Author: Wattle

For my collendar page today I have taken an image of cooked roast pork and used my scissors to cut off all the crackling. Essentially what is left is an image of a pan fried, lean “Pork Medallion.” It doesn’t look too bad at all.

I have also found images of cabbages and flowers to remind me that this winter, this Augrapes, I am being quite disciplined about what I eat and it isn’t too difficult. My portion size now is a lot less than it was several years ago. However, it is only slightly less than my portion size was this time last year.

We only eat a few grapes this month to give us a symbolic taste of “Augrapes.” Even with the money saved from giving up cigarettes, buying out of season grapes can quickly damage the improved budget.

The pressure to purchase more grapes than we want or need by unreasonable supermarket packaging practices is a challenge to work on, constantly. We pay per kilogram, there is absolutely no need to purchase nearly a whole kilogram if we only want about one half of a kilogram. Therefore I think it is perfectly acceptable to remove up to even half of the grapes, one of two clusters for example, from one bag and place them in another bag. This sort of assertiveness does develop, slowly. If you don’t feel comfortable about doing that it would be possible to ask a shop assistant to do it for you, as an interim step, if there are too many in the bag. That way about the right amount of grapes will arrive home.

Sometimes the packaging of the grapes mentions that they have been treated with a gaseous spray to make them last longer. This makes it very important to give them a good rinse under the cold water tap. I like to change the bowl any leftover grapes are in each day. It helps them to last and makes them look more appealing.

For the rest of this month a quiet time is my plan. Continuing the daily walk is a must in order to balance the incidences of roast pork with crackling and of ham and pineapple pizzas. I will also continue making the collendar pages. I think it is well worth doing them because they do use up some time that might otherwise be spent on thinking about eating chocolate ripes and barbecue crisps.