Appetite for Destruction

Ugh.  God I feel gross.  Five days of non-stop feasting has taken its toll.  Cut me open and my insides would look like a gala pie: layers of pastry, meat and jelly made from a multitude of delicious fatty morsels consumed with neither guilt nor counting of calories.  My blood is double cream, my skin stretched a little tighter (which is no bad thing for filling out fine lines..) and my brain a funk of too much indulgence and not enough exercise.  Barring the 'Boxing Day Walk' which put a helpful seven miles in the bank, there has been no running or cycling and yet my joints ache from all the sitting around and crawling about on the floor that comes with this season of being a slob in front of the tv, playing board games with children and catching up with friends and family.  Our digestive systems are taking a beating and no-one dares fling themselves down on the sofa for fear of disturbing a dormant cloud of Christmas farts.

Lunches and dinners are awash with seconds, pigs wrapped in blankets and choices of puddings.  The tree grows chocolates, fruit is candied and veggies come from the oven spitting with hot fat.  We eat out before the pantomime at which the 'dame' has better legs than most of the ladies in the audience.  Must be all that dancing and discipline.  Feeling inspired, as soon as we get home I eat a clementine then jig about with the children.  My knees crack, and my stomach feels like it contains several house bricks.  

Come the first week of January the children will return to school, I have work and a talk to deliver that I am bricking myself over, and many miles of walking to put in as training begins in earnest for the MoonWalk in May.  The wise amongst us would be starting early, using this lull before the storm of the New Year to lay off the lard and be ready to meet January 1st 2014 with vim, vigour and a virtuously clear head. 

But that would take the fun out of it, no?  As a friend put it to me "Christmas is like an endurance sport", and we have a full fridge, plenty of wine and the small matter of New Year's Eve just around the corner.  And if I'm to make it through that, I'd better get training - pass me a profiterole would you? 


Soundtrack: Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses