I have curves ...

The other evening we were watching the TV and a dancer was holding a pose - she was so skinny that her ribs stuck out further than her breasts - is that really what society thinks a woman should look like?

Up until the birth of my first child I was slim, a size 10 ish.   After the first pregnancy I stayed a size 12, after the second child I stayed a size 14 and that's where I am now and I am happy.  (Probably a wise warning about having any more children though LOL).

There is so much pressure in the media for people to diet, to be skinny and quite frankly it annoys the bejezubs out of me.

Don't get me wrong I am all for eating healthy, I do most days and I think it is very important to look after your body and all it's internal workings.  But, I also think that life is for living and you have to have some pleasures, for me food is one of them.   I love the whole package - growing food, looking at food, reading about food, cooking food and eating it.   I have lived on a farm so I have even seen the whole food process up close and personal.

But why do we put so much pressure as a nation on women in particular and young girls to be so skinny?  That isn't healthy either.

Thankfully my hubby likes a woman with curves (even more thankfully he doesn't seem to mind the jelly belly either!).  I have carried two children and I have had two C sections - there is no way without the help of Posh Spice's plastic surgeon that my stomach is ever going to lay flat.

I eat a healthy diet, lots of fruit and vegetables, pulses, pasta, rice etc etc.  I rarely purchase ready meals as I prefer to make all our meals from scratch so I know what goes into everything that myself and my family eat.  But yes we have treats, we have a cake if we fancy one, we have chocolate if we want it - but all in moderation.  

I also saw this week a picture of Dawn French now she has lost 6 stone and I have to be honest I thought it made her look sooo much older.  Good on her for doing what she has done for health reasons but with her being such an advocate for curvy women for so long I found it quite disappointing.   There was also an article I read about Martine McCutcheon - she advertises a healthy brand of yogurt, the article was complaining that she appeared on a recent red carpet sporting some curves and they didn't feel it was right for her to advertise yogurt as healthy when she is at the moment a size 12 - WHAT??????  She looked beautiful, she looked lovely, she looked NORMAL sized!

Marilyn Monroe was a size 16 and she was gorgeous, she looked like a real woman, in fact in most of the films from the 50s and 60s women were curvy, they looked gorgeous and they looked healthy - come on media let's start working on the basis that women should look like women please - enough with the pressure to be a size 0 coz that just isn't real life.

Tansy
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Excited? Me?

It is fair to say that I am now just a little bit excited about the festive season...OK maybe more than just a little bit.

I love the Autumn, I love the Winter - I am not a sit on a beach in the boiling hot sun kinda person, I love to be wrapped up warm trudging through crispy autumn leaves or crunchy snow or (preferably) curled up indoors with a blanket and a good book.

What I really love is the festive season.  Whether it stems from such wonderful festivities as a child or whether I was just born that way who knows?

This next couple of weeks are the best.   It starts to get busy on the social front now - school nativity plays, visits to see Santa (in a forest, with a tractor ride and faerie trail), cinema this week with the children to see Arthur Christmas and of course the meals out and catching up with various family and friends to exchange cards and presents.

Sitting in the late afternoon after the school run with the children writing their cards to give out, wrapping up all the presents sitting amongst all the decorations that went up last week and listening to Yule tunes - wonderful!

This morning I had to go to the Post Office (not for me, my cards are all posted but for my boss who is not quite so organised LOL) on the way back I was walking through our village and I decided to stop in a lovely little patissere and have a latte...oh and a honey custard slice ;-).  It was early so the cafe was very quiet, I sat with my coffee and cake and it was bliss.  A small moment of peace and calm.  Watching all the shoppers outside going about their business.   Then walking back in my own little world, wrapped up against the cold - it's chilly but with beautiful blue skies streaked with wispy white clouds, playing spot the Yule tree in the windows of the houses I pass - lovely.

I am extremely blessed in that on the Winter Solstice I will celebrate during the day in my own way, then cook a special meal and spend the evening with my  hubby and children, then on Christmas Eve we have a special meal again, then Christmas Day is spent with my lovely parents & brother - my mum is a fabulous cook and we have enough food to feed us for weeks.  

Hubby finishes work a couple of days before the 25th and doesn't go back to work until the New Year - this is extremely special as we get to spend all that time as a family.

So now I am ready ... bring it on!

Tansy
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