Author: Wattle

Sometimes I wonder if a glass doored refrigerator might be nice to have. But no. My guess is that the pressure to keep the contents always looking beautiful would prove to be too great.

Hidden behind our metallic refrigerator door, the shelves are arranged so that a plastic bucket fits in. Kept clean with absorbent paper on the bottom, it contains all the many space-greedy vegetables. They are wrapped in greaseproof paper so they keep better. They are fresh and appealing.

And what of the unapeelings? Well wrapped in plastic bags, we keep the scraps in the crisper part of the refrigerator until a suitable time arrives to bury them in the garden. Any temptation towards postponement of this task is balanced by the suitable time being quite capable of announcing itself to the nose.

It is well worth the considerable effort, because the clay we have masquerading as soil has improved slightly and last summer we actually grew 3 moderate sized pumpkins. Even so, perhaps Waratah might get a shiny, rotating compost bin for his next birthday. Wouldn’t that be lovely, the perfect present!

I am trying to think of what would happen if I did not have a garden. The unapeelings generously give their nutrients to any ground so it is quite acceptable to place them in the rubbish collection. Do you recall those old fashioned plastic rubbish bins? Hardware stores still sell them. I think with some holes drilled into the bottom of them they could sit on an apartment balcony holding a combination of unapeelings and potting mix. I would have three or four of them in rotation. The potting mix will improve its nutrition over time and in the summer I’d plant tomatoes in them.

Another very useful way to keep hands occupied is to choose an activity each month that we wouldn’t usually do.

Some that we have tried are ten pin bowling, pub quiz, social lawn bowling and mini golf. Visits to the botanical gardens, the cat shelter and the cinema have also been enjoyable. We will repeat most of these during the year and try out some new ones.

Even on a budget, the activities are affordable because the expense of buying cigarettes has ceased and less is spent on indulgent foods.

Sometimes real packaging may be quite a good representation of the food’s proportion of the day’s caloric intake on the Collendar page.

A commercial ice cream for example, might use up quite a large amount of cautious Januberry’s allowance.

No wonder I need to be reminded to eat only half the ice cream.

Years ago I participated in a commercial weight loss program. I approached my weight loss vigorously, using scientific method, and had great success. Miraculous even!

I lost one kilogram each week for 14 weeks in a row. I was less adept at making graphs back then, but if I had of made one it would have looked beautiful. You can picture it, a straight line going downwards on a due south east trail.

That weight loss happened at the height of the print media driven, slender hour-glass figure era, and there I was, looking like a slender hour-glass! For about a week.

You can imagine what happened after that.

Suffice it to say, I am sure glad I didn’t buy those elegant size ten, designed and made in Italy trousers I tried on.

Here is another beautiful mathematics I present for your contemplation.

“Larger bones = larger size”.

After coming to terms with this equation any weight loss becomes less difficult. Losing some weight that doesn’t even belong there anyway is an appealing idea, but it is easier said than done. The one good thing is it is easier to do if done more gradually.

In the interim I think I have found some good sizes. I have come to terms with my somewhat pear shape. At least it is a smaller pear shape now, size eighteen instead of the size twenty of a few years ago.

Better yet, I now know that the portions to eat don’t have to be approached with such exactitude. The right amounts are the amounts that look and feel about right.

Here is a suggestion. If you are going out, eat what you like. After all, there is plenty of the month left to eat what you don’t like.

I continue to pick up a tiny stone from the side of the road each walk. There are twenty three of them now, sitting proudly on the kitchen window sill. At the end of the month I will wrap them up in a serviette and keep them in a bottle, to be traded in on a rainy day.

Literally a rainy day, they will brighten up some wintry evening for us, dining out.