Lizzie's diary, 16th December 2007

Diary entry: 16th December

.

"The party was everything I had hoped and feared it would be. Once we were there it was fine - some awkward moments like the woman who would not shut up about how she didn’t have an eating disorder but weighed herself every morning, never ate a proper meal, just picked at leftovers all day etc etc. I had to excuse myself and just walk away. But I’ve started to recognise that I mustn’t attribute to malice what I can put down to stupidity. And I don’t have to listen to it – I can just walk away. I needn’t have worried about any adverse reactions to my project – everyone I spoke to was totally supportive. In some ways it has made everything much easier and I think quite a lot of other people have found it a breath of fresh air. Although I am slightly surprised and more than a bit worried that so many overtly normal (as far as weight is concerned) women have major food issues. In many ways I have a healthier relationship with food then they do. It’s just I’m too good at restricting. Back to the party. (Sorry, on the train to Bruges at the moment hence the atrocious writing and lack of concentration). Despite having established that dinner was to be a sit-down affair in the Orangery it started to get later and later and what little appetite I might have had waned with each sip of champagne. (Still, there are calories in champagne aren’t there?!) Eventually the dinner gong was sounded (so much for sticking to set mealtimes) and we sat down. For some reason I had drawn a very long straw and was sitting between John and Julian (thank-you Belle). I did find myself slipping into old habits by taking the tiniest piece of gravadlax and making it look bigger by piling on the rocket and forced myself to take some bread which was quickly snaffled by Julian. Even when I try, things conspire against me. I then found myself deep in conversation with Julian sitting in front of a completely empty plate while everyone else was halfway through great slabs of bleeding cow. Managed to catch Barry’s eye who got on the case immediately – strode round the table, grabbed a plate of sea bass and plonked it in front of me announcing to Julian that he had to shut up as ‘my wife needs to eat’. My knight in shining armour. So at least I managed to eat something although I probably could have done better. But at least I didn’t take the easy option, claim to be past it and not eat a thing, however tempting that might have been."