The Time Warp

Tomorrow is an extra day.

I know that technically, of course it’s not, it’s just a glitch in the system, but for me it creates a feeling of specialness, a kind of hidden delight: Tomorrow is an extra day, it doesn’t count. There goes the diet then.

In places that use lunar calendars, you get a whole extra month, but it happens more often and I think you can get too much of a good thing.

Of course, for some (can’t imagine who...) leap years are very special because leap day is their true birthday. Generally they will  try to charm you by citing their age in birthdays, but this can backfire, as Frederic discovers in Pirates of Penzance when his indenture lasts until his 21st birthDAY.

For Oswald of Worcester, leap day proved fatal. At the start of Lent in February of the year 992, he resumed his usual practice of washing the feet of 12 poor men each day. On Leap Year Day, February 29, he died after kissing the feet of the 12th man and giving a blessing.

The news of Oswald's death brought an outpouring of grief throughout Worcester city.

Oswald is now the leap day saint and it is fitting for a man that helped to bring learning into Britain. Leap year came about with the scientific discovery that the year was longer than, well, the year.  

The then Pope got to reorganising the calendar and sorting out the rules (via minions, of course). Oswald spent his time on this earth reforming the Church. Though it seems he was heavy-handed in his reforms, he strictly refrained from violent measures, relying instead upon prayer, fasting, dialogue and fatherly admonitions. He promoted learning amongst the clergy in his diocese and invited many scholars, including mathematicians and astronomers from Fleury, to instruct and preach in England. 

What will you do with your leap day? It’s a little present of time giftwrapped from God and don’t we all accept gifts with enthusiasm? The word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words: ‘en’ meaning “in or within,” and ‘heos‘ meaning “God.”  Oswald certainly had bucketloads of it and he used it for God. Maybe our extra time could include a moment set aside for God, a reconnection, a renewal of passion and enthusiasm. The scriptures this week tell us that we must keep at bay the temptations of the world, to remember that even when we are lost in the desert, Christ walks with us and we will see the glory of the Lord. The alternate collect for today runs thus:

  Eternal God,

  Give us insight

  To discern your will for us,

  To give up what harms us,

  And to seek the perfection  

    we are promised

  In Jesus Christ our Lord.

So: I challenge you. Sometime tomorrow, set aside half an hour, find a quiet spot. Take a cup of tea and some biscuits, be comfortable. Make sure  that you won’t be distracted and pray  those words just quoted.  Remind yourself of the wonderful things you have seen and experienced in God and spiritually top up your tank with enthusiasm for the Lord.

It's a 'leap' frog on fire with passion!

Then, and only then, go do something else you don’t usually have time for. A walk on the beach, coffee with an old friend, a chapter of the book you’ve wanted to start for ages.

Let’s make leap day a leaping for joy day (was that a bit over the top? Well you get my drift). You have time. Use it.

And all in ten minutes!

-about ten minutes ago-
I enter room and find Claudia playing the flute.
"I wish I could play with you on Monday, Mummy."
"Well, these songs are a bit difficult for you, sweetie. Maybe you could do something simpler on your own or with Sue."
"No! I can't play recorder on my own! You play with me."
"Okay, let's pick a song."
-a song is picked. One minute is spent on the first line. I suggest the other recorder as it has smaller holes. She goes off and gets her fingering chart. She looks at it and gets cross with it as she thinks the notes are wrong. I point out that she is looking in the wrong place and the notes are all underneath on the stave.
"But I don't know what all the notes are!"
"But you know the notes you need for this song. And on this music the note on the stave also has its letter printed on it, so you can check that way."
-She is a bit grumpy now, and has a halfhearted attempt to play a note. Her fingers are not quite right so she makes a big show of really pressing them down. Then tells me it's my fault because I'm making her use the wrong recorder. She swaps back to the original one.
-another very cross attempt to play results in blowing too hard.
"I hate recorder!" Throws it on the sofa.
"Calm down Claudia."
"How can I do it when you keep shouting at me?"
"I'm not shouting, I'm telling you to calm down and decide whether you want to play and what you want to play on. You could play the flute."
"I want to play the ukelele."
"Well, maybe Daddy could give you lessons, but not for Monday!"
-cross sulky muttering ensues. She decided she wants a snack and discovers there is none left of the yoghurts she likes.
"Daddy ate the last one!"
-Storms into our bedroom to watch TV.
"I hate being part of this family!"
"Well, close the door behind you and pretend that you aren't then."
-two minutes later the door opens. She can't get the remote to work and storms into the kitchen to find something else to eat muttering loudly about the family. I get up, go into the kitchen, close the fridge door and tell her to go to her room and stay there until she can behave and rejoin the family.
Now, this all happened in the space of ten minutes. How did it go from cuddles and happy time to screaming door slamming so quickly and over, actually, what, in the end??
By the way, she is neither 4 years old nor 14, both of which sound likely from this, she is 8. She is in her bedroom screaming. Come 14 and I am moving out!

