One of the downsides of getting older is that your sight goes out the window.  One of the upsides is that looking at yourself in the mirror is like being filmed in soft focus.  Just lovely.  After having ghastly mugshots taken today for driving licence renewal, reality check.  Apologies to the general public.  I genuinely didn't know that this is the face I am presenting to the world.  Why did no-one tell me?!

It's London.  It's snowing.  The daughters university in Stoke has closed and have just been notified that the sons school is sending the children home at midday.  I went to school and college in the 60s and 70s and trust me, the winters back then were far more cold.  I cannot think of a single event that caused either establishment to close for the day.  It would have taken an avalanche and then, maybe, they just might have considered it.  Snow meant one thing.  Extreme fun.  Jeez, just call me cantankerous!

Does giving make us feel less guilty about being born lucky?

Most Ladies and some Gents.  Think back to when you went on your first diet.  Obviously you did it because you thought you were overweight.  Now go find a photo from that period in your life.  Are you thinking 'fuck, I wasn't even fat'?  Thought so.

'Genes load the gun, environment pulls the trigger.'  Came across this recently, regarding whether eating disorders could possibly be genetic but I think you can apply it to alot of things.  Alzheimers, heart disease, blood pressure, high cholesterol.  Pick one.  There are things we can do.  We can try.  Don't accept everything as a foregone conclusion.

I keep cutting out bits of articles from magazines which give excellent advice, tips, things to ponder on and it is all sound advice.  Thing is, it did actually make me think.  Does anyone ever really make changes, in particular, long-term changes to the way they live or think based on anything they have read in self-help articles?  Advice to live in the moment, to let things go, to not worry, to not procrastinate, yada yada yada.  When you read anything in a calm state, of course you think, 'great advice', but when you are in a dark place, trust me, the last thing you are remembering, is 'that' article.

When something works for you once, does it automatically mean that it always will in the future or is everything in life right for the person you are at the time?  Surely as people, we are constantly evolving.

'I'm no actor and I've got 64 films to prove it.'  Victor Mature's response to an exclusive California country club refusing him entry on the grounds that they didn't admit actors.  This is my absolute favourite quote.  Ever!

'We are never really in control, we just think we are when things go our way.'  Is this the case?  Should we accept that we are pretty powerless over many of life's events and people?  Should we do our best in life but accept that the outcome is out of our hands?  Liberating?

In the extremely unlikely event I ever have another child and it is a masculine child, yes yes I know, from The Godfather, can't resist, I am going to name him Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit.  What a truly bloody brilliant name!

I think I may officially be a grumpy old woman.  I was vocally aghast at the price of popcorn in the cinema today, well it is ridiculously expensive, followed by me questioning whether she had given me two scoops of ice-cream cos it definately looked like it was only one.  I don't mind a mark-up and lord knows I love Ben and Jerrys but if you are gonna charge me alot of money, at least be generous with the volume.  The icing on the cake of me needing a small mortgage to take the son to the cinema was some woman behind me, smashing her gargantuan sized bag into the back of my head whilst I was seated.  At least I refrained from apologising which I usually do in supermarkets when someone runs over my foot with their trolley!

'If you do good, good things will happen.'  I would love to believe this but sadly, bad things happen to very good people and good things happen to bad people.  Is everything in life accidental and random?

So, new year and a whole new bunch of diets out there.  If I hear one more person say 'why don't you just eat less and move more, it's that simple?', I shall scream.  Do these imbeciles think that people carrying extra weight haven't figured this out?  Trust me, if it was that simple, we would have already done it.  Believe it or not, we do not want to have so many food issues and have weight take over our lives.