My mother-in-law

... is a real sweetheart. I mean, she's rather loud and very much set in her ways, not very adventurous or worldly, and we don't always understand each other - her language being my third language and she speaks it with a heavy accent - but as far as supporting me during my diet goes, she's gold.

We go to see them once every 3 weeks on a Sunday - in itself a very reasonable amount of in-law time ;-) - and have dinner with them. She is also quite heavy-set and has followed WW herself in the past, so knows what I can and can't eat and actually prepares special dishes for me when she makes anything that's not 100% good for me. So while evryone else was eating cheese croquettes for starters and fries with the main course, I got parma ham and melon, and boiled potatoes. Probably saving me about 12 points! What an angel :-)

On a more freaky note, she was telling me today how much she noticed I'd already lossed (bless her!), then told me not to lose too much or I wouldn't have any breasts left, adding "don't take my son's toys away!". Eeeeuw! Okay, so he's an only son and she is obviously extremely attached to him, but that was just one step too far for me.

But, moving swiftly on... today she made "paling in't groen", a traditional Belgian dish of eel in a green sauce made with spinach, celery, parsley, onions, etc. I was a bit squirmish at the idea of eating eel, but really it tastes just like any other fish, isn't slimy at all like I thought it would be and it went down really well :-)