this.  I thrashed and yelled and struggled, and went under, and was carried away upriver, shrieking my head off each time I surfaced and holding my breath desperately each time I went underwater.  I shot the bridge and was heading out into the middle of the main channel.  It was dark and cold, and I went under again and thought "I'm going to bloody drown, what a farce". I shut my eyes and accepted it, since there wasn't anything else to do.

Suddenly a pair of very strong arms grabbed me and pulled at me; and I grabbed back and held on.  The rushing din in my ears stopped and a voice said to me "You can stop holding your breath now, you're out of the water."  So I opened my eyes and found I had been dragged from the river, and imminent death, onto the banks of Brentford Eyot, by the Crush Of The Moment.  Good man. 

Since I was soaking wet and muddy, and had swallowed a fair amount of the Thames, which I was frantically trying to spit out, I was about as unappealing as a plump middle-aged woman can be.  Nonetheless my Hero smiled at me - swoon! - and then he said "I'm Aaron, by the way."  I gobbed up some more filthy water and replied "No you're not, you're an actor, don't quote your own lines at me."  Then I woke up, with my pulse thundering, though whether from the near-drowning bit of the dream or the >swoon!< part I can't say. Either way, I couldn't get back to sleep again.

Luckily at work today I have been doing filing and data entry.  Both of which can be done when tired. 

My grandmother always insisted that bad dreams are caused by indigestion. I have no idea of this is true, but I certainly did eat too much yesterday, so maybe in this case it was.  But today was a fast day - I've been very happy so far with the five-two diet, and have just switched back on to it after the Christmas break.  So I'm typing this in the large part of my lunch hour left after eating three rice cakes and a satsuma.  Supper is due to be salad; and then I will have a peaceful evening typing up some more "Gold Hawk" (I'm partway through revising chapter three now) and get an early night.  Hopefully, one in which my dreams will not involve near-drowning.

First frost, more writing, & a diet idea

Yes, you did read that right.  A diet idea.  Stop press: Fat girl has diet idea. Well f*ck me for a blue strawberry.

I read recently that people who have a seriously restricted calorie intake for two days in each week tend to lose a respectable amount of weight and decrease their chances of developing type 2 diabetes by around a third.  The rest of the time, they can eat and drink as normal, and that is why this strikes me as the perfect diet for me to try.  I eat fairly healthily, apart from my sweet tooth and penchant for alcohol (oh, and I do like my cheese).  I just eat too much (& have said penchants). 

So I am giving this plan a try.  Announcing it like this is intended to make it stick - now my sense of public shame will fuel the desire to eat bugger-all but salad two days a week.  Watch this space.  See if I last a month...

Meanwhile; I had a good weekend at my mum's - shopping, lunching out and gardening.  I'm now behind on my cleaning, clothes-washing and grocery-shopping, and it took me until this morning to get the dirt out from under my fingernails (good garden dirt, this is!), but I can handle that. 

I've now blown up another bit of the Droit Institute and injured one of the Evil Bad Guy's cohorts.  My heroine is reeling about in shock and the hero is still busy digging himself and his companion out of the rubble.  The dénouement has been slow coming, but it is coming, and I'm beginning to get excited about revisions.  This is an odd state of affairs, I have to say.  Normally I hate revision with a passion.  But this has come out like turning on a tap, and as it has flowed I've found it developed and changed shape, and I've seen things more clearly; so that now, approaching the end, I've got a list of points I need to wiggle in earlier.  Have a scene where x happens; have a scene where A discusses B with C so that we know more about C; make sure D mentions y and z in his talk to the students...   But I won't let myself write any of this until I've finished the main narrative.  It just doesn't feel right; also I don't want to stymie the flow when I don't yet have a completed story.

I've been lucky with this one.  It had an odd genesis.  I'd had a vague idea in my mind for ages, but with no plot to speak of.  I'd had two names - Anna Maple, Thorn Reynolds - and no idea who they were or what they would do, except that they would feature in this vague-idea-no-plot story.  The I went to the cinema, and came out with them sitting in my mind saying "Hey, here we are, this is what happens to us! Write it now, please!" and I sat on the bus scribbling on a bit of scrap paper and grinning like an idiot.  All jokes about lust and chestnut purée aside, I actually owe Jeremy Renner a debt, since it was seeing "The Avengers", and specifically discovering him, that set me off.  Thorn acquired a face.  Bizarrely, Anna immediately acquired a face too (& her face was a completely new one to me, which is odd).  And there they were; not two names, but two people.

The moment I can really see a character they start to come real; once they get a face I'm able to get going.  It's as if I get them inside me (ahem) - I can feel their muscles imprinted on mine, if you know what I mean.  That does sound kinky; sorry.  But that's how it is, that's how my creativity works for me.  I know where they grew up, what they eat, what their handwriting is like...  As soon as he had a face I knew Thorn was allergic to chocolate, that he was a good swimmer, that he was left-handed...  I knew how Anna would hide her amulet, and where she worked and lived, and what had happened to her brother...

It was the first frost last night, too.  Walking into work my feet were crunching on crisp white-edged leaves.  The sky was a clear, hard blue like an enamel glaze; all the autumn trees glowed golden and red around the Green.  It was beautiful - and decidedly cold.  But now it has clouded over and outside the window it just looks grey and muted, and dismally about-to-rain-ish.  Oh well, we can't have it all.  I've just been reminded by a friend who lives in southern California that she never gets any Fall to speak of at all, and that is a sad thought.  No scarlet autumn leaves to kick through, no bright frost, no cold blue skies; no sudden gales, no soft silent November rains...  So I will remind myself again to cherish what I have and appreciate all its beauties, even the muted grey ones.