What a load of tripe!

I’ve never tried it but imagine for a moment that you have taken the foam from a cushion, cut it into small pieces, boiled it for a bit, added some tomato sauce and some beans and maybe a bit of veg and seasoning.

That’s almost the same as eating tripe (the way they did it today in the canteen).

It doesn’t sound really scrumptious, does it?  But, actually, it’s not so bad.  I guess it’s ‘poor man’s food’, really.  But Italians have strange likes, as I have mentioned before.

I thought (but didn’t say) that there is no way it would be offered as a main course in any British canteen, even the ones up North!

Today I did not have a bread roll.  It’s the new regime.  The one that is not a diet but is going back to how I used to eat.  You see, I’m getting fat.

Of course, if I say that to people around me they pooh pooh the idea.  they tell me I’m not fat.  And it’s true, depending on the standard your using to measure it.

However, 3 broken jeans (in the last 2 weeks) testify differently and I would rather go by those than by people’s comments.  Unless, of course, it’s the jeans that have shrunk!

So, I need to lose a little weight.  I was trying to think of things I have been eating differently to, say, 12 months ago.

One thing was eating a bread roll with lunch.  And, then, probably, eating too much lunch altogether.  So I’m cutting down.  Less pasta, less main course and no bread roll.

Then there’s the evening.  recently I’ve got into the habit of having a Mars bar (or 3) with my evening tea.  So that has to stop too.

I will see how it goes.  I may have to give something else up too.  Perhaps beer, for a bit anyway. Drink wine instead, perhaps?

Hmm.  It’s not good.  I don’t ‘do’ dieting – this is my equivalent.  I think it may work although I will probably be out on Wednesday and Thursday for meals and then Saturday we go away for a night (and some eating) and then Monday we go for a meal too.  Thinking about it, maybe, this week I should even skip the pasta at lunch? :-(

Weather, washing, whinging

“It was too hot”.

This was in reply to my “It was lovely weather but still too cold”.

Don’t ever think that as British, we hold the monopoly on complaining about the weather. We just have ‘more’ of it. Here, the weather is never right. It’s always too cold or too hot or too rainy or too much snow (well, this time last year, anyway). The only thing it rarely is (and so rarely complained about), is too windy.

I have a sneaking suspicion that every country is, more or less, the same.

When I replied that we still had to wear coats, the original quote was qualified with “Yes but it’s too hot for February”. There’s just no pleasing people.

And it was a rather splendid weekend (apart from the coats thing). The sun shone and it was almost too warm (outside my flat anyway) for a hat. Almost but not quite. If I was a truly British person I would, given the weather, have been out in shorts and a T-shirt!

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It seems that my washing machine has all but had it. It doesn’t always spin. And, anyway, when it does spin it sounds like I also put a load of boulders in with the wash. It’s so loud that I am unable to hear anyone on the phone unless I move to the bedroom.

So I went to have a look for some over the weekend.

I was expecting to pay between €200 and €300 so I was a bit shocked when there really wasn’t anything below €400. Damn! But I AM NOT going back to hand washing and so, this week, I must just bite the bullet and get one. I don’t really want a crap one so you have to pay more than €400 but I could do without it right now. Damn again! And then, this year or next year I suppose, will be a fridge.

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I feel better than I felt on Saturday.

Just thought you should know.

Perhaps I should apologise to A for being a miserable bastard when we went out on Friday night? We went to K2. I think I should revise my feelings about K2 as it really was quite good.