Day 18 (Saturday)

Saturday went really well, had a raspberry shake before we set off for Portsmouth, and took a 1.5l bottle of water in the car which I sipped all the way down. I also decided to bake my two bars (1 for each day) before I left & take them with me so I had something I could nibble throughout the day. Got to Portsmouth around 3.30 which wasn't a bad run down, and only a few of the others were already there, which made things easier!

Told them about the diet, and was asked if it was a "desperate attempt to fit into my wedding dress" by James - cheeky sod, I wouldn't mind but he knows full well my dress hasn't been made yet! Actually, I'm really lucky in that h2b's step-mother used to be a dressmaker, and we get on really well. She offered to make my dress, which is fantastic, we've mocked it up but she's not going to start the actual dress till mid-May which is perfect!

Anyway, I was starting to feel that I really needed to eat, so made up my soup & tucked in while James was making the lasagne's for the evening. The rest of the night went really well too, there were loads of people there so it was actually really easy to not make an issue about me not eating - I ended up in the kitchen eating my soup with a couple of people, which was fine (and far less tortuous than being in the dining room with all the nibbles, garlic bread and lasagne's!). The birthday cake looked divine, chocolate gooey cake, but I politely refused (there were a few incredulous looks as I did though!).

The best bit was watching everyone else get slowly plastered, I had thought that would be the hardest thing & that either I'd be tempted to join in or I'd end up heading to bed early, but it was much easier than I had imagined, and very entertaining to watch! The only time someone tried to tempt me was when someone had the bright idea to raid James' whiskey collection at about 2am, but by that point the person doing the raiding was slurring his words quite a bit, and it was amusing more than anything!. Nibbled on my biscuits throughout the evening, think it was a good plan to bring those along, and will definitely have to do that again for any trips away!