Day Eighty Five to Ninety: where are the oompa loompas when you need them?

Dear David,

Well I have been terribly remiss and have not updated this in rather a while. It was the Easter weekend and I had some gorging to do, it would seem.

Thursday was somewhat of a watershed in the tales of SUBO and, having given up on crush one and (married) crush two, I decided to follow Dear Deirdre’s sounds advice and finally make a foray into normalcy. The realm of normalcy holds not much interest for me and I usually take great pains to avoid it. However, it would seem that this is the only way that one can avoid dying alone so I thought it might be time to venture forth from Green Gables and behave like a normal, sensible adult.

I asked someone to go for a drink. I asked a nice, pleasant, normal man if he would like to go for a drink. I was subtlety knocked back as email was brutally ignored. It turns out nice, pleasant, normal man is not any of the above. However, I don’t appear to be bleeding, I have no lacerations, scars, broken limbs and I have not had a nervous breakdown. Was Dear Deirdre right after all?

Much as it pains me to admit, I think Dear Deirdre was indeed right.

It was not, therefore, this potentially crushing blow that sent me towards a weekend of grubbing it. It was, however, the smell of Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

I went to York with my parents this weekend to visit my sister and see her lovely new house. I started well. We had a lovely picnic on our arrival and I nibbled at lovely carbohydrate free delights. I had green tea when we stopped for a drink. This was somewhat unravelled at dinner when the sea bass fillet had run out and I went for a steak instead. A 9oz rump steak, thank you very much.

Having had the steak, I decided I would have a Margarita too. I drew a line under it and we tootled back to her house. It was then I discovered that my sister lives next door to the Nestle factory and that the whole house is enveloped in the smell of molten chocolate from the hours of about 10pm until 4am. Like Charlie Bucket, I think the mountains of chocolate that I ate in the subsequent two days were born from the desire to find a golden ticket and get inside the gate.

I did go running on Saturday and Sunday but unpicked my good work with 10 Booja Booja chocolates, the same again of Monk’s Chocolatier chocolates, lamb for dinner, half a bottle of red wine, a McDonalds, a mars bar and a wee pack of Pringles. A binge of epic proportions.

I started to emulate Augustus Gloop, rather than the more lithe Charlie. I imagined myself lying prostrate on the ground, scooping up chocolate like a demented, overweight child. If only I had been sucked up the chute and carried off by the Oompa Loompas.

We had a lovely time this weekend. We had picnic on Friday and then wandered into York and ate at the most lovely restaurant. On Saturday, I left sister, husband-to-be and parents to go to garden centre while I went shopping. On my return, scrubbed, heaved, planted and we all created a lovely little space out the back; verbena, begonia, hydrangea. We also rolled out all those classic family stories. You know the ones? The ones that never fail to amuse that you have been telling for years but they are as fresh as the first time you experienced or heard them.

We were chatting about ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ and my mother was reminded of my uncle having a girl in his class who was a traveller. She also had a bit of a body odour problem and the other children in the class were ostracizing her. He decided to write a note to send home. He informed her parents of her plight in the most tactful of ways. A reply came back which read;

‘Our Rose gets sent to school to get telt, no smelt. She’s no a fucking daffodil’

You cannot argue with that.

Another classic was my mother trying desperately, without much success, to teach superlatives to a Primary 5 class. ‘I’ll give you an example class, ‘hot, hotter, hottest’’. I’ll give you a word and you give me the comparative superlative and then the absolute superlative.’

My mother started with one boy and the word ‘wet’. My mother expected the answer of ‘wet, wetter, and wettest’.

‘Ryan, the word is wet. What is your answer?’

‘Well miss, wet, soakin', ringin'.'

Perfectly fine in Scottish slang and another answer that cannot be argued with!

Sister made lovely tuna dish on Saturday night and then the wickedness started with the 10 Booja Booja incident and it was all downhill from there. Sunday, we went for run number two and I started with great intentions but, by the time we had Easter Sunday dinner, my resolve had melted like a Cadbury’s Easter Egg in the sun. I had lamb and mixed green vegetables to start. I then had a sneaky glass of wine that fast became three and then ate chocolates, the weight of my head in cheese and crackers and threw caution to the chocolate-scented wind.

Sister informed me that it is good to challenge ones metabolism from time to time and she is perfectly right. However, I assaulted mine this weekend. I am bloated and feel quite disgusted with myself. But wait….there is that smell again. It’s the chocolate wafting from Wonka’s. Damn you, Nestle. Damn you.

What can one do when one falls off the wagon but get right back on?

I am staying near work this week as I have the most gruelling amount of work due for Thursday evening and have to stay in office late to get any of it finished. The bus ride is not conducive to maintaining this rhythm and I cannot face the commute when I have so much to do and so much to think about. I am staying in the most soulless hotel in the world. It has a swimming pool and the whole place smells of chlorine. It is supposed to be 4 star but I think I missed the small print where it stipulates that this is only the case in an alternate universe. Dreadful.

I went for a run this morning and was unfortunately spotted by Dear Deirdre in all my lycra glory. Most disappointing that it is not also my invisible suit, which I had hoped it would be when I spent lavish amounts of money on it. Shake this morning, mid morning snack of egg white omelette, chicken and green veg for lunch and small portion of grilled chicken for late afternoon snack. Rounding off this evening with a shake in the chlorine perfumed room and, ever hopeful, that the smell of bleach, as opposed to molten chocolate, will make me as determined as I was before.
I look terrible today into the bargain. I purchased a raspberry coloured shirt from Whistles and it’s lovely but it’s too tight at chest. I feel rather trampy and I might actually go to hotel, get changed and come back here so I feel more comfortable.

It’s now 17.20 and I will be here for some time.

Kikicee




Kikicee