Christmas Time, Too Much Wine

I am Christmas toxic. Utterly stuffed with meat, dairy, sugar and gluten.

Turkey
There have been turkey curries, turkey wraps, turkey pitta pockets, turkey sandwiches. All delicious, and as I haven't eaten turkey for 5 years, a novelty.

Chocolate
There have been two chocolate oranges, each before noon. The only fruit I’ve eaten was with nut, coated in chocolate and labelled Dairy Milk. Maltezers, Raffello, Lindt, Ferrero Rocher of course. Usually I'm a one square of 80% cocoa girl. Not this Christmas. Those ones are languishing in the back of the larder.

Bread and Cheese
So much bread and cheese, gooey gorgonzola with toasted sour dough and a beautiful antique glass full of port, a whole baked camembert dribbled in honey with sage, an unctuous taste temptation devoured in one sitting with crispy baguette and a nice Sablet from the Rhone.

Coca-cola cooked ham, pickled onions, chutneys and pork pies. Crisps, many crisps. Pavlovas and chocolate Yule logs - all delightful.

Bar Christmas dinner (roast turkey, spouts and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, red cabbage and apple, bread sauce), the only vegetables I've eaten were fried in butter and presented as bubble and squeak. I resorted to juicing the carrots lining the vegetable drawer yesterday with a thumb of ginger but I couldn't feel any semblance of detoxification. To be fair, I did follow it with a tumbler full of Baileys.

I’ve even been drinking coca-cola which would never normally pass my lips. My waistline has seriously expanded, my chin has erupted and my bones ache when I get out of bed in the morning. All this and yet I persist and I’m enjoying it. Is this masochism by food?

Of course I have plans to change everything back to goodness in 2020. Go plant-based, practice yoga, start swimming, exercise some self-care, all the usual malarkey.

I am worried. I can feel a small lump on the right side of my throat. Having had my thyroid removed in 2017 I'm still going for check ups. Why would there be a lump there? Where would it manifest from? Could it be a rogue lymph node. How does the disease even get in your lymph nodes. Ironically, I know drinking alcohol and eating sugar, stressing out and not taking any me-time are exactly the opposite of what I should be doing.

I had a mini epiphany yesterday while taking the time to ask myself why I felt a certain way when people said untoward things to me. It was that ‘I deserve to be here too’. I hope it's not too late.

And seriously woman, get a hold of yourself, there are people starving out there, as well as seahorses holding onto cotton buds in our polluted oceans.

Photographer Justin Hofman's image of a seahorse swimming with a discarded cotton swab illustrates the issues of pollution in our oceans. ... Seahorses ride the ocean currents by grasping floating objects with their tails.