One week in and mostly keeping to it

I did cave on Friday. I was really hungry by the time I finished my first job and was heading to the second and having been unable to get interested in the smoothie I had prepared, I ended up buying something in the bakery near work. Lunch was salad with pickled onions and dried tomatoes. I ended up not getting home until eight, though and, still not interested in the smoothie, I caved and bought chips. I did eat some of them on one of my bread rolls at least.

Yesterday, I actually woke up hungry, a rare occurence for me. So I brought that smoothie with me to the last day of my side-job and had it there. Between that and the last two bread rolls for lunch (old-school, toasted and with just butter and marmalade) I was stuffed for most of the day. In the evening I went to the supermarket to get some milk, yoghurt, quark and bread but I did come home with a quantity of junkfood, too. I ate most of the crisps while waiting for my soup to heat up and then had that with some toast. I finished the crisps today and I've been nibbling chocolately things on and off all day. After a couple of slices of toast for a late breakfast I thought it was high time to make something a bit healthy.

Having had to search through the freezer to find the yeast earlier in the week, I had been reminded of several things I had in there. So out came the containers (400ml ones) of, respectively, cabbage, chickpeas, and mince. I also used up two tins of tomatoes and three handfuls of lentils so it feels like I'm making some progress at least.
This afternoon I sautéed a couple of sliced scallionsin one pot, and in another a chopped onion. Added a spoonful of minced garlic to each. Then a tin of tomatoes and the mince, along with some dried basil and herbes de provence, went in with the onion. To the scallions, I added the other tin of tomatoes, a tin and a half of water, the cabbage, soaked lentils, chickpeas and a generous half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. I left both pots simmering for a good long while. The smoky cabbage soup in particular I wanted to be not quite soupy, so that I could ladle it onto slices of toast (I did and it was delicious!). The rest of the soup and all of the bolognese will go into the fridge for meals this week. And for next week I think I'm going to buy some veg to add to a couple of tins of beans and coconut milk to make a curry. Still need to figure out what to do with the capers and pickled greem peppercorns as well.

Bread and soup

I was hungry this evening as I was finishing up at work and I knew that the soup I took out of the freezer to have for dinner wouldn't be enough. I decided that I'd make sure to leave work on time and then call in to the bakery on campus before they closed. And by the time I'd actually finished work about an hour later had already forgotten and just headed straight for the bus stop as usual. Oh well. On the way home I remember the 30-minute rolls from the Mortgage Free in Three site that I'd made before and decided that was what I'd do. And it would mean I could have a couple for lunch tomorrow, using up another tin of something from the store cupboard.

Got home and was actually so hungry but also so wrecked that I just sat down and scarfed a huge handful of nuts and raisins while going through my post. Good news came in the post today, as my annual electricity bill came in. They just get a reading once a year and then you find out if the payment you make every month was enough or not. Since I apparently use only a bit more than half of what is average, I'm getting a big refund, just short of €120. I had actually phoned in February to give a reading in order to check if the payments I was making were appropriate and had already lowered the monthly payments after that call. Will be nice to get the money back.

Once I'd rested for twenty minutes or so I headed into the kitchen. I just went straight to the website for the recipe and I really should have checked the blog post I wrote about making these rolls before, too. To wit: 

Same jug, overflowing again

I did at least remember about the sugar and used a little less, as well as a bit more salt. I don''t have any eggs at the moment but I read through the comments and somebody else had made them using just water as a substitute so I decided it was worth a shot. I actually added about 2 extra spoons of oil and 2 spoons of water, rather than just water. And then a very small amount more of water when the mixture wasn't coming together very well. I decided to just make eight slightly bigger rolls rather than the twelve the recipe calls for. I don't have enough space in the freezer to store a lot at the moment and even though it's the same amount of dough, eight will disappear faster than twelve. They really did turn out quite giant and two, along with the soup, has more than filled me up. I'm almost disappointed 'cos I'd love to go and have another one, this time slathered in butter and jam. Maybe tomorrow. I could do one tuna and one jam roll for lunch, I suppose. Or maybe toast one to have in the morning. It's only the 3rd of May but so far this eating from the storecupboard thing really isn't going too badly.

Rolls after 5 minutes of kneading and 5 minutes of rising

Eating all the food

I randomly started sorting out the big cupboard that I keep most of my food in last week. Can't remember now why I started. I moved a couple of things around to try and be able to even see what was in there. It is now almost a year since I moved here and that big cupboard kind of became the place to just put stuff into because it was too big to wait until I had figured it out - I just needed the space.


