Grandmother Guilt

My grandmother lives out near the Blue Mountains and my sister, better half and I went for a visit last night. I had left work early and prepped dinner at home, because I knew I would be hungry by the time we arrived home.

We drove the hour and a half out to Nanny and Grandad’s house and I ate a mandarin on the way, because grandmothers are renowned for spoiling their grandchildren with far too many sweets and treats (perhaps this is the reason I am in this predicament… Thanks Nanny!).

When we arrived, there was something quite different about my grandparents. They had shrunk. They were both SO thin! They looked amazing, and my Nanny who is little like me (height wise) told us that she was down to 47kgs!!! 47! That is HALF my weight! She looked amazing and attributed it to veggies, lean meat and an hour of yoga in front of the telly each morning.

If you’re expecting a nice warm, fuzzy, grandmother-y story you should stop reading here.

Nanny has always been a wonderful cook, and without fail always has something delicious only 3 minutes away from being ready. Urgh.

The smell hit me as soon as I walked in. That sweet, spicy smell of herbs and meat and roasted tomatoes. Absolutely delicious! She was cooking Spaghetti Bolognese, (yes, capital letters are warranted here) because “her girls love it!” Yes. That is correct Nanny, your two fat granddaughters would break into an Italian restaurant after hours just to get a hit of carbohydrates. My sister and I LOVE spaghetti bolognese. Love. We would stab our own grandmother to get a bowl. I advised Nanny of this, and she wasn’t very happy.

However… This little fat duck is on a clear path to becoming a sexy chick, and said no. Several times. So much in fact, that it was beginning to get embarrassing. I excused myself to go to the bathroom for the 48th time that day, and I found out later that Nanny had cornered my better half to threaten the following guilt trips:

• Oooh, I wish I had have known that you weren’t going to stay for dinner.

• If you don’t stay, I will be eating spaghetti for the rest of the week!

• Oh, I’ve just made so much, it seems like a real waste.

All this coupled with the big pleading grandmother eyes, the amazing aroma and the fact that we knew that it was dry, wilted salad waiting for us at home. Urgh.

I struggled to reach the front door. (which is, of course, next to the dining room and adjacent to the kitchen – the main source of my pain). Resisting was like holding onto a fern for safety during a hurricane, or as if a giant magnet was pulling my fat cells towards the dining room. But my feet pulled the rest of my body away from the brief satisfaction and subsequent food hangover and escaped out the front door.

Good work feet, you deserve a nice new pair of boots.

We left my sister there to stay the night and bask in her carb-coma, and kissed everyone goodbye. We apologised profusely while trying to squeeze out of the bat-wing grip-hold that Nanny had on the back of my arm (seriously, grandparents have those delicate, arthritis-y, wrinkled hands that can’t open a pickle jar, or grab those little coins in the bottom of their purses, but they sure turn into Geriatric Super Heroes when they want you to do something!) and drove away still feeling incredibly guilty, but pleased that we had resisted temptation.

During the ride home, my better half had said that while the dinner looked and smelled AMAZING, if we were going to deviate from the plan, we would be purchasing a bathtub-worth of these, and parking our greasy fat bodies on the lounge in front of the TV for the weekend.