LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 22 – Monday in Holy Week, 6th APRIL

Escape!

     My first physical emergence into the wider world!  Well, I drove to Lidl a couple of kilometres from my home for our weekly shop and then drove back again.  As Toni has done this previously, I have to admit that I was mildly excited by the prospect of finally getting out of the house and environs for the first time in three weeks!

     The reality of my journey was, of course, an anti-climax.  I drove along virtually empty roads to a virtually empty Lidl car park, just as I used to find each day as I cycled to the pool for my early morning swim in the ‘old days’ of just under a month ago!

     Gloved and masked I marched towards the shopping trollies to find out that I had no change – when was the last time that I used money as cash?  Luckily there was a Lidl employee at the entrance and she went to a till and found me a plastic token and emphasised that I could keep it, and it is now safely lodged in my wallet where I will probably forget that I have it the next time I find myself without change, but still, a little gesture makes all the difference to a shopping expedition!

     At the entry to Lidl was a person who demanded that all shoppers first use the hand sanitizer and then glove-up before they were allowed to go in.  As I was already wearing gloves I had to sanitize and the liquid stayed damp on the plastic for a damn sight longer that it did on flesh.  But, who could quarrel with this basic form of hygiene and it did emphasise a level of concern that one could only hope was carried on into the store itself by the shoppers.

     People did keep their distance and there was an obvious wariness about Others, as the best form of protection is to assume that everyone you meet and see is positive for the virus.

     To my utter horror there was no Cheddar cheese in the dairy section.  I specifically went to Lidl because they have a 15-month matured Cheddar at a cost that matches that in Britain and without the premium that decent Cheddar has elsewhere in Catalonia – if you can get it.  I was able to compensate with a few other cheeses, but Gouda and Emmental hardly match Cheddar for taste, texture and versatility.   How I suffer.

     The other main reason for my going to Lidl is their range of nuts and the prices they charge.  I did not trust Toni to understand the quantity and variety of nuts that I demand for everyday use and rather than explain and justify it was so much easier to go myself!

     I got virtually everything that we had decided was essential and the only things that I failed to find were radishes and soya sprouts – no great loss, either of those.

     On the more than positive side, for the first time in Lidl I found sugar free ice creams and sugar free biscuits – and for the sake of my sanity, I understand ‘no added sugars’ to be synonymous with ‘sugar free’ because, yes.

     We are now set for the next week with only fresh bread for Toni being an on-going concern.  We do have a bakery near us and Toni goes there every couple of days and brings back a little treat with the baguettes.

Going shopping did not push my steps up to the minimum that my unrelenting smart watch demands, and by the time that we had put everything that I bought away.  We were both exhausted.  Let me explain.  Toni is a stickler for the correct procedures so we therefore wiped each and every item before we put it away.  As it was a ‘major’ shop, it took a lot of time, with my being accused of being slip shod in my wiping.  God give me strength!  Anyway, at the end of the putting away, going for a walk to make up my steps lost out badly to having a decent cup of tea and then one thing led to another and suddenly it was night, and therefore time for me to work on the poem ideas for PIHW Poem 2.

     And that is what I need to get on with now.  PIHW Poem 1 is on smrnewpoems.blogspot.com and by tomorrow morning I hope that it will be joined by Poem 2.

     Work to do!

Reality Dawns. Again.

It used to be that ‘The Big C’ was the boogieman of illnesses but something else has taken its place for we non-smokers, but indulgent eaters.

I blame the quality of food in Catalonia for the fact, and it is a heavy one, that I need to lose weight.  Again.  My weight loss the last time was prompted (a euphemism if ever I heard one) by the results of a blood test and an out-and-out warning from my doctor.  Now that warning has been uttered to Toni and I am scurrying along in the penumbra of fear from that threat.

The warning was stark.  Lose weight or be set down as a Type 2 Diabetes patient with the consequent repercussions on life style and the lifetime taking of medication intravenously.

So, this lunchtime, the condemned man (he has until the end of the month to get the asterisks off his blood test results) ate anything but a hearty meal: salad, fish fillet, followed by nothing but a cup of coffee with saccharine!  As his blood-sugar level is too high he has been told to stay off fruit as an in-between-meals filler and instead drink some sort of tea, the name of which he has, in self defence, already forgotten.  Now, everything is going to be checked for sugar and I fear that we are going to find that sugar is second only to salt in its omnipresence in food, both prepared and natural.  We will probably both end up on a diet of water!

To be fair, this is only Day 1 of the New Regime, and I am hoping that sense, compromise and sheer indolence and tiredness might make the road to an asterisk-free life a little less bumpy.

My own situation is barely better than his.  I weighed myself this morning and discovered to my horror that I am some 16 kilograms over my ideal (or skeletal) weight.  If I actually lost that amount of weight I would look gaunt to the point of concern, so I have decided that a more reasonably horrific target is 10 kilograms.  That is a lot.  But there are ways.

At lunch today I had cool, still, H₂O to accompany my food.  Gone was the red wine and Casera that is my usual tipple.  Water.  Pure and simple.  And, I have decided, this is not just for today, but rather for the number of todays it takes to get me down to my ‘target’ weight.  I have made an executive decision to make an exception for Cava Brut.  The grounds for this exception are that Cava is a white, and therefore less calorie challenged drink; and also that the Brut nature of the Cava I drink means that it has even fewer calories than the other types.  I can therefore drink toasts with a clear conscience.

I am also cutting down on nuts.  One of my friends told me that when she was slimming she ate nuts: she allowed herself half a walnut every other day.  This is not, I have to tell you, how I eat nuts.  I take the generally accepted ‘healthy’ and ‘protein’ aspects of them and let that cover the fact that my consumption is markedly more than half a nut every other day!  That will stop.  Nuts and dried fruit will be added to the all-bran/Special K mixture that comprises my breakfast cereal.  And that’s it.  Honestly!

As I do not eat that much chocolate I am not too disturbed by its prohibition.  Added to that is the fact that I went into the fridge and threw out any chocolate I could find, just to give my self-restraint that extra edge of protection.  And I now quicken my step when the excellent selection of chocolate in supermarkets is near.

Bread is not too much of a problem either.  I love bread, but I can resist and I have restricted myself to pre-packaged 99 calorie multi-grain ‘bread’ that I pretend is good for me.  Whenever I feel like complaining, I merely have to remember one of my mother’s diet Energen Rolls (?) a form of what I could only describe as what ‘whipped bread’ might have tasted like.  That actually tasted like nothing at all, and offensively so as well!  At least my ‘bread’ is better than those were.

My problems are rice and pasta, and indeed potatoes – and any other form of carbohydrate that you care to mention.  I have been told on a previous occasion that these forbidden pleasure could be allowed as long as they form no more than a third of the plate, to which I respond by saying how high can you build?  To which the response was that I wasn’t thinking along the right lines and that suggestions have to be followed within the spirit of the advice as well as the word.  That doesn’t get you the calories you need, he whimpered quietly to himself.

Anyway the meal austerity has started and we are both thoroughly miserable.  Which is a bad way to start because I have also been told that no eating programme is going to work that does not have your enthusiasm behind it. 

That might well be true up to a point, but having fear as a driving force behind the need to lose weight is also a strong incentive and it might well do.

I will keep you informed about my weight loss or (tell it not in Gath) gain.  This is my desperate attempt to engage a wider observation of my efforts in order to ensure success.

I hope!

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If you would like to read drafts of my recent poems please go to smrnewpoems.blogspot.com