The Christmas tree has been on the kerb since Boxing Day and the decorations returned to the attic for another year. The fridge is emptier than my bank account and the office party at which we threatened to bring the house down at 2, Brydges Place (literally - the assembled staff in a circle like firemen doing high kicks) is as distant a memory as my waistline.
The new man charmingly told me recently that it was taking him a while to get used to a 'larger woman' after his last relationship with a size 0 some seven years my junior which made me feel like a speciality fetish with my own pay per view web site. You can imagine my reply - even though the pithy repost inferred something I have absolutely no intention of ever actually doing again - along with eating, drinking, appearing in public without a one-size fits all burka, and even breathing if the air looks vaguely calorific.
Consequently, however, willpower has been dredged out of the place I wedged it somewhere around 2005 and I have been resolutely ignoring the siren song of the Tartan shortbread, French truffles, chocolate logs, Hobnobs, Quality Street and tamarind flakes (yes, that one is odd, admittedly, but Vanessa went to Burma for her Christmas break and this was all they had in the way of confectionery) that are reclining seductively on the tea trolley only an arm's-length from my desk.
Curves, they're called curves, Mr Kipling. But I'm still not taking the cake.
