5.

The dieter has an insatiable appetite for fads, but maintaining one's dignity and keeping apace with the latest trends are rarely complimentary. She gave the forager diet a week before driving to Timaru for a Big Mac.

Her daughter's old room is now filled with various kitchen implements— slow cookers, juicers, stick blenders, dehydrators—which don't fit the current craze; the wardrobe stuffed with pastels and fluoros, knits and rayon, sari, kimono, lava lava, pedal pushers and pashminas.

(One advantage of a yo-yoing waistline is the constant need for new clothes.)

Her husband never tires of trying out new wives.