Being Ordinary

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Paul, born Saul of Tarsus, Jewish zealot dedicated to the eradication of all Christians. He was an intelligent, educated man and yet it took something quite amazing to make him see the error of his ways. He saw the Light and it was so bright it blinded him!
Paul’s dramatic conversion touches something inside me.  My Christian journey has been mostly uneventful. No major crashes, no awesome experiences. The most exciting bit has generally been like finding a really good restaurant at the services. Jesus has never tap danced across my bonnet or even kept the lights green at the roadworks. When I read about Paul I think “I want that!” I want that clear message, that personal visitation. Am I being ignored?
But then I think about it a bit more. Jesus was really rather narked off with Saul, and I think I’m rather glad that I’ve never upset Him that much. I have always believed, and I have always tried to live accordingly. Maybe It’s not that I’m left out, maybe I don’t need that level of intervention.

Maybe I’m like my cat, curled up against Jesus’ leg, purring away whilst he absentmindedly strokes me. My life is sheltered, I am cared for on every level. I may not see His face too often, but at least I don’t have to endure that stare.
So for all those who sometimes wonder if they are praying to the answering machine; you are doing ok. He knows exactly what’s going on and has decided you don’t need a kick in the rear. Lucky us!

The Obsession - On gifts from Heaven and food from Hell

It's all about choices, isn't it?

This week I have found myself bogged down with choices that I have to make, many against my nature. Church, school and food are all out to get me.

I love food. A lifetime of not being able to eat most of it has cultivated a fascination with all kinds of food and their preparation. Couple that with a very 'go with the flow' nature, a generous dash of laziness, an antipathy towards planning of any kind (including slowly and carefully reading recipes) and a love of doing things differently and you have an inspired, but rather slipshod, chef roaming my kitchen. I have long maintained that the whole reason God gave me my food problem was because He'd run out of will power to give out and if I was free to eat what I liked, I would be the size of a small country with chronic acne, among other assorted medical problems. I came off light, really. My only regret, if I were pressed, is that I didn't take home economics and go to culinary school. I just didn't know back then.

Food Network runs by the hour over here, and the pile of recipe books I have collected can be used to stand on to change a light bulb. At one point I actually worked as a baker and pastry chef, helping to supply cakes, puddings and biscuits to supermarkets and restaurants across the Algarve. All with minimal tasting!

Once I set up home, my adherence to my diet gradually slipped. It got to the point (for many years) where I consciously kept a low fat diet, but didn't really worry about going over occasionally (read often). And it was fine. I will never be super skinny, but also, I will never be fat. I am curvy (that's how we will be referring to me, no opinions allowed). I have fat knees, but c'est la vie. I would carry on just fine until along would come the stomach cramps and I would have to spend the day at home. Then I would be 'good' for a few days and keep the fat to a minimum. When I was a child, I would fast for 24 hours, unsurprisingly, once out of my mother's clutches, that went by the wayside.

