Tough day

Don't know what it is. Coming to the end of a week's holiday I feel like I should be in a better mood but instead I'm hovering between feeling a bit depressed and sad and being in a complete fouler (as we used to call it when I was a teenager)! I think a lot of it has to do with the weather, which has been grey all day and then progressed to rain at around half-three.

Partly though, I'm disappointed that I've been struggling to keep to the detox kind of week I had planned on. I've done okay-ish where food is concerned but I really wanted to do a bit extra this week when I had the time to put in the effort cooking and so on. I have exercised every day, which is good. I had a just over one hour walk on Tuesday - headed from home down the road towards the big park and then walked around that for a while before continuing into town, down to the river and then back home that way. On Wednesday I just headed straight down towards the river and then walked into town and then kept going right down the Rheinpromenade. The sun was shining and the weather was just beautiful - cold enough to be glad of a coat but so, so bright. I sat for a few minutes when I got as far as I wanted to go and then simply turned around and walked back again. All told, it was still just a walk of about an hour or a little bit more - distance wise, it'd be just a little bit over 5km. About ten minutes before the end though, just when I turn off from the river to head towards my road, I sat down with the sun shining into my face for a good ten minutes. That felt good.

Yesterday then, instead of walking, I went swimming. I was in the water for 45 minutes and swimming for most of that - I spent just a few minutes in-between just floating and stretching, mostly when other people were being irritating by standing around chatting and it was easier to stay down the other end of the pool rather than get more annoyed by being close to them taking up space. Eventually I actually just gave up and swam widths across the shallower part of the pool, which was almost completely empty.

Today, I just walked into town through the park. I needed to go and pick up my suitcase, which was in for repairs. So, about a 30 minute walk and it started to rain just as I was getting in to town. I decided a hot chocolate and a half-an-hour spent reading my book in a cafe would be nice - really what I wanted to do was find a supermarket and load a trolley up with lots and lots of crisps and sweets so I decided to try and have a really nice (but more modest than a trolley-full) treat instead. I ended up going to probably one of the most famous cafes here. I've eaten stuff from here before as one of the managers in work, when it's his birthday, always brings cakes from this bakery. It was really nice, I had a lovely hot chocolate and a slice of cake (this cake - delicious) and made a note to definitely come back again the next time I have visitors. Then I left, collected my suitcase, headed home and the whole time, all I could think about was how much I wanted to get chips or pizza or both for dinner, how much I really, really wanted to call into the supermarket to get crisps and sweets. It actually started yesterday evening on the way home from class - I found myself coming up with all sorts of reasons why I needed to stop and buy crisps. Or anything that would have meant me needing to go into the supermarket, which would have ended up with me buying crisps. I resisted though. And I resisted today as well. So I do have that to be proud of, I suppose. But I'm so tired of having to fight times like these. I've had good food to eat today. I've had a lovely treat. I've gotten fresh air and exercise. I've just had a lovely dinner (mixed bean/lentil stew with tomatoes/onions/chard and a sausage) and I am full. But I know that if I had crisps, for example, or a large bag of Maltesers here at the moment, I would be shoving them into my mouth as fast as I could. I wish I felt more of a sense of accomplishment at having resisted buying anything earlier but I don't think that will come, if at all, until this period of craving has passed. It's exhausting.