It's three shelves worth of deep cupboard on top of the fridge. So it's as deep a the fridge and goes from the top of the fridge (almost shoulder height on me) up to the ceiling. Since I'm tall I can still reach stuff on the top shelf but to get to things at the very back of the top shelf, I do need to stand on a chair. I have a few things stored elsewhere in the kitchen that don't need to be used very often and I'll move them into that space at some stage. For the moment I'm not baking very much either so the mixing bowls are fine up there.
What I was mostly sorting last week was the bottom shelf. I didn't even sort, really, just looked at everything that was there and checked dates. I think that I've become very conscious of the fact that since I've been here a year now, anything in the cupboard that I know I brought with me has been there for a year.


There was one packet of sauerkraut that was already slightly out of date when I moved, for example. I knew that and should have made sure to eat it fairly promptly after the move but I didn't. Just haven't been able to get enthusiastic about sauerkraut for the longest time. So out it went and I found one or two other things that aren't far off their best before dates that I will need to keep an eye on and use up soon. Quite apart from that, however, I realised that because the cupboard is so deep, there is actually a sizeable amount of food in it. I have therefore declared May to be an eating from the storecupboard month. Well, I was thinking about doing that and then yesterday (a bank holiday here), I was sitting on the couch, hungry, not in the mood for the effort of trying to come up with a meal, contemplating ordering a takeaway and realised how silly I was being.

Since I had just looked through the cupboard last week, I knew there was a box of Bratlinge in there and I decided I'd better give them a go before they became one of those bought the box to try and never actually got around to it things. I've eaten these before at a friend's house but had never made them myself and it was so easy. I actually tried looking up recipes afterwards to see if it would be easy to make a homemade, rather than a boxed version, but it seems like Bratlinge is also used as a kind of a catch-all word for any non-meat burgers.

So, for example, the kidney bean, carrot and cumin burgers I often make wouldn't be called burgers in German, they'd be Bratlinge. I vaguely remember a time when vegetarian food was a bit strange and you'd hear people talking about nut cutlets. I think these days burger tends to just get used for anything burger-shaped, regardless of whether it's meat or not. These Bratlinge were of the spelt and oat variety, just a box that was on special offer one week at Aldi. You just add a small amount of boiling water to the contents of the pouch, stir well and leave it to sit for ten minutes. Then you can form the mixture into burger shapes and fry them for four minutes on each side. Really easy and really delicious, too. I also cooked some rice and warmed up a pouch of red cabbage with apple. Very filling dinner for not a whole lot of effort. And all from the storecupboard. I'm going to try and keep that up for the rest of the month, or until the food runs out. Honestly, I think the month will run out before the food does, though. I'm planning on only buying fresh fruit and veg, and probably eggs and milk at some stage. Today that meant a head of lettuce, an onion and a bunch of enormous scallions.

I wasn't quite organised this morning so I did buy a falafel wrap for lunch. But when I got in the door this evening, instead of just sitting down, which I really wanted to do, I went straight into the kitchen. I finished off the last of a jar of olives to keep the hunger at bay while I was cooking. I say cooking but there wasn't much of it. I put pasta into my Tupperware poacher thing and while that was "cooking" mixed up some stuff to eat with it. To start with, a small tin of sardines (I don't even particularly like sardines, why do I have five tins of 'em?), I just tipped the whole lot into a bowl, oil and all, since I figured otherwise the pasta might be a bit dry. I chopped up one of the giant scallions and added that, along with a couple of dried tomatoes from a jar of semi-dried tomatoes in oil. Added some dried basil and oregano and then remembered I had ordinary dried tomatoes in the cupboard as well. So I soaked a couple of those in water, chopped them and added them as well. Finally, I chopped up the feta that was in the fridge and which should, according to the package, have been used by last Sunday. I'm not a stickler for dates on packages but feta is definitely one thing I have found to rarely last much longer than the package states. So I used half of it this evening, and have the rest of it for lunch tomorrow. With all of that my bowl was already full and when I added the pasta, it made for a huge dinner.

While I was waiting for the pasta I also washed the salad I bought earlier and put some of it directly into a separate bowl to take with me to work for lunch tomorrow. Made up a quick dressing using mustard, oil, and pomegranate molasses, and then chopped up another giant scallion and a couple of semi-dried tomatoes to go with the feta. I'll add all of that to the salad leaves just before I eat tomorrow. Not sure yet what to do for dinner tomorrow but I do still have some soup in the freezer and it would probably be a good idea to eat that before warm weather hits and soup is the last thing I'll be interested in eating.

