I find myself really getting into the routine of a daily juice, and today I recklessly push the boat out with a daring dash of lime …for extra zingy goodness!
Break-time toast is definitely a thing of the past! It’s evenings without a glass of wine I’m finding tricky. Prom-dress daughter has no exams tomorrow, my eldest has a ‘Reading Day’, and Small Boy is teaching himself a bit of Billy Joel (Piano Man – aww he knows it’s my favourite) … so a mood of relaxed, happy holiday tranquility envelopes my homestead and a chilled glass of white would be just perfect. I resolve to be strong, which with only Cherry Brandy in the house, is not the most difficult challenge of the day! Also, tomorrow is a work night out, never an occasion for sobriety, and I decide to save myself for that. With my halo firmly in place, I opt for an evening cuppa and set off to investigate some new juicing recipes.
Day 2 gets off to a fine start and I actually leave for work, on time, with a green juice in my bag. At break, as others abuse their bodies with coffee and toast, I smugly sip upon my nutritious sludge feeling virtuous and … invigorated! (Whether this is the vitamin boost, of carrots, spinach and apple, to my system, or simply the euphoria of actually having got a juice ‘to bottle’ only time will tell.) Then comes the text…
Mum, it went really badly 😢😢
It’s disaster and despair from the maths GCSE paper for my lovely Prom-dress daughter. I try many encouraging replies but there is clearly no consoling her, and there is clearly only one remedy for this situation … ice cream! I arrive home early-evening, laden with tubs of Ben and Jerrys, a bar of dark chocolate and a bag of salted peanuts. It’s surely breaking every diet regime known to mankind but I really don’t care. The treats, some family time and a good old sing- along to a favourite ‘Adele‘ album brings the smile back to Prom-dress daughter’s sad and disappointed face. At least for a few hours. After tea it’s Physics revision …. not our favourite thing…
So Day 2 in review. Still no alcohol or toast and I even managed a juice! I doubt that a double bowl of ice-cream and a fistful of salted peanuts will have done much to improve my running speed … but let’s face it some things are more important. Being a ‘fitter and faster me’ would be awesome, but trying my best to be a half decent mum is surely what I’m really here for….
Day One of my healthy juicing diet does not go according to plan!
Juice Diet: Day 1
I am up before 6 am, but that is because Small Boy has been sick! As I am, bleary-eyed, dealing with this, Prom-dress daughter, who needs to set off “Now Mum!” because “I have a GCSE Warm-Up session this morning”, discovers that her school skirt is still damp. I finish with the disinfectant, steer Small Boy back to bed and hastily try to iron the skirt dry, whilst my on-edge daughter hops nervously around the living room in her tights spooning down porridge and some chopped up apple (because I have run out of berries!)
A few minutes later, slightly less damp, and cheered by many ‘Good Luck‘ hugs, Prom-dress daughter races off to catch the bus and I head towards the juicer armed with a chopping board and knife. But this is a day when not even one piece of veg is destined to feel the chop, because the phone now rings. It’s my Ex. He is very excited about a plan for Small Boy to head ‘Down South’ for a World Cup Cricket Match. But the travel is complicated …too complicated …for everyone … except my Ex. I try very hard to find a way to squeeze it onto the busy calendar but eventually, having entertained many of my Ex’s variations on a theme of me, spending hours I don’t have, driving the highways of our land, I have to say no! Small Boy will be disappointed but, as I hear him racing across the landing to chuck up once more, I decide that the news can wait!
Small Boy announces that he now feels ‘much better‘, but he is the colour of my magnolia walls and I decide that a day off school is due. I call his school, I call my mum, who agrees to pop in, I sort out dinner money and bus fare for my eldest and, grabbing the remains of Prom-dress daughter’s apple I now head to work.
I make it home again by 6:30 pm, Small Boy looks much better and even manages some tea. After eating, it’s GCSE Maths Revision for me and my middle child! We call it a day by 9:30pm and I am now alarmed at how much I am craving some alcohol. The only offering in the cupboard is the dreg-ends of some Cherry Brandy but even that looks tempting! Somehow I resist and sit back with a cuppa to evaluate Day 1. On the plus side, I did avoid break-time toast and alcohol. But the boost of juice-fuelled goodness? Errr …does eating half an apple count!
I am appalled at how rubbish I am on this Friday’s run and it leads me to commit to a week free from alcohol, free from toast and rich in … juices! Now that could be a real challenge!
It’s our first fine Friday for many weeks. We tough, Lancashire lasses have doggedly run through rain, sleet, snow and gales over the grim and grey winter months. Some colleagues have marvelled at our unstoppable madness, and many have chortled at the sight of us returning windswept and wild from our endeavours. So the upturn in the weather has us giddy with excitement. Many routes are proposed. Reservoirs and valleys are spoken of, as are fields and trails but eventually we settle on a beautiful route through the woods. It should be a glorious treat … but it’s also a three-hill-killer and I am quickly slain. I do get through it, mainly because the one rule of Run Club is that ‘we never stop’, but it is a huge struggle. I am at the back, I am red faced, I am dry mouthed, I am hot, I am bothered and I am slowing down with every step! How can this be, I ponder? How can I go running twice a week and now start to go backwards? It makes no sense and I start to puzzle about what is different.
I am under the weather this week, in fact I do have to confess to a ‘Granny Nap’ today, when I was shocked to jolt back into consciousness from confused doze on my desk at work. Could that be it? It was also an off road route. Is that too much for my trusty trainers? And continuing the doubt in my running shoes, I add, to sound like a bona-fide athlete, that I do carry a permanent and painful niggle in my right ankle. So like the proverbial bad workman, do I blame my tools? Umm …one thing that certainly cannot be helping is that break-time toast at work and wine-fuelled evenings, out and in, have developed into definite guilty pleasures of late! A doctor friend recently told me that he aims for 2 alcohol-free evenings a week … and I’d be struggling to meet that threshold at the moment. Here, at least, is somewhere for me to start, healthier diet.
I have a plan! After a few moment clattering around my kitchen cupboards, I unearth…the juicer! I place it proudly on the worktop, dust it down and then gingerly plug it in and risk the on- switch. It whirrs back encouragingly and I decide there’s no time like the present. I rummage around in the fridge for a few wizened fruits and vegetables and off we go! With in moment I am triumphantly sipping on a glass of green sludge which tastes…pretty good actually. It’s surely giving my weary body the boost of nutrition and energy it needs! I put aside, for now, the chore of of having to clean the thing, and raise my sludge glass , ‘To a week free from wine and toast but rich in nutritious juices! To a fitter and faster me!‘ …
Smashing Single Parenthood 