It’s time to discuss nature. The very essence of things. If we take the undiluted version of how things should be, can you take your therapist out for a meal? Or, if they are the people that guide your life and show you the way (to the next juice bar) shouldn’t they be the ones taking you out for a meal? Or do you take them in order to repay them back for the many times they took you to another dimension?

The therapy’s working, even if it seems not to be. Saturday night saw the BF and I meeting The Therapist and The Feng Shui Consultant for dinner at a place so new, they have yet to manufacture the chairs and sow the wheat for the bread. We were all so hopelessly late that we all turned up on time, which at least means we have something synchronised even if it’s not our chakras.

Now, let me tell you a little about The Therapist, who – since I’m getting in touch with the child in me: (Hello! And how are you little girl?) - I will call, amazingly, Lydia. Lydia is Russian, female and of a non-prostitute disposition. She’s also blonde, very gorgeous and with an aura - and body - to die for. This, hurtling as it does on Sunday morning, may come as a shock. But then, therapy normally unearths stuff we don’t want to hear about. Rather, she is of a medical bent, being, as it were, a doctor. She is also a psycho-therapist, and a Su Jok specialist. I know, I know, it’s too much. I tell her this too.

What I like though, is that Lydia specialises in something called Breathing Technique. It’s one of those things that’s very difficult to explain to others and so, I’ll stop beating around the lungs and get down to it: if you can breath well, you can literally fall into a trance and, you know, do the kinds of things you’d normally stop yourself from doing in life. Like screaming, kicking, or curling into a foetal ball. There, I’ve said it. Deep breaths now, in one two three, out one two three.

Like going out with a doctor or a dentist, going out with Lydia is bound to bring out the leech in us. Can you ever stop yourself from showing your dermatologist your ever-growing moles over lunch? In this case though, even if the BF and I were doing our best not to, Lydia was noticing everything.

‘You are intoxicated. Please Mona you have to take care of yourself’. Only, she’s Russian and this, coming as it did between breathtaking descriptions of the man she calls Pitt Bread, sounded like ‘Urine toxigaddee. Plis mouna, you ave too take kier urselif’. I couldn’t understand her, so I lit up another fag and drank some more Isis.

She convinced me later while I was lying on the couch, helpless. And so, I went out and bought myself a juicer. It’s a measure of anyone’s patience that, in order to save some money, they would drive all the way to Luqa, wait for ages to part with their cash, and then actually buy the thing in offensive pastel yellow. You can’t get in a worse state than that.

Then to Sapienza’s for two juice books: one for serious juicers who want to get seriously healthy (ha ha, don’t we all?), the other a fun luscious book with a bright yellow plastic cover (for wiping off, but what’s with all this yellow: isn’t my skin enough?) by the ever-joyous Nigel Slater. Nigel, who, as you can see, I’m on first name terms with, is down-to-earth, a good writer, and an inveterate foodie.

He disses juicing for health and just produces copious recipes for juicing for fun. Thebook is called, simply, ‘Thirst’. And it comes with the most important chapter a juice book can ever have: one on how to wash the damn machine.

There is no getting around it. If you want to juice, you have to clean the bloody thing. Failure to do so will result in the stickiest mess known to man, and another mass of plastic in the bin. Since there are about 599 parts involved in its make-up, it’s a labour of love.

So, one juicer, two juice books and one juice later, I sat at the kitchen table and contemplated my fate. I was so hungry I was going to die. This juicing business is fine, but only if I wasn’t so busy, only if I didn’t have so many exams and assignments to plough through, only if I had a bronzed hulk for a man Friday.

Ten pm and I’m rushing out of the house like a demented maniac (in a sentence like this, only the time will change) down to Mum’s. Mum’s is not my mother’s since she has stopped me from raiding the fridge at 4am. Mum’s is a new take-away in Mrabat Street in Sliema.

Once you get over swearing at the cars parked illegally all over the pavement on your way home, you realise that yours should be there with theirs. I joined the ranks. This is what I bring back to you: pulp it, liquidise it, and tell me what you think.

Mum’s is run by two guys with a paunch. They’re scary (I saw tattoos, but that could have been me) but they’re very funny (they smile a lot) and very sweet (but maybe that’s me again). One does pizzas, of which he’s inordinately proud and the other does stuff like burgers, chickens, salads, you know. The paunch is their front of house.

This is no out of the freezer place: the pizza is made from fresh dough, and it’s probably the driest, crispest base I’ve ever tasted (after all that juice…). The topping is copious and they probably heaped half a kilo of mushrooms over it. They do endearing stuff to it like sprinkle sesame seeds along the edges which is so cute, isn’t it? (The therapy’s working overtime). Ok, I think they should ease off the powdered garlic from the mushrooms in the Funghi, but apart from that, guys I’m your greatest fan.

I rushed back home clutching the box and looking only slightly less manic than I’d left. I slumped in front of the television, watched very mad people trying to get into yet another reality tv show (about something as unreal as psychic power), and ate the entire thing from start to finish on my own.

When I woke up in the morning, I had a crisis. I’ve destroyed all my good intentions for Mum’s sake! I wanted to be healthy, to detox, and rather like Nick Hornby, I wanted to be good. Instead, last night, I ate a whole pizza! Can it get any worse than this? I’ve even used an exclamation mark…

Well, until I figure out what’s going on there’s only one thing to do…breathe in, breath out, put the kettle on, fix the Gold Blend, and light up. Where’s Lydia’s number?