"Fat to Fittie"

It was around this time last year, that I used a similar title for a blog, telling the tale of giving up sausage rolls for lent and how I was almost tempted to break my abstinence while on a road trip. As any regular reader will know, I’m currently on a total block of the meaty, pastry treat in an attempt to lose weight, so for lent this year I thought I’d try and avoid pies, the staple diet of many people and ultimate comfort food, which forms the basis of the perfect half time snack at football grounds all over the country. Personally I eat quite a few, not in the same league as sausage rolls, but enough to do damage to my waistline, so thought it might be a good idea to avoid them in the run up to Easter. In the last few weeks the pressure has been on and I’ve had to do my very best to not buy one, nearly slipping up a couple of times, especially when shopping for weekend food. I always have some sort of Sunday lunch, which doesn’t have to be a full roast, but something simple like sausage and mash or of course, a meat pie, I even picked one up the other week and it stayed in my basket for about 10 minutes, before I remembered my pact and put it back.

It’s fair to say thing’s were going well, that is until last Sunday when I was out for a lunchtime drink with friends, as we do most weeks, on this particular day I’d not actually prepared or pre bought anything for lunch and planned to go to the shops. It was a sunny day, so we’d been sat outside and as I stood up to leave, the strangest thing happened, a man carrying a cardboard box appeared from the bar, he walked towards us and held it out, “Here you go guys”, he said, “help yourself, we ordered too many”. I looked down and there staring back, was a selection of pies, still warm, steam slowing rising and smelling wonderful. There’d been a darts competition inside and of course the food of choice for the break was meat pies, what else? “Take a couple” the guy continued, “we’ve got loads, they’ll only go to waste”. I must have looked at them for what felt like two mins, he just stood there holding the box, wondering what was wrong, I began to hope they might something I didn’t like and asked “What are they”? “Er, that’s chicken and mushroom” he said pointing to one, result I thought, don’t like chicken pies and I can’t stand mushroom, “and that’s steak and kidney”, phew, thank god for that I thought, obviously love steak but the kidney is a big no. When I was an apprentice and got sent to the shops for the morning pies, I had to get steak and kidney, cos it’s all they had, obviously had shit loads of kidney they needed rid of. On returning back to the cabin, I spent about ten minutes dissecting the pie, picking out every piece of kidney before eating it, well, usually every piece, sometimes I’d wonder if it was a chewy bit of beef, until I bit into it and got the taste of urine in my mouth.

Happy that I didn’t like either pie and temptation averted, I turned to leave, “Oh wait” he said, “It’s not kidney, it’s ale”, “ale” I questioned, “steak and ale”? “Yes”, he replied, “take two”. Fuck, what was I going to do now? My resist barriers, just dropped, free, warm, meat pie and the best thing, it was free, I know I’ve just mentioned that twice, but I guess this was the deal breaker. I’m not proud but I weakened and yes, I took two, one I had for lunch with mash and gravy, the second on the following day, which I ate with extreme guilt whilst convincing myself it was the right thing to do, can’t have food waste, kids in Africa are starving. So there you have it, I gave in, I’ve let the side down, more importantly I’ve let myself down, but what chance did I have, ever since the dawn of time, we are tested daily with the sin of temptation, it’s all Eve’s fault, if only she’d said no to the apple and told the snake to piss off, but I guess rather than blame her, it’s really Adam’s fault. Apparently God originally offered him a companion with extreme beauty and high intelligence, but in return it was going to cost him an arm, after thinking for a few minutes Adam asked God, “what can I get for a rib”?