Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Seventy-First

Honey Nut Cornflakes and nectarine.

My legs feel like they are going to drop off. I think I walked about 6 miles today.

On my travels I went to the cobbler and he worked magic on the worn down heels of my shoes.

When I lived in France, a cobbler actually rejected my shoes. They were so far gone that there was nothing to be done. (As I recall, there wasn't enough toe left to stitch onto a sole).

The rate at which I wear through shoes often makes me feel like one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Although with significantly fewer natty shoes and much less twinkly toes.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Seventieth

Fruit & Fibre and cherries.

I had guacamole for lunch (home-made); it's been eleven hours and I could still fend off vampires (and would-be paramours) with my garlic breath. I think next time, fewer cloves. T'was yummy though.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Ninth

Doppelganger shreddies & strawberries. 

Most likely you're all tired of hearing about my peculiar dreams, in which case, look away. If not...

Last night in my dream there was a snake that was somewhat furry, and a red panda. They were in a menagerie in a strange abandoned loft, along with various other creatures. Mostly birds. And I was watching, with some friends. We hadn't seen the snake at first. Then it suddenly went for the red panda and I tried to stop it by banging on the sides and giving it a fright; but it didn't work. The odd thing about the snake (in addition to its being furry) was that it took bites out of the panda, rather than swallowing it whole.

I really wish I would stop dreaming about snakes.

Also, there was someone else there who said it wasn't a red panda (I'm not sure who). But it was. What can it all mean?

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Six, Seven and Eight

Doppelganger shreddies & strawberries x 2 and cinnamon & raisin bagels with apricot jam and orange juice x 2

Oh dear, I've been rather a hopeless blogger this week. My stinky cold has turned me into a narcoleptic.

I'm almost all recovered now (though still sound ever-so-slightly like Marge Simpson).

This evening I saw almost all of the parts of "Ghost" that I haven't seen before. (It's seems to be one of those films that's always just ending, or half way through, whenever I encounter it).

Susie the architect and I watched (most of it) together and fell about laughing during the advert break when the title card popped up and she said "good font," and I said "I was just about to say the very same thing." I suppose we must be font fiends or something.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Fifth

Blueberry wheats and orange juice.

I found £5 in a handbag I haven't used in ages today. I love it when that happens. I spent it, almost all at once, on decadent lunch fare. Yum.

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Two, Three and Four

No 162: Muesli and peach.

No. 163: Blueberry wheats and orange juice.

No 164: Blueberry wheats and orange juice.

I've been far too lurgy-filled the past few days to string together sentences, hence the radio silence.

Still, between bouts of nose-blowing and lemsip drinking, I was tickled to read this from the managing director of BeautifulPeople.com on the subject of dumping 30,000 not-so beautiful people from the web site who were let in due to a computer virus:

We can't just sweep 30,000 ugly people under the carpet. …

We got suspicious when tens of thousands of new members were accepted over a six-week period, many of whom were no oil painting.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixty-First

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with raspberry jam and strawberry, blackberry and boysenberry smoothie.

Wimbledon starts tomorrow. Huzzah. Usually I'm not much of an armchair athlete; but I do love Wimbledon.  I still hold secret dreams of winning it. Though, given my racket skills, this really is outwith the realms of possibility. Instead, I shall cross my fingers for Murray.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixtieth

Fried egg & bacon. (Eaten in the company of my delicious goddaughter.)

I saw Page Eight -- the new David Hare film starring Billy Nighy -- at the Edinburgh Film Festival. It was glorious, though somewhat tainted by the verbally incontinent wenches in the row behind us. No amount of huffy, over-the shoulder glowering from my friend Susie and I would induce them to flaming well be quiet.

Why can't people manage to remain silent for two hours? I'm always amazed by people who find it necessary to commentate on absolutely everything. You're so much more likely to get lost in something if you're not jabbering away like parrot.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Ninth

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with raspberry jam and blackberry, strawberry and boysenberry smoothie.

It is frighteningly easy to waste a good deal of time on the Google satellite thing. Especially now that you can see Skye in quite some detail. I've just been perusing all my favourite swim spots, and rather wishing I was there, where -- miraculously -- it is not raining. Edinburgh is oppressively soggy today.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Eighth

Strawberries & peach with yoghurt & museli.

The man has a point.

Though he may count himself lucky not to have to go on hen weekends: twelve druken women all out food-fadding one another whilst wearing ridiculous T-shirts and the requisite silly headgear.

There are always a couple of long-time single girls virtually on the point of suicide by the end of the weekend, or homicide -- depending on the number of smug newly-engaged, rock-flashing women there are in the group. And, of course, there's the endless chorus of complaints about sore feet. (Why can't people bring along flats to change in to, or better still -- wear comfortable footwear the whole time!)

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Seventh

Muesli with strawberries.

Darn it! I missed the lunar eclipse. I keep missing them.

I did once watch one from a balcony in a ski resort in France. As I stood there with a friend, marvelling at the spectacle, she turned to me and said: "It's so shit I'm watching this with you and not some handsome man." I shared her feelings entirely.

There we were in this preposterously romantic setting, standing about like the odd couple in our flannel PJs and lamenting about our love lives.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Sixth

Muesli and strawbugs.

