Day 34

Liz -

A testing day today to say the least. We are all extremely tired (both kids and adults) so today has felt like the longest day in a long time. We had a lovely morning - with believe it or not a lay in till 6am!, we then all went down to the swimming pool, Jack amazed us with how well he can swim now and it was great to see all 3 kids having a fab time in the pool. I'd had a shake before we went however my stomach was rumbling by the time i'd finished swimming, it hasnt done this in a long time. So when we got back and we were all showered we made everyone lunch and Mike and myself had our second shakes of the day.

Unfortuantly things became hard from that point on, I just got very stressed very easily (as I say lack of sleep over the last 3 nights) but I was cheered up again by our attempts to get one of the kids toys back off the roof with shoulder sits & stands (we didn't succeed, we only got the broom stuck up there too!) Maintenence came round eventually to get this down for us, so all was good in the end.

We then went out back down to the pier as we'd book the kids into an indoor play centre before dinner in a nice resturant for our last evening. This was nice as the kids were running around for a while and we got some time as just the 4 adults. We then watched Grace & Riley on a couple of rides before we headed off for dinner.

We'd booked a nice resturant down by the sea front for dinner, we were going to have salads with some fish as I mentioned yesterday however when we got there it was a different menu so we opted for Veg Thai Green Curry & we asked them to swap the rice for a salad instead. Added a bit of balsamic vinegar to the salad and boom you've got yourself a very nice meal. It felt good to be eating out for a change and something we know we are able to do should we want to. I'm glad in a way they wern't doing the salad's as I do feel this would have felt like we were cheating, and although we have done so well for the last 4.5 weeks I don't want to go and ruin it before the end of the 8 weeks.

Tomorrow is home time & tattoo day for us. We are looking forward to an early night as we binge watch friends (since we watched the reunion we remembered what a good programme this was so decided to start from the beginning again). We then get Lexi on Sat morning so some nice walks with her will be good next week.

Mike -

Another up and down day for me today. Some really lovely moments but also some really hard times. Jack was up at 6am so i came and sat with him (slept on the sofa) whilst he watched some tv. He was relatively well behaved this morning and was extremely excited with the prospect of going swimming. He wanted to try out the new swimming costume we had got him before coming away which fit him really nicely. We all had a nice breakfast together with Jack on toast, my sister and brother in law and their kids on the cereal and me and Liz on shakes. As we finished it was time to go swimming. It was lovely seeing Jack learning to swim and he did so well bless him. We all had a lovely time although our 40 minute alloted session didn't seem to last 40 minutes.

After swimming we all came back and showered and had lunch together again. My sister and brother in law had the most amazing looking and smelling bacon baguettes. As it was cooking I was enchanted by the smell and could feel my stomach rumbling so me and Liz had a chocolate shake. We had then arranged an afternoon at the pier again with the kids and booked them in to a soft play centre which kept the kids entertained for a couple of hours before we went out for dinner together.

Dinner had been on our conversation list since we had got here. We booked the restaurant in advance and decided that me and Liz would push the boat out and have a salad with either ham or salmon as a treat for sticking to our guns whilst we were away. When we got to the restaurant it was a limited menu they were serving (bloody covid again) but said we thought that a thai green curry would be the least damaging option. We asked for a side salad to accompany the curry rather than rice and crackers and explained the diet we were on. I have to say the dish was beautiful but i am ashamed to say I couldn't eat it all. Before this diet i would have easily had a starter, a main and a pudding. My how i have changed.

I have one new side effect that i have noted over the last few days. When i bend over to tie my shows or put my socks on etc i stand back up and feel faint. It is very weird, i have suffered like most people with a massive rush of blood to the head that makes you feel dizzy but i have never felt faint before.

The last thing for today is that on reflection on such a restricted diet it may not have been sensible to put Liz on my shoulders to try and retrieve the toy that had been stranded on the roof the last couple of days. I managed to stand up and keep up on my feet (with help) but the getting down bit wasn't such a good experience. I moved back and tried to begin the process of getting her down but as I walked backwards I started to lean backward so she leant forward and the pressure on my neck i thought i was going to fall over with her on top of me. Still on the whole a better day than i expected.

Carpe Diem 4L