Everything went to pot when I fell pregnant with my son. I couldn't eat anything. Although I never got any kind of restructure from the specialists (I was blissfully unaware of the dangers my condition provoked during pregnancy), I hated all food. Especially chicken. Unfortunately we were scraping the bottom of the barrel financially at the time and I spent a lot of time in Iceland, by far the cheapest option open to us. I craved chocolate and burgers. I kid you not. In the end an executive decision was made and I started eating what I wanted to eat, on the basis that starving wasn't helping anyone. Interestingly, I did not suffer any symptoms of overdoing my diet during the entire pregnancy. 

My daughter was better. That pregnancy, although far from fun, was a lot less miserable. I kept more or less to my diet, but did suffer symptoms. Not too bad though.

Then we came out to Portugal and our diet changed radically. Here the food is seasonal to a much greater extent. The chicken and the pork is on a totally different level of gorgeousness. Ready meals are hard to find and expensive. A lot of things taken for granted in the UK are just not available. Everything is cooked on the barbeque or in the oven for three hours. There are two types of potato and six types of orange. Everything is fresh. Even the cuts of meat are different, reflecting the different ways of cooking employed. I just forgot about the diet and dove right in. I noticed a pattern emerging, I would get the cramps and associated symptoms just before my time of the month (This is due to hormone levels affecting tryglicerides in the blood. Or something). It was never debilitating, though, so I carried on.

This, barring a set of incidents that deserve their own post, brings us to the now. I have discussed in the first post what is driving my sudden return to the fold. And I hate it. It's really not that bad and I will get used to it, but for now, I hate it. I have an excel spreadsheet tracking my fat, protein, carbohydrate and kJ of energy intake per day. There are graphs. I am learning things, though. The biggest problem I face is keeping the energy up, as moaned about multiple times already, and taste. TASTE! I miss it. You know what adds a lot of the taste to meals? The fat. The oil, the dressing, the fattier meats, the butter on top. I like a wet meal, sauce of some kind, or a dip, are essential. Difficult to thicken anything up without dairy. I am trying to find methods and recipes that are low in fat to start with rather than converting traditional meals, and they are out there, but they take preparation. Marinades, I am discovering, are a helpful tool. I am not an organised, planned person and if I come home hungry all the things that take two minutes are not good news for me. Sandwiches have to be monitored. Frozen fish fillets are not great, and I hate chicken breast, unless it has been hidden in a good casserole, pie or marinade. Fishfingers are awesome, but the mash leaves a bit to be desired without dairy and dry boiled potatoes? No.

Hehe, maybe I am as picky as my daughter. It's all about choices and am I choosing to balk at the gate? If I choose to put some effort in then I will feel better and always have something to eat to hand. I'd better get off to the supermarket then. And just so you know, I think I've nailed the church problem and I have a plan that I revealed to the kids this morning to get the schools off our backs. You never know, Miss lazy, unplanned and above all, forgetful might actually be able to pull it off! Stay tuned.

Eleven to seventeen - On boys and baptism.

Ho hum, what did I promise you for this post?

Teenage angst and early adulthood, I suppose. Sitting here today, I don't know what to tell you. Despite sneaky McDonalds (before discovering Burger King) I remained on the plump side of slim, spot free, mostly incident free. Between 11 and 17 I went through various fashion disasters, two hockey B teams, the two extremes of school skirt length. I was relentlessly teased for my differentness, which had been celebrated in previous schools. I suffered for a few months until I found my band of brothers (mostly sisters) and learnt again to be proud of individuality. Although now I speak rarely to those elite few, I am Facebook friends with nearly all of them, and when we do get together it is as if it was yesterday we last met.

I changed schools at 13, and actually got on with most people. Maybe I had learnt to tone it down by then. However, my band of besties was an eclectic mix from that school, the previous one and some local boys. There was a boy I grew up with (our parents were friends) who went to school locally (I first boarded a three hour drive away, then went to a girls' school half an hour away), whose friends became mine too. My BFF remained in Somerset, resulting in a LOT of time on the phone and long holidays spent at eachothers' houses.

