On not eating our way through troubled times.

On not eating our way through troubled times.

We ran out of mineral water today and worse than that we ran out of wine.

My husband does not drink alcohol and never has. Even he is not clear if that is because he came from a regular party family who needed next to no excuse what so ever to get the glasses out and put some music on, or because he was a competitive swimmer, doing well at his sport at the age when most youngsters get the taste for the demon alcohol. As for me, although my parents drank no more than a glass of sherry at Christmas or to toast the bride and groom at a wedding; I admittedly have developed a liking for a nice relaxing glass of wine with meals.

Like so many people we have been getting our household supplies on line from the start of this massive health scare. The shortages in stores are only due to panic buying where people have bought enough toilet rolls the service an exhibition hall or football stadium. We are finding it hard to get enough fresh fruit and vegetables. This is not war time. There are not shortages from suppliers, the shortage is false, forced upon us by stockpiling habits of so many among us. 

Admittedly we have a quite rigid eating plan rather than a strict diet as such. We usually try to make sure that that we only eat fresh food but that has got rather difficult of late. Our usual habit is to be very strict Monday through to Friday.  In fact I don’t eat at all on those days until our evening meal, though Steve does a little snack sometimes, but not much. The evening meal is taken between 5 and 6 pm. There is not a great deal of variety on those five days. We alternate between chicken or salmon fillets served with a large salad the ingredients of which vary, but we both prefer lambs leaf, then there can be seeds, sultanas, beetroot, tomatoes, avocado, spring onions, fruit etc. dressed with home made salad dressing so that we know it does not contain E numbers and preservatives.

We do not have a first course on those days but we do have dessert of fruit, home made sweet things or ice cream…. We are both ice cream faces.

On Saturday after our training we have coffee and bagels with cheese and jam.

Normal Sundays, before all this, we would do our Sunday run and then go in to one of Arundel’s many tea shops and have a chat with our friend Birgit, who joins in our run session by starting after us and finishing a few moments before us since she is faster than we are. We have tea and/or coffee and cake. Then we go home and our dinner will be closer to 4pm and is usually something we have been thinking about, a steak maybe or venison even or a different fish dish served with whatever vegetables we fancy but generally a larger meal than weekdays.  

The whole idea is to avoid putting weight on, because of our sport, rather than being a slimming diet. Holding steady and making sure we eat fresh healthy food to keep us fit and strong.

I have mentioned before that I was born just before World War II so I have seen shortages when it could not be helped. Even after the war there were job shortages and some very careful shopping. Food was rationed. Sweets and chocolate were included in that rationing but mostly my parents could not afford such luxury. Now and again at a weekend my mum would buy half a pound of broken biscuits and we would have tea in bed on Sunday mornings and take turns to pick out a piece of our favourite biscuit. My mum made my clothes out of old clothes or curtains that she bought at jumble sales. I have seen harder times than these. 

These next few months will be testing for all of us but the answer is not to eat our way through it and find ourselves having trouble getting the jeans to do up. I think we should think of others who are worse off than ourselves, the unfortunate ones who have caught this deadly virus, the families who have lost loved ones. The death toll is still going up and will continue to do so. The least we can do, is try to stay in touch with our friends and family even if it can only be done at a distance by phone or social media. Try not to only think of ourselves. Let’s keep our spirits up by keeping busy, doing useful things and keeping in shape which is something we can and should do at this time. 

 Our local swimming and sports centre Littlehampton Wave has had to closed so swimming is out until the sea warms up a bit more. However we are doing our bike training indoors on turbo trainers in our box room and getting the run done extremely early in the morning a few days a week. That is the only reason we are leaving home and calling in to check all is in order at our business (that sadly has no business right now) to pick up our business mail on the way back. 

I addition to that we are doing classes that we have found on You Tube: Pilates, Stretching, Tai Chi, and Yoga. In fact most of our morning is devoted to holding on to our fitness levels. Then we find other ways to keep busy by catching up on all the jobs we have put off when we were too busy and too tired. Steve has done loads of stuff in the house including shampooing the carpets a room at a time, sprayed our little brickwork area in the back garden with weed killer. I have done sewing jobs and gardening as well as much more writing to keep my head on straight. The poem below is another of my early works; it has suffered several rewrites and is a memory from my childhood. My D.O.B. 14.08.39 so around five years old on returning to Worthing from the war years in Yorkshire.

Platform 1 Worthing Station 1945

A little girl shook her neat shiny curls

cultured by mother, to her discomfort;

traced the wording in the advertisement

on the machine with her eager fingers.

A tempting picture of chocolate bars

not one of then lay in a stack as shown

on the illustration on the façade.

The little lass could not understand why.

Her fingers handled the slim metal slot

where customers coins were invited in.

The space at the base where the chocolate

should tumble, as cold as it was empty.

Why fix a tempting chocolate machine

On platform 1 of the railway station

invitingly, and yet not fill it up

With special treats, that kids so want to eat?