I was soooo tired when I woke up today.  I think it is all the over-eating and boozing that started on Friday night and didn’t finish until Sunday evening.  My body may be a temple but it was definitely harvest festival bonanza time at the temple this weekend!  Plus I hate it when something significant (like no water) is not working in the house and so I fret about it instead of sleeping.

Breakfast was definitely going to be uber healthy and low on points.  Porridge it was.  One of my favourite blogs, KERF , recently added some cottage cheese to her porridge.  I am not sure if cottage cheese means something different in the USA but I decided to try it anyway.  It was not inedible but not great either.  But at least it provided protein and made a change from nut or seed butter.  So porridge today was 50 g Jumbo Oats, 140 ml soya milk, 1 tsp Chia seeds, 1 banana and 50 g cottage cheese.  10 WW Points.

The plumbers came back, reviewed His Nib’s proposal to change our plumbing system on to the mains rather than use a pump, realised they did not have the tools they needed to deal with out old pipes and said they will be back tomorrow.  GRRRRRR.  So still no water and as the tank is now empty, we have no water in either bathroom.  Luckily there is some in the kitchen so we can at least flush the loo by using a bucket of water.  And we have somewhere to wash hands and clean teeth and can fill a kettle of water.

I made some chicken stock, to make use of yesterday chicken carcasses.

Chicken Stock

• 2 carcasses
• 1 onion, quartered
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 celery stalks
• Handful of parsley
• 3 bay leaves
• About 10 peppercorns
• 1 tsp salt

I put everything in a large pan, brought to the boil, covered and simmered for about 3 hours.

After about an hour of the stock simmering, my thoughts had turned to lunch.  I decided to make chicken soup.  I took about 5 large ladlefuls of the stock out of the pan and put them in a saucepan.  To this I added 1/2 a drumstick of shredded chicken meat and all of yesterday’s left over vegetables which consisted of just under 500 g of cauliflower and broccoli cheese and the kernels I had cut off 1 and a half corn cobs.  Plus some green beans and steamed broccoli.  I also added 3 new potatoes left over from Saturday’s lunch.  As you can see, I rarely throw food out as you can usually find a way to use it up.

I brought the contents up to a gentle simmer and warmed everything through for about 10 – 15 minutes.  I ate 2 slices of ham while it was cooking.  It smelt wonderful and was making me feel really hungry.

Sometimes I like chunky soups but today I wanted smooth and velvety, easy to eat and I hoped I had estimated quantities so it was a thick soup.

I had.  It looked perfect.  I even used one of my recently polished silver soup spoons to eat it with.   Warm, comforting, filling and nourishing.  I made enough for 2 bowlfuls and I ate them both.  Every spoonful was a pleasure.  Lunch was 15 WW points.

I felt too tired and too irritated about my water and no shower/bath situation to want to settle to anything this afternoon.  I have not slept well for the last few days and that usually triggers a troughing binge.

I was also really anxious about weigh in tonight at Weight Watchers as I have over-eaten recently and I felt fat and bloated.  So I decided to take myself away from the kitchen and I lay on the sofa and read my book.  I felt very lazy but sometimes I need to stop and do something completely relaxing.  It obviously was as I soon fell asleep.

I went to be weighed and was delighted to have lost half a pound.  Half a pound is practically nothing but that half pound was so very significant to me.  It means I am moving, albeit imperceptibly slowly, in the right direction.  I am still losing.  I was so thrilled I raced home, full of resolve to do much better.  And I would start immediately with a very small supper.

Supper was to be simple and easy.  I chopped up, in to small bite sized pieces,  an aubergine, a red and a green pepper and put them on a stoneware baking dish .  I stirred in 2 tbsp olive oil and some salt and pepper and roasted it slowly at about 150 °C for about 30-40 minutes.  I added this to some pasta and then topped it with Gruyere and fresh basil.

It tasted fresh and was perfectly adequate.  I only had a very small portion of pasta (40 g of cooked pasta) and the same weight of Gruyere as I am determined to eat within my point allowance this week.  Supper was 7 WW points.  It was a very small bowl of food but I am not hungry so it was obviously adequate.

That little half pound has massively improved my mood.  A small but, oh so significant half a pound.