It was during this time that I discovered church. I didn't attend as a child, and had no religious education beyond the Brownie guide song. I always simply knew there was something out there, but we didn't get a formal introduction until I was 14. I became friends with a girl at school who was in a similar boat to me, taken from a school she adored for reasons beyond her control, nursing a best friendship with a girl sent off to board. This girl, however, went to a youth group affiliated with the local church and one day I tagged along. We used to meet on Sundays during church and 'study', for want of a better word, the Bible and Christian life. I actually spent a lot of my time studying one particular boy, who in turn spent his time studying one of the other girls. Ah, young love.

The church that we occasionally attended, usually to perform some sort of sketch learnt at the group, was Methodist. Eventually I was baptised and confirmed there. The baptism was a group affair, set in a small church on a long terraced row in a village. We had, at my suggestion, a paddling pool set up at the front, and spent some time filling buckets in the sink out the back and carrying them round to fill the pool. I and my friend got the giggles halfway through when we realised that although I had remembered to wear a swimsuit, I hadn't brought a towel and would be presenting a large damp patch on my shorts to the congregation as I went up for confirmation.

My faith was made firm in those years. I spent them surrounded by love and fellowship with awesome people. Of course, nearly all the boys dated nearly all the girls over the years, although only one of those mixes stood the test of time. Half of the gang went to church, the other half didn't. And so it went on until I was 17. Then, my life changed absolutely, whilst staying the same. Poetic, what?

The BFF in Somerset was going through some emotional upheaval, as was I (a breakup with a boy outside the gang) and unfortunately, we were too far apart to really realise the extent of the other's suffering. That summer I spent in Somerset, I came back without a best friend. I betrayed her big time, without knowing that I had until it was too late. I also met a boy, who was totally wrong for me on all sorts of levels but who was exactly the right person to get me through that time. We only stayed together a couple of months, but I actually owe him a lot. He made me see who I needed to be in my adult years.

So I'm nearly at the end of my teenage chapter. Yes, I partied, I went to school, I learnt to drive, I did teenage stuff from 17 to 20, but I ended up a bit ahead of the game by 20 as I had by now met the man I was going to marry. We met at 17, in the autumn after my epiphanic summer, moved in together at 19 (I think, it's all a bit hazy now), were married at 22. At 24 I was pregnant. Amazingly enough, although he very much does not go to church, it was through my friends at the church youth group that we met. At a halloween party. He had trashed his car earlier that day and him and our mutual friend were looking for something to do that night, so they accepted my invitation to a party held by a school friend. The rest, as they say, is history. We are celebrating our 20th year together this year with a big party in June, church wedding service, dinner and a band. I've bought a new dress! I would love it if all our friends from the era could come, but as we live in Portugal now, I'm guessing most will pass. I wish I could afford to ship you all out here!

So I have not spoken of food in all this post! That was refreshing, and a great trip down memory lane. When I sit down to write a post, I never know what's going to flow out of my tiptapping fingers. I wonder what's coming next? Stay tuned.

The Last Two Weeks - On mathematics and meringues.

Today I am sitting at my desk surrounded by Polos, mini meringues, an envelope full of calculations of nutrient contents of foods and a miasma of sullen tired depression.

However, I shall endeavour to keep the tone upbeat, crying into the keyboard is never helpful. Unless we're talking about my keyboard, of course, which is used for hours each day by an 11 year old boy. Tears are the least of it's problems. Getting the space bar to spring back up after pressing is not.

