A mouthful of raisins as I meet the Chancellor

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?!"

That was my colleague Ian Whadcoat's response to the news that I'd picked us up some chocolate-coated raisins on my lunchbreak.





Fruit and nut stall

"Yep, I'm putting us on a diet Whaddy," I told him. "If we're gonna eat chocolate in the afternoons, it needs to be healthy chocolate."

As previously mentioned in this blog, Whaddy and I have something of a sweet tooth and take great delight in feeding each other up on chocolate brownies, egg custards, cakes, eclairs, and pretty much anything else sugary we can get our hands on. Add to this the pizzas we like to order into the newsroom on a Sunday night, and a pattern of mutual greed has well and truly developed.

And we're going on holiday soon. Not together, obviously. But we've both got time booked off towards the end of June for our respective breaks and Whaddy needs to slim into his mankini.




So on my lunchbreak walk into town yesterday I bypassed all my usual cake-buying haunts and went instead to A Woodhouse, a huge fruit and nut stall that stretches almost the entire length of Derby's Eagle Market. This place does a huge range of dried fruits, nuts and seeds, but I knew Whaddy would think I'd had a lobotomy if I went back to the office with a bag of birdfood so I plumped instead for the chocolate-coated versions.

I got a mixed bag of chocolate raisins, white chocolate strawberries and yogurt cranberries.

Choccy treats

And Whaddy looked appalled when I got back to the office and told him.

 But the Derby Telegraph newsroom is not a good place to be if you're on a diet. Yesterday, as we were discussing our latest health kick (give it three days max), one of the reporters brought a tin of shortbread over to the newdesk, and another colleague Cheryl Hague was visibly shaking with excitement as she tried to break the seal.

Anyway, Whaddy and I then proceeded to lark about taking pictures of our chocolate-coated fruit (news never sleeps).

"Don't make me look fat," grinned Whaddy as he posed with the bag.

Totally forgetting, of course, that Chancellor George Osborne was due to arrive in the office at any moment to talk about the economy.



Look out Whaddy, George is behind you!

So as Whaddy posed for the snap here, the Chancellor was approaching from behind, just out of shot. And immediately after cramming a fistful of choccy raisins into my mouth, I spotted him.

"And this is Jade Beecroft, our deputy news editor," said the editor as we shook hands.

"Mwuagh mmmm mwuagh," I managed, before deciding the only option was to man up, forget chewing, and just swallow.

Luckily the man in the blue tie didn't really seem to notice my watering eyes, so I resisted the natural urge to offer him the bag ("hello Mr Chancellor, lets talk about Britain's deficit, and by the way, would you like a yogurty cranberry?") and crammed the rest of them into my drawer as Whaddy sniggered in the background.

Not my finest hour though, admittedly. And definitely proof that I need to bring the sugar cravings under control.