The Long and Winding Road

I scale-hopped this morning: 11 stone 8.

(And you thought I was exaggerating how much weight I can gain in a couple of days.)

Frankly, I’m only slightly upset. Mostly, I’m just relieved. I’m still in the “acceptable weight category” (barely, but still), and I’ve had two days of eating appropriately – and it’s the day or two after the binge that, in my experience, are the trickiest.

Yesterday was particularly tough. Despite being up very late Tuesday closing stories for the magazine, I got up early Wednesday to fit in Pilates (and, yay me, managed to hold the dreaded plank for two minutes, something I’ve not yet been able to do.) Then, despite the wide availability of cookies, chocolate and champagne in the Brit Awards press room – because PR people know that the press are like small children: feed us junk and we will shut up and behave – I touched none of it except for diet Coke and a couple of bananas and strawberries. I brought my own dinner so there was no need to even contemplate the food table at length.

After the awards, I headed to an afterparty hosted by Kylie Minogue at a nightclub I loathe. It was the sort of frustrating evening that makes me (a) want to quit my job on the spot and (b) eat, but I did neither. Tonight I’ve got a drinks event that historically has been both boring and with very delicious canapés, not a diet-friendly combination (at least not for me). I may try to eat dinner beforehand.

* * *

I honestly believe and fervently hope this will be my last year in this job, and with that in mind, I’m trying to whine a little less and appreciate a little more, if for no other reason than my own sanity. Hours or days where I like or enjoy – let alone love – my job are incredibly rare, but they do exist.

Last night the Brit Awards were two of those hours. Besides performances from the Kaiser Chiefs and Amy Winehouse – both of whom I love – there was a five-song medley from Paul McCartney. Whatever you feel about McCartney’s post-Beatles career (there were multiple snide references to the Frog Chorus in the press section), it was hard not to feel lucky just being in the room for his set. The man still has it. Only Macca could get a bunch of jaded record company execs – plus a flotilla of rock stars – standing on their chairs, pumping their fists and singing along to “Hey Jude.” And there was a sweet tribute to Linda with “Live and Let Die,” with the crowd cheering as images of her lit up the screen during a video montage.

You’d think the man would be used to this sort of reception, but even he looked (pleasantly) surprised. And as a slightly jaded reporter who’d already been waiting around for hours not expecting much, so was I.