So, where were we? I'm actually going to press pause on the history lessons today as I need to vent. I have been on my low fat diet two weeks tomorrow and I can happily report a marked improvement in the distance I can go from the bathroom, at least. However, I am just not getting anywhere on the energy front. I have found a great site on the interweb that helps me to track everything I eat and tells me how I am doing in fat and energy levels. Hence the aforementioned envelope. Yesterday we made homemade pizza and while my daughter diligently chopped and sprinkled I was hunched over the counter with all the packaging trying to work out if I could actually let any of it pass my lips. So, if 100g of the dough has 5.1g of fat, there is 550g in the package. We used about 2/3, so divide that by 2 then times by 3. If we call a portion of pizza a quarter then divide the answer by 4. That makes 4.7g of fat. The sauce; we've used about 1/4 of the bottle, but that's for two pizzas, so divide that by 2, then 4 for the portion..... where's the calculator? 15 minutes later I have worked out that I can have 1/8 of the pizza.

The site that I am using gives me a goal to aim for - it is mainly interested in kilojoules of energy, and it would like me to enter my excercise also. I have ignored that bit. Right at this moment excercise scares me, so I am just avoiding the subject until I have some sort of organisation in the diet area. According to the site, I am supposed to be getting 7,539kJ energy a day. I started tracking on the 1st Feb. the 1st I managed 2,766kJ, but that's all right because I was still on my four day detox. However, the days that followed I managed 4,941; 7,006; 6,590; 9,266; 6,900; 5,055; 8,616; 5,133. After checking out the first week, I realised that the only day that I hit the target was the day that I poured the wrong milk on my breakfast cereal and had a cup of whole instead of skimmed. I had, however, kept the fat down. I was averaging 8.5g a day. Hmm, I think, I need to up that to the 20g I am allowed. The whole milk day I upped it, and hit the target.

The next day I was down the supermarket trying to find new meat sources. My general 'can eat, can't eat' list tells me that I can have no red meat, no pork, only chicken breast, skinned. I can eat white fish (what makes a fish white?) and tuna. I have to tell you, I hate chicken breast. Hate it. So, I think, maybe I could use turkey breast instead? The problem is that here in Portugal, the meat is not labelled with the nutrition percentages. Packaged processed meat, yes, but not fresh. The packaged fish in Lidl is labelled, however, so I abandon trying to work out what is white and just start working out portion contents. Yes, I am the barmy lady in the supermarket with a calculator and notebook.

I come out with robalo, which is sea bass, I think. (I discovered fish in Portugal, therefore have no idea what there English names are). That day, I hit my energy budget and my fat budget. Presto! I think, this is the solution. I don't have to keep in the pen, I have to balance on the fencing. Then yesterday, with it's 1/8 of (absolutely flaming delicious) pizza. Today I am transferring my envelope information into the food diary, and I came in at 22g of fat and 5,133kJ energy. No wonder I didn't want to get up this morning. I spent yesterday orchestrating a pancake party with my household and my parents, and ate pasta in gravy whilst they spread chocolate and jam all over their pancakes. Then we made the pizza together, great fun, (my daughter is impossibly picky with her food and if she cooks it first, she eats more) and I ate 1 sodding 8th of it. I also wolfed 4 mini meringues and a packet of Polos. And still barely consumed enough energy to process the food.

So there you go. I have just spent the last 20 minutes chatting to my friends, who phoned me earlier, then surprised me with a visit as I sounded down on the phone. Hehe, I feel a bit better because of that, but I am just wondering how I am supposed to go forwards. Lack of energy is one thing, but I am now spying the great hulking monster of depression hiding behind the corner and I would do anything to keep him away. I've gotten rid of him once and I burnt the bedlinen. He is not getting back in.

I am meeting with my fellow sufferers in March, and I cannot wait to get some tips from them. There is no medicine currently available to help. There is only 1 in every 1 million people who suffer. It's hard not to feel alone sometimes. But, I can see where I have it great. I am surrounded by friends and family and let's face it, other people have bigger problems. But this is my party and I can cry if I want to. Next time I promise I will tell you all about the positive aspects of this thing. Like size 8 wedding dresses and a total lack of spots throughout puberty. Awesome! Stay tuned.

The Early Years - On school dinners and teenage rebellion.

