I’m a lucky chap. I’m getting on now (I’m 33 yesterday) but I still have a great family who always manage to get me some really fun presents. Wii was definitely a feature of this year’s gifts and tonight I’ve been playing Wii Fit Plus. There’s some great new games in it, although my favourites are the juggling and the kung fu. I also got Mario Kart, Colin McRae Dirt Rally and another fitness one (can’t remember the name of it).

My folks paid for half of my new fiddle for me. A week ago today, I went to John Dike’s Violins in Sherborne and managed to find one stand out fiddle. In fact, the rest I didn’t much like but I liked this French fiddle that had been recently repaired from a sound post crack down the back. It cost £800, but my parents have kindly offered to pay half, so that was my very generous present from them.

Yesterday evening I went and saw the new Pixar movie, Up. It was really good. I could see myself in the old man, Carl. We saw it in 3D too, which was really great. Caroline wasn’t so impressed with the 3D, but I thought it worked well. It’s a reason to actually go to the cinema rather than just wait until it comes out on Blue Ray! We ate beforehand at TGI Friday’s a gorgeous, if somewhat oversized, meal before using our vouchers to get in the film for free

We’re off out tomorrow lunch for a meal with my parents and sister. I’m not sure if we’ve decided where to go yet, but we’ve also got various shopping tasks to do too before going to a fireworks do in the evening. Sunday evening we’re off around a musician friend’s house for another bonfire do. It’s a busy weekend!

A couple of weeks ago Daisy and I started on our diet again. I’d ballooned to 13 stone 8lb (86kg, 190lb) and my legs were starting to feel it: I’ve been having some trouble with my right hip for the last few weeks. Daisy’s also put on weight (better not tell!) so we’re back on the WeightWatchers diet again. It’s a very good diet – you can still have goodies as long as you count the points and don’t go over for the week. We don’t visit the meetings because we have all the books to do it ourselves (although it’s debatable if we have the motivation that the meetings give you).

Before we started the diet, we had already decided to do more exercise. Once a week I meet up with my friend and play badminton or squash, while Daisy goes swimming or to aqua aerobics with my friend’s partner. Last night I played squash for the first time in a while (both my friend and I prefer badminton). It was no more knackering than badminton, but much harder to play. That said, I felt much more able to play the game than the last time I played a couple of months ago. Still, I think we’ll continue to play badminton most often.

It’s a difficult time to start a diet. With my birthday and Christmas coming up, one must have nerves of steel not to end up binge eating. I’m sure we’ll forget the points on my birthday and Christmas day but we must stand strong on the days following.

It was Halloween last night and as I live in “bungalow city”, the lair of the old and infirm, I was not expecting any Trick or Treaters. In fact, we’ve not had any Trick or Treaters since we first moved here over 6 Halloweens ago. So it came as a surprise when the door bell rang while I was sitting, wrapped up in a blanket, enjoying Strictly Come Dancing.

Caroline and I looked at each other. We’ve just started a diet, so we have a lot of spare chocolate hanging around the house at the moment and we had already made some decisions about what we might give a Trick or Treater — it pays to be ready!

I begrudgingly got up and headed to the cupboard to get the boxes of sweets. When I got to the door I could see two young girls, probably early teens, standing outside dressed in black with blackish faces. They’d made a bit of an effort at least. More than the boys who once turned up to my mother-in-law’s house who wanted a penny for the guy when their guy was just their brother in a pram. I would have liked to have seen them burning that one!

I answered the door with my best scared face on. They weren’t scary, but I thought I would humour them.

“Wahh.. what have we got here?”
“Trick or Treat?”
“Uhm…”, I thought for a minute. Shall I let them off lightly? Nahh. “Well, what will you do if I don’t give you a treat?”

This came as a shock to them. ‘Was it really necessary to think up tricks these days?’ They looked at each other. They clearly hadn’t come prepared for having to actually do tricks. They just wanted the treats. One thought quickly.

“I’ll shine my torch in your face,” she proffered as a possible scary thing. Oh no, not the Torch of Dooom!
“That’s not a very good trick, is it?” I said, knowing the Torch of Doom was clearly the Harbinger of the Apocalypse.
“Oh, er…” It was clear at this point they were getting desperate. Was it possible this mad old bloke wasn’t actually going to give them chocolate after all their ‘effort’. The quick thinker had an idea and began to crack her fingers. It was quite gross and I’d put them through enough, so I feigned disgust at the cracking and got the chocolates.

I bought a couple of big boxes of “pick-n-mix” type ‘chocolate’ sugar shape things a while back during a weak moment in a wholesalers. We hadn’t got around to eating many because they’re really quite sickly. I’m sure they’re 99% sugar and 1% colouring. I offered our the box and the ghouls’ eyes lit up. “Whoa…” I told them to take a handful and they duly did, putting their booty into the bag they were carrying just for the occasion.

I remember back in the days when the idea was to go out with bags of sugar that you threatened to throw at the occupant’s car or their windows or, if you were really mean, at them! Nowadays kids go out without a thought about the tricks; they might as well turn up at your door and say “Chocolate or not?”