Z runs late

I was really tired last night, and would have liked to go to bed right after dinner. But I knew that I'd have woken up in the early hours, so I hung on and was in bed by 11 and asleep soon after. Half an hour after that, the Sage woke me...we'll draw, I suggest, a polite veil over the next interlude, but if you have ever read my rules for marriage, the third was called upon, and I fell into another heavy sleep around midnight.

The alarm racketed at 6.15. I turned it off and went back to sleep. The second alarm told me the News According To Radio 4 at 7.15 and I got up. I was still tired afterwards, and I think it was that fact that led me to eat all day.

7.30, porridge. Now, this is no delicious and indulgent oatmeal dish; it is made with a teacup half-full of porridge oats, the same cup half-filled with milk and topped up with water and a pinch of salt. This is boiled strenuously until it thickens and then eaten. No sugar, milk or additional salt, let alone syrup, cream or even yoghurt.

But by 10, I craved a bacon sandwich. I mentioned it to Tim, who salivated, so I toddled down to the caff - they deliver, bless their lovely hearts. I thought I might not need much lunch, but found myself in the bakery buying a large granary turkey and salad roll and a cup of home-made vegetable soup.

Mind you, I couldn't manage all the roll. But I still ate more than usual ... well, by one bacon roll and possibly the soup. I've a feeling that the diet is stuffed for the day, though. There was still enough of yesterday's chicken and ham dish to last for tonight, though that was, at last, the finish of the Christmas ham.

Ooh, very unpleasant. The fire in the dining room hadn't been lit and so supper was eaten in the drawing room - yes, darlings, a TV dinner. I've shocked you, I know. Ro had on a programme about people who only eat raw food, and within moments one was subjected to the sight of a colonic irrigation. I addressed myself resolutely to my plate and advised the Sage to do the same. But then we heard a couple whose regime involved veggie juice and enemas - as they put it, Juice and Sluice. The bloke said that, when he smells coffee, he thinks of his intestine rather than his tastebuds (well, I can't remember what he said, but that was the gist). As well as coffee enemas, they use lemon enemas - or, they said, 'lenemas'.

Quite often, when someone has written a humorous blogpost, a commenter remarks that he or she has spat coffee, or possibly breakfast cereal, over the keyboard. I don't know if this is literally true very often. But in this case, my mouthful absolutely did get ejected onto my wineglass (the outside) and the newspaper (waiting to be read when I'd finished eating). And not because I was laughing.