It's day 7 of my new regime. I'm still alive and not even that hungry. In the past I have always approached dieting in a 'fat free version of favourite foods' kind of way. As you can imagine, this does not go well. Have you tried fat free lasagne? I don't recommend the experience. When I was growing up, of course, it was a little different. At least until teenagerdom I was safe from the fatmonster. Well, after the initial two years of poking, prodding and hospital visits whilst they worked out what was wrong with me. Did you know I never crawled? My internal organs has swollen so much I looked rather like a pregnant toddler. Creepy? Not much... my stomach got in the way and I couldn't crawl, so I went straight from bum shuffling to walking.

The food was not labelled in the same way all those (many) years ago and Mum simply had a 'can eat/can't eat' list issued by the hospital. I could eat fishfingers, potatoes, pasta, baked beans and tinned spaghetti. I'm sure there were more things on the list, but mostly I remember eating Smash (remember the Martians?) with fishfingers and something out of a tin. My Dad taught me how to eat baked beans and tinned spaghetti cold. He had his reasons, I'm sure. The grand favourite was pasta and gravy. Yes, cooked pasta floating in Bisto. Absolutely flaming gorgeous and I have passed it on to my kids.

Once I hit puberty and went to high school things changed a little. For two years I went to boarding school, who knew all about my problem. I had always had a packed lunch (when I was in nursery they didn't have packed lunch facilities and I was some first years' special project. They came and picked me up every day and took me to the infant school so I could sit and eat my sandwiches with them. My mum used to leave little notes on them telling me to eat my crusts first and get it over with. I still remember one girl's name: Jenny), but now I was to eat school dinners.

The cooks had been supplied with my two childhood demons: MCT oil and Caloreen. MCT oil is medium chain triglyceride oil, which had something to do with a coconut once, although I don't think said coconut would recognise it in a line up once it was in the bottle. Basically the fats in it are in a much simpler form that doesn't need breaking down so they are easier for my body to process. I think. Burnt if you warmed it up with a candle and smelled like the vengeance of all eaten vegetables throughout time. They used it mainly, as I remember, to cook roast potatoes for me. No word of a lie, and my friends from that time can back this up, those dinner ladies were generous if nothing else. I used to get half my dinner with everyone else, then I had to go to the end of the hall and wait for my potatoes to emerge from the kitchen. When they arrived, I got a football teams worth. They went on a separate plate because I couldn't get them all on the dinner plate. It was awesome and terrible at the same time.

The Caloreen was an energy supplement. We get a large portion of our energy from the fat that we consume, so I was always at the end of that particular line. It was a white powder, a really powdery one. It came in pint bottles and used to be delivered by the crate to my boarding house. The design was to add it to drinks and food to up the calorie intake. I used to put it on my breakfast cereal. Back in those days skimmed milk was hard to come by so I used to drink powdered skimmed milk. It went into the jug with a hefty dose of the Caloreen mixed in. The result was no fat milk with the consistency of single cream. That went in the cereal bowl and then I would sprinkle some more over the top in place of sugar. Those were the days. I was taken off it at puberty sometime. Can't remember when, but my husband doesn't remember it and we met when I was 17.

Once I was back home and going to day school again at 14, I met the real world. I took a bus to school every day, but I was once again toting my packed lunch so the school were oblivious to my dietary needs. This was the period in which I met my new love. Chocolate. The school had a tuck shop and I could bring money and buy WHATEVER I WANTED. Oh, Mr Cadbury, why? I realised that there was a whole new world out there and I wanted part of it. I would eat entire Dairy milk bars on the bus home. I would secretly eat chocolate digestives behind the sofa. Once I started going downtown with my friends, I discovered McDonalds. I don't expect that you can remember your first beefburger. I can.

Somehow, I survived my teenage years. Honestly, I'm not sure how. I went to the hospital regularly to check my blood levels, and each visit was preceded by two weeks of manic dieting. Not really the best way of handling it, in retrospect, and when I got to 17 or 18 I decided to not do that and see what happened. That was the year that they sent me for a liver scan because my levels were so high.

