Highs and... meh

Ah, the joys of having a thyroid gland that doesn't work. You get free prescriptions for the levothyroxine to make a pretend thyroid and for the statins and blood-pressure reducing pills you need to for the side effects of the levothyroxine. And then there's the big red pills that I don't know quite what they are, but they undo the side effects of the blood pressure pills. But they're free too, and I'm, er, careful enough with my money to grab anything that's free with both hands.

On the downside, the thyroxine pills are not as good as having a working thyroid. With a working thyroid, your body has a nice chain of squirts of different chemicals that stimulate other squirts of chemicals that stimulate other squirts of chemicals that stimulate your thyroid. With the pills, you get a blast of thyroxine. It's not quite the same thing.

For a start, it means you have to have highs and lows. Both are terrible. The highs are like periods of mania, as if I was bipolar and on an up-swing. I can't STFU for love nor money, nor can I stop doing anything else - working and cleaning up like I'm possessed, unable to sit still, just always on the go. For the lows... well, meh. The first clue that a thyroid low is happening is my eyebrows falling out (it's such a good look, having a tiny smudge of eyebrow near the nose - and no, the bit that drops out isn't the bit between the eyebrows, that I still have to shave or pluck, lest I have one ordinary-size eyebrow in the middle of my face like a moustache that got lost in the dark).

From then on, for a week, or, like here, two bloody months, meh. I wake up tired, I plod through the day hoping that no one ever under any circumstances will ask me a question (how am I supposed to answer? I neither know the answers nor care what they should be), I go to bed early, sleep through and wake up tired. And all food tastes like nothing, so eating becomes a refuelling exercise. Yes, eating! Eating becomes dull! Cruelty, it is. Just cruelty. And I gave up editing Wikipedia, reading blogs, watching the news and doing anything else that would require me to think in anyway, because thinking... meh.

So the silence here is explained. The project continues (for me anyway; CJBS has become very relaxed in his interpretation of the rules and I've not had the oomph to protest; that will change) but the blank screen simply hasn't been able to get any words from me on it. What was I supposed to write? Do I care enough to write it? Meh.

Yesterday, I woke up and noticed for the first time the state I'd let the house get into. I thought "tomorrow's Saturday, I could buy some bleach, get my bucket and some boiling water and make the bathroom sparkle! Yes I'll do that!". At that moment, I realised something down the chain was back giving its feeble little squirt of chemicals somewhere. This morning, I'm raring to go: bleach, an array of cloths, various pungent disinfectants and scary-looking scouring pads have been purchased and this house will sparkle by tea time. This feels so very good, and I'm looking forward to getting on with it.

Please don't let this be the start of a thyroid high.

Subject is fatless. Repeat: fatless

Ennui again. Or more a bankruptcy of ideas. Tuesday was salad, served with riveta. Wednesday was only last night but I'm groping for what it was. I wandered around Morrisons in a greater daze than usual. Ah yes! I made CJBS burgers from cheap mince and some onion pushed together and dry-fried. I had cheap vegeburgers. And I made a version of hash browns, that in the end were more rosti because they were baked. Fairly tasty, but all my fat was used up in the preparation.

Yes, I'm completely out of fat. For lunch, CJBS had bread soaked in the dripping from the burgers (he was thrilled but failed to notice that the amount of dripping left in the pan indicated that the burgers won't've been the healthiest thing in the world), and that's that for fat until the end of this month's go at the project, although I'll stare hard at my coupons just in case I've missed anything.

Fortunately, CJBS bought fish for him to have tonight. That doesn't need fat, but I had to turn to Madame La Patten for a recipe that didn't want some.

Fish roast was the answer. Take the pound of cod I've got, push tomato slices and bits of onion into it and bake it for 20 minutes. Then put more tomato slices and bit of onion on top and bake for ten minutes more, all in a medium hot oven. I'll serve it with mashed potato made with milk rather than butter.

For me, it's sandwiches. Basic salad ones, because I'm making them to take to Harrogate tomorrow at 5am (if I don't turn up at the office once a month, they'd have no evidence I was actually working for them; and I still haven't paid off Christmas, so my paycheck later this month will be useful lest I give up rationing and start busking). The bread is unbuttered, so it'll be a bit of a chew.

