The Chronicles of Tania

By Lacey Webs

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Tania wanted to know whether he had had the stitches removed from his sides yet. You see the life she was living, in no way resembled the one she wistfully planned in her youth.

Then there was her relentless search to find Mr Right, only to find Mr Right in a good light. Falling foul of her ousted sister-in-law Freda, with her latest get-rich-quick scheme; and her on-going, but failing, battle of the bulge, dashing all hopes of her achieving her true calling as a sex goddess. Finally, her yearning for a perfect, incorruptible, miserable David Grayson, her colleague/fantasy lover.

Throw in her family into this mix, who if they were described as dysfunctional, it would be viewed as an elevation in status!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Apr 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493194070

Lacey Webs

The author has been a registered mental health nurse in the National Health Service for 28 years. She is married with two children and two grandchildren. She is the daughter of a now retired soldier in the British army; her mother, who was also a nurse in the National Health Service, is sadly now deceased. She has a sister who is also a nurse in the National Health Service and a half-sister who is a barrister in Sussex. She had an older brother who was a trained mechanical engineer, who later went on to successfully manage and own three night clubs; he is also now sadly deceased. The author has spent her adult life in Leicester, England, although travelled extensively while her father was in the forces, living in Ireland, Germany, Gibraltar, and all over Great Britain. This is her first book, though she is in the planning stages for her second.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Lacey Webs.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906595

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4931-9405-6

Softcover 978-1-4931-9406-3

eBook 978-1-4931-9407-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/12/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

523892

This book is dedicated to

Enid Athlyn Springer

1944-2009

and

Wayne Anthony Springer

1965-2009

My mum and brother, I miss you and think about you,

every second of every day.

Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank Amanda Okasha Kalifa for giving me that final push to write. Next, I would like to thank Willard Wigan, my constant cheer leader; thank you for your belief in me as a writer and for your unending support.

To my oldest and dearest friend Kate Sanderson, who made sense of the outpourings of this mad woman and put them into readable form, thank you for your editing skills. Thank you for your friendship that has spanned my lifetime and has remained a wonderful constant.

To my friend Jan Bayliss and my husband Stephen Abbott, who both saw far ahead to the potential in this book

To my children Georgia and Joshua, my grandchildren Alissa and Ishana, my dad Neville, my sisters Bee and Shelly and her children Tamar, Ramone, and Layah. My niece Marie and my nephew Ashton. I love you all.

12 January 2013

‘What the…’ That was an involuntary response to a nasty shock when I woke up in my new house this morning. I had a shower and sat naked in front of a floor to ceiling mirror that had gone unnoticed the day before. The previous owners must have had good physiques or were delusional! Either way, how thoughtless to leave these mirrors behind—we don’t all want to see the cruel blow time has dealt us. Such a shock gives you time for reflection: have you ever closely examined a Mr Whippy ice cream, the wide base at the bottom going up to a peak? Well, that’s what I was staring in shock at in flesh form. I’d blame it on the ravages of childbearing, but that excuse wears thin when your last child was born twenty years ago. I’d always made it a general rule that I only needed to view what was above chest level. I’ve always liked my boobs, mind you, no one warns you that bang on 40 they hop on a train and head south and set up home either side of my wobbly tummy. I like my throat too, my décolletage is that of a woman half my age. And another thing, not only am I fat, I have started to sprout hair on my chin, they curl and if left to its own devices grows straight out and is pure white, who am I kidding? It’s just good old fashioned avoidance!

It’s no good—it’s time for affirmative action. I’m going to have to go against everything I believe in. Well truth is, I’m going to face what I have long feared and be in denial about, my true weight. Yes, I am joining a slimming club. Again.

13 January 2013

I squeezed myself into my uniform, all part of the denial—I refuse to get a bigger size! How could I possibly explain to my manager that he would have to fork out for my third set of uniforms this year? I couldn’t possibly ‘grow’ into another size, and the excuse of them shrinking in the wash is fooling nobody. My tunic just buttons up at the front, and if I make no sudden moves, like breathing, it’ll be fine. The back view is another story. The pleats are splayed out over my backside; I’d die if it bursts open! What’s underneath reveals another tale in the saga: my trousers are held together with this device I have fashioned out of elastic and two buttons either end, then I cut two slits on each side of my burst zip. So you see my predicament. If my uniform bursts under the slightest strain, an upside down triangle of flowery, passion-killer knickers will be revealed. So basically my dignity is hanging on a piece of elastic…

14 January 2013

Well, I am now a fully fledged member of a slimming club. That initial feeling of hope, self-belief, and fantasies of being a sexy, slimmer me always kicks in. Best not to discuss the start weight or I’ll give up before I’ve started (once the realisation of the mountain I need to climb and slide down a few times dawns). Call me crazy, but I’m sure I heard the scales wince.

From this day forward it will be Spartan eating. I will endeavour until I am just on the cusp of organ failure and even then I will plough on. This lady is not for turning; however, no point in starting today, one more treat before I start afresh tomorrow…

15 January 2013

Well the ‘one more treat’ turned into a death-row feeding frenzy, but today is a new day. I slowly grazed my way through a measured ounce to be exact of what resembled trill floating in white water. I need to occupy myself until lunch, which is in exactly three hours and fifty-nine minutes, not that I am counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds.

16 January 2013

Just finished my early shift. When you are hungry everything is about food, everything is worth a try. Poor old Mr Gill may be confused, but he could spot a starving beast at fifty paces. He took one look at my face mesmerised by his dhal and rice—there was no fooling him with my

‘Let me help you with that, lovie’ and covered his plate protectively with one arm, while fending me off with his walking stick with the other. Note to self, dignity is the luxury of the well-fed.

