Gingerjo’s Blog

It came as a surprise after months of my pestering, but last Saturday, Mark and I went and bought his suit for our wedding.

Since I was going into Bolton for an appointment he came with me and went to Slaters Menswear. What a great shop! We told them what we were looking for, they sized Mark up and gave him 4 suits to try on. We liked suit number 3 - a navy blue pinstripe by Ted Baker.

As it happens the suit fits perfectly, but since Mark’s doing a lot of running if he loses weight in the next couple of months we can take it back and get it altered for free. In fact, you get free alterations for the lifetime of the garment!! How great is that? It’s such as shame there’s nowhere similar for women.

4 months from now Mark and I will be sat on a plane to Vegas.

I can’t wait.

I’ve just realised - it’s week 15 of my diet so I’m half way there. Both in terms of time and even better in weight too.

Having tried my dress on recently I’ve been able to revise my necessary weight loss for the wedding. It’s much closer to fitting than I expected it to be so I don’t think I really need aim for 10 stone. I think somewhere between 10st 7lb and 10st 10lb will be just about right.

It has to be said I’m feeling great - mostly because I’m now a size 14/16 and everyone keeps telling me how fab I look. Certainly shopping is fun again! It’s a bit of a rush really.

In some ways I can understand how people become obsessed with achieving a really high level of control over their eating, but it’s not for me. I don’t want to become a rake, but I do think the health benefits of losing my blimphood are significant. I feel more energetic, and I haven’t had indigestion in months, and sometimes I even get the urge to run.

Perhaps now I can relax a bit and have a few chocolates over Christmas.

Or rather an old hobby revisited…

I bought a handbag to go with my wedding dress covered in little silver crystals but I felt it could be brightened up with some little blue crystals so I went to Hobbycraft and bought a little pair of pliers and a mixed bag of crystals. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up jewellery making again (haven’t done it since I was a teenager) and thought this would be a good time to dip my toes in the water.

I really enjoyed it - it’s painstaking work but I’ve always been good at concentrating on fiddly tasks and it keeps my fingers occupied. All the time they are manipulating little beads and stones they are not reaching for the fridge door.

So I went back and bought a necklace making kit - I thought the necklace in question would go well with my bellydancing skirt and top. I’ve never actually made a necklace before (I always used to make earrings) but after a bit of practice tying the knots I made a pretty decent job of it. I don’t think you can tell it’s home made. Indeed I was admiring a necklace in Dorothy Perkins this afternoon that used just the same techniques.

I think a visit to the jewellery making bits and bobs section of eBay may be in order - it might help keep me from raiding the fridge over the Christmas holiday!

On the way into Manchester yesterday to pick up Mark’s ring (which wasn’t ready yet) we popped into this little craft centre in the Northern Quarter. There’s a little jewellery shop in there that makes bespoke jewellery so I’ve asked them for a quote for a wedding ring that will fit alongside my engagement ring perfectly. They are going to call me in the next few days. I really hope their rates are reasonable because it would be fabulous to get the perfect ring!

Given that I’d eaten uncontrollably for 4 days last week it didn’t come as a surprise to me that I’d put on weight. But I have to confess I hadn’t expected to have put on 1.5lbs!! So now I’m back exactly where I began since I joined. Fortunately I know that I’ve lost lots more weight prior to this, but I’m still now 2lb behind where I planned to be.

However, when I arrived to weigh in I discovered that I’d won £14 on last week’s raffle which instantly made me feel better. I never win raffles, but I’d purchased lucky number 7 so it must have been fate wanting to keep my spirits up. So I bought a WW spicy cookery book and a oil dispenser pump largely because Mark likes to cook with oil and this way we’ll know exactly how much he’s used so I can point up recipes more easily.

I’m also thinking of trying the core plan next week, but I’m not sure I can give up my chocolatey weetabix minis in a morning. It’s the only chocolate I get!

I’m really very disappointed in myself. A few days on holiday and I’m back to my old self - stuffing my face. It would appear that half the year on weight watchers has taught me nothing. From Thursday to Sunday all I did was eat. I REALLY enjoyed it though. I had a steak pie followed by black forest gateaux at a Table Table in Dudley, quite a few Lily O’Brien chocolates, traditional fish and chips at the Black Country museum, some more chocolates, creamy mushroom pasta (which was quite grim actually) at a restaurant in Llangollen, lots of crisps, sticky toffee pudding, pea and ham soup with loads of posh bread, braised steak in onion gravy at the Goat Inn on the Caernarfon-Porthmadog road, and some more crisps.

Of course it was nice while it lasted, but I’ve totally scuppered this week’s dieting and may well have put on several pounds. I’ve got my WW meeting this evening which I’m not looking forward to, but Joy is nothing like Majorie from Fat Fighters so I’m hoping all I’ll get is a disappointed/sympathetic look.

I’m back on the diet with a vengence now though. Vegetables all round tonight then.

Result! Debenhams in Bolton had a pair of my shoes left, the last pair, in my size - so I’ve bagged them. They’re perfect, apart from the fact I can’t walk in them yet… but I’ve got 6 months to practice. I’m sure I’ll have mastered it by then.

They are silver 3 inch heeled strappy sandals made of a see-though mesh peppered with little silvery-white crystals. They don’t sound great described this way but they really are lovely. I’m so pleased.

And by the way, happy birthday Cathy Wyse whereever you are these days!

Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it, honestly I couldn’t. I saw this dress in Debenham’s yesterday and fell in love with it. So I went back and bought it today.

I can’t even do it up, but I’m sure it’ll fit perfectly once I’ve lost another stone or so. (Or however much I have to lose for it to look fabulous - I’ll starve myself for a month or more if I have to). It’s an empire line midnight blue satin full length evening dress with a silver and peacock blue bead and sequin pattern on the cups and straps and waistband.

It’s exactly what I’d imagined. I’ve never considered a white or ivory wedding dress. I’ve always wanted something spangly and blue. With sparkley shoes and a sparkley handbag. And a crystal tiara and jewellery. I might have to lose my glasses for the day though.

I also found some Roland Cartier shoes that I thought would be perfect but they only had them in a size 8 and they won’t be getting anymore in because they are summer shoes - end of the line. I guess it’s coming up to Christmas though so sparkley shoes shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Mark has a hatred of limousines, stretch limousines, hummers or stretch hummers - he thinks they are chavvy, which of course they are. So when I asked him how we were going to get to and from the church (I’d ruled out walking or getting a taxi), Mark suggested we look for something big, classic and American. With wings!

After a quick google (ahh glorious google) we found Voyager Classics Car Rentals who wll let you rent a classic car for five hours and sort out a chauffeur for you. As soon as we heard the music on the website we knew we were in the right place. We’ve booked Chelsea, a bright red ‘57 Chevy as our ride. It’s going to be fab. She’s beautiful.

We had to phone up to make the booking but the staff were really friendly and helpful. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise though because the car and chauffeur are actually costing more than the wedding itself. Still we’ve got the car for 5 hours - the wedding is only 6 minutes so it’s probably a bargain!