Well, here we are. Today I ate most of a meat pie, and the rest was as I’ve been doing all week. Tinned beans (haricot and cannellini) were a new item, as was grilled radicchio. Still noticing that when I’m hungry, nothing satisfies like raw salmon. I did just take a walk in the morning, and in the evening tai chi without sword, as my arms felt like they could use the break.

I really need to vent about my neighbour’s borked water pump that makes horrible noises that go through our house (have I mentioned that Mack’s “Pillow Soft” silicone earplugs are my best friends in Thailand?) — it was me what told them it was borked two weeks ago, and I know they really know it’s borked because I’ve seen the man of the house up there looking at it with a look of woe, because it’s going to cost, maybe, $200 to fix or replace? This is a middle-class neighbourhood; anyone here can afford home repairs (and I know this because they renovate constantly). It’s leaking water on their roof-space and I hope the water encourages ghosts to settle in their house.

It’s also possible that the noise might piss off the god of the street, and s/he might appear in cosmic manifestation, like in Monkey, and rip that damn pump out and throw it across the suburbs and into the river. A girl can dream a little.

Anyway — we’ll give the neighbours one more week to do something, then we’ll have to ask the landlady whether she might have a word to them.

Or I could just perforate my own eardrums and learn sign language.

I was a bit sore in the morning, so skipped tai chi and just did it in the evening. In the morning I did a few desultory crunches and leg lifts and ate the rest of the tuna raw for breakfast with wasabi and soy. Nomnomnom. Dinner was frozen crab cooked with garlic, zucchini, capers and a bit of chilli jam on pasta, with a dipping/drizzle sauce made of rice vinegar and whatever that sauce is that comes with frozen gyoza — that stuff that’s like soy sauce, but not.

It’s now day 7. Shoulders/arms/back feel like they got a workout last night, so I might just go for a walk this morning. As a reward for Healthy Week I bought a little jar of truffles and champignons chopped up in olive oil. I’ve never had truffles, except once in soup in which I couldn’t taste them at all. They’re kind of pungent and rich and a little weird, but nice — I just need to work out what to do with them other than eat them with a spoon straight from the jar. I think this morning I’ll chuck some on the leftover cod that’s still hanging around in the fridge.

Cheese is another thing I haven’t been eating. I didn’t intentionally cut it out, I just haven’t wanted any, maybe because I’m getting enough protein from food I like better. And I’ve been drinking a lot of water. ETA: I also haven’t been eating white rice, which is a staple food here. The rice that comes with all the takeaway curries is white — at least, I’ve never seen any other kind on offer.

Apart from sore shoulders, I’m feeling quite all right, and have done more work the last couple of days. However, since I’m also finally over this cold, that might be the reason.

I seem to have lost weight, the scales think about a kilo, and I think it shows (I’m such a shortarse that a kilo up or down makes a visible difference).

I still haven’t touched those M&Ms, though I’m getting through the two pieces of pie and the ice cream, and I had to buy another packet of rice crackers.

I’ve also realised I’m almost certainly not getting enough calcium. I don’t drink dairy milk at home and seldom eat yoghurt, and don’t eat enough of the other calcium-containing foods to meet the RDA — nor, I think, could I. I thought salmon had calcium, but it looks like you have to buy canned salmon and eat the bones. I’m not big on either canned salmon — waste of good fish, precious, or possibly not very good fish — or fish bones. There are sardines, but how many sardines can a person eat? Might be supplement time.

I’m going to do this for another week, and I’m afraid I’ll blog about it, since I think the blogging has been helpful. Maybe not as helpful as jogging would have been, but at least blogging doesn’t fuck your knees up.

I felt perky this morning so was tempted to skip Tai Chi and use the energy for writing, but that would have defeated the purpose of Healthy Week, so I did all my TC — and at night too, and though I was feeling less perky by then, it didn’t tire me out.

I’m still doing my bit to help deplete the world’s fish stocks. Today it was cod, baked in the toaster oven with some mushrooms and stuff. It was ok, though not exactly gourmet cooking. We also bought some tuna belly, which was a special treat because tuna numbers are so low that I’ve taken tuna off my regular menu. (Reportedly they’re rising again, but still way down from what they should be.) Stu seared it on the outside with wasabi and soy sauce, and left it warmly raw in the middle, and it was incredibly nice.

This morning some macaroni cheese, pecan pie and cherry pie, the latter two with generous serves of cream, appeared in the fridge. Talk about sabotage. Did I resist? Does the Pope poop in the Potala? But I only had a little bit of the desserts and not a great deal, she says vaguely, of the macaroni cheese.

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It is now Day Six and I feel okay. Not hungry — I’ve hardly gone hungry at all. I’ve spent a lot more on food this week than I normally would, because of all the fish. I could use a cheaper fish, like pangasius — the catfish they market as ‘dory’ or even ‘Pacific dory’ — which is everywhere, but it’s salmon and tuna that really do it for me in terms of taste/texture and feeling nourished afterwards.

So, yeah, not feeling flaked out, but not bursting with energy either. I’ve decided to keep this going for another week and see what happens. I’ll have to find something else to do apart from Tai Chi, though, as doing the same exercise morning and night is getting a bit dull. That new ice rink has finally opened  — yay! — but at 250 baht/90 mins it isn’t something to do every day. Plus I need to be able to exercise at home. I can’t be bothered going out to exercise on a regular basis — I’m really that lazy. Yes, I used to go out to Tai Chi classes in the park every morning — and that used a lot of the day’s energy, and writing suffered. Maybe I could have a rocking horse… I always wanted one…

I managed to stick to the plan today. I wasn’t interested in chocolate, but I’m burning through those rice crackers. Raw salmon bought and devoured off polystyrene without decorum. I had to push myself through the second sword sequence in the evening; it was steamy and I was sweating. Must try a fan up there.

I also went to the doctor about my head, as I’m still getting headaches and feeling dizzy, and I didn’t know whether it was the cold or the involuntary headbanging. He thinks I’m fine, just pulled my neck a bit, which has cause the scalp muscles to tighten up and make things hurt. And I guess the cold doesn’t help. Anyway, apparently I’m not bleeding in my brain or anything.

After the Tai Chi this morning and going out a short distance from home to buy plants I was pretty trashed and didn’t get going on any kind of work until after lunch. That’s one thing I find frustrating about life here: even a small physical effort can tire me out and make it hard to use my noggin. The limits on what I can do in a day are rather small. I really hope that if I can gradually improve my fitness I’ll have more energy and endurance.