Dalyan – 26th to 28th March

On Sunday 26th March I still had the cold when I got back home so I took myself off to bed until 6.30pm.
When I woke up I was so bunged up that I decided I would try something that Mark had been banging on about for some time. He had said that whenever he has a cold he puts a clove of garlic up each nostril to get the sinuses unblocked. Here, in Dalyan, all the cold medicine has pseudoephedrine in it which I can’t take as it makes my heart go weird. I was at the stage where I just wanted to feel better, I was exhausted and I was willing to try anything. I obviously googled it and various doctors advised against it but I was desperate to feel good again. I was meant to leave the garlic in place for up to 20 minutes but after 8 minutes it was doing its trick – it had actually worked!
I cooked myself chicken with garlic, onion, mushrooms and Slimming World potato wedges for dinner, using fres pieces of garlic! It didn’t look too good but it tasted really nice with it being the first hot meal I’d had since Friday. Amanda and Greg, The Aussies, had arrived at B1 but I didn’t go to meet them because I needed more sleep and to be ok for tomorrow. My new part-time job started in less than 10 hours and I was really looking forward to it.

Monday 27th March was my first day of work in over 3 months. I had Yorkshire tea and buttered toast for breakfast, before work then I had my first video meeting with my boss. I was full of cold still as we went through what I needed to do, and how, then the gaffer let me get on with it. I was hungry before lunch so I had a satsuma to put me on then broke for lunch at 1pm. I had more chicken, garlic and mushrooms with rice and then got back on with work. I’d already got some chicken casserole out of the freezer for dinner so I didn’t have to do any cooking once I finished. This was good as it meant I could fit in a phone call to my parents in the evening. It had been Ma’s birthday recently and I’d not yet had chance to speak to her. It was good to catch up with my parents and also it felt nice to be talking to them after a hard day at work!
I scoffed down my casserole with more wedges and then even had 2 biscuits with a cup of tea before another meeting. I’d already signed up for a 1 hour master class following the 4 days of challenges I’d done last week. So I dialled in, listened and took notes – it would come in very useful in the future.

I was up bright eyed and bushy tailed for my second day of work on Tuesday 28th March. It was weird waking up to an alarm and having breakfast while it was still chilly.
I went for cornflakes and Yorkshire tea, even though I knew I had to syn the cereal. For lunch I had a cold picnic style meal so that I didn’t spend my lunch hour cooking. I had stuffed vine leaves, pickled onions, steamed rice, cheese and walnuts. I’d got a chicken curry out of the freezer to have for dinner. The Aussies, Amanda and Greg had been here 3 days and I’d not seen them yet so I hoped to get to meet up after work. Strangely, we should have been having a lot of rain today but the weather was quite nice. When I finished work I ate my dinner then went downstairs to see Amanda and Greg. They had brought over equipment to get their apartment shipshape for the rental season and had already started on some jobs. After a good catch up until gone 11pm I went home for a much needed sleep. This week I’d done really well on reducing my consumption of alcohol and eating less syns so I hoped my result at Fat Club tomorrow would be favourable.