Growing and Shrinking

Dear Chroniclers,

whilst one member of the electrofried clan grows bigger by the day, two others continue to shrink.

It is, perhaps, a metaphor for life. The baton is being readied to pass onto the next generation, and so yours truly and dear mrs electrofried have decided it's time to get fit, not fat. Grand-parenting is, after all, a role worthy of some considerable investment.

Cook has received suitable instruction from the lady of the house. No longer does the electrofried dining-table groan under the weight of her prodigious largess. Gone are the deep-fat fried spam sandwiches, the triple-larded mashed turnip entrees, the stuffed tripe charcuterie. Even Cook's infamous chocolate surprise (with export-strength whipped lager topping) has been banished. Our stomachs groan; conceivably with a collective sigh of relief.

Teenygoth has not taken the news well. Indeed, she has now girded her fast dwindling stockpile of Mrs Patel's own label fruit'n'nut with a substantial chain and padlock combo, all the better to repulse midnight raids from her father. But the results of this abrupt regime change are there to be seen already. Since Christmas I've lost two stone of ugly fat which, for the avoidance of doubt, did not entail a premature severing of electrofried head from torso.

I was reminded visibly of the impact of my continuing weight loss just this morning. On opening a kitchen cupboard in search of the teabag for mrs electrofried's morning "cuppa" a pack of surplus marzipan, discarded from Cook's annual excuse for a family Christmas cake, fell into my lap. Weighing it in my hand, I observed I had lost the equivalent of twenty eight similar packs - sufficient to mould a life-size figurine of Mollie, our beloved Collie/spaniel mongrel.

Chroniclers, I fear there is some way still to go, but we've made a start and we're sticking to it!

And the reason for this is illustrated graphically in the photograph above. There sits our eldest, her bump prodded tentatively by darling teenygoth. A subcutaneous electrofried grand-child grows ever stronger within, readying his/herself for the fast approaching birthing day. Unless, of course, our eldest has eaten all the marzipan...!

yours as ever,

electrofried(mr)