My illness has caused me to think (see DM, I still can!) about the paradoxes all around us. The doctor blamed a Spanish Omelette that was very runny in the middle, eaten at my last meal in Barcelona for my plight – eggs, particularly lightly cooked ones often are the source of Salmonella poisoning. It pained me to hear her verdict really, even though I know that what I was served for my lunch last Thursday bore no relation at all to my own eggs, kindly laid for me each day by Milly, Molly, Terri and Sherri. I feel completely confident that the eggs from my fat bottomed girls are as healthy as any food on this planet.

Being sick has also been both good and bad – obviously three solid days of the most vile sickness has been very bad BUT on the bright side, I’ve lost one and a half stone (twenty one pounds or around ten kilos) and I’ve been forced to sit back, sleep and let my body recover. The recovery isn’t just about the illness either, it’s also about months of working like a dog. Interestingly, I could argue (and I probably will at some stage) the company ‘made’ me sick by not catering for my vegetarian needs properly while I was away and now the company pays the price of a week of cancelled training sessions and my absence from work.

A very good outcome has been DM’s cooking and care – he’s been brilliant, making wonderful home-made soup, omelette (yes, I trusted him and my girls not to poison me again) and providing me with whatever I want as soon as I ask. I rarely ever get such pampering. The downside is that I’m not allowed to be in my own kitchen, which is a place I love to be……and now I’m starting to feel a bit more alive, I hate the exclusion.

I’ve been glued to daytime TV and I can’t make up my mind if it’s nice to have the time to indulge myself with complete junk TV or whether I’ve reached the bottom of the slippery slope by getting transfixed by it. At the moment, my programme of choice is a chef who is doing a world-wide gastronomic tour and is ‘currently’ in Brazil sampling local cuisine which seems to be a mix of wonderfully fresh, exotic fish (even though I don’t eat it, I still appreciate how good it is to most) and dreadful cuts of meat (like pigs ears and oxtail) made into stews.

The photo is designed to show something that the jury is definitely out about – salt. There are many nutritionists who say it’s a no-go, yet our bodies DO need salt. I have been taking an oral rehydration therapy to replace the essential salts and minerals that have been leeching out of my body since last Thursday. There are certainly indications that too much salt is bad for you (especially the very young and those a bit older with illnesses like high blood pressure) and I have not used salt as an additive in almost all of my cooking for many years now. I actually think you have a couple of weeks where stuff tastes bland but once your taste buds adjust, it tastes a whole lot better. So much so that when we eat at other people’s houses now, I always end up with the raging thirst that too much salt brings on.

I believe though, that there is no substantial evidence of ill-effect in normal, healthy adults, eating it moderately. The problem comes in all the processed food, where salt content is very often very high. Our Government is trying to bring food producers into line about this issue but the truth is that modern cooking methods in mass food production deliver bland, tasteless food so salt is often the saviour of the mass-producers by giving flavour to something otherwise at best bland and at worst completely tasteless.

So, we’ll carry on having salt on our chips (on the very odd occasion we eat them) and we’ll carry on putting it in our home-made bread. Good or bad? Everyone makes their own choice. Me, I think it’s good…..but then I probably eat much less of the stuff than most women of my age because I don’t eat the pre-packed stuff.

This is Maldon – the sea salt that all the chefs reckon is the best. I’m inclined to agree though clearly my experience isn’t what theirs is!

Michael Brown and Jermain Defoe were my heroes last year for saving our bacon and two years ago I was selling off my only 'real' jewellery .....for a slap-up lunch.