Today I’ve been digging in to a pretty awesome blog.

I’ve –  on and off – been doing this whole Forever Living thing. Have you heard of it? Perhaps not. Allow me to summarise the Cleanse 9:

• Breakfast is three tablets, a couple of shots of chewy evil (aloe vera gel), and loads of water.
• Snack is a sachet of fiber – dissolved in loads of water.
• Lunch (for two days) is three tablets, a couple of shots of chewy evil, and loads of water.
• Dinner (for two days) is two tablets, a couple of shots of chewy evil, and loads of water.

Throughout the cleanse, drinking a lot of water is necessary. I mean, outside of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh, and the inappropriately named “snack”. Seriously, how is a sachet of fiber ever considered a snack? I think Forever Living needs to work on their semantics.

Incidentally, there are a few things you are able to snack on throughout the day (so this isn’t a purely liquid diet) which are arguably negative calories – the foods it takes more energy to chew and swallow than they actually contain. On this list are blueberries, leeks, cauliflower, strawberries, peppers, apples, raspberries and the like. Oh, and celery (all raw, and I don’t ever recommend raw leek). Seriously, though, who can actually say that celery is an acceptable thing to shove in your mouth? It’s disgusting. For something that is however high a percentage of water, it’s vile. I prefer this aloe drink to celery.

Now, the first time I did this cleanse, I lost eight pounds. Since I started this diet, which appears to somewhat retrain your brain with your approach to food and when to eat, I’ve lost almost two stone (I started this diet around the beginning of August).

As it would turn out, the key is your water intake. It’s currently 11:30 a.m. and I’ve already knocked back 3 litres of the stuff. It speeds up the metabolism, and, given as how thirst occasionally seems to mimic hunger, this has been my driving force. I love, love, love water!

Now, why did I mention all this? Simple. I don’t have a clue. I ramble.

Or, actually, PoppyDaisyLily mentioned the cleanse in passing during her tales of the nitty gritty retraining in psychic medium shizzle.

Now, I’ve been to a grand total of two(ish) meetings of these psychic folk, and you know what? As much of a skeptic as I am, I believe in ghosts, spirits and all that jazz.

Yesterday I took the second trip (or technically the first – the actual first time was purely by accident) to this place and after everyone had love passed on to them by their respective spirits, we wereinvited to be practised on by the trainees.

My fella tried to get me to shuffle a pack of tarot cards – an act which became more of a repetitive cutting due to the cards each being bigger than my hands – and this is the basic summary of my session with him:

• I read a lot (✅)
• I have a cat (✅)
• My skills aren’t put to use (✅)
• I have a cunning escape plan (✅)

If you need more evidence than that to show there’s definitely something in it, well I just don’t know what to tell you.

Now, colour me a crazy cat lady, but I once had this cat who meant a bloody lot to me. His name was Samuel L. Whiskers (Sammy for short) and he was my guardian. Not in a legal way, of course; he would walk me to the pub, hide in a bush and wait for me to finish, and then he would walk me home again.

I’ve had this recurring dream with Sam in human form. He’s tall and has sandy-coloured hair and green eyes, wears a cream jumper, dark blue jeans and a long camel coat, topped off with a red scarf. He wears a bloodstone signet ring. It’s always winter when we meet, and he takes me to a coffee shop where there’s a filter coffee for me and a latte for him waiting on a table outside. After I’ve hugged him and cried a little (OK, a lot – I’m a sap like that), we talk about things. Things like his day, my day, how much we miss each other, that he’s looking forward to seeing me again (you’re looking forward to my death, Sam?) and that I shouldn’t worry – my hard work’s going to pay off and apparently it’ll all work out.

What will? I internally cry out! But I never ask. I just accept that he knows what he’s talking about because he’s Sam, he’s smart, and he’s a cat. Cats know everything.

So what the heck – maybe, if just for the experience, I might deliberately go a second time to Psychic School and see if I can make sense of my human dream-cat’s ramblings. Or I could join the world of the Normans who will point out that I’m having nighttime chats with a cat and suggest I talk about my mother.

Hell, where’s the fun in “normal”?