Read an article where yet another voluptuous celebrity defiantly claimed that they are happy in their skin, they’ve turned their backs on the celebrity conveyor belt of slim, thin, half-starved strereotypes, and are sticking two V’s up to the media expectations of them. Cut to six months down the line, they’ve dropped over half their body weight, now resembling an extra from Shindler’s list and, oh look, they’ve got an exercise video out and of course the obligatory new face of the latest powdered wonder gruel! Only to be papped practically dislocating their jaw around a huge kebab. Now call me a cynic, but I am just merely trying to move from clinically obese to the dizzy heights of morbidly obese; thus reducing my risk of six life-threatening illnesses to a mere three. I’d be really pissed off if I reached 100-years-old and was lying in a hospital bed dying of nothing!

17 January 2013

How much longer must I endure this? Wish I could shut myself away from the world until I have lost weight. The ward occupational therapist was doing her weekly cooking session while I was walking along the corridor, deep in thought, when suddenly I was pulled involuntarily towards the aroma of heavenly smells. Like a zombie, I’m ashamed to say I was found nostrils wedged in the door-jamb. Wanda stepped out and in her broad Birmingham accent said, ‘Step away from the door you.’

She and the old ladies forming a human shield around their cooked wares. I pleaded, sweating like an addict for one tiny bite, Wanda said in a low voice, ‘Whurs yer dignity, woman, yow gave me strict instructions not to let you near nothing fattenin, this is for your owun good, now do one!’

Cursing quietly under my breath, I skulked off like a wounded animal.

18 January 2013

It’s my day off, I have purposely remained undressed, unwashed, and in bed, fighting the urge to get in my car. I am yearning for the freshly baked bread that I know the co-op makes at 9 a.m. every morning, which can only be eaten with butter (You can keep your margarine!). One more day to weigh day, then I can have a treat. I’ve already planned it down to the last crumb. If I get weighed in the morning, the day is young and I can eat until the clock strikes midnight.

19 January 2013

Weigh day’s here, I am slightly apprehensive and rightly so. There was an incident that I pushed to the back of my mind, some ugliness with a pound of Tesco’s finest range pork links.

Ode to sausage:

Oh glistening, phallic, warm and hot;

With your juicy filling of, God knows what;

Not allowed, as I fight this fight;

If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right!

I know, gets you right there, doesn’t it? For all intents and purposes, I was going to follow the slimming club’s ‘speed porridge’ recipe: water and an ounce of sugarless oats. NO! No sooner was I out of the door, I tossed it over my shoulder, in favour of my own recipe, which entailed it being made with full cream milk, that one from Jersey cows, yellow with beloved fat. Not satisfied with that, I top it with even more fat in the form of double cream. You think I stopped there? Oh no, it needed it’s brown, syrupy Demerara topping which formed a semi-hard crust of heaven, then the pièce de résistance, the dash of rum which I then went on to set alight, et voilà; and that m’dears is porridge!

24 January 2013

I’m back, class was what you’d expect: women standing on the scales ‘cryin and lyin’’—it’s a real mustsee sight to behold Oscar winning performances of a standard RADA would be proud of. Laments of ‘How did this happen’ and ‘I’ve tried so hard’. Maybe it would have been more believable if this particular lady had bothered to wipe the sugar granules off of her face and had put the hurriedly stuffed packets of Yum Yums in a less conspicuous place. Amateurs! They don’t know who they are dealing with. Rowena, our group leader is impervious to our falsehoods. One look at her tells you she’s an embittered lifelong slimmer, too long away from the joys of fat, sugar, and salt. Believe you me, she’d step over an injured pensioner to get to a half-eaten snickers bar! She was relishing this spectacle—well I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction…

24 January, 6.30 p.m.

I admit it, when they said half a pound, I cried like a baby—but what’s half a pound? A turd away from a maintain! It was probably lurking in my colon. Must go order a banquet set meal from the takeaway; it’d be rude to not at least try and eat it.

26 January 2013

I don’t want to overstate this, but I did not choose to be a grandmother at this tender age. But my daughter made an unfortunate mistake, with an unfortunate-looking boy who came from an equally unfortunate-looking family. Dad felt it necessary to point out to my crazy-in-love daughter with his usual sensitivity.

‘That boy you got yourself knocked-up with, correct me if I’m wrong, but he looks a chromosome short of something worrying’, then feeling the need to add, ‘Better stock up on helmets for the poor little git you’re carrying!’

Thankfully, there was no need for helmets, and my granddaughter got a share of the looks from both sides, mostly ours. Anyway, I’m babysitting tonight; another thing I did not choose today, but chubby little humans have a way of growing on you. I do quite like her, so I’ll pause my partying for one night.

27 January 2013

Note to self. Avoid bathing with small children, your self-esteem levels will plummet to an unreachable depth.

I woke up this morning with a searing pain in my left breast. In my half-conscious state I really believed my number was up. I can remember thinking, ‘Please God, don’t let me go out like this weaveless, in my mum’s nylon winceyette,’ leaving my stash of Cheetos that I’d hidden away in my knicker draw, for that grasping Marianne to find. My brain fog cleared, not sure if it was the pain or the stench that swung it and there, kneeling on my left breast was my granddaughter Victoria!

I discovered where the smell was coming from too. I thought a nice bath with Glam-ma would be the best thing. I put in one of my bath melts from lush, with its thrush-giving properties. But you’d smell great so it’s worth the itch and I thought I’d give the little cherub a taste of luxury. I put her in first to