I'VE found a quick-fix diet tip for hassled mums who can't shift the mummy-muffin-middle.
Three people have today asked me if I've lost weight and in actual fact I've gained a pound from eating too many croissants and baguettes on our holiday to France.
My secret? A tan and a pair of skinny black jeans! A sunkissed glow hides the extra pounds like nothing else I've tried but when the tan fades, the lardy bits will still be there unfortunately.
I swopped my skinny black jeans for a pair of bulky skiing saloppettes this weekend when we went to try out the indoor skiing centre in Milton Keynes.
You get to ski on real snow in the middle of a shopping and entertainment centre right in the heart of Milton Keynes. Xscape (www.xscape.co.uk) houses a real ski slope, indoor skydiving, a rock climbing wall, a 16-screen cinema, a 24-lane bowling alley and a Virgin Active Gym and it took us about 50 minutes to get there from our home in Uxbridge.
The centre is also home to some great specialist shops including Billabong, Quicksilver, Ripcurl and a good selection of restaurants from Nando's and McDonalds to Costa, Ask and Dexters.
We weren't really sure what to expect with regards to the skiing. Surely it couldn't be as good as the real thing? My only experience of skiing in this country was regular visits to the old Uxbridge dry ski slope as part of our PE lessons when I was a schoolgirl at Douay Martyrs in Ickenham.
Looking back, we were so lucky to be taken skiing for our PE lessons rather than the dreaded cross-country running around the streets of Ickenham. The dry ski slope was brilliant fun but absolutely nothing like the real thing - your legs would judder as you attempted a turn on the artificial slope.
I am happy to report the skiing at SNO!zone (www. snozonemiltonkeynes.com) was superb. The snow was perfect and we made a few snowballs to throw at each other too. There are two button drag lifts and the depth of the snow on these wasn't great but the snow on the runs was superb.
We also booked a 45 minute tobogganing session that the kids loved. You are given a small plastic toboggan to sit on and then you hurtle down the runs racing each other.
Forty-five minutes is exactly enough time, it's exhausting walking back up the slope and the smaller kids in our group were finding it difficult towards the end of the session.
All in all we had a great afternoon with two exceptions. Number one - the price. It is astronomically expensive!
At £68 for two adults and two children for one hour skiing it is not something we will be doing regularly! This does include all your ski equipment and I suppose it's very expensive for them to run hence the price.
The tobogganing was a bit more affordable starting at £11 for 30 minutes.
My second gripe was the safety of the skiing area of the slope. There were a couple of skiers going crazy on the slope towards the end of our session.
They were hurtling down as fast as they could, out of control and a danger to themselves and people around them. They were constantly given 'warnings' but, in our opinion, they should have been asked to leave.
Hopefully this was a one-off and it's usually better policed.
It was very strange when the skiing finished struggling out of all the winter skiing clothes and slipping back into a summer dress and flipflops.
My house looks like a bizarre laundry now, with all the holiday washing intermingled with bulky winter coats, thermals and saloppettes drying out!
