I made it out of Lisbon without incident and arrived back in London. Unfortunately an EgyptAir 747 from Pakistan arrived before me so it was another nightmare immigration queue. Luckily Martin brought his iPad so he had something to do while he waited for me.

I get to stay with Martin and his wife Sue about once a year when I come through England, and I always enjoy it. They are lovely hosts and I really like their house. It’s in Lyndhurst, which is a town in the New Forest (English “new” – circa 1000 A.D.).

They have a bathroom scale, so I was very eager to see how well I had done eating fish for a week. I hopped on it only to read “13.5”.

Wha?

I’m pretty conversant with pounds and kilograms, but what the heck was “13.5”? I remembered that the Brits use a measurement of weight called “stone” so I went off to ask Martin.

It turns out that the scale was telling me I weighed 13 stone, 5 pounds. A stone is 14 pounds, so I was 182 + 5 or 187 pounds.

Not likely. Turns out the scale needs to be on something harder than the bathroom carpet, and when I did that it came out to “15.4”.

I was actually quite happy with this, as 15 stone is 210 – a little more than I weighed when I left. So I was at 214 completely clothed which means I did not gain any weight in Lisbon (assuming this scale was in sync with the one at home).

The next morning my PS weigh was 14 and 12.75, or just shy of 209 (note I didn’t say 3PS weight since, to overshare, my body isn’t on its normal schedule). This was after I’ve eaten fish, bread and rice for a week.

But I’ve also walked a lot. After breakfast, Martin, Sue, and I (along with Archie, their terrier) went out for a walk in the salt marsh near Lymnington. According to my GPS, we did a little over 2.3 miles at a nice, leisurely pace.

I am now writing this from Reading, where I will be for the rest of the week. We head home on Saturday just in time to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday.