Resisting

I can not complain. I live in a land where there is no such thing as cold weather. There are storms; heavy rain and loud thunder, but even then it is hot outside. The rain is like a warm shower. So the really good days, the cloud-free sun-shining days, are vicious. It was one of those days yesterday. I took my laptop, water-bottle, some pistachios and made myself comfortable on the balcony. It was a great place to sit and write, but it got really sweaty very soon. Luckily it was a cool breeze so at least I had that.

The day before I could not resist the pool. I brought my book and a bag of popcorn, took a swim and relaxed in the chair. Like I said, I can not complain. I do not miss much about Sweden. Summer there is never satisfying enough, probably why Swedes like to travel to the tropics. There are even Swedish schools in Thailand specifically. I was pretty happy in my chair. The sun was going down and the crowd was thinning. Soon there were only me, still in bikini, and another couple fully dressed next to me. It was half past six when I headed up to change into clothes.

I started the food challenge on Saturday last week, so soon there has been a full week. I will write an update post about it on Saturday. This challenge is interesting but it forces me to buy groceries more often. I need fresh vegetables and, since I do not eat gluten, I eat a lot of it. So on Tuesday I met John on the MRT and we walked around inside ColdStorage. I was really hungry since I had not eaten since lunch and got cravings for gnocchi and ravioli. I know what I am going to eat in May! Instead we bought chicken, beans, vegetables, potatoes and had butterfly chicken made in the oven with cooked potatoes for dinner. It was all good. We even had hummus on the side which went surprisingly well with potatoes. I had the rest of the chicken and some broccoli for lunch the next day.

Yesterday John bought dinner from the hawker centre outside d'Leedon. I saw so many things I really wanted to eat. Cheese prata, lemon chicken, dumplings! But of course I could not. I had made myself a promise to stick to the challenge (I refuse to call it diet. It means different things in English and Swedish) throughout this month. John was kind enough to help me cook my meal, which ended up being shrimps in coconut milk with a chilli to spice it up, some french beans, couple of tomatoes and couscous. I have tried couscous a few times before, never really liked it, not the taste or the texture. I had some yesterday and guess what? I still did not like it... It felt like crumbled cardboard, tasted almost nothing which only made the texture worse. Nope, couscous is not for me. Not anytime soon at least. Not anytime at all more likely.