As I sit here typing before I head off to Saltaire to teach, I'm not feeling so great.  It's been a very busy week and last night I came down with a sore throat.  It just seemed odd to me to have one at this time year when the weather's been so exceptionally kind and so I looked back over my week.  I cut out bread from my diet and I'm convinced that's a factor.  I also wondered about stopping smoking, 6 months on by now - is my body still detoxing from all those years poisoning it?  I'm about to meditate and that always helps me get in a better frame of mind - I don't like feeling grumpy when I teach.  I don't mind it when I'm on my own, nobody experiences the backlash of my low mood!  Since I started blogging I've noticed the therapeutic and cathartic benefits of using the written/typed word to express myself - GET OUT MY BODY WHATEVER YOU ARE!!!

Evening: during the drive I reviewed my week and having researched my flu-like symptoms, I asked myself what I'd changed.  Since Monday I haven't eaten bread or sugar.  Yesterday late morning I felt a huge dip in mood and energy and slept for almost 3 hours!!!  My glands are right up and it feels like flu but it isn't, it's definitely food related.  I have felt paranoid and depressed and incapable of making my thoughts coherent for any length of time.  I should have been in bed but as the lessons are monthly I would have felt I was letting my students down.  My motivation was selfish - as well as getting paid to do what I love, I really like my students and they cheer me up!  I felt bad but I explained my situation and thankfully they were understanding.  I hadn't realised how dependent I had become on sugar since I stopped drinking.  The worst was straight after lunch, I would immediately crave biscuits after my healthy salad and slice of toast with bits, and I got a bit of biscuit habit.  Biscuits or sugary chocolate with a low cocoa percentage.  In my quest for perfection it became those brick like Italian almond biscotti and last week and the week before it was home baked cake in an attempt to feel virtuous.  On my drive from Scotland I had a few grapes for breakfast, then at Tebay I couldn't resist buying sugary treats and came away with a brownie AND a delightful lemon and blueberry concoction!  And a flat white to wash it all down.  It dawned on me I was falling into the trap my coach had warned me of - replacing one addiction with another!  As I go cold turkey YET AGAIN I'm quite gobsmacked at the hold sugar had over me.  It's far more potent than alcohol and cigarettes, on a level with class A drugs.  Not that I would know.  I'm feeling quite rough tonight and my muscles and joints are sore - do I have to keep doing this to myself?  In so many ways it's easier to kick 2 habits at once and feel twice as bad...  I don't miss the euphoric hit as I remember all too vividly the brain fog and lethargy that followed a binge.  As I head into the bank holiday I know it's going to involve exhausting obsessive research into better dietary habits...  I thought again about that Hugh F W programme I watched and felt a lot of anger at our obsessive consumerism that is basically fuelled by commercialism, all the bottomless sugary drinks for kids and hidden sugars in our food, not to mention those irresistible special offers.  2 for £3?  Yes please!!!  I for one am not falling for it anymore!!!

Back to teaching.  As rather an independent woman I don't like asking for help and I SO wish I could do everything myself!  I always read reviews if I'm going to use someone's services and with this in mind, and since it's good to update reviews on a regular basis, I asked the lovely Libby if she would do the honours, which she did most readily and generously.  I couldn't make head nor tail of the quirky message in her beautiful handmade card this afternoon but now I do - thanks Lib!!!  I think she gets me and my teaching!  She's a die hard devoted harp lover, practices so faithfully and never ever gives up, my kind of student!!!