Mmmm, Bacon's Up.

It's Wednesday, and that means cleaners at our house. They take over the entire house and clean every room simultaneously for a total of four hours. That might make it seem like we live in some kind of mansion, but we don't. We do have a nice house, but the main factor is their obsessive need to clean every surface, move every piece of furniture, and even tidy up inside drawers and cupboards. My usual strategy is to go out for lunch as it is impossible to eat while other people are working so hard.

Generally on a Wednesday, the diner at Stanford - the Palo Alto Creamery, Fountain and Grill, to give it its proper name - calls to me. And Ruby. We typically go for lunch, or brunch, or whatever you want to call it, and Ruby enjoys a little under-the-table treat, before we head off for a walk. The wait staff often bring her out a bowl of water and a dog biscuit, which she never eats as she doesn't like "milk bones" as they are called. Today lunch was two poached eggs, hash browns, four slices of crisply cooked bacon, and a slice of cracked wheat toast with raspberry jam, plus decaf coffee. This comes to a princely 14 Weightwatchers points, and worth every one of them. Ruby enjoyed her morsels of bacon and potato. In the past I have bought a side of bacon just for her, but I think we need to watch her weight too... and having an extra side of bacon on the table is no inducement to good behavior for Dr Mom!!

We rounded off our lunch with a 50 minute walk at the Palo Alto Baylands (worth 3 points).