My two stones award from Slimming World! My new GIN necklace from Tatty Devine. The perfect summer scent – Eau Moheli by Diptyche. The Cath Kidston Gromit.
It’s been a bit of a busy one at Guillotine Towers as we’re off on holiday at the weekend! We’re not going anywhere exotic – just spending a fortnight in Cumbria (on the edge of the Lake District) so that I can finish From Whitechapel and visit Alnwick Castle and Edinburgh. It’s going to be lovely. Anyway, this means that I’ve been winding down the blog a bit at the moment and also doing some epic shopping so that we’ll be ready for some adventuring!
As I may have mentioned here before, I’ve been following the Slimming World diet for the last year which has been mostly a bit of a depressing let down as it’s taken me AGES to lose any serious amount of weight. I lost a stone between September and January then lost nothing for months until about quite recently when something kicked in and I lost another stone over the course of about six weeks and am now heading towards losing my third.
Me at the end of July 2012.
Me at the end of July 2013, two stones lighter and three dress sizes smaller.
A bit of a difference, eh?
Spinach and sweet potato curry, 50g rice, half a bowl of salad with mayonnaise that is so low fat that it’s not really mayonnaise at all. I’m losing about 2-4lbs a week eating stuff like this.
People have been asking how I’ve shifted so much weight over the last month and a half so if you’re interested here are my top tips:
1. Eat a lot of curry. No seriously, curry when made right and at home is surprisingly low fat and even Korma can be made low fat if you use a low fat coconut yoghurt instead of the usual coconut and cream or whatever.
2. Weigh out rice and pasta. I have no more than 50g a day.
3. Drink nothing but water.
4. No snacking between meals.
5. Know in advance what you’re going to eat as I found that I was slipping off the diet wagon when I was hungry, didn’t know what to eat and just wanted to shove ANYTHING in my face asap.
6. When serving up, fill half the plate with salad then add a quarter rice or pasta and everything else in the other quarter.
I think that’s it.
Weirdly big hair, smug face, new frock from Collectif in a size that I never thought I would ever get to wear again.
Anyway, last week I celebrated my weight loss by ordering some lovely new dresses in the Collectif sale, which ended today. Boo hoo. Collectif are an AMAZING company – their dresses are beautiful and super flattering and I honestly cannot fault their customer service either. They are always so helpful, courteous and kind when I email with my dithery stupid questions and very prompt when it comes to sending out orders or sorting out returns. I LOVE them.
Regina dress in Hibiscus print. I had to get this after seeing it on the Rockalily blog (which is SUPERB by the way – I’m even planning to go to London just to get my hair cut at her salon, which is a bit Frank Churchill of me seeing as I live in Bristol but hey.)
Regina dress in leopard print. I do love a bit of leopard print and this is a real WOW dress once it’s on.
Violet dress in skull print. I originally ordered this dress in what I hoped was my size now only for it to be far too big. You can imagine my feelings when I emailed Collectif to ask what size I ought to be getting only to be told that actually I should fit into one TWO SIZES SMALLER and guess what, I do!
I love my new dresses! I have to say that when the top three dresses arrived and I tried them on, I actually cried a bit when I saw myself in them as I’m so used to being, well, rather larger than I am now and these were three sizes smaller and fit perfectly. In fact so thrilled was I that I then went and ordered a few more things!
Violet dress in anchor print, because I can’t resist an anchor print either.
Dolores Doll dress in black/white polka dots.
Jo cardigan with pistols on the back. I expect this to compete with my beloved Tequila cardigan for position of favourite!
Anyway, yes, if a rather glam retro vibe is your sort of thing then I’d definitely recommend Collectif as they are amazing! I mean, their dresses made me cry IN A VERY GOOD WAY and you can’t really say better than that, can you? (I buy all my own stuff incidentally so they haven’t paid me to say that or anything!)
This seems to be my Oh Whitechapel picture for some reason.
Other exciting things that happened this week included sorting out doing a talk at a really ace literary festival in Whitechapel in November (more about that later when it’s all absolutely official) and *drum roll* being announced as one of the speakers at this year’s Jack the Ripper Conference, also in Whitechapel this November. I’m not at liberty right now to reveal what I will be talking about or, most excitingly, where (trust me when I say that the location of my talk is a bit special) but rest assured that I am REALLY looking forward to this and it’s going to be an amazing experience.
Speaking of Jack the Ripper, one of my chums Neal Shelden is one of THE major experts on the Ripper’s victims and has put an extraordinary amount of time and effort into tracing their families and personal histories. His new book, Mary Jane Kelly and the Victims of Jack the Ripper: The 125th Anniversary came out a couple of weeks ago on Kindle and is a fabulous read for anyone interested in the murders and, like me, most particularly in the victims themselves.
The book explores the life of the fifth canonical victim Mary Jane Kelly focusing on her time in London’s East End and reveals the people that knew her and lived with her. In particular the residents of Breezer’s Hill and Pennington Street in St George in the East, and her Dutch friends who she went to live with when she first ventured into the area.
The book also asks the question as to what we can believe about her story prior to her life in London, and how much truth was there in her tale that she was born in Ireland and went to live in Wales.
There is also an update on the lives of the four other canonical victims, and a look at the murders and witness accounts.
I think that wraps it all up for now! Hope you’re all having an ace week too!
ps. Wait, I forgot about Pacific Rim! We went to see it last week and it is AMAZING. Oh my God, who knew. I thought this post about what British Jaeger robots would look like was completely hilarious although it missed off my personal favorite – the enormous green and purple Cillit Bang.
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