welsh hills again

Somehow we have made it through to Friday.  I am torn between excitement at what I will able to eat tomorrow (shallow me!) and a strange feeling that I could carry on doing this for ages.  I eat my porridge made with water and carefully scrape out the last of the cheap pot of natural yoghurt to go with it.  I barely notice that my morning drink is hot water rather than tea.  Then I whizz out to yoga class, both as a distraction from thoughts of food and to share experiences with my yoga teacher who is the only other person I know who is doing this. Patty has eaten quite similarly to me but she has had chick peas as well as lentils and a small amount of nuts.  I think she has purchased these with the money I chose to spend on yoghurt, which has been my only dairy.  She had intended to make baked potato the centre of her main meals but found that potatoes are just too expensive.  It is interesting to see just how much conversation the whole challenge h...

The morning routine is going fine.  Porridge and yoghurt and hot water seem perfectly ok for breakfast.  I do miss my lovely home laid eggs if I think about it but if I just get up and get on with it all is fine. Today I am going to meet someone for lunch.  I have explained what I am doing and we have agreed to bring a boxed lunch with us and to eat outside.  My lunch is the remains of my curry and rice.  I suddenly have an insight into what it is like to be someone whose relationship with food is simply that of "food as fuel". I know several people like that and I imagine it saves a lot of time, but because we love food in our house I have always been interested in cooking it, eating it, thinking about it, planning meals for special occasions and using food to bring people together around the table.  This lunch is pure fuel.  I don't enjoy it.  I don't not enjoy it.  I just eat it.  There isn't quite enough but I am not actually hungr...

In a less than energetic start to the attempt to live on a £1 a day for five days, I don't get up until nearly nine o' clock.  Yesterday I went with a friend to Wonderwool Wales , a festival of all things to do with spinning, dyeing, weaving and knitting.  It was a great day out and I came away astonished at how very little I know.  I  have rediscovered knitting in the last couple of years and think I am reasonably competent but I now see I am just paddling on the shores of a vast ocean of expertise and passion.  So I came home with a small amount of wool and a sense that perhaps I should have bought more.  This is a better sense to have than that you have bought stuff you could not afford and will not use! Last night I decided that, before launching into my challenge for the week, I should go down in a blaze of glory so had chocolate brownie and half a bottle of wine. So here we go.  I weigh myself, although weight loss is not what this is about. ...

Could you live on £1 a day?  I don't mean to put a roof over your head and clothes on your back but simply could you spend no more than £1 a day to feed yourself?  That is the challenge which Unicef puts forward in its Live below the Line campaign.   " Live Below the Line   is challenging individuals and communities to see how much change you can make out of £1. By living off just £1 per day for food for 5 days, you will be bringing to life the direct experiences of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty and helping to make real change. Think about that figure - 1.4 BILLION - that's over 20 times the population of the UK - living every day in extreme poverty." I had never heard of this campaign until my yoga teacher mentioned it a few weeks ago.  For five days, from Monday 29th April to Friday 3rd May, she is intending to eat for no more than £1 a day.  Now my yoga teacher is a great advert for yoga.  She looks at least fif...