Tonight's dinner on the left before I added pasta. On the right is
stuff to add to salad leaves for tomorrow's lunch.

I think I'll take and post photos of some of the meals I come up with this month. You'll have to forgive the terrible quality in advance. There is no natural light in my kitchen and I know myself I'd get frustrated with running through the apartment to get outside for a photo on the balcony and then back to the kitchen every single time. 

A TEDtalk conversation about female friendship

Randomly came across this today and really enjoyed it. I've admired Jane Fonda for a long time, and Lily Tomlin, too and I've really enjoyed watching Frankie & Grace over the last couple of years. And this talk is very interesting. Funny chitchat at the beginning and then becoming more serious with some very informed and very interesting points.

Some photos of my (messy) place

I never really did ever post many photos of my new place after I moved. And now it has already been almost a year and I'm still not quite finished fixing things up. After the initial few months of unpacking, painting some of my old furniture, etc., I needed to be just living in my space. I got everything to the stage that there was just one pile of ten or twelve boxes to unpack, all stacked up on one side of my bedroom, in front of the cupboard that most of the stuff would go into. I want to paint and/or varnish that cupboard though and decided that if I just unpacked stuff into it, I'd never get around to it.

For the long weekend this week, I've basically decided to do nothing other than read, watch films and do nothing. Things have just been far too hectic for the last while and I've been getting overwhelmed so it was time to consciously spend time doing as close to nothing as possible and leaving all the other stuff behind. I did have a small burst of energy this morning however and so I spent a half an hour moving some furniture around. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and I wanted to see what it would look like.

'Scuse the mess in most of these photos - as this was a spontaneous rearranging of furniture the photos are honest to goodness candid ones. This level of mess may be very stressful for some of you to see but for me, it's such a big improvement on how I was in my old place (and getting better all the time, actually) that it feels pretty good. And excuse the quality of photos, some even blurrier than my usual.

This is the end of the living room beside the balcony with the couch (also guest bed) and my two armchairs. I really don't need two armchairs but one is the final one from the three-piece suite I took from my parents' house and although I hate the cover (I will get it recovered one day), I really love it to sit in. The other chair is one a friend gave to me when she was moving a few years ago and needed to downsize. I'd always admired it when I visited and couldn't bring myself to refuse it. Anyway, at some stage I thought it would be nice to have an armchair in my bedroom, to curl up in and read, and to free up a bit of space here.







Here are another two photos of the rest of this room. I deliberately took them in such a way that you can easily see where one bit ends and the next begins - it's a nicely sized but not huge room and although I could do with getting rid of some more stuff, I'm not quite there yet. One step at a time.

This is the far end of the room, where I have my dining area. The other big thing I gain from moving one of the armchairs is a feeling of slightly more space so that, whenever I find one I like and can afford, I can put in a proper table without making it feel too cramped. I think. The table that's currently there is 2'x3' (60x90cm), which is fine for just me but doesn't give a lot of space for ever entertaining (I might do, one day, you never know), or using it for anything other than eating.

The nice cabinet hasn't quite been finished either and stuff is a bit higgledy-piggledy in it. I plan to paint it red but got sick and tired of painting last year and put that on hold. Also started dithering between bright red or dark red. Opinions on that issue welcome. (It's actually a fairly flimsy, pretty damaged piece that I bought for 20 euro second hand so I'm not feeling any "painting would be such a mistake for this beautiful piece of furniture" issues at all.

And this is the middle part, which functions as my work space. You can see the table (the stuff on the table is mostly stuff I moved out of the way to be able to move the chair), and the edge of the will-someday-be-red cabinet. Next to that is my writing desk (with red floor protector for the chair to sit on), and beside that you can see the armchair. That should all give you an idea of the amount of space.

This is the corner of my bedroom that I decided to put the chair in. After my initial dreaming / getting carried away thoughts on doing this I did actually measure and realised that it would barely fit in that space.

However, since I was still toying with the idea several months later, I decided it was at least worth trying.

This is the still-unpacked side of the bedroom, on the other side of the bed. As happens, over the course of the last six months or so the neatly stacked moving boxes seem to have attracted a layer of stuff on top.






