Tuesday 14th February 2006

Hello hello!

It must be time for another huge email from me, so here we go!
I’m sad to say that my extended holiday has taken a nasty turn – I’m getting fat!
I’ve been here two months, have put on three kilos, and my poor jeans fiinally gave up the struggle to get around my ever-expanding thighs and split.
A memorial service will be held next tuesday, no flowers please.

Anyway, in light of these developments, I finally took the plunge and joined the mass of people known as “exercisers”.

I joined a gym.

I know how shocking that is to most of you, so feel free to have a moment to regain your composure. (I’ll go and make some tea.)
Ready?

Ok then.
So, I joined this gym, which actually in its defence is a very nice gym full of friendly, non-skinny people, and I secretly quite like going there.
However, I didn’t have any work-out clothes, and as my jeans are no longer with us, I was having to go in my pajamas, which was a bit embarrassing quite frankly.

So I went shopping, and bought a really comfy pair of those stretchy jogging pants like Kirsty Alley wears – she’d better watch out too, cos I’m in negotiations for my own reality show – “Fat Teacher”.

I discovered that exercising is the perfect foil for shopping, as I needed to go out and buy clothes in order to exercise properly, and, having bought the new clothes, I was compelled to go to the gym more often to make good use of my clothes, but as I was going more often, I then had to go out and buy more clothes to wear there!!! A fabulous cycle of gym-shopping fun!!!

Anyway, on a related topic, I’ve been getting on very well with both Dad and my stepmother since I got here, but recently I’ve been noticing the stepmother’s mean streak.

First of all, she herself has no sweet tooth whatsoever, and doesn’t ever eat anything sugary. So it is endlessly amusing to her that dad and I are helpless chocoholics with no willpower. She keeps buying obscene amounts of chocolate, packing the fridge with it, and then laughing at us when we eat it.
Right now, at this very moment (and I’m not exaggerating, you can ask my brother, he’s seen it), our fridge has got, 1 bag of chocolate frogs, 1 large bag of chocolate easter eggs, two large bars of dark coffee chocolate, 1 chocolate bunny, 1 chocolate wombat, (don’t ask), a 2 kilo box of flakes, two packets of timtams and four chocolate mousses.
I’m not kidding, all of that is in our fridge, and all of it was bought by her!

Now, I’ve mentioned to her a few times that I’m atempting to lose weight, and have no willpower, and asked politely that she stops buying so much chocolate, but she just laughs at me.
I even went out and bought myself a packet of low-fat biscuits, so that when I go to the fridge with choco-cravings, I can have a biscuit instead. She just laughed in my face, and went out and bought two more packets of timtams (double choc biscuits).

I am now going to the gym three times a week, and going swimming on the other days, and somehow my stepmother has developed the most amazing laugh. It’s somewhere between a sneer, a smug smile and an outright guffaw, and she manages to express a huge amount with it.
For exampe, the other day, we were sat outside having a chat, when I said I was off to the gym. She guffaw-smirked at me, as if to say “Gym? Ha!! You’re off to eat pies!!!”

It’s incredible really.

The piece de resistance came on Sunday night however.
Dad and stepmother came home from a weekend away, and produced the most enormous bar of chocolate know to man. It is ma-hu-ssive!!!
It’s about 2 foot long, 7 inches wide, and at least an inch deep. It’s so heavy I can barely lift it, and it takes up the whole width of the double-wide fridge shelf.
It’s ENORMOUS.

So, either my sheer determination to continue exercising will overcome adversity and nurse my beloved jeans back to life by reducing the vast expanse of my thighs, or, one day, not to far from now, Dad will come home to find me lying face down in a puddle of chocolate.

God, what a cliffhanger!
Tune in next week for the next episode of “Fat Teacher” – brought to you courtesy of Cadburys.

love “it’s not fat, it’s resting muscle” Maya

p.s. – By the way, Happy Valentines Day!

I’ve just thought of a plus side to all this – thank god I’m single, because if a guy tried to give me a box of chocolates today, I think I might cry, or punch him, or both!!!
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