Le grand return

So, here I am back from a fortnight's holiday which included a week in sunny Cape Verde.  And I feel awful.  Holiday is clearly not good for me..... Reader, I caught a flu bug on the plane (P is also struck down) and it really was flu, not a bad cold.  Every inch of my skin is super-sensitive, I ache everywhere and have no energy.  Now I'b getting the coldy bit too.  Sniffle.  So I'm not at work - something that looks highly dubious after leave - and feeling very guilty.  Possibly only fractionally less guilty than I'd feel if someone caught this bug.  It's clearly very easy to catch as I got it from P and I think this is only the 2nd time in 20 years that we've caught something from the other (for the inquiring reader, the other time was Norovirus.  Ah yes, what a Christmas that was...)

Still.  A shot of summer in dreary winter comes highly recommended - and we seem to have come back to spring so I'm hoping that my winter blues have been sent well and truly packing.  The sea out there looked like I'd taken an amazing photo - and then put an utterly unrealistic filter on it.  But it really WAS that beautiful.  Obviously I only paddled because, dear Reader, I did not take a swimsuit. Yes to that sharp inhalation of breath.  I started trying them on, my anxiety and self-loathing rocketed and I decided to just shove them back in the drawer.  It's not ideal but it was the most sensible way - for me - to deal with the whole issue.

I haven't weighed yet.  I ate very well in CV - not a lesson in restraint but rather that the food was not great.  It was okay but not great.  Not a single pudding passed my lips.  But then, a lot of pina coladas did I'm afraid.  And since the great flu woe (AND I had the flu jab this year, grrr), I have eaten mainly bread and chocolate.  Not together.  Clearly toast should only ever have marmite on.  But that's a whole other culinary story.  My jeans still fit and I can get my engagement ring off but I fear that there's no way I can escape extra lard.  So, as soon as I can shed this lurgy, I need to clamber back on that wagon and knuckle down again.  I still have quite a lot of Jane Plan packs so will use those up and then consider.  I reckon I can duplicate her plan with more palatable food - it's just the discipline of keeping rigidly to that and not letting extras creep in.  Ha, you can spot the tricksiness in this plan, can't you?

Back to CV - would I recommend it?  Yes, with some small print: the weather, sea and beaches are spectacular.  The food isn't great (excepting breakfasts, weirdly, as normally I don't like breakfast).  There is NOTHING to see and do apart from walking on the beach, swimming and sunning.  It's all big all-inclusive package breaks,  so the flight is horrendous (thanks Thomson) and there are plenty of Brits letting the side down - you know, the sort that moan that the tea and bacon in their daily fry up is `not like home` (yeah, well nor is the weather mate), who see the all-inclusive as a challenge to eat ridiculous quantities of food, all the time (god knows what the locals think - who generally have very little), all with chips, and who are generally a bit yobby.  I think we were pretty much the only people who made the effort to learn a bit of Creole to chat to the extremely nice staff - and the only ones without huge tattoos.  Admittedly I am a bit biased against tattoos and I suspect that is is entirely possible to have something artistic and tasteful.  These were not those tattoos.  Think huge EDL style knights carrying St George's flag or the sort that look like they were done by an amateur whilst in prison.   Or both.  We also saw people starting on the lager at breakfast and those who got so drunk they were falling over - yelling profanities.  Anyway, you should all definitely go there to redress the Brit balance.  Just be warned that the bacon and baked beans are not 'proper'.  Apparently.