I know I'm going to be fairly busy for the next couple of weeks but I think once we get into May, with hopefully less rainy weather, I'm going to move these boxes out to the balcony and paint/varnish the cupboard before unpacking it all. There has been a bit of a change of plan though and it's one of those things that proves yet again how you sometimes have to live in a space for a while before making final decisions on things.

Did I ever post a photo of the lovely built-in cupboards here that I immediately designated as jar storage? Here's one (or three, actually) I took last year before I'd even unpacked all of my jars.
Over the winter, however, I realised that these cupboards back onto heating pipes of some kind next door. I put a thermometer in them for a while and they were regularly over 20C, which is just too hot for decent food storage. So, now I'm thinking the jars will go into the cupboard in the bedroom, and the material, yarn, and other crafting supplies, currently still in boxes, will go into these built-in cupboards in the hallway.


Even more reason to varnish or paint that cupboard really well - at the moment the wood is completely porous so if a jar ever leaked (it happens), I'd never get the stain or smell out of the wood. So, that's the plan for now. We'll see how it works out.

One final photo now, of the living room after moving the blue armchair into the bedroom. I'm not entirely happy yet and suspect I'll end up moving this chair around a bit until a find an angle that I like. Or maybe I'll give up on having the footstool there at all (although I do love to use it).




By the way, in case anyone is wondering, the couch could go lengthways along the wall rather than the window (I'd need to shift the desk an inch or so to the left to make space) but there is not enough room to have a chair opposite it without blocking the door out to the balcony. No "after" photos of the bedroom or the other end of the living room yet though. I want to wait, live with it a while and maybe even get photos of a neat and tidy space to show you. So that's it for now. Would love to hear what you think of it all.

Net worth - April 2017

It seems hard to believe that it has been almost two years since I did one of these posts (here's the one from May 2015). Then again, it doesn't seem possible that this time last year I had just been offered a new job and I was spending the weekend traipsing around Heidelberg viewing as many apartments as I could find. At any rate, one of the pension companies hadn't updated my address before the annual statement was sent out in January and then it seems to have gotten lost in limbo a little bit. However, after several phone calls and a couple of different people trying to figure out what happened, it finally arrived here last week. So here are my updated totals, not all from exactly this week but all from this year. It's kind of annoying that I can only get some of these once a year but at the same time it helps for me to not be stressing about the ups and downs of the markets.

Actually, I have checked these numbers a few times over the last couple of years so I'm going to go ahead and post each increase, rather than play around with my spreadsheet and having to add up increases to get one figure from May 2015 to now. And it nicely shows the couple of times the markets were definitely going down rather than up.

September 2015
Increase in net worth overall: -1.85%
Made up of:
Irish Pension: -6.74%
Irish Retirement Bond: -7.95%
German Riesterrente: +1.58% (actively paying in to this pension)
German BAV: +31.09% (I think I was usually just adding in what I was paying in to this pension)
Vodafone shares: -9.76%


February 2016 (three months after leaving work)
Increase in net worth overall: 4.12%
Made up of:
Irish Pension: -7.65%
Irish Retirement Bond: 0% no updated information
German Riesterrente: +17.36% (actively paying in to this pension, although at a substantially reduced rate since I was no longer working in a highly-paid job)
German BAV: +12.5% (I think I was usually just adding in what I was paying in to this pension and once I left that job, no more payments were made)
Vodafone shares: -8.02%

October 2016 (five months into new, part-time job)
Increase in net worth overall: 2.92%
Made up of:
Irish Pension: +12.80%
Irish Retirement Bond: 0% (no updated information)
German Riesterrente: 0% (actively paying in to this pension, although at a substantially reduced rate since no longer working in a highly-paid job but for whatever reason didn't update the number with payments made)
German BAV: 0% (no more payments being made into this pension and no updated information on value)
Vodafone shares: -8.30%

February 2017
Increase in net worth overall: 7.39%
Made up of:
Irish Pension: +8.21%
Irish Retirement Bond: 11.58% (annual statement received)
German Riesterrente: 0% (actively paying in to this pension, although at a substantially reduced rate since no longer working in a highly-paid job but for whatever reason didn't update the number with payments made)
German BAV: 12.58% (no more payments being made into this pension - this information is from a statement I received after I finally got around to phoning them to give them my new address)
Vodafone shares: -6.87%

April 2017
Increase in net worth overall: 2.45%
Made up of:
Irish Pension: +2.70%
Irish Retirement Bond: 0% (no updated information)
German Riesterrente: 5.91% (actively paying in to this pension, still reduced rate - I decided to leave this at lower rate and start investing in ETF. We'll see how that works out.)
German BAV: 0% (no updated information)
Vodafone shares: 0% (no updated information because I've forgotten my username and password for the online investor centre and keep forgetting to phone them to sort it out!)
ETF savings plan: no change yet as April is the first month. But nearly two years after setting up this online investment account I finally managed to set up one of their savings plans. It's only 50 euro a month, which will go to buying an MSCI World ETF but it's a start at investing at least.