Isn't this quite the most pleasing zebroid picture you've seen in while?

Thank you Gruaniad.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Fifth

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with raspberry jam and a strawberry, blackberry & boysenberry smoothie.

It makes me very sad indeed that I live in a world in which people describe themselves (or their ideal candidates) as "motivated self-starters". What does this even mean? Are these people auto-spark plugs? Highly flammable? What?

And, as my good friend Miss Ramsay pointed out -- what are they motivated to do? I am motivated to eat chocolate; but this not really a selling point. Motivation tends also to be at stake in homicide investigations.

So, are we then a nation chock-full of homicidal spontaneous combustors?

Arg! Why is job hunting so full of jargon.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Fourth

Poached egg and spinach on marmitey toast.

Today I have been mostly turning bread into breadcrumbs. It's amazing how many 3/4 finished loaves of sliced bread a bit of guddling in the freezer will produce. I made enough crumbs to fill a two litre ice-cream tub. I've already put some to good use in a treacle tart (which I have eaten unholy quantities of).

I suppose the other crumbs will eventually find their way into burgers, or onto fishcakes and the like. (Home-made fishcakes are, it turns out, the perfect thing for using up left-over mashed potatoes.)

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Third

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with raspberry jam and cherry, cranberry and blueberry smoothie.

I went on a tremendously smart electrical train today. It made rather extraordinary noises as it glided along the tracks. (I'm not a fanatical train spotter or anything. It's just that my childhood love of Thomas the Tank Engine has resulted in a sort of residual fondness for locomotives.)

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Second

Blueberry wheats and strawberries.

Unbridled excitement. Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books have been turned into a BBC series. How could I have missed this? Fingers crossed that it is every bit as wonderful as the books. I cannot wait to dive into the first episode.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fifty-First

Cinnamon & raisin bagels with raspberry jam and cherry, blueberry and cranberry smoothie.

I must say, I've enjoyed today's musical google sign very much indeed. (It's a good deal easier to play than the cello: I've met my match in my latest tune.)

Must go, I'm turning in to a pumpkin.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fiftieth

Blueberry wheats and strawberries.

Gosh, what a day. One-hundred-and-fifty breakfasts for me, and the Olympic torch has been unveiled. It rather reminds me of a cheese grater -- which is probably not what the designers had in mind. Still, I like cheese; and it's certainly a good deal better than the 2012 logo. (That someone was paid £400,000 to design something that could easily have been the work of a GCSE art pupil still astonishes me.)

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Forty-Ninth

Blueberry wheats (!) and strawberries.

Today has been a mixed day for self control. I got up early and went for a run -- the first in ages. Well done. I also ate an entire bag of sour cherry sweeties. Not so well done. My tongue hurts and the sweets  alone exceed the "recommended daily amount" of sugar by 80 percent.

Must do better.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Forty-Eighth

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with raspberry jam and a cherry, blueberry and cranberry smoothie.

I'm genuinely disturbed that when you press the punctuation button on my phone three times, the first thing that pops up is an emoticon, not an ellipsis (in fact the first two are emoticons). I'm pretty sure I've ranted about my loathing of emoticons before, so I shall spare you. But I am disquieted...

Another slightly concerning thing about my phone -- given to me by the lovely Miss Ferguson when my own text message machine, as my Papa calls them, died -- is that it has Tetris on it.

I've already played it so many times that I see falling block thingys even when I'm doing something else. I shall never amount to anything.

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Forty-Five, Six and Seven

No. 145: Doppelganger shreddies and strawberries.

No. 146: Doppelganger shreddies and banana.

No. 147: Muesli and banana.

I'd like to attribute the absence of recent posts to being off adventuring; instead, I can account for it only by citing alcoholic over-indulgence and narcolepsy.

The most exciting thing I've done all weekend was to remove a decomposing mouse from behind a friend's washing machine. (It's stench gave it away.) I'm afraid I was entirely girly about the exercise. I approached it armed with rubber gloves and bacon tongs (for grabbing).

I was rather concerned it was going to disintegrate on being disturbed. Happily, it was surprisingly rigid. Poor old mousey. I almost think we ought to have given it a better send off than being bundled into a Sainsbury's bag and binned (along with the tongs).

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Forty-Fourth

I entirely forgot to photograph my breakfast this morning, but here's the empty bowl that was
still on my desk, and a half-drunk cup of tea: I had doppelganger shreddies with strawberries.

This evening I was asked to be Godmother to the world's sweetest baby girl. I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. And looking forward to spoiling her completely rotten. She's entirely perfect. I'm feeling tickled pink and very lucky.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Forty-Third

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with honey and banana.

Whatever happened to benefactors, that's what I want to know. I'm in need of a new job any day now (alas), and astonishingly have not won the lottery (despite having bought a ticket and everything), so now would be an excellent time to acquire a patron of sorts.

I think it's important that any benefactor be anonymous: that way I might feel less guilty about spending their endowment on decadent sandwiches and yoghurt covered banana chips, in addition to important things like rent and marmite.

Also, my hazy recollections of Great Expectations -- it's been roughly a decade and a half since I read it --  suggest that knowing (or indeed suspecting) the identity of your benefactor only leads to trouble.