Now I'll be able to get out, and go into food shops and my chemist, although that's really about it. Most other places are shut. What a strange new world.
So, it's Waitrose on Wednesday. What shall I buy? Well, only the things I would normally get mid-week. My list is ready, and I shall stick to it. There's only myself at home, and I only want modest quantities. I'm not whipping through mountains of toilet paper, paracetamol and whatever else those with a siege mentality deem worthy of hoarding. I think they will find they've saddled themselves with a lot of stuff they'll never use, and have wasted money they may need later on. Idiotic. All that panic, all that uncontrolled buying: It was bound to lead to rationing in one form or another. They have spoiled it for the more reasonable and cool-headed of us.
In fact I hope I do find rationing enforced at Waitrose, so that I can find small but sufficient quantities of all that I want, or at least close substitutes. I'd rather like to see Waitrose insisting that you can't buy anything at all unless you possess a My Waitrose card. Actually, I do wonder why the government hasn't acted to make it compulsory for people to buy only from their usual foodstore, and only with proof of customer-membership. So if you normally go to Tesco, you'll have to flash your Clubcard, but non-members won't be there, and you will get what you want.
Why not? It would prevent groups of people raiding store after store, perhaps in foraging teams. They'd be unable to buy a thing unless signed up. And once signed up, their purchases could be monitored by the store, and if necessary bars put in place electronically on certain individuals who exceed the personal limit allowed, so that staff (and security) are alerted and they can't get past the till. In any case, a member-cards-only scenario would help the stores to judge exactly what is in demand, and how much they should really order.
I suppose the 'pasta rush' is still going on. This is my own cache of pasta at home:
Basically just penne, fusili and spaghetti, with some noodles. All dry. I don't actually eat a lot of pasta at home. If I get out my wok and cook up a veggie stir-fry for lunch - say three or four times a week - I'll pop a little pasta in a pan of salted water and add it to the vegetables after the soy sauce has gone in, so that the pasta takes up that lovely soy sauce colour. But that's normally the only occasion, whether at home or in the caravan, that I eat pasta. So I don't need much of it. My cache above would easily last three weeks.
Now don't get me wrong. If my tone seems dismissive, complacent, saintly even, let me assure you that I have hoarded a little Fry Light cooking spray, Amoy soy sauce, and Bisto Best gravy powder:
How wicked is that?
I do have a two-week supply of frozen meat, frozen fish and frozen green vegetables, but then I always do. Just in case I get a bad cold, or some other reason stops me keeping to my usual twice-a-week shopping routine. Tins? Some baked beans, some chopped tomatoes, some plum tomatoes. I'm not a great fan of tinned food. I've now got some milk in my freezer, thanks to Jackie next door. So I've had no worries about running out during my week of self-isolation, although it was only this morning that I needed to defrost the first bottle, despite being a big milk drinker. One way or another I consume 500ml of milk - about a pint - every day. It's vital for my bone health, as I don't eat cheese at home.
Indeed, my diet is still rigidly following Slimming World guidelines, even though my membership lapsed two years ago. And I keep the spreadsheets I developed going too. This is the record for the last few days, all in self-isolation of course. Click on any picture to enlarge it.
My 'Food Week' runs from Friday to Thursday. I draw a line then, and begin a fresh week. The week ended Thursday 19th March was front-loaded with a lot of meals out, and the syn total exceeded what was allowed. But the 'good' (green) days that followed somewhat redressed the balance, and my weight shifted downwards a bit. I now weigh myself only every two weeks at home, on a Friday, to take pressure off myself and 'average' the effect of preceding fortnight's guzzling. Moving the spreadsheet off to the right, I recorded the weekly syn total and the weighing result thus:
The weight result wasn't as good as it should be, but was better than two weeks ago, and the next weigh in two week's time - after a whole fortnight of eating only at home - ought to be worth a minor celebration!
Today is going as follows. It should be another 'green' day. Things eaten or drunk in bold have really happened; things in normal font are merely planned.
Mmm. Fish tonight: salmon (I love fish). This is how tomorrow looks:
And here are most of the cooked meals (pale yellow on the spreadsheets), and a couple of the snacks I prepared - for I photograph almost everything I eat.
Here's the wok in action for yesterday's lunch. Just a few vegetables that needed to be eaten up. No pasta this time.
Hot and satisfying. There was tabasco sauce in there. Well, it was going to be a brilliantly sunny but chilly afternoon. I was headed for Brighton, which I presumed would be a ghost city, with everyone indoors, and myself a lone figure in a deserted cityscape. I wanted to photograph the tumbleweed and feral dogs in The Lanes. (It wasn't like that - next post!)
This was this morning's breakfast. I've never got good at doing fried eggs, but they were tasty enough.
The photographs supplement the spreadsheets, so that there's no guessing about what I've consumed, how much, and what it looked like. In fact, shooting my meals ensures that I take care with presentation on the plate. That's important. It enhances the pleasure of the meal. I don't just tip it out on the plate and wolf the pile of fodder.
I'm a born - nay, talented - record-keeper, and these and many other records give a huge amount of structure to my day. They also serve to identify trends - good ones hopefully - and they let me relate the present to the past, and plan confidently and realistically for the future.
You can tell from my Food Diary what I eat: almost exclusively fresh food. Absolutely no ready meals or takeaways! I expect Waitrose to have all the fresh items on my list. I'll be really surprised if it doesn't. But no matter: if Waitrose is a dud, I'll head off to the farm shops scattered around in the countryside.