It's nice to see I'm very close to tipping over to the next "-ty" number, i.e. forty rather than thirty. It doesn't feel like about 5,000 is a huge amount of an increase over two years but given that I wasn't working at all for seven months of that, and have been only working 20 hours a week for almost a year, maybe it's not that bad to have not substantially added to it. There'll be no early retirement for me, I think, as my current net worth is about a tenth of what it would need to be to finance my life.

But that's alright. I've been doing a bit of reading around what my state pension entitlements are. The university held a seminar for international employees on pensions and I think I'm finally starting to understand some of the complexities. I'm hoping to have an individual appointment to talk to someone but that probably won't happen until early next year. I did have one lined up for earlier this year but unfortunately had a very bad cold/flu-like illness/bronchitis and had to give it a miss. At least my boss was able to take my spot so it wasn't a complete waste. At any rate, if I have understood it correctly, based on the time that I worked in Ireland, I have an entitlement there to the second-lowest rate of state pension. That's currently about 150 euro per week. It remains to be seen whether there'll actually be any state pension to speak of by the time I make it to pensionable age, assuming I do make it that far, but let's be optimistic. If I was old enough to be collecting it today, that amount would cover my rent for the month. And I'll have whatever small amount coming from my private pensions and investments, as well as my German state pension. I may never be rich but at least there's a good chance that I'll be able to cover expenses and not have to work until I drop.

Starting at the beginning of April, my hours increased to 30 per week (this will mean net salary of about 1,350 instead 990 per month). I have also finally found a mini-job, which is paying me 400 per month, less just a small deduction for pension. I could have opted out of that but it's about 40 euro a month that I probably won't miss much now and will appreciate having in 25 years or so. That's the theory anyway. But apart from the pension deduction the rest of that 400 is tax and social insurance free. It's long hours (2.5-3 hours six days a week) but the tax-free status makes it a not as bad hourly rate as it seems at first. I'm just covering for someone who had to go and attend rehab for a month for a bad back. Her time there may be extended but probably not and then I'll finish up. It's a nice little amount of extra cash but I have to admit that I find the inflexibility of six early mornings every week is getting to me and I don't think I'd want to keep it up long-term. But now that I'm trained in, there might be the possibility of picking up occasional hours, which would probably suit me better.

Films I really should get around to watching sometime

Someone mentioned Donnie Darko on twitter the other day (it's fifteen years old), which reminded me that I haven't actually seen it yet. And this weekend I've been thinking about some other films that I've somehow never gotten around to watching. Many are classics, some are not. My brother and I made a list years ago when we were watching a program about the Top 100 Films and for a while we  worked our way through some of the classics we hadn't seen but when the list was lost, the idea fizzled out somehow. For those times when I'm pondering what to watch, however, I thought I'd start another list. And to jog my memory, I went looking for some top 100 lists on the internet. Wow, so many films I've yet to see.

1. Donnie Darko
2. Citizen Kane
3. Goodfellas
4. Lawrence of Arabia
5. Tangled
6. Tarzan (the Walt Disney cartoon)
7. On the Waterfront
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. Apocalypse Now
10. Blade Runner
11. The Manchurian Candidate
12. The French Connection
13. Scarface
14. The Shawshank Redemption
15. Green Mile
16. The Deer Hunter
17. Rocky (I did go to see Rocky IV in the cinema for a friend's birthday but haven't seen the others)
18. Easy Rider
19. Kes
20. The Crying Game
21. My Beautiful Laundrette
22. Rabbit-proof Fence
23. Brief Encounter
24. A Star is Born
25. The Stepford Wives
26. Anything Goes
27. Mad Max
28. The Martian
29. Brooklyn
30. Room
31. The Danish Girl
32. Enigma
33. The Theory of Everything
34. 12 Years a Slave
35. The Shining

Holiday goals changed to doing nothing

Well, I made it to Halle and even managed to only miss one rehearsal. Although I have to admit that although I was at the Friday rehearsal my voice was not always quite as present. It was another great weekend and I really enjoyed the performance on Saturday night.

