I am a lousy blogger and haven't written anything since last summer. Not because I'm too busy but because I was writing articles about MS and other disasters, older parenthood etc and resubmitting my erotic short story collection which has now been rescued from the Black Lace trash can and reinstated with Xcite books, coming out in April under the name of Primula Bond, eroticist extraordinaire.

Meanwhile after much nagging from my mother I decided to take the MS in hand with some alternative therapy as well as the Low Dose Naltextrone which purports to halt the progress and certainly seems to have not made it any worse in the last year. No side effects either other than a £15 dent in my wallet every month. The leg is ok but the ankle really does turn inwards now. I can't wear any kind of heel unless pretty chunky.

And so also off to an acupuncturist, a medical doctor called Professor Lewith who also practices homeopathy. He decides against acupuncture for my heavy left leg because I'm not in pain. God, I'm so lucky not to be. He takes blood, cradles my left foot in his crotch and pushes little glass ampoules into it while I hold a kind of metal cylinder. He draws the conclusion that I need to be tested for potassium and other deficiencies. He also instructs me to stop dairy products, red meat and pork for 6 weeks. In short, je suis une vegane. Dairy is frequently the fount of all ills, but I also happen to adore butter, cream, cheese, chocolate. This is a real sentence and it gets worse as the days go on.

First the good news. Bread, mayo and wine are fine. And please God I should lose some weight. There are alternatives. Soya, for instance not to mention all that fruit and those vegetables that I hate eating. Well, the soya milk and cream are ok though separate oddly in hot coffee though not in tea. Am not giving up coffee. The cheese and yoghurt are revolting. The carob chocolate unappealing. Grrrr.

Within five days of starting this wretched regime we go to an Indian restaurant for a lunch party and though I can in theory eat most of it the meat dishes are too hot and I can't have raitha and I'm still hungry at the end of it. On the way home we go to a farm shop full of home made sausages, boeuf bourgignon and cheese cake. We buy all of them for the freezer. Surely this will come to an end? The kids are at mum's so we go out to dinner. Well, I'm a cheap date now. We go to dinner and I have to ask the poor waiter to check with the chef on the ingredients in the veggie risotto etc. Can't have a single thing on the dessert menu, not even cheese and biscuits. Home to some more wine and hopefully a long lie in.

I am lucky though. All I ask is a little piece of Red Leicester.

I don't know what happens if Dr Lewith says I should never eat dairy again. Red meat and pork I can pretty much do without, but dairy? Never to eat a slab of cheddar or a piece of buttery toast or worse a cake or pudding?