Busy Saturday morning

I've had a busy morning after a late start.  Someone told me about the Channel 4 series Black Mirror (described as a mix between the Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected) recently and I watched the first episode yesterday evening.  I found it disturbing in the extreme, stomach-churningly so and then couldn't sleep properly and every time I did drop off, found myself having, well, if not exactly nightmares then very unsettling dreams.  So I ended up sleeping late.  I took the time to sit and drink a cup of hot water with lemon juice and read a few emails (and send one to the friend who recommended Black Mirror!) and after that was good to go.

Headed to the market and bought a good stock of stuff to see me through the next two weeks.  I'll most likely go to Frankfurt next weekend so won't have time to go shopping.  I didn't have a meal plan ready so will need to sit down and get something on paper to make sure I stick with some halfway healthy eating this week.  To make things easier on myself I bought some cold cuts and some cheese and will probably just have that with some bread for most evenings this week.  I put it all away before I thought to take a photo but here's what I got:

From the market

• 2 litres milk (one is gone into freezer)
• Half a Rotschimmel cheese (a soft mild cheese, sort of similar to brie)
• 275g farmer's cheese (a hard cheese, similar to gouda)
• 1 oak leaf lettuce
• Couple of large handfuls of spinach
• 9 apples
• 2 punnets strawberries (they're not terribly sweet yet but I'll dry some of them for later in the year)
• 5 large onions
• 6 eggs
• Variety of cold cuts (3 slices each onion and wild garlic Leberkäse, 100g honey mustard turkey, 100g turkey salami, 5 slices Kassler ham)
• Half a chicken

From the supermarket

• Refill pack of cotton buds
• 2 Kerrygold garlic bread (gone into the freezer - they were on special offer)
• 1 packet feta cheese

Once I'd finished at the market I dropped the stuff home, went to the bakery, stopped off at the chemist to weigh myself and then headed into town.  I went to the international library to see if I could get a copy of The Great Gatsby but it was already out.  I might just buy a cheap kindle copy as I'd like to read it before going to see the film and the film isn't likely to be on in English for much longer (oh how I hate the German fondness for dubbed films).  I did borrow This Side of Paradise though.  I read The Great Gatsby when I was a teenager but don't really remember it and have never read any other of his books so I figured I might as well.  I also spotted Fanny Hill, John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in the one euro box so I bought that, too.  

Then it was off to try and see if I could persuade the people at the chain photography studio I used a couple of years ago for some interview photos (every application for a job in Germany is usually accompanied by a fancy photo) to do a special series for me.  Since I'm at the beginning of a weight loss, I thought it would be an interesting idea to have a photo taken every month.  The before photos you see in before and after weight loss stories are always so terrible, usually some grainy holiday photo or something like that.  While I know I could look better, I also think that in a proper studio with proper lighting and a good camera, not to mention someone who knows what they're doing, it's entirely possible to take a decent photo of me, while still being careful not to "hide" the reality of how I look.  So I'd like to have a proper photo taken every month - just of me as I am, not with make-up done or after a trip to the hairdresser or anything like that.  And then at the end of say, a year, have a full session done where I have proper before and after photos done with hair and make-up and a nice outfit and the whole works.  Unfortunately the girl I spoke to was one of those people who seemed to be completely unable to do anything except parrot what they had on offer as set packages and was totally unwilling to even contemplate something outside the norm.  All she could offer was a basic full session with one photo, which costs thirty euro each time.  And taken as I am with the idea, that's rather a lot more than I was thinking off.  I left there quietly fuming and fought my way back through the crowds to the underground.  It was only just before I got home that I remembered another independently owned photo studio that I came in contact with last year.  I also got my passport photos done there and when I had to get them done a second time (because Irish biometric photos are not the same as biometric photos everywhere else!), they didn't charge me full price at all.  Very nice people and I'm nearly ashamed that I had forgotten about them, especially as I was only yesterday looking up details of the wine shop located beside them.  So I'll head there next weekend and see if I can arrange something with them.  

After that I stopped at the supermarket and then headed home.  Got in the door just in time to remember that I was also supposed to stop off at the other chemist to pick up a prescription.  Typical.  I went out half an hour later to get it only to realise that they actually shut at two o'clock on Saturdays so even if I had remembered earlier, I still would have missed them.  It'll just have to wait until next week.  

I haven't gotten very far with housework today at all.  I still have all the washing-up from yesterday to do as well but so far all I've managed to do is put on a wash and bring the bin out.  Hoping for a rush of energy in an hour or so.