The Bloat Man's Call

I keep trying to cook things. It's easy to let things slide, to live off takeaways and stodge. Round my way it seems to be a way of life. There are four fish and chip shops within easy walking distance (one of them in a petrol station!). There are five or six Chinese takeaways, two Indians, three or four kebab shops, a couple of "diners" and one or two restaurants that describe their food as "real", which in local parlance means a fry-up in the daytime and an Irish stew at night, none o' that fancy shite the foreigners brought with them: good, honest, hearty cholesterol in a soda farl.

There are also a lot of fat people. Fat people eating their breakfast rolls, an entire cooked breakfast in a bap, in their cars. If you see a thin person they are either a) a gangling adolescent or b) an alcoholic. Everyone else has been gently rounded out like modern cars; no hard edges. They would be aerodynamically smooth if they tripped and fell down a hill, their faces flushed at the end of it from embarrassment not wind resistance.

And I am one of them. I wobble amongst them, padded like a madman's bedroom. I look like I'm four months gone. Four months gone in the head, at least. I walk a lot, I have a powerful jutting arse and legs like a ballerina, there's no problem there. But upstairs, chins sag like a melting Vienetta, tits tumble and my belly looks like dough dropped on a barber-shop floor.

Something needs to be done. I can't afford a gym and I can't run on the one-and-a half-legs that prop me up like a fucked Victorian camera. Diet seems obvious - fresh veg, fruit, grains. Healthy, nutritious stuff, adding grist to bowel-movements and de-furring the arteries.

They don't have that stuff here. Or if they do I don't know where the fuck it is. The onions are watery and "mint" is one of the staples of the herb garden. The big three herbs here are "Basil" "Parsley" and "Mint". I've no problem with mint in a Mojito, but in food? A pea soup? Trad lamb? What the fuck else? I'm sorry. I'm taking it out on mint.

But...the bread! The bread is so bad. My local "baker" doesn't even sell bread. Their stock model seems to be based on whatever Greggs does, plus some french fancies. Its all flakey pastry and processed meat and fondant fairies.

I mean I could go on...I could go on...I'll go on...


Another day where the petty triumphs are pathetic in the extreme. Up before mid-day: one point. Have a bath: one point. Clean the house: a point. Sort out recycling and bring the bins back in again: go on, have two points. Go shopping and come back with just wine and cheese: going to lose a couple points there, John (though not as bad as yesterdays ultimate bachelor shopping basket: lasagne for one, cheapest red wine in the shop, loo-roll and fabreze!).

Maybe a hundred words of proper writing done. Better than yesterday. That all got deleted first thing. Ah, well. I'm going to have my picture taken tomorrow - the battered old boat still has something about it!