Who's that then?

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When I started to lose weight, at first nobody noticed. Then after two or three stone people did notice, although they were a bit worried that I was unwell, and Ann had to reassure them. What was quite fun for me was that there were a lot of people who noticed, and that's because of the work I do. I get up in front of big groups of people, but I see each group only once or twice a year. After a year of losing weight I was 40kg (about 6 stone) lighter, and nobody could fail to notice that!

Then something odd happened - I started to meet people who simply did not recognise me. At first I thought they were kidding, but they weren't. And what was even stranger was I knew some of these people quite well. That happened a few times, but last weekend was the strangest so far, because I met a couple I hadn't seen for two years - since before my weight loss began. In other words the last time they saw me I was 65kg (nearly ten and a half stone) heavier than I am now. I have played music, sitting right next to this couple, probably twenty or thirty times, and they walked right past me this weekend, with no recognition at all. They said hello to Ann, across the other side of the room, and Ann pointed me out to them, but they looked for a whole minute and could not recognise me.

In the end, they did figure out it was me, but I felt like I was in some science fiction film, because I was treated a bit like my brain had been transplanted into another body. I shouldn't think this will happen very much more, except for one I can think of - I haven't seen my sister for three years, so that might be the strangest meeting of all!