The solution is to do the following: buy the cheapest bottle of wine that the supermarket do (£2.99), pick the toenails out of it, and knock it back like medicine. With this plan, I'm sure to (a) not notice that the sandwiches are dry; (b) sleep well since I need to go to bed after The Archers; and (c) regret it horribly at 4am when the alarm goes off.

Pity me.

Ennui

That's yer actual French, that is.

At almost exactly the same point as in January, the rations are starting to bite. It's not that I haven't had great food. Even the potatoes last night were almost enjoyable and varied (the tomato version was the best, surprisingly; the stuffing one failed epically; the cottage cheese proved my forgotten point that cottage cheese actually isn't very nice).

But I'd really like something artificial and nasty. Plenty of E numbers, probably a vivid hue, salt, salt and more salt. And fat: hidden in the recipe, declared on the packet and slathered on later by me. I knew this was coming when, last night, I glanced at the Rational Living blog and saw that Michelle had enough points to get lots of olive oil. Olive oil! Oh, what I could do with olive oil!

So tonight it's the closest I can get to such a meal whilst sticking to rations. I'm having hot dogs. They're Redwood vegan ones, no cholesterol (although my cholesterol levels are now right down anyway) and I'm having them in a brown crusty bread roll with lettuce and tomato and "made mustard" (from powder), so it's not exactly a complete betrayal of principles.

 But CJBS is feeling the same thing. He set off to the wild reaches of Moreton with a "ditty bag" (no, me neither) full of spam sandwiches - requested, please note, Scott ;o) - but pointed out that tomorrow is his rest day, and, if he could request a cheat, he wanted a pasta dish with garlic bread. And this will actually work: I've got 2oz of cheese in, plus pasta I got on points in January and didn't use all of. There's half a tin of Spam in the fridge. So that's (almost) cheesy sauce for me and Spam carbonara for him tomorrow. With luck, I might even be able to get fresh spinach and spoil the dish entirely. And I'm ahead on butter; if I can get garlic, I can go a bit mad.

Well, more mad: I'm finding excuses to have garlic bread. What could be more mad than that?

Seeking inspiration

The random shortages here combined today with a lack of inspiration. I went to the greengrocers to find empty shelves, so I bought whatever they had: two onions, some potatoes and a savoy cabbage.

Now, that would suggest bubble and squeak or colcannon. But neither excites me. Therefore it's time for an experiment: cream of cabbage soup.

I had a look around for recipes, but most wartime ones wanted such luxuries as celery and carrot. Online ones wanted cream and bacon. Mine needs to be a bit simpler, but I'll posh it up - this is not cream of cabbage soup, this is my colcannon soup. Oh yes!

I've started with an onion-based roux made with a little milk, then added two sliced potatoes and a chopped cabbage and made it up with stock. For extra bulk, always important, I've added some oats and some pearl barley. This came to the boil and then I've taken it off the heat and left it to cook on its own covered.

When it's done, I'll drain the broth off, blend the potato and cabbage, reunite them and bring back to heat. I have literally no idea how it will taste; nor do I know if I will have to sleep alone tonight.

Currying (dis)favour

For the first time in the week I've been running this experiment I felt it today. The shortages, the two-hour cooking times with endless stirring, the damn potato with every bloody meal...

I'd already decided to do a classic British fruit curry tonight. For that, I wanted some spinach and some tomatoes. The shops could not provide - the spinach, wilted and old, was flown in from Portugal; the soft tomatoes were worse, with a choice of lorry from Spain or airfreight from Israel. This are not included in our ration, as they did not exist as an option in 1940. So no spinach and no tomato for my curry. (I'll use unrationed tomato juice, as I'm loathe to spend my points on tinned tomatoes).

But the shortages set my mind going. I want a pizza, my brain said. I want crisps. I want pasta in a thick tomato sauce with garlic bread and brushetta. I want to pierce some plastic film and shove something in the microwave or take something out of a box and throw it in the oven for 20 minutes. I want cheese and biscuits to finish, with butter and sliced tomatoes.

And that's after a week of pretty easy rations. I can only imagine what the people of 1945 felt, after 5 years of ever-diminishing supplies coupled to hard war work and fuel (therefore heat) shortages. No wonder that people trudged through life, as even after the war ended, the destruction of our economy became apparent and rations continued to contract; then came the winter of 1947, where even the sea froze.^{[Wikipedia] [Gallery] [Feature]}

With that thought, I'll now make our potato-and-carrot curry and feel cheered at my lot.