Foody Frolic

Today my friends I ran, then walked, then ran, then walked, you get the idea. I wasn't being chased but I was being followed by Mr Grumpy on his bike, bad knees apparently. As I ran, occasionally I wanted to stop before I should, but just like the proverbial donkey, stick and carrot I managed to keep going.

Have I mentioned food before? Not sure why if I haven't, but I love food. I love cooking and I love being cooked for, I love special food and I love well cooked normal food. But pretty much I just love food! So today as I was bouncing around the countryside and my lungs were on fire, the image of a large slice of homemade Nanny Baxter chocolate cake and a cup of tea spurred me on. Now I'm sure the cynical amongst you are probably wondering why I would exercise so regularly just to come home and spoil it with a million calories of cake, well, I wasn't wondering. I love being out in the fresh air and I know that running and walking will do me good, but like many naughty things in life you know how the saying goes, a little of what you fancy does you good.

So as I continued bobbing along, another thought came into my head, who decides what's good and what's bad for you? I know about the obvious things like smoking and lung cancer, alcohol and cirrhosis of the liver, too much fat and obesity, but who decided what "normal" looks like? Who says we're not supposed to be huge, stinking of fags and booze? I mean, someone invented these things didn't they? So surely as we're only on this earth for a short time we should enjoy them.

It's a bit like marriage vows, at this point I should say congratulations to all those people that manage to stay married to their original partners for 30, 40 or more years, but I don't actually agree with the line, til death us do part. I did, before I knew better, but now I don't judge those people that split from their spouse at about the age of 30 or 40. If I remember rightly, the original marriage vows were written in the 1600's, when average life expectancy was about 36. So, you probably could quite easily stayed married to the same person. Now of course people are living much longer and understandably bore of hubby or wife number 1 and yearn for a new model, bit like having a new car I guess. After all, the person that wrote those vows had probably never even been married themselves and knew not what they were doing.... oops, getting a bit carried away there!

So the way I see it is like this, I will eat lots and lots of potatoes in all forms, I will sometimes partake of naughty cakes or sweets if I want and I most certainly will consume wine whenever my little heart desires! I will however try and remain married to this same man for as long as he behaves himself and for as long as he realises how lucky he is to have me. It doesn't mean to say I won't flirt outrageously at any given opportunity, like with the local Italian bakery, I can look in the window, sniff the goodies but keep walking on by.