How's this for a decision?

Tomorrow morning when I wake up I must come to terms with an utterly life-changing decision that I have been compelled to take.

Tomorrow I, an avowed carnivore throughout my life, will be going vegetarian, possibly for as long as nine or ten years without cessation.

Make no mistake, there is nothing I like more than a Lamb Jalfrezi, a Shish Kebab with chilli peppers or Chicken Piri-Piri by the pool in my Portugese bolthole. Like most people I dislike animal cruelty and have been known to boycott the odd product that had its origins in some barbaric practice. But I've always reassured myself with the thought that if God didn't want us to eat animals He wouldn't have made them out of meat.

But with my daughter Rosie having spent the last two years of her life as a vegan who doesn't eat vegetables, life has been a constant battle for Caroline and I trying to ensure that she gets all her nutrients and calories. Somehow, and I don't know how, she has managed to maintain an "average" weight for her height and has all the outward signs of being a healthy girl. However, when yesterday she relented whilst contemplating a plate of baked beans and told me that she would renounce veganism for vegetarianism if I agreed to go veggie too I had no option but to agree.

On the surface of it it seems very easy to be a vegetarian these days. Virtually every restaurant has vegetarian dishes and the days of having to survive on a diet of lettuce leaves and carrots are long gone. No so veganism - even today few eating establishments seem to acknowledge its existence and Rosie has often been stuck with a plate of chips while the rest of us tucked in to a juicy steak.

I've not the foggiest how I am going to cope with it, but I'll revisit it here for posterity sometime soon. Watch this space, and have pity.