I’m back.

The restaurant/bar we headed for close to the London Eye was jam packed, so we continued walking (well, wheeling in my case) for several more minutes. Lots of theatre events meant that the whole of the Southbank was chocka.  The area was beautiful though, as it was a fine night and there were Christmas lights and stalls – already!  Close to County Hall, they’ve set up an ice-skating rink.  It’s not yet open to the public, but it is a lovely setting with the London Eye illuminated in the background.

Crossed over the river and ended up at the Charing Cross Hotel, where there was plenty of room. It was very location indeed and not too expensive (for a central London hotel). £30 a head, 2 courses including a drink. I had a meal of pork loin with pureed potato and broccoli and “jus”. Beautifully presented, but not a huge quantity. Unfortunately, I did cast my eye at the dessert menu and there WAS something that appealed to me – apple tarte tatin with ice cream!  I also had a glass of rose sparkling wine with my meal and finished off with a latte.

I hadn’t eaten anything apart from a bowl of home made vegetable soup at 4pm, as I knew we wouldn’t be eating until late.

The next morning, we woke 30 minutes later than we had planned at 7.15am – the alarm hadn’t gone off.

We DID go for our walk, and I think we were meant to wake later.  The sun was up and the weather was gorgeous. Any earlier and the sun would still have still been rising. We walked for 35 minutes, which was enough.  My average heart rate was 154bpm during that time, reaching a maximum of 178bpm! That means that in just 35 minutes, I had burned just under 400 calories.  This demonstrates how hard my body has to work just to walk, and why I get exhausted so quickly when I do. It’s probably the same as anyone else going for a run!

I really didn’t feel hungry at all after the exercise, but managed a breakfast of  yogurt with melon and a boiled egg, orange juice and coffee.

At lunchtime I stuck to salad with a small amount of smoked salmon. I also had mussels and other fish (salmon, white fish) from the hot buffet and a tiny amount of butternut squash risotto. Not as tasty as hubbie makes mind you.

There were plenty of tasty morsels on offer for dessert.  I managed to limit myself to a small dish of chopped fresh fruit with raspberry coulis – but then did succumb to a mini frangipane blueberry cake. It was the size of a small cup cake. I resisted all the cookies and other edible temptations that were outside of the meeting room.

Got home at 7pm and hubbie (Andy) had made a very nice vegetarian chilli with rice.

Today I am doing a few jobs before we head out at 3.30pm to collect my elderly Mum and step-dad and taking them over to my sisters in Oxfordshire for the weekend. Andy has been hard at work cooking a lovely smelling beouf bourguignon which we are taking for this evenings meal.

So all in all, I believe my evening and day went pretty well. I certainly count it as a success and it does show the value of planning.  I didn’t allow my plans to be totally thwarted at the first or second hurdles… I just accepted that some small changes were necessary.  I did give in to temptation here and there… but each time it was in a controlled manner.

The plans I had made for my trip were a semi success. I am pleased to report a 1.2lb loss at this weeks weigh in (WI) this morning.