FOWC

Tomorrow is my dieting day; Mrs T and I are desperate to get beach presentable and time is running out; as it usually does at this time of year, every year time runs out and we seem further and further from our goals. This may have been in the past due to a lack of a coherent strategy.

The reason for slight failure is probably due in part to alcohol, a lack of portion control and a fondness for croissants, and crisps. The meal planning, I tend to be in charge of, and my form of planning leads to us having a fridge full of stuff, all in a rush to spoil. It looks good, cheerfully colourful but ends up as a hotch potch of unrelated items. The further back in the salad drawers things are the less the chance they will ever see the light of day; only on saturday I pulled out a whole cucumber still completely enclosed in its plastic wrapper and almost completely gelatinous. This, as Tom Jones would say, Is not unusual. I need to change the bulb in the fridge too, that may help identification.

Anyway in an effort to find something interesting to eat for tomorrow’s 600 calorie torture, i happened across the fish counter in Morrissons in Malvern, the one where they have dry ice tumbling like fog over the vegetables, its like being at a Sisters of Mercy gig, except without the goths and with lots of people shopping for fresh fruit and veg. So actually nothing like a Sister’s gig, I expect the nearest they came to fresh fruit and veg was in their snakebite and black (I’m not picking on goths either, I loved snakebite and black and i’d say that helped me to achieve my levels of greatness that I find myself in the present). Leaning down over the tuna steaks, next to the oily trouts, I squinted through my vari-focals trying to see if the calorific value was anywhere to be seen.

My friendly Fishmonger, (I assumed he was, he was on the fish counter after all), spoke to me, the dialogue went thus.

• Hi mate, can I help you?
• Yes, how many calories are there in these Tuna steaks, we’re doing this 5:2 diet thing and I like the idea of some tuna, I had prawns last week.
• I have no idea mate, sorry. I hate fish, can’t fucking stand them. I can just about touch them but eating them is another story, horrible things. I expect the oily ones have the most calories, although that’s not based on anything more than all that slimy shit all over them (pointing); Disgusting.
• Ha! Yes, maybe i’ll get some chicken, cheers mate.
• Cheers

That happened to me today, no word of a lie, and it made my afternoon, a fishmonger who can’t stand fish! He may have well been standing in for someone when the went to the toilet, but i’d like to think not. I imagine him coming home and not being able to get the smell of fish from his hands, dried scales peppering his pockets, falling like splintered sequins to the bedroom carpet when he goes to bed.

So as one of the 2 days where the horrific calorific count has to be under 600, I’m thinking forward to a chilli and onion omelette for brekkie, some celery, radish, tomato and lettuce salad maybe with a slice of parma ham,  a scattering of capers and a dash of balsamic; that’s my lunch. Don’t know if I can face prawns again, thinking about all that slimy shit all over them!