I see that I am filling the page once again without having got to my original point, so I'm labeling this post Childhood and moving on. Basic introduction to cookery will be next. Stay tuned.

Introduction - On strangeness and confusion.

Well, look at this, a fresh new blog, ready to be filled with my emotional junk. It's a bit like looking out onto the pristine snow after a blizzard and thinking: I'm gonna go jump in that! I'm gonna make snow angels, chase the dogs, bury the kids, throw snowballs at the husband and sing loudly when the neighbours complain. Of course, if it's anything like most of my life projects, and indeed most of my experience with snow, it will be fun for five minutes, then I'm going to get cold and bored and go see what's on TV, but, you never know. I am trying to do something important here, so hopefully I will stick with it.

I am the Weird Mom. It's actually official, my friend tells me that's what the other parents at nursery used to call me. Actually, I am the Weird English Mom, as I live in Portugal and my kids go to local school, but still, you know, it's slightly scary that that is actually how people think of me. I don't mind being different. I've always been different and I actively seek out differentness, but weird? What makes me weird? My shoes match, I don't mind stepping on the cracks in the pavement and I don't look at your left ear when I'm speaking to you. Unless you've got something going on with your left ear, of course. I have some awesome dragon earcuffs I wear on my left ear, feel free to stare at them. Would be rude not to.

I am also a Christian, and have been for some time. Nowadays I am the warden of my local church. Mostly because no one else would do it, of course, but I was touched, and mildly surprised, when instead of laughing and telling me they'd get back to me when I offered myself, the then current warden actually hugged me and tried not to cry. What, I wondered, what I getting myself into? Now I know, and I am a richer person for it. It's great to be able to give back to the people who have helped me in so many ways over the years.

Lastly, and most importantly for this blog, I suffer from a rare condition called Lipid Lipase Deficiency, or LPLD. Or at least, it is at the moment. I am known for veering off course very easily - example - Today I got up to get a document to sort out some healthcare. As I left the desk (in the kitchen) I boiled the kettle and poured some water to let the tea steep. Went into the lounge, noticed that I hadn't changed the turtle's water. Back into the kitchen to fill a jug. Five mins to find the jug. Walking back past the kettle, realise teabag is still in cup. Rescue it. Notice empty fish tank and wonder if turtle would like a change of scenery. Take fish tank into lounge, transfer turtle. Watch turtle in obsessive fascination for five minutes. Return to kitchen, notice next door neighbour having some sort of tussle with my dogs. Go to front yard to assess situation, she is trying to keep the dogs off the plate of fish she has put down for (our) cat. Discuss merits of putting food for cat on table in her yard rather than floor of mine. Discuss cuteness level of my animals. Back into kitchen, realise tea is now cold. Put tea in microwave (I don't take milk, it's fine). Grab a snack and tea and sit down at desk. Sign back into windows, open browser, remember that I had got up to get a document.

Where was I?

Oh yes, LPLD. Basically I can eat no fat. Rather like Jack Sprat, except my taste tendencies lean more towards his robust wife. I have an enzyme deficiency that means I cannot process fat so I need to keep it under 20g a day. I have been like this since birth, causing my parents no end of hassle and resulting in a deep seated hatred of cooking on my mother's part. I have cheated my way through a large portion of my life, balancing carefully on the fence between ok and ill. (I won't go into the early symptoms of overindulging, think it through, it's a digestive thing.) Now, however, rather like a lifetime smoker or drinker, I am beginning to worry that maybe I should try to undo some of the damage, on the basis that I'm not going to be high up on the liver transplant list if it's my own goshdarn fault that I need one. I have had a few incidents lately that I will divulge in different posts, as you are surely getting bored by now by this one, but the gist is that I need to overhaul my diet and feel better. Maybe I can do this better if you lot are all watching and judging me.

So, introductions are over, the work begins. This blog is a food diary, recipe book, therapy session and occasional sulking corner for me. It's a new month, nearly a new year and I'm hoping for a new me. Stay tuned.