Eat, drink and er …not so merry

Trying to cut down on the amount of wine I drink, which has had to be several oceans during the past ten years, I thought to myself,

'You know, Liz, if you could cut down it would help a lot. You don't smoke, you eat properly, on a good day you go for a walk, seven lots a day of fruit and veg is nowt to you so give it a go.
I do try to eat sensibly. I'm not very keen on fish. Like Bertie Wooster, to me fish is the course before meat and a course or two before cheese. I eat chicken because although I love red meat I am aware that too much of it is not meant to be good for you so I try.

The first day I had a sensible breakkie - fruit, nuts, seeds, yoghurt - I have that six days out of seven. I know I'm starting to sound smug now but hang on. On a bad day I do have a small glass of dry white wine for lunch but I didn't. I thought no, different food. I was very hungry by one o'clock, much more so than usual and in the space of the following hour I am ashamed to say that I dashed to Tesco, spent half an hour trying to decide which cake to buy as it had become something of a pilgrimage, picked up a big white loaf and a cake, dashed back with these, got home, grilled and ate an enormous bacon sandwich, demolished three cups of tea and two huge slices of lemon drizzle cake. Oh dear.

On the second day I tried even harder. I thought I'll make food. I used to be quite good at this. So if I make bread and a wonderful Elizabeth David soup that'll keep me busy for a couple of hours. I duly assembled the ingredients for making the bread, only to find that my flour was three years past its sell by date so no bread. I did make the soup but it all took a terrible amount of time and Come dine with Me - perhaps not the best programme to watch in the circumstances, all those people swigging wine and laughing - was on the television so I thought I've got some low what sit bubbly in the fridge and the fizz is going from it because it's been there almost three days, I'll just have half a glass before it goes off completely.

The soup took quite a while, it had to be  messed on with, lots of chopping and organising and only with the white part of the leek and then I had a job to find a decent onion - I tend to keep them too long and had to bin two of them. So washing leeks and peeling potatoes, finding the only clean pan, the rest were either in the dishwasher or in the sink, then realizing I needed the big frying pan, I had to wash that. I duly waited and prodded vegetables and 'melted' my sliced onion in butter and I watched Come dine with Me and I thought just a little more fizzy and eventually the soup had to be blended. Couldn't find the blender, so big search of the kitchen and there it was at the back of the last cupboard. I found its bowl you pour the soup into for blending. So I poured and then I blended. Some of the soup went over me and some of it went over my newly cleaned cooker top and some of it over my newly washed kitchen floor.

Then I put in the butter soaked onion because it had to cook for another ten minutes ( I obviously had a lot more time when I was young!!) and then I remembered it was meant to have boiling cream so yet another saucepan. I was by now on to my second glass of bubbly and I swigged it and laughed over the people in the kitchens on telly making a mess.I boiled the cream and poured it into the soup and then I found bread in the freezer and that took fine minutes to defrost and butter and then I sat down and then I thought well, there isn't much bubbly left I might as well have the rest so I did.
The soup was lovely. I imagine my cholesterol level shot through its own roof, the kitchen was a disaster area and I had to go to bed after two and a half glasses of bubbly.

Conclusion - a small glass of dry white wine, plus a few prawns, carrot sticks with low fat hummus, a small piece of cheese and a chocolate or two - often my mid day meal - is probably less harmful than two disastrous lunchtimes, a mucked up kitchen and me losing my afternoon to snoring.