For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

And back to soup. It feels like I’m in the backward time loop of Tenet with everything revolving around the 15 January as a few days before I had soup and then I had nothing and then I built back up to soup again. Maybe I should reverse the entire month and eat everything in reverse order?

Also, like Tenant, I could complete every update as

BWHAN NANN AHHH MUMBLE MUMBLE Time loop MUMBLE NANN BWAH

Or maybe not.

So, today was back to soup but to escape the loop it was vegetable rather than tomato and I was happy to see that my appetite was coming back and I should be back to normal tomorrow.

Bread: toastie bread and butter.

Ingredient: vegetable soup

Taste: like continued recovery

For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

“Would you like a sandwich?”

Normally, the answer would be “Yes!”. Who would turn down a sandwich?

But there are two times that I aways say “No”. The first time is this week (or any other week when I’ve had a stomach bug). No one wants a sandwich straight after vomiting. It takes a few days to build up an appetite again. From yoghurt to yesterday’s toast to today’s yoghurt and an apple. You can’t jump straight back into a multi-layer club sandwich. You need to build up.

The second time I’ll say “no” to a sandwhich is when that sandwich comes from a buffet. Or, more precisely, it comes from someone else’s buffet. I have no problem with a sandwich spread at a meeting. Someone brings in various sandwiches and I’ll get tucked in. What I object to, what I avoid is when someone asks “Would you like a sandwich – there’s plenty left over from lunch?”

Who wants an unwanted sandwich? If there’s sandwiches left over then that’s because other people have pawed at it to get to the good sandwiches. It’s not leftovers, it’s cast-offs. And who want to eat a second hand cast off?

This especially applies to the Japanese sandwich known as sushi. Never eat cast off sushi. An entire room of people have already looked at the nigri roll of hours old tuna and said “no, I won’t eat that.” Why would I eat it? It’s not just fish that’s been out in a boardroom for the last few hours, it’s unwanted fish. It is charity shop fish. It doesn’t need eaten, it needs binned.

Bread: Nothing

Ingredient: Yoghurt and an apple

Taste: like improvement

For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

My worry about 31 days of lunch was that it might cause me to gain weight. Ha. No chance of that this week. After yesterday’s yoghurt, I’ve added a slice of buttered toast for lunch.

“You don’t need butter,” said Mrs TwinBikeRun, “my mum reccomends a dry piece of toast to help with a stomach bug.”

“And when did your mum stop being a nurse ?”

“1967”

“I’ll have some Lurpak – before she also reccomends bleeding me with leaches”

Bread: A slide of toastie bread.

Ingredient: Butter

Taste: like recovery

For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh! Ooooooohhhhhh! Rumble! Rumble!

Last week, Mrs TwinBikeRun came down with a vomiting bug. As a week had passed, I thought I was safe. But, just when you think you’re safe… it struck.

Last night was spent on the hour every hour revising last night’s dinner. By 6:30am I felt it had passed but I’ve not had anything to eat so far today except for a single Muller Light yoghurt.

Does a yoghurt count as lunch? Maybe if I was model or a ballerina or if yoghurts came in trough sized portions. But a single tub of Muller light is not sufficient for a lunch. At least not most days. Today, it was just perfect.

Bread: Nothing

Ingredient: Nothing

Taste: like last night’s dinner

For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

Nearly two weeks into this challenge and what have I learned:

• I don’t need to repeat meals. Normally, when I buy food for lunch I repeat the meal until I’m finished with the ingredients. Say I buy cheese and ham. I make a cheese and ham roll on Monday and I have cheese and ham left over. So, I have it again on Tuesday and then Wednesday until it’s done. I don’t have to do that, small changes can make the lunch different.
• I have slightly more variety than I thought – but I can do more. The second half of the month will involve challenging myself to try new things.
• I love cheese. Always have. Always will.

Bread: McGee’s roll.

Ingredient: Cheese from last week

Taste: like Wallace & Gromit

For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

There is a plant in Scotland called the nettle. You may know it. If you touch it; it will sting; it will give you an unsightly red rash and the irresistible urge to continually scratch every minute of every day for the next bloody fortnight.

Any sensible person would avoid the nettle, not my mum, she made nettles into a soup.

But, it didn’t stop there. The nettle’s cousin is the thistle. The thistle is just like a nettle except it has long sharp pins, leaves a bigger rash, and it leaves you with an irresistible urge to scratch every minute of every day for the next bloody month. What did my mom do with this? She made it into a soup.

I knew then it was a mistake to have bought her a liquidiser for Christmas.

She wouldn’t stop. We lived in Stornoway in the Western Isles. We were surrounded by seagulls, and when nettles were scarce she’d run down to the cliffs with her liquidiser, a soup pan and a Wily-Coyoteishly large avian net.

If you could pick it, pluck it, catch it, snatch it, hold it down and liquefy it, it could be made into a soup.

But, even though we had more soups than Heinz has varieties (58 rather than 57), she would not share that soup with any man, child or Free Church minister, who dared darken her doorstep around dinnertime. Before they were even ushered into the kitchen, while they waited in the front doorway to remove their green wellies, my mum would pounce upon them and say with a disingenuous smile:

“You’ll have had your soup then.”

This being considered a respectable greeting/warning to any visitor arriving at or near tea-time; it being considered impolite to say “no” to whatever was being eaten that night, even 100 years after the last time there was a famine on the island and the need to protect your croft and feed your family first was at it’s strongest. Then, and only then, were they ushered within sight of the kitchen stove.

Some people may consider this exchange impolite; maybe, even downright rude; but, this is just the way of the islands.

We didn’t greet each other with joy. There were no Parissean air kisses, no hearty backslaps, if you were lucky, when you entered a room no one would acknowledge you at all. If you were unlucky, you were greeted with the standard island greeting of:

“So, it’s you then.”

Said with the manner of someone who is expecting someone better, or someone else, or someone who was anyone but you. In Lewis, meeting a stranger, or even a friend, was like playing the lottery and always getting five numbers right.

That’s why I love soup. It’s both a drink and a warning. Like Buckfast but with less aggro. Or lager without the shouting.

Today, I had soup.

Bread: the last of my M&S White Rolls

Soup: can’t go wrong with Cream of tomato

Taste: like a begrudgingly welcome.