So today I went out to lunch with my Dear Old Dad. Aged 88, he is going downhill now, and it’s all becoming a bit of a trial. He has had a couple of very bad years with four operations on his heart and a recent knee replacement surgery that far from making him leap about like a mountain goat on acid as he had hoped, has pretty much ruined his legs and he has turned into a very old man very quickly this summer. He is, amazingly, still living alone in his house with very little help other than a cleaner for 6 hours in Tuesdays and weekly visits from me (I live round the motorway and it can take up to 3 hours to get there if the traffic is bad on the M25).
Dad likes going out for a slap up lunch when I go over to see him and he insists that we go to expensive restaurants, as he likes to treat me. I don't want to go out to lunch, except to the very simple Italian across the road from his house as I am in the process of losing several stones and am in the final stages of that, having lost 2 1/2 stones so far, so want to watch what I eat.
Dad likes going out for a slap up lunch when I go over to see him and he insists that we go to expensive restaurants, as he likes to treat me. I don't want to go out to lunch, except to the very simple Italian across the road from his house as I am in the process of losing several stones and am in the final stages of that, having lost 2 1/2 stones so far, so want to watch what I eat.
Today was a particularly bad day …
We went to a very smart place out in the Chiltern Hills. The food is out of this world, but they never get my order right and they add dressings, butter and oil when I expressly ask them not to, but I can’t complain as Dad is the host and that would be rude. So I had lovely syn free (I am a member of Slimming World and SYNs are the 'extras' you can have - but the idea is that you eat SYN free food, and the weight loss happens) gravadlax with a beetroot and French bean salad which wasn’t too bad but it had a syrup/sugary dressing which probably came to 6 syns (I'm allowed 5 to 15 a day), then a sirloin steak which came with a jus (more bloody syns), a giant Yorkshire pud (which I gave away immediately to Dad). I was looking forward to filling up on the veg, but they came totally coated in oil and butter and I had to eat some or Dad would be offended, or sad.
We went to a very smart place out in the Chiltern Hills. The food is out of this world, but they never get my order right and they add dressings, butter and oil when I expressly ask them not to, but I can’t complain as Dad is the host and that would be rude. So I had lovely syn free (I am a member of Slimming World and SYNs are the 'extras' you can have - but the idea is that you eat SYN free food, and the weight loss happens) gravadlax with a beetroot and French bean salad which wasn’t too bad but it had a syrup/sugary dressing which probably came to 6 syns (I'm allowed 5 to 15 a day), then a sirloin steak which came with a jus (more bloody syns), a giant Yorkshire pud (which I gave away immediately to Dad). I was looking forward to filling up on the veg, but they came totally coated in oil and butter and I had to eat some or Dad would be offended, or sad.
So I sat there, trying to chat, and his mind was wandering, and he was falling asleep because he is exhausted by his ill-health and he was constantly having to go to the loo, and it was the anniversary of Mummy's death in a car accident, and the food, although lovely at any other time, just tasted like sawdust and all I wanted to do was cry…which is a shame.
