Paranoia, steak and limitations

I love this quote by Joseph Heller from Catch 22

I’ve had such a lovely weekend. The weather has been fabulous so I’ve spent much of it just lying on a beanbag in my patio soaking in the sun. I’m low on vitamin D so it’s basically therapy! Anyway, as well as that I went to my friend’s house party on Friday night. It was a group of people the majority of whom I had never met before and as Mr SF was away for the weekend leading a Duke of Edinburgh expedition I was going stag. But I was really determined to get there, I hadn’t seen my friend in months and most of her friends that I have met before have been lovely. So during the week I let her know that I’ve been having some issues with anxiety recently, we arranged for me to go a bit early to meet her house mates and settle in before the crowds arrived. I did, and I’m so pleased. I had a lovely evening, got on really well with everyone I met and even ended up being pretty much the last to leave. Her house mates all insisted I must come back and hang with them again. Fab. And yet, I have spent much of Saturday and Sunday worrying about things that I said. Did I talk too much about being ill? Did I make a fool of myself? I don’t have a bad memory when it comes to drinking so I actually remember the evening pretty clearly and I’m pretty sure I didn’t, but if I did embarrass myself somewhat...so what? What’s the worst that could have happened? I didn’t get asked to leave the party, in fact I was invited back and I was polite and sent a thank you text afterwards. So really, I’m obsessing over nothing! And I do this all the time! It’s so ridiculous I’m practically laughing at myself as I type this post. It feels like this is a very mild form of paranoia, and I often doubt myself that I have behaved ‘normally’, particularly around new people. But is this kind of paranoia actually just anxiety in reverse? Instead of worrying about what might happen, I worry about what has happened. I should point out this isn’t something that happens with my close friends, with them I know that I’ve got a relationship where I could just ask them outright and they’ll be perfectly honest with me (and most of the time laugh at my ridiculousness with me!)

Anyway, despite this worry I have had a wonderful weekend. On Saturday I actually made it out the house to have a wander through Kemptown Carnival despite not getting home until a ridiculous hour after sunrise and I had an amazing steak sandwich from the Beach BBQ people. They cook a whole joint sous vide (meaning under pressure), the meat is vacuum packed and cooked in a temperature controlled water bath at 52 and a half degrees overnight, which ensures a perfect medium rare joint that is meltingly tender. They char-grill the outside, slice it, char it on a grill a second time and serve it in a soft bun with horseradish and mushroom ketchup, parsley porridge and rocket. I’ve got to say, it was delicious! At first I thought the portion size of meat was a little meagre, but I am more than happy to say I was oh so wrong on that front. I’m afraid I didn’t get a photograph because my brain wasn’t working nearly well enough to think about something as sensible as that, but head on over to their twitter feed/website and you’ll see plenty. The flavours all came through just enough to complement the meat and not overpower it (easily done with strong flavours like horseradish). At £7 it wasn’t exactly a cheap eat and is at the very top end of what I deem to be acceptable for street food (I appreciate it does seem like a lot for what is essentially a sandwich) but when you bite into the meat you don’t regret the spending one bit. Plus they are really friendly and will happily give you a free taster of the meat to entice you in. A definite must-try for any steak fan.

Sunday saw more sunbathing and the return of Mr Spoonie Foodie sun burnt, tired and in need of cuddles. I definitely wasn’t complaining.

I didn’t make it up to London last week...I know that a huge part of this is a mental block, but I’m genuinely worried about the physical side of it too. There is a fair bit of walking involved in just getting around the stations and then I’ve got to be compos mentis enough to spend some quality time with my Grandmother. She’s out of HDU now and is meant to be heading home this week, but I know that time is running out. I definitely don’t have the energy to drive myself to North London and I’m not sure that my rickety old banger would actually get there in one piece! I know I have to get there...I just don’t quite know how I’m going to do it. I’ve got my first physiotherapy session on Thursday, hopefully an exercise program can help me gain some strength back and then the physical side of the journey won’t be quite so daunting. There are times where I’ve considered some kind of mobility aid, be it a wheel chair or...well who knows what, but I’m definitely not ready for that. It’s somewhat ironic because a wheelchair would enable Mr SF and me to do so much more stuff together, but I think we both just see the 'disabled-ness' of it (is that irony? I think it is, but I'm never quite sure!) I guess we both like hiding behind the fact that I don’t look any different, it means we don’t have to deal with a lot of the stigma attached to disability.

I think I’m finally going to make the official announcement on Charley’s Little Kitchen website that I am unable to run classes at the moment. I’ve put off doing this for quite a while, but I think it is time. Setting up a business has been an amazing experience. I’ve been able to combine two of my passions in life - cooking and working with children, whilst doing something that I fundamentally believe is essential to the future health of society. Not only that, but I actually made something of a success of it. We have kids that ask their parents to come back to our holiday clubs and parents that have sent the most wonderful feedback. I’ve also got to meet my helper Vicky who is now a true friend and I’ve been able to run stands at the children’s food festival for the last 3 festivals. I’m not giving up on Charley’s Little Kitchen and we are booked to return to the children’s food festival in September, but at the moment I know I don’t have the emotional or physical strength to be running events. As anybody who works with children will know, it is a physically demanding job. I was running workshops from 10 until 3 during the school holidays and even when I was doing ok physically, it would exhaust me for days afterwards. I was also finding the workshops more and more stressful. Although I always felt amazingly proud of myself once the workshops were over, I was putting myself under more and more emotional pressure in the run up to them and this inevitably triggered more physical pain. Obviously I can’t continue to do this to myself when my physical condition has worsened. I have to learn to accept my limitations, one day I’ll work it all out.

There’s a quote by Gunther Von Hagens (he's the guy who preserves bodies in tact and shows them without their skin etc) that I think I’ll leave you with. It really speaks to me...