My, how time flies when you're having fun. I've only just realised that it's almost two months since my last post. Christmas and the New Year have a lot to answer for - and in my particular case it was a mixture of indulgence and indolence I must confess. How can tempus fugit so fast when you're living life (relatively speaking) in the slow lane? Christmas was just wonderful - the girls came round, we ate lots of lovely food and really, really chilled. Not fab on the weight reduction front, but I'm now not altogether convinced that I should be concentrating my efforts in that direction. And I'm going to blame it all on my favourite butcher.

On Christmas Eve I arrived in his shop to see Roger already in full flow. Roger just loves his life; ever since he was made redundant he has been the male equivalent of a scrummy (I've been trying to think of an appropriate acronym and have failed completely - the best I could do was 'gaddy' - gym attending daddy - any better suggestions gratefully received) and was regaling Butcher Bill with the trials and tribulations of entertaining two elderly relatives throughout the festive season both in various stages of dementure.

"We've brought all the presents for them to make their lives easier, but even now they're worrying about it all. I've had to make lists for them both so they can see that everyone has a present and they're all wrapped. That worked for about five minutes then it was - are they all labelled? So I put another column on the list and ticked that. I've escaped before they can find something else to bother them."

At that point Butcher Bill produced my sirloin - three ribs with fillet in - a true Flintstone cut of meat.

"Blimey," said Roger, "You need to be careful about eating all of that - just think of the cholesterol."

"You don't want to worry about that," quipped Bill. "You don't want to grow old. You want to eat well and keel over young - you don't want to end up like your rellies - die before you dribble, that's what I say."

Hmmm. Food for thought, isn't it?

Anyway, to whet your appetite, here's the evidence of my bingo wing reducing dining room...

It's amazing the number of people who go in there and think we have a new fire place - just shows what a bit of swanky wallpaper can do.

Hey, look - we've even got toning curtains (although that took me until the New Year). The bay window faces south and the room gets bathed in sunshine, so just to ensure the curtains don't burn like the last pair, I've interlined and used blackout lining. The curtains are so blinking heavy I reckon I did the equivalent of a couple of hours in the gym simply hanging them.

Check this out - even matching chairs - thanks to my mate Louise reminding me about the Crowson shop in Buxted. All covered for the princely sum of £8! And there's enough fabric to allow me to cover an additional two chairs should we ever feel flush enough to get another couple.

Also, prior to Christmas (by the skin of my teeth) I managed to decorate Hannah's room (the curtains and cupboard door linings (they're glass fronted so need some backing to conceal the mess within) are still pending), but the rest of it is much lighter and brighter. I became a big fan of 'paste the wall' wallpaper - no messing about with pasting tables, no having to pre-cut to size, just slap the paste on the wall, offer the paper up, match the patterns and you're there.

This is Hannah when we first arrived creating her purple paradise - which, with voile lilac curtains looked pretty groovy, actually, but made the space surprisingly dark and shrunk the walls...

And this is what it's been transformed to thanks to a dash of paint and three and a bit rolls of half price wallpaper. It seems to have doubled in size. Hannah has undergone a slightly different transformation; she's taller, slimmer and brunette.

Now I'm procrastinating about doing Ellen's room. When we first moved she wanted an underwater room - I was really pleased with the result. But now, it's a bit old hat and she would like something more sophisticated. Cream and burgundy are her colours of choice - these home improvement programmes have a lot to answer for.

Soon it will be time for a slight re-evaluation. My Captain of Industry is even threatening to get me working full time - proper, paid employment. The hard fact is that the economic slow down has affected his firm; there are very few pub or restaurant companies investing in their portfolios at the moment. Those whose balance sheets have been affected adversely by the revaluation of their property portfolio and mortgage obligations simply don't have the resources to invest; those that have a war chest are waiting for the property market to collapse further so they can buy new stock at rock bottom prices.

The office doesn't keep me particularly busy at the moment, but other things crop up - like making curtains for domestic accommodation for the managers of a hotel. Now, that was a bit of a challenge as I had to source flame retardant fabric (it's classified as a place of work, so has to comply with fire regulations unlike domestic accommodation) and it took me ages to source anything viable. I googled and facebooked and found very little - then I discovered what I was doing wrong. The fabric for curtains is classified as drapery - I was putting the wrong criteria in the search engines. Easy peasy once you know. I ordered the fabric and one week later (with the aid of a couple of really late nights/early mornings) I'd made and hung seven pairs of curtains (three bedrooms - two of them bays, one dining room, one lounge large bay, stair and bathroom windows). True to form, I grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take me to make them up which was ridiculous considering I knew how labour intensive the dining room curtains were. Being me, I factored in overoptimistic assessments of how much I was going to speed up and didn't allow for how much additional time really big curtains take. Next time I will be better prepared. There must be a plethora of jokes about retarded curtains but I refuse to be drawn on the subject...

However, having found this lovely website which specialises in curtains for the hospitality sector, I'm burning with ambition to put my sewing machine to good use. So if any of you out there need new drapes or decs, my interior design expertise comes for free. Just think of it as helping a middle aged woman to become a shadow of her former self.