January 2nd - Resolutions and leftovers

Dear Nigel,

Well, a new year dawns, thank god, - better than the last one, i hope. I'm in two minds about making resolutions; on the one hand they spur you on, on the other they are usually too uncompromising and ambitious and fall by the way side within a month, on average ( mine, anyway; yours may be different).

If i have a New Year's resolution it's to give up the gym (as i haven't actually been for some time). I'm working on the think yourself thin approach, with a dose of yoga thrown in. Exercise just makes me hungry and gives me muscles i don't really want. You don't look like the gyming type yourself, Nigel - and not everyone thinks rippling muscles attractive.

Meals here have been a series of leftovers and hotch potch affairs, with a collection of four of five different puddings on offer, but only for one or two persons. I buy lots of healthy salad to bulk out the fettuccine, and steer  clear of the pain au chocolat on offer. The diet proper won't really start until the cupboards are empty, and there's still plenty of ice cream left in the freezer. I admire people who can leave a box of chocolates open for others to enjoy but refrain themselves. That kind of self-will seems almost barbaric and masochistic. I suppose if you were going to give up something indefinitely it would seem reasonable.

Left overs can almost be the best part of Christmas. There is nothing nicer than heading to the fridge with a rumbling tummy to discover a hunk of special cheese or a jar of figs in port squirrelled away in a cupboard, that you had forgotten about.I am working my way through the last of my Christmas chocolates, a box of chocolate disks with bits in  from Twinings which came free with my tea order, and which i saved for my stocking. I rather  prided myself on filling my own stocking almost entirely on freebies - three for two etc : it became quite a game in the end. Making sure that the other stockings were fair and equal to each other was quite another game in itself.

Your resolution, and it's a good one, is to "eat less but better food this year". I think this an excellent idea and quite in keeping with my idea to be mindful of what i eat, and not just graze through half a bar of dairy milk whilst watching a film without even tasting it. You don't appear to have much left over from Christmas and rely on beans and lentils and larder stuff. Don't think my observance of the season of gorging would allow me to touch a lentil or dried bean as yet. Self - flagellation (even the bean kind) should not start on January 1 when most of us are nursing a mild, or not so mild, hangover or sleep deprivation at the very least.

Enjoy your beans and lentils and I'll catch up with you in a few days,

Martha