I have a confession of a heinous crime to make to you……I can’t believe I did this but last night I went into McDonalds and had a meal. Can you imagine what made me do that? Mrs ‘you are what you eat’ lover of the finest food eats a meal in McDonalds – and not only that but it’s done at midnight.

What’s most awful about this is I have been on a low fat diet now for months and I totally and utterly blew it in one go. By the end of it, my hands were coated in a thick layer of grease and I know, with as sickening certainty as if I had a way of looking inside myself that my insides would be too.

I had what’s described as a ‘veggie melt’ – the only vegetarian option on the Maccy D menu these days. The veggies had been cooked in some sort of oil and were saturated, it was topped with processed cheese but it was all OK because I had the choice to have it in a ‘brown bun’. Can you believe they think that that (in my humble opinion) crime against food is going to be put right by a brown bun? I’m afraid they do.

In principle the thing could have been OK although as you’ll already know, I am no fan of the ‘vegetarian dish of the year’ syndrome where every restaurant/sandwich bar et al in the land chooses the same ‘veggie option’ then does it to death for a year….I’m afraid this year’s veggie option has been char-grilled vegetables – a kind of cold and clammy reminder of last week’s barbecue if you ask me.

Anyway, the thing would have been OK for a ‘starving’ (joke) person like me who’d not eaten all day if the following had been true – if the bread had been made from a substance other than plastic, the ‘veggies’ had been cooked in oil at a hot-enough temperature, the veggies had been cooked in oil that was at least reasonably fresh and the cheese was real cheese. But sadly this wasn’t to be. Not that I’m not grateful to Colin who paid for this ‘feast’ – along with two cheeseburgers for himself at 89p each. Now call me old fashioned but I reckon you get what you pay for and at 89p, especially bearing in mind that the cost of the food was probably only a fraction of the 89p – the overheads and staff costs of serving food in Central London at midnight must have consumed at least half of that money, I can’t see how you can expect any more or less than something nasty.

So, tonight I am being good – home cooked and a very low fat meal, cooked with fresh ingredients, full of flavour and served with love…….I hope my penance is done!

I was also thinking about intense happiness last year.....I was hanging on to the fortune cookie's wisdom!