Half A Cow

Blood was 5.2 this morning, so coming back down nicely.

Did a probably-stupid thing this morning, before getting on a train from Merthyr to Cardiff, and Cardiff back to London. I had a shower.

Now don’t get me wrong, that in itself is not a probably-stupid thing. I daresay fellow passengers, and indeed fellow humans in general, would probably come together to sing in praise of the all-round sensibleness of such a move. But having a shower put me, all sorts of naked, in the room with my mother’s scales again.

I was gonna leave it be till we got home, you see, and finish our holiday on a high-note of glorious ignorance. But as you probably know by now, while my food-related will power appears fairly strong if allowed a good solid bitch here and there, my impulse-control in other areas remains feeble and jelly-like.

Mmmm…jelllllly….

Ahem.

I got on the scales. They were kind to me, chalking up 17 stone 5 pounds. Those of you with long memories and more time on your hands than is healthy will recall that this is what I weighed on our home scales before we came away, which was interpreted by my mother’s scales as 17 stone 8 – a three-pound discrepancy. By that reckoning of course, I should be 17 stone 2 in real terms, but somehow that seems altogether too positive a result, and I’m refusing to believe it till I get confirmation from the home scales. What I think is responsible for this freak positive result is yesterday’s half a cow.

Don’t blame me, it’s my jet-setting pal Rebecca’s fault. By the time I met up with her yesterday, I’d already drunk a mug of de-caff latte the size of a human head in Culverhouse Cross. Then, with Reb, I had another two large de-caff lattes. Plus an ennnnndless stream of de-caff at home with my folks. Drank a lot of de-caff yesterday, to the extent that Rebecca, when describing my situation to our mutual friend Lee (who was at home with Chickenpox, but who hadn’t been to see the doctor yet – lovely bloke, Lee, but he will die one day because something simply hasn’t occurred to him….like turning the gas off or somesuch), she used the phrase “Oh he’s drunk half a cow today…”

I like that, it has a Charge of the Light Brigade feel to it, doesn’t it?

Half a cow, half a cow, half a cow onwards,

Into the valley of cream rode the Disappearing.

Sweet shops to the left of them,

Cake shops to the right of them,

Pizzas in front until

Some of them chundered…

Two things strike me about my half-a-cow diet yesterday. Firstly, none of those de-caff lattes were even remotely skinny. While I’ve pretty much swallowed my pride about ordering what I still think of as the ‘bucket of pointlessness’ that is a large de-caff skinny latte with sweeteners in London, I still don’t seem to be able to bring myself to do it in Wales. This, I think, is because the sense of self-disgust I feel at ordering such a pretentious, pointless beverage speaks inside my head with a distinctly Welsh accent. I feel as though, if I push my luck in Wales, I’ll get a blank look and a “You wha-?”, followed by a disbelieving “Ohhhh, that a London thing, is it?” – the implication being that you, the Londoner (and incidentally, by association, that most despised of entities, the Englishman) “think you’re something”. With the exception of being English, there is no more damning judgment in Wales than “he thinks he’s something”.

This of course is a particular minefield for egomaniacs like me, who frankly have always thought we’re something, even though, as plenty of people would be only too keen to point out in the Valleys, we’re not, really, anything at all. Humility is not only (generally speaking) one of the best national characteristics of the Welsh, it’s a social code that is rigorously, indeed often venomously enforced. Any success must be downplayed, any idea of excellence must be hammered down, and flattened out or you stop being “one of us”. I found myself doing it yesterday at the hairdresser. She asked me what it was I did again, and I told her. There was a pause, while she looked at me in the big mirror, assessing my big furry face.

“Are you really incredibly intelligent then?” she asked, with that strange mixture of potential pride and vague threat.

“Noooooooononononono,” I assured her. “I’m just a journo, I don’t understand any of it…” She laughed, and carried on cutting my hair.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of the Welsh here. They are proud of their successful sons and daughters. Truly, madly, deeply fact-obliteratingly proud, they’re a nation of doting mothers and fathers – AS LONG AS the successful sons and daughters give credit where the Welsh think credit is due: to their roots, their home, their intrinsic Welsh superiority. If on the other hand, the sons and daughters don’t pay homage, which essentially means saying that other places are better, at anything, than Wales is, they run the risk of “thinking they’re something” when they go home, and that can be the coldest of shoulders to come up against.

Ahem…

Which is why, to this day, I can’t order a de-caff skinny latte in my home town. I daresay I’ll get there, but I haven’t…yet.

And secondly (err yes, that whole rant was just point one), drinking a lot of coffee yesterday meant I felt full. Feeling full meant I skipped at least the middle meal of the day, and any-and-all associated fruity nibbling throughout the afternoon and evening.

The De-Caff Diet? Yyyyeah maybe. Half a cow=a meal and a half? More than likely.

As I write this, we’re on our way back to London, and I’m probably going to give the bike a go this weekend. If it’s a no-go with the toe, then it’s a no-go – I’m not gonna be stupid about it. Sit-ups and weight-work will then become a part of my short term future. Actually, when we popped in to see our friend Brenda yesterday, she mentioned something that’s “good for the core muscles”…Pilates.

Now I’ve always had this vague understanding of Pilates as “pissing about in lycra with medicine balls doing low-impact crunches”. But hey, if it’ll help me Disappear, strengthen or perhaps even gain the courage to order a de-caff skinny latte in my own home town, I’m game.