Archy (left) and Lucy (right) practicing synchronised sleeping.

This week is a house sit week. I have a few longer house sits coming up and these pose their own adjustments and challenges. I like living in someone else’s home… it kind of feels like being in a hotel or guest house. There is no sense of possession or responsibility beyond looking after the items I use and cleaning up at the end. This brings me a different sense of freedom to being in the van and allows me to think more deeply about concepts like “ownership” and “home”. My charges here are Archy and Lucy, two wonderful cross-staffies, who  I have known for about four years. They are great company; calm, loving, gregarious (Lucy), soulful (Archy), and it’s a pleasure sharing house space with them.

The challenges of any living space for me these days are:

• can I sleep comfortably?
• can I work at the computer comfortably?
• can I easily brew a cup of tea?
• can I cook?

I have found that as a general rule, almost anywhere that I find myself, I can do three out of four!

Okay – here goes – I feel fat! Despite generous comments from my elder son, last week, that I actually look “average”, I feel too large for my me-ness at the moment. Last year – from Summer through to early Autumn I followed some wacky diets and lost around two stone. From late Autumn through to the beginning of this year I managed to regain about a stone and a half. Ouch! The net result (apart from being about 7 lbs lighter for my trouble) has been a determined effort to make a lifestyle choice that will carry me on into the future, with the intention of very gradually losing weight until I do feel right for me. Then maintaining that position.  Having been on pretty much every diet known to mankind – and a few more besides – I thought a lot about which one had principles that I could live with in the long term. I do like the Atkins/Paleo/very low carb  approach, but being primarily a vegetarian, with a passion for real ale and craft beer, these diets as a way of life would be hard and restrictive. The principles of Slimming World feel like a much better fit, for a long term way of eating beyond “a diet”. So I am currently building up a repertoire of low Syn recipes, along with a list of things that are compatible with both the SW philosophy and life on the hoof. I am so often de-railed by not being in a place or position to cook something when I am hungry. Having a well supplied snack box handy can make all the difference.

Earlier today I was on You Tube listening to some readings on the Button Poetry channel and I came across a poem called Too Big by Beck Cooper. It made me cry (of course) and I was completely blown away by the last line which was:

“Find a lover who wants you to take up space.”

Utterly wonderful, not least because *I* want *me* to take up space. Feeling fat is a very different thing to being told by someone else that you are too big. Big is good… powerful, strong, immense, considerable, tremendous. Taking up (your) space in this world is good. No-one else can fill your space, because your contribution is uniquely your own, I am grateful that I have found a lover who can not only support my own desire to carry less weight, but who concurrently wants me to take up more space. Indeed, Pete is someone who opens up the space in front of me by sowing space-seeds as he moves through life. I have friends and relations who do this too. Auspicious indeed. I hope I can give that gift to other too.