Half A Stone

I've put on half a stone over the last year. I know why: it's because I used to walk everywhere and now I don't. I used to say I liked walking everywhere, but if that had been really true I would still be doing it, wouldn't I- car or no car?

The question is, should I fight to regain my previously trim figure or accept the plumping up as an unavoidable symptom of the ageing process?

And, no, before someone suggests it- wild horses wouldn't succeed in dragging me to the gym.

Three More Fragments Of La Comedie Humaine

La Fille aux Yeux d'Or: Henri de Marsay- ruthless statesman, great lover and Mary Sue- has an affair with a girl who turns out to be his sister's sex-slave. Preposterous, melodramatic, pornographic- with Oscar Wilde and Ian Fleming standing down-wind.

Autre Etude de Femme: Stories are told after dinner in a Parisian salon. The best of them- La Grande Breteche- is sometimes published as a stand-alone.

Adieu: A melodramatic love story frames an extraordinarily graphic account of the crossing of the Beresina during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.