As always, it was fantastic to meet up with old friends as well as meeting new ones. This time round we even made the effort to participate in one of the non-singing activities, dragged ourselves out of bed early one morning and went off to see the State Museum of Prehistory. The few hours we spent there were not enough to do more than scratch the surface of what this amazing musuem has to offer. I'd highly recommend it if you are ever in Halle and will definitely be going back there.

Since the Happy Birthday Handel weekend coincided with Karneval this year, we even got to enjoy the parade on Monday before we had to leave. When I got back I was tired but happy, always the best way to come home from some time away, I think.

This year we also discovered the Irish pub in Halle, called Nante's (Nante is the nickname of the guy who owns it). We had a great night out there - they let us borrow one of their guitars and we started a really fun singalong session.

I now have the rest of the week off as I needed to use up some holiday time. I had planned to spend the time sorting out my balcony. The tiles badly need to be cleaned and then I wanted to buy some stones, soil and compost and get my pots filled and ready for planting a few things. If I got very adventurous I thought I might manage to finish painting my CD shelf. And maybe one or two other things as well. But instead of all that, I think I'm switching to just doing nothing at all. Well, that's about as much as I've done the last two days and it feels about the right speed so I'm just going with it. But even doing nothing I've still gotten one or two things done. Today, for example, I took out the documentation for the bank I opened up an investment account with and then never got around to actually setting up properly. I knew that had dragged on a bit and so when searching for tax-related stuff recently I had put anything I found dealing with that account into one place.

It took me several phone calls and resetting passwords etc. but today I finally got it set up. And I added in a current account as well as the investment account. This bank, ING-DIBA, does not have any charges associated with its current account. I've been happy with my current bank up to now but there are two reasons I've decided to bite the bullet and change. The first is that the selection of ATMs near me for my bank or any of its partner branches is really poor. The second is that I fell foul of their lodgement limit again this month. I thought it was 1,100 per month but it seems it's 1,200. I need to go back and check the last time this happened - I think they may have increased that amount and I didn't notice. At any rate, I was about 30 euro short of that last month, which means that I need to pay the 9.90 monthly charges. The current account, you see, is only free if you lodge at least 1,200 per month. This is the second or third time since I left my more-highly-paid job that this has happened. Since ING-DIBA doesn't attach those kind of conditions to their free current account, and offers free withdrawals from all ATMs, regardless of which bank, it just makes sense to switch. Even if I am kind of dreading having to trawl through everything to make sure I notify all of the places that I have direct debits set up with. In the meantime, I set up a savings plan to start investing in my first ETF fund. I'm excited. It's several years since reading something on Fiona's blog led me to Mr. Money Mustache and although my 50 euro a month savings might take quite a while to build up to anything substantial, it's a start. Or it will be, from the middle of April and then every month after that.

Tomorrow, I have to attend an organising meeting for the March for Science before running off to my choir rehearsal. And then all of a sudden it'll be Friday again and the weekend will be here. So, I'm not going to put myself under pressure to achieve anything else other than chilling out and trying to get rid of the rest of this cough. Yep, I'm still actually sick and totally fed up with coughing and sneezing. So a goal of doing nothing for the next few days is entirely appropriate!

Out of action

I had a feeling of almost having sniffles last Sunday but soldiered on through the day, got some work done, finished up my Coursera course (should have realised how lousy I was actually feeling when it took me three times to actually pass the final quiz though!), started dosing myself with vitamin C. And woke up on Monday feeling worse, definitely a cold coming on. Not a problem though. I don't work in the same place I used to, no pressure to feel like I have to go in no matter what so I just sent and email to my boss, told her I was sick and that I wouldn't be in and then took the day easy. Spent most of it on the couch, drank plenty of fluids, and went to bed early. Woke up on Tuesday feeling worse. And then even worse again on Wednesday, due to not getting to sleep until after five o'clock because of all the coughing. So off to the doctor I went. Typical answer, it's a flu-like infection. They seem to use that term here a lot, nobody ever just says you have a cold.

Anyway, he prescribed me some tablets to help loosen the phlegm to ease the cough, told me to take paracetemol or ibuprofen as well and gave me a sick note for the rest of the week. And here we are, it's Friday, I'm about to run out of tissues, feel just as bad if not worse than I did on Wednesday, and to top it all off, I'm feeling really, really sorry for myself. Like, alsmot in tears crying because I'm feeling so sorry for myself. I think I might actually have man-flu!

