DOING STRENGTH TRAINING

It's a sad fact of life that your muscle mass starts to decline as you get older. It's such a recognised phenomenon that it has a name: sarcopenia. And don't think it doesn't matter because you never wanted to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger - you need muscles for daily life, to carry groceries, move a chair, even stand up straight. So I've been using the book 'Strength Training for Women'. There are lots of exercises to target specific muscle groups that need extra work (I'm zoning in on my on-their-way-to-bingo-wings) and ready-made workouts, using hand weights, resistance bands and fitness balls - or just your body and walls, worktops and chairs. It's hard enough work to make me feel that it's working. Now I just have to keep it up...
• Buy 'Strength Training for Women' by Joan Pagano (Dorling Kindersley, £14.99)
• Try our toning for trouble spots (including those b****y bingo wings)

SEWING AN INVISIBLE ZIP

When I apply 'best' to this, I mean in the sense of being good for me. As in, it's good to learn new things. Even if they're baffling. I'm doing it by hand as I don't have an invisible zip foot on my sewing machine. It's my first invisible zip and I've only gone wrong a couple of times: setting it in too far down, machining the rest of the centre back seam before I'd inserted the zip. But I haven't quite finished yet...
• Maybe I should have watched our 'how to insert an invisible zip' video

EATING COLIN THE CATERPILLAR CAKE

We had a birthday in the office this week, and everyone who sampled it agreed that this cult classic cake, from Marks & Spencer, is one of the best shop-bought birthday cakes. If you're in the minority who's never tried it, it's basically a chocolate Swiss roll covered in chocolate with sweets, plus white chocolate feet and face. I reckon the appeal is down to the slight crunch in the creamy filling...
• Want to make a cake yourself? Try our 10 easy cake recipes.

SMELLING DIPTYQUE CANDLES

'Do you need any help?' asked the smart young man. 'No, I'm just about to start sniffing,' I replied, with a big smile on my face. Standing in front of a Diptyque scented candle display to choose a present, you know you're in for an olfactory treat. There's a range of around 50 scents, inspired by childhood or travel, but I wasn't planning to smell them all. They may cost £40, but they last for around 55 hours, and they smell like they're supposed to, unlike some room fragrancing products. And they also smell - accurately - of things that do actually have a smell. The figuier (fig tree) whisked me back to a sunny Spanish hillside, standing with my dad in the sunshine, aged 18. Gardénia took me to a late-night street in Tokyo when I was lost on the way home, and gardenias were spilling over a garden wall. And the rose, which I bought, is simply the rosiest rose scent imaginable. And the glass containers, with their distinctive black and white typography look good even when the candle's unlit.
• Add aroma to your home with essential oil ideas

WEARING SANDALS

The sun came out for a lot of the UK last weekend, and I put on my Birkenstocks. My toes wriggled happily in the sunshine, and I was glad I'd given my feet a going-over with my hard skin file. Every year I let my feet out of winter shoes as soon as I can, and keep them out of closed-in shoes as late as I can.
• Have healthy feet ready for summer
• Step out in shoes to take you from winter to summer

What have you tried this week?