Three days of being fed the most dire food (yet again the needs of the vegetarians were completely ignored) – all I got to eat during my trip were vegetables again – no protein, no carbohydrates, no balanced meals of any description.

Last night, when I arrived at the airport and had some control over what I ate, I dashed around looking for a restaurant to buy a proper meal in and discovered that Nice airport doesn’t have a restaurant in the departure lounge so we sat in a bar eating cheese sandwiches to satisfy our hunger. A mark of my hunger showed itself very clearly to me – that sandwich (plastic white bread, very cold from being in the fridge and packed in a plastic ‘long-life’ carton) tasted just about as good as any food I have ever eaten.

You know when your body is telling you that you need to do something to redress its balance and you crave that thing. Well, I have craved stodge all day so three of us who’d been in Nice went off to our local ‘greasy spoon’ caff for plates of eggs and chips at lunchtime today – carbohydrates and protein, just what we needed…..with a less healthy layer of fat. That’s the trouble – if your eating gets out of kilter, you end up eating things that are really BAD for you. But BOY did it taste good.

We (Patti and I) got home to DM and Mike ® and again, my need for comfort food kicked in so I decided to make ‘dragon pie’ – one of my own creations – it’s a bit like a shepherd’s pie but made with a rich tomato and lentil sauce, with mushrooms, sweet peppers and corn that’s got hot chilli in it. It’s really yummy and nowhere near as bad for you as you might think – because it’s got almost no fat in it and the lentils are high protein and high fibre.

I made it and dished it up to the four of us – here is my portion! They all looked at it and said ‘we’re not going to finish this – there is too much here’ and the next thing I knew there were four empty plates and four full tummies!!! Oh how glad I am to be home.

Last year I was ill and mad!