I'd better get better by Wednesday, that's all I can say. Thursday is the start of my annual trip to Halle to sing Messiah and meet up with friends from Ireland and I am not missing it!

Too much cheese

It seems like there couldn't possibly be such a thing as too much cheese, doesn't it? But today I met my limit. Totally my own fault, too, there just wasn't even a reason for me to keep on eating it. It all started with me getting confused about how to match up my meals with my schedule today. I should have had some scrambled eggs for breakfast before leaving the house, leaving me with soup in work in the late afternoon, an apple as a snack, and a smoothie to take with me this evening when I went to a lecture. But I really wasn't hungry this morning so I just left it and it wasn't until I was actually in work around half-ten that I realised I wouldn't be home for another 11 hours and only had the soup and smoothie with me.

Although there have been days in the past week when that ended up being more or less exactly what I ate, realising in advance somehow made me start getting that kind of fearful what-if-I-get-hungry worrying going on in my head. At the same time, I didn't want to leave eating so many of my daily caloires until after arriving home late in the evening. At lunchtime I went over to the small uni shop to see what they had that might fit in with the blood sugar diet and not require cooking. I ended up buying a tin of tuna (which I thought I'd be able to leave in my desk for future similar occasions), some cheddar cheese, and two boiled eggs. So I had three options and everything would be fine.

I ended up deciding to have the tuna with my soup and that was a huge lunch that left me almost too full. And yet over the course of the afternoon, I kept reaching for that goddamn cheese. I wasn't evening doing anything nice with it, like, oh you know, cutting it with a knife. Just tearing little chunks off the small block. I have to admit I really felt kind of sick by the end of the afternoon. So much so that I didn't even bother with the smoothie. It'll keep until tomorrow. I weighed the cheese when I got home and it looks like what I ate was just over 75g. That doesn't sound like a lot but I think it'll be a long while before I get any kind of a longing to eat cheese straight like that again!

Sunday 5th February 2017

Time is rushing by. I know they say that that happens more and more as you get older, I just didn't think I'd feel it or notice it quite this much. I'm trying hard not to overwhelm myself with doing things (especially since I already have so many things that it would be really good to get done, at home for example, or getting fit!) but it's actually kind of hard. For such an extreme introvert I end up wanting to do an awful lot of things that involve me interacting with an awful lot of people. Still, I'm trying to do my best to not volunteer for everything that comes my way.

As well as all of that stuff, I've been doing some online courses, as well as attending public lectures in the university here most weeks. There are so many interesting things to learn! The course I'm doing at the moment is on Greening the Economy and it's a five-week course. I've just sent off my week 4 assingment so it's just one week left now. I have to admit I have struggled with having deadlines and that much reading to do. And I was dreading this week's assignment but I managed to cobble something together in the end. The final week just has a quiz at the end so I'm not dreading next week at all. The quizzes are not that difficult really. Although I don't think I've managed to get full marks (10 out of 10) yet, I've usually only gotten one or two answers wrong. As usual, about half the time that's partly down to me slightly misinterpreting the question. I should work on that.

The assignments for each week were to write about something green from the point of view of an individual (week 1), a business (week 2), and a city (week 3). For week 2 I chose to write about a shop that sells loose products and you can bring your own containers to be filled.

I bought almonds, red lentils, and chickpeas, just to try it out

As most of the stuff is organic, it is more expensive than a standard supermarket but compared to an organic supermarket it's slightly less expensive. And wow, so fantastic to get home from the shops and not have to immediately throw out a ton of packaging. I really hope it stays around (it's only in its first year of business) and I'll do my best to shop there for the things they do sell. I spent some time chatting to the owner and she seems very passionate about local food, too, so where possible she tries to get stuff in from local sources and is building up a network of new sources all the time by going out and letting producers know what she's looking for. Forcing myself to go and find this shop also means I found one of the best parts of Heidelberg, where the weekly market has mostly organic and regional stuff on sale. Score!

