its winter

It's 6.09pm and it's dark.

Winter has arrived.

That means roast dinners, stews and root veges.

I'm not a fan of winter

but one thing I like about winter is the long conversations

that result from the earlier darkness.

That's means random, reminiscing, rambling conversations

and lots of laughter

about things like the best biscuits you remember.

I remember these biscuits that had cartoon faces cut out of them

and filled with white cream.

Oh they were so yummy and special.

That was back in the day when shop bought biscuits

were such a treat.

Or white bread with golden syrup that for some reason made the bread crispy.

Or golden syrup or honey on wheatbix halves.

Or cold milk and too much milo.

Or pink waffer biscuits, cameo cremes, the old toffee pops.

Why is it that food remembered tastes so wonderful

and flavoursome?

I remember a chicken meal at the Brisbane, QLD Hilton

that melted in my mouth.

Then the silkiness of chicken livers sauteed in chili peppers and whiskey

every Thursday night in Los Gatos, CA.

Or the fresh, tanginess of a beef salad in Feilding, NZ.

And the refreshing, coolness of lime sorbet at the Octagon in Christchurch.

A while ago I mentioned that I had started a diet.

I've kept going and have slowly lost 15kgs (33lbs)

mostly from taking sugar and processed food out of my diet.

I started following the Dukan diet but that wasn't sustainable

so I kept trucking along without processed food

though struggled wtih NO chocolate.

Then I got onto the Cohen Clinic diet and that has made all the difference.

It's all fresh veges, a little meat and some fruit.

My stomach has shrunk and a fist size of food is more than enough.

That and reading David Gillespie's Big Fat Lies book.

Gillespie's thing is that sugar is poison

and I'm inclined to believe him.

Chocolate now goes straight through me.

It's tastes super sweet and tacky.

I dream of chocolate but know that it won't taste like I want it to.

When I have had chocolate I have been ill.

Just ill.

Sick to my stomach.

Crampy and sore.

I think I learn my lesson but in my humanness,

I struggle.

I'll get there.

A couple of things today …

I’m sitting here burning CDs for a workshop that starts tomorrow and have noticed that I have to do this in a particular order = not an order that has anything particularly to do with the actual burning though. Nope I have burn the CDs in the order they come out of the packet in case, get this, in case I hurt their feelings. See that’s my desk below and the CDs on the left are the fresh ones and on the right are the completed ones (they complete me!).

Yes I am reading what I’m writing and I know its crazy talk. I do this all the time and kind of worry a little about the fairness of the order of things so the objects don’t get hurt feelings.

Like on the weekend I decided at 6pm on Saturday evening that I would reorganise my left over wood pile. I was really careful and thoughtful about making sure the wood that had been on the bottom got to go on the top and visa versa. Plus it got really complicated as I was adding the slower burning wood to the original wood pile of fast burning pine. What would happen if they didn’t get along? Or if I split up friends, keep in mind that some of this wood grew up together and to make it worse they were from trees that had been toppled in a storm in the mid-70s so they go way back, like my whole life way back.


You see I have issues ... but they are really positive issues.


The other thing for today is that on arrival at work yesterday there was no rubbish bin! What no rubbish bins! I hear you think (cause you'd be weird if you said it out loud). Prof. Ian Spellerberg (crazy professor looking guy who is actually a professor and of ecology to boot, lovely guy to work with) has been campaigning to have bins removed for our offices but now they are gone. In their place is this....

this!

This tiny wee flimsy plastic bin. What the heck fits in there???? Actually two crunchies and picnic do but that was yesterday (let it go!). Here this is how small it really is...

My goodness thats small!

But yay for me for remebering to drink my water today!