Doing my bit for the wider community

14st 2lb; zero alcohol yesterday; 1,299 days to go (which seems a much greater reduction from 1,300 than one, somehow); Glanton.

I wish I hadn’t got into the habit of recording my weight in this blog. It started as a powerful incentive to get the poundage down, and it succeeded up to a point. Now it’s just a daily embarrassment, though I suppose the 2lb gain yesterday could be down simply to missing the dehydrating effect of drinking a life-threatening quantity of alcohol in the evening. Ironically, I took the absence of those “empty calories” into account when I decided that it was probably safe to graze a bit when I returned from a walk last night, along with the fact that I had just taken some exercise and had only eaten a very frugal and carefully calorie counted lunch.

I now feel very fat, and have to keep reminding myself that I was actually 22lb heavier at Christmas. Though this does not alter the fact that I would be 23lb lighter by now, if all had gone according to plan, and the bursary campaign for my old school would have benefited from enough additional sponsorship to pay for woodwork lessons for a couple of impoverished brats for the best part of a fortnight.

I also keep dreaming about living in truly awful lodgings. But at least it is not prison, so I suppose it could be worse as premonitions go.

Since yesterday’s diet proved so unsuccessful, I decided to revert to my proven IET™ (the no D for Dinner diet) and just have a cracking lunch. Accordingly I drove to my nearest pub, home of the world famous C*** Chips, to test their lunchtime menu. I told myself on the drive across that I was performing an important public service since, if people do not make use of the place, it will almost certainly close down (or at least revert to locking its doors until the evening, as it did until recently). It’s just as well I did, as there was no-one in the bar apart from the barmaid, and no-one in the dining area apart from a very elderly Scotch couple, the male half disconcertingly clad in shorts, who were finishing bowls of soup. I expect they had slurped and smacked their lips a lot while they did so. They looked the sort. Fortunately they left shortly after I arrived, evidently feeling that they had contributed quite enough to the Sassenach tourist economy.

The three of us proved to be the pub’s entire lunchtime trade. A blue car did roar up at one point and a Pugwash-mouthed, hard-boiled, middle-aged bottle blonde female was despatched from it to peruse the menu outside the door, but it clearly did not feature enough lard-based delicacies, as the car promptly roared away again. Foolishly, I thought, the driver waited for her to clamber back inside before he did so.

Purely in the interests of research, I solemnly worked my way through the daily papers, two pints of Gladiator, two packets of pork scratchings (only 218 calories apiece), a half pound burger with onion rings, c*** chips and a nod to healthy eating in the form of some salad garnish, ice cream and coffee. It filled a need. Frankly, I was surprised that I was capable of supporting my own weight on the short walk back to the car. As I did so, I noticed that the pub sign is now adorned with a gold line drawing of a dumpy old party wearing a crown. She looks suspiciously like Queen Victoria to me. So much for my friend’s distinctive plan to make the place a centre for Jacobite pilgrimages and subversion.

I did not accomplish much for the remainder of the day, which I spent feeling (a) very full and (b) that I had done my bit to preserve an important community resource. Mainly (a), it has to be said, but at least (a) was surely partially justified by (b). And, to look on the bright side, I did not feel the need of even the lightest snack while I was catching up with Coronation Street in the evening. Not even when I was tempted by all those bar snacks and Betty’s hotpot in the Rover’s Return.