This evening I am:
Reading
I have been reading course materials all afternoon but am finished now. This morning I read another chaper of Jonathan Bardon's Hallelujah, the story of a musical genius and the city that brought his masterpiece to life. For evenings I've got a Georgette Heyer romance on the go.
Listening to
I had Joe Dolan on earlier while I was in the kitchen, then listened to some of Messiah while I was studying, and currently I have a piece on in the background that we've just stared learning in choir. It's a fun piece from an opera called Zar und Zimmermann (Tsar and Carpenter).
Watching
I want to watch a film this evening but haven't decided what. I'm really not sure what I'm in the mood for though so may need to go through my small cupboard of DVDs to see if anything jumps out at me.
Cooking/baking
I'm still on a smoothies and soups kick and I started the blood sugar diet last Monday (planning to just do it for three weeks before switching to 5:2) so it has been a full week of cooking at home. Today I made a new soup, from my Low-Fat cookbook it's a spiced cauliflower soup. It involves turnip as well, which I really don't like much, and I wasn't sure if cauliflower soup might be a bit strong-tasting. It's not too bad actually, although I may put one or two portions in the freezer to spread it out a bit. I have other soups in there I can substitute, even if they do have potatoes in the them (not part of the blood sugar diet). While that was cooking I had lunch, which was a big salad, pickled onions (to finish off the jar), and lamb steak. It was sooo good. Dinner will be in a little while and will be the last of the spicy carrot and lentil soup from last week. I may treat myself to some fruit and nuts later, too. That will tip me over my calorie allowance for the day but I think a treat on a Sunday evening might be a good thing to incorporate. Still staying on plan and just exceeding the calories.
Happy I accomplished this week
I am really pleased that I have stuck with the blood sugar diet for a week already. I managed to work around times that I was going to be out and about for a bit longer by switching my smoothie to those times and having it with me. And I finally finished filing the stuff that was on my table. It's amazing what an incentive it was to want to get a couple of more things crossed off my January to-do list before I had to transfer them to February. I also remember to phone the electricity supplier to give a reading as I've been here eight months now and that's long enough to get a better estimate of how much I'm actually using (compared to the person who rented here before me). I contacted four more places to cancel subscriptions and/or change my address. And yesterday I went to an informal training afternoon hosted by the local chapter of the Translators' Association of Germany and learned about some software and apps that can be useful. Oh, and last week I also oiled my two wooden chopping boards. One was new and recommended doing this so I did the other smaller one I had at the same time. I bought that new one the week before christmas so I am glad I finally did it.
Looking forward to next week
Another lecture tomorrow evening, the last in this series. On Tuesday evening I'll go to a meeting to meet other who are organising the March for Science here. I've said I'll help out with that (see note up above about not getting involved in everything and feel free to laugh now). On Thursday I'm gonig to lunch with my boss and another colleague. We're going to a Thai place so although I won't stick to blood sugar diet that day, it's a relatively healthy choice. Must remember to ask them if they offer brown rice. I'm pretty sure they don't but if people don't ask, no-one will ever start to offer it.
Thinking of good things that happened this week
Lost weight, and more than I was expecting to. Had a good rehearsal at the smaller choir (larger choir is on a break between semesters and the smaller one is a pretty select group that you have to be invited to and I wasn't sure if I was really good enough). Found out that my current electricity consumption is very low apparently. So instead of paying 40 euro a month (they do a final reckoning once a year then, based on actual usage), I could be just paying closer to 10. I've left it at 20 for now, as I want to switch to a different tariff that uses only renewable energy and it'll be a bit more expensive.
Grateful for
Good friends. Good sleep. Waking up clear-headed (another benefit of the blood sugar diet).
Bonus question from the Occasional Nomad: Do you have a favourite flower?
I love carnations. Especially if they are a variety that hasn't had the scent bred out of them. It's such a lovely scent (they smell a bit like cloves) although even without a scent I still find them beautiful, just somehow simple and cheerful. I do also love peonies, although I only really remember becoming aware of them about six or seven years ago. In German they're called Whit Roses. Speaking of roses, I like them, too, although I'm not expert enough to be able to name any particular favourite. I have lots and lots of photos of roses that I've taken over the years though. I also love lilac. And finally, magnolia. In fact that reminds me that I should go and find a magnolia tree somewhere near where I live or work now. Watching the progress of a magnolia budding and flowering every spring is a real treat. The flowers are short-lived but when they're gone, the leaves that are left behind are an amazing colour green. Actually, in the sets of markers that I remember from when I was a kid (they held about 30 colours, if I remember correctly), my two favourites were a kind of a yellowy-lime green very similar to the colour of magnolia leaves, and a light purple, just the colour of the lilac tree we had in our garden.