GIDDY

It’s week 3 of my pre-surgery ‘Slimfart’ diet.  The cats are starting to look mouth-wateringly appetising.  I’m as high as a kite due to reduced calorie intake and so full of wind that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has invited me to perform a trumpet solo as part of their winter concert season.  Dieters on Slimfast should be made to wear a T-shirt in public warning of dangerous toxic emissions.  What a pong! 

Do not use in unventilated areas

So here I am, pioneering a new type of health regime that largely involves hi-impact painting and farting.  A few hours of repetitive paint rollering is perfect for toning up those flabby bingo wings.  It helps to put on a few catchy tunes so you can paint (or fart) to the beat.  Up the ladder, down the ladder.   Up the ladder, down the ladder.  Think retro step aerobics class without the clingy leotard.  I would wear my 80’s knitted legwarmers to really get into the spirit of this new healthy form of exercise but it’s far too hot for that.

First coat on the wallpapered wall

Before painting

After 2 coats of matt emulsion

The bedroom is now looking a lovely shade of eggy yellow, a colour aptly named by Dulux as a ‘Sunny Day' from its day at the beach range.  Dulux have obviously never spent the day at Bournemouth Beach or they might have had to call this paint ‘Litter Strewn Fag Butt Infested Apocalypse’ instead as this is what our beach usually looks like after a hot sunny day.  It’s a shade lighter than the previous golden yellow we had on the walls but contrasts nicely with the white ceiling, giving the room a warm, cheery glow.

Sunny Day matt emulsion by Dulux

After a sunny day on Bournemouth Beach

Next up is undercoating the woodwork, a task to make you feel as giddy as Boris Johnson after the ‘Remoaners’ have given him a good run-around.  In this heat, painting is not recommended unless you are doing it early in the morning or in the evening when ambient temperatures are cooler.  Hot weather affects paint as it tends to spread too thickly and dry quicker making it tricky to blend in individually painted sections often resulting in unsightly ridges.  Nobody likes unsightly ridges in their woodwork, especially me!

Jade green woodwork - so yesterday

Unsightly paint ridges - no, no, no

So if you’re thinking of picking up a paintbrush during this summer heatwave, my advice is best to go down to the litter strewn beach then come back for a spot of undercoating later.

QUIT SNACKING

Alas poor gallbladder!  I knew it well.  Not quite what Dr Shakespeare would have penned in my hospital report but I’m sure the sentiment was there.

Perfectly summed up by The Awkward Yeti

Like a faithful old nag being put out to pasture, it seems I’m being decommissioned piece by piece with yet another internal organ on the ‘body parts you can live without’ list.  Last time it was ovaries, this time it’s my gallbladder, a seemingly squishy and innocuous part of your anatomy located somewhere near your liver.  Mine’s in use as a rent-free squat by a large gallstone which is now in receipt of an NHS eviction order.

Do you know where your gallbladder is?

I’m surprised the frosty faced consultant (I’m not in charge of the NHS you know) didn’t blame gallstones on air pollution as this has become the new ‘fat’ which we all know replaced smoking as the cause of everything that’s bad in this world.  Noisy neighbours – yep, air pollution.  Cat bringing in dead birds – got to be air pollution.  Run out of cherry flavoured yogurts in Tesco – air pollution? You bet.  Gallstones – oh most definitely air pollution after all those years of breathing in particulates I didn’t know existed. 

Man-made climate emergency - fact or convenient financial fiction?

I’m sure I'm not the only one living in daily fear of the Pollution Police busting down the front door in one of those crack-of-dawn raids to arrest me for harbouring a gas combi-boiler fugitive in my kitchen such is the level of pollution anxiety the tabloids have reduced us to.

Quick hide!  It's a raid!

But let’s not get too hung up on air pollution in this post and return to my hospital consultation which lasted all of about 5 minutes in a minimally furnished room that would have made Colditz look like a 5 star hotel.  When I say consultation what I really mean was interrogation since I was not ‘consulted’ about my side of the story but accused of creating this monster problem by being too fat.  (She must have meant pollution, surely?)

Never mind that for years I’ve suffered from an underactive thyroid.  Did you know that thyroid hormones interfere with your bile production and affect the absorption of fat by your gallbladder?  Neither did I until I consulted Dr Google.  Miss Frosty-knickers MD was having none of it.  I’m a junk food scoffing couch potato in her eyes and that’s all there is to it.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Gallstones because this is what I do all day long?

And so whilst I wait for a spot on the NHS operating list (more chance of finding a unicorn than being seen this side of Christmas), I’ve gone cockling.  No doubt this will soon be banned on the grounds that cockle farts cause gallstones and every kind of cancer known to mankind and some ailments known only to Martians.  Ah the joys of summer!

Saving the planet from cockle farts

Low calorie and full of minerals

The Gallstone Seafood Diet - see food and don't eat it