1066 South Shiellds Life

An addiction to experience is not the same as an addiction to life. I am sometimes addicted to experience. It feels physiological but it is psychological. This is fortunate because once the dependence is physiological the will breaks down. I have the will but do not always want to exercise. I enjoy the experience of binging on food. I was desperate for a drink recently and being a cheapskate went into a sandwich outlet for a can of diet coke because it was cheaper sitting on a bench in the shopping centre, than at some café seat. This was my downfall because in the short queue, I could not resist the box of two chocolate topped cream doughnuts, and there was no time to talk myself out of the decision before reaching the sales assistant. I sat and wolfed one, using a finger to scrape the chocolate that was stuck to the lid. I wanted the second immediately but it would be a second treat for the tomorrow, or Sunday teatime. I knew this was self deception. On arrival at the car park outside the Home where my mother is resident, I devoured the second, savouring every morsel, knowing that I would try and resist further temptation until after I had reduced my weight below 15 stones.

I used to be thin but unhappiness with myself during the middle decades led to breaking 14 and then 15 stone, but worse was to come when between 2003 and 2006 I galloped passed 16 and 17 and approached 18. I moved here in the summer of 2005 and did not bother about whether I needed to register with another doctor until receiving an invitation from my now former practice to have a once only injection against pneumonia along with the annual shot against influenza. I called in at the reception before visiting the supermarket after a film in the city centre and was advised that I was outside the catchment's area, and after consulting the local health service I was advised to register with a doctor at a health centre about a ten minute walk from where I live.

The centre is located just off one of the most unusual of roads which runs in an almost straight line from the Tyne River to the Beach and the south side long harbour pier. The road used to be a tributary from the Tyne to the sea, making where I live the perfect hill site for what became the largest Roman supply fort in Europe. From the fort the troops would service the whole length of the great wall separating them from the marauding tribes of the borders with Scotland. However the road is not remarkable for this, and the shopping street and market square at one end is only a monument to the war time blitz and post war concrete reconstruction, although if you look up as you walk or look down from the metro train station bridge which traverses, the are several splendid and unique buildings whose enemy is now feathered. At the end of the main shopping street there is an area of clubs and bars and restaurant bars, all anxious about the impact of the ban on smoking in confinedpublic places which comes into force during the summer in England.

A feature of this area is that at night the age range is mixed and not given over only to those under thirty, a reminder that the town was once a major port with its own small red light area.

It is after the entertainment block that the street takes on its distinctive aspect. London, Liverpool, Newcastle have their China Town but in South Shields there is the greatest concentration of restaurants and takeaway's from the Indian sub continent located on one side of this road, together with a couple from Italy and also from the Far East and one glorious fish and chip restaurant to rival the more well known of Yorkshire. On the other side of this section of the road there is between a dozen and a score of small hotels and guest houses. The road, conventionally named Ocean Road, then passes between two of three adjacent parks before hitting the entertainment pleasure park, the sand dunes, and the wide beach sands before the rolling waves of the North sea, and a surfers paradise to rival that of the West Country.

On the other side of the road, behind the row of restaurants is a grim area of public buildings and low cost housing. I was not impressed with the fortress health centre, where you felt in the large waiting area you were likely to catch whatever infections were circulating, and if you arrived feeling poorly, you left dispirited and feeling worse what ever the doctor said. These days before being accepted by a new practice you are given a health once over by a practice nurse and she was not impressed with the condition of my body, especially when I admitted I was also unimpressed and had vowed to tackle the overweight and lack of fitness before another year elapsed. It was several months before I shocked myself into action when I began to find the walk down the hill to the town centre as difficult as the walk up back.

It is at this point in my life that the capacity to eat a half pound chocolate bar and want more, to consume several small packets of crisps and to be constantly on the look out for comfort food fillers throughout the day until the early hours went head to head with my devotion to life. I set off one morning as soon as it was evident the sun was to shine for at least several hours, although the air was crisp, and I crossed over to explore the first of the three parks which commences the headland, breaks out into open grass land and then into a quixotic traditional public park with Chinese arches, a play galleon, bowling greens, flowers beds and a putting course. It is a quiet park throughout the year. Across Ocean Road is the second Park, presently being returned to its Victorian splendour although it already competes with most rivals with its boating lake of a hundred white swans, an circumnavigating puff puff train, its rolling picnic slopes back up another hill and areas for walking, sitting, admiring the flowers and views. One cannot usually walk through the third park as the first area is only opened for major events, especially the month long season of free open air concerts of groups and singers where ten thousand plus locals and holiday makers sit or walk through while taking the air. There is then a secluded from general view caravan and camping area and then a vast area of public football pitches and overflow parking until reaching the start of the leas. A wide area of green topped Cliffs of at least three to four miles before reaching the two beaches areas of Sunderland, and the second great river of the North, the Wear. It is a walk of 8 miles each way, but over that first year I restricted myself to a round trip of four to five, counting each venture as a blessing which I wanted to continue to experience for as long as I could.

However it was evident that the daily walking would not affect my general health without a radical change in what I ate. I wish I could prepare food in the way of the constant reminders on multi channel but I have other priorities, as I tell myself when looking at the day room and kitchen floors earlier in this day. But I have abandoned the frozen fast food meals, but the steamer is being used less once the novelty went away because of having to thoroughly clean each time. I have a light breakfast with tea, followed by a salad lunch although I do sometimes have a couple of bacon rolls, and then main course of fish at least twice. I cook a whole chicken every other Sunday with roasts, and these make for two, sometimes three hot pot meals of whatever veg appeals. There curry with rice one evening and a port or lamb chops, with a beef or gammon joint replacing the chicken alternately. I have a tea snack either some crackers with cheese or smoked salmon, sometimes prawns in the shell. There is a small glass of red wine from a 6 x 2 bottle case selected by the Times which arrives each quarter, or a pint of lager with the curry. And fruit lots and lots of fruit, and carrots to chew on and over. It is not unknown to eat a bowl of cereal at midnight and salami roll at 2 am. I eat when I need and I cannot say the overall quantity of intake has reduced.

But I shed two stones in eight months and kept the weight steady through the winter until the last weeks when I became over confident and ceased the daily weighing. However as I said to the doctor this morning I will loose another stone this summer and hopefully, even more. I had intended to write something else, and indeed it is almost written, but two events changed my mind. The first was amusing.

Several weeks ago I noticed something about an aspect of my body which I then monitored to see if was stress induced and when it was not and I was confident of a physical condition I made my first appointment since arriving with the doc. I nearly cancelled first thing because it was most likely nothing and if it was not, well it would bugger up my plans. But I decided to put the matter to rest as the very cold winds of winter had turned into some pleasantly warm walking hours of the morning, although the sea fret was in a cold depressing mist from the sea which rolls inland sometimes for a few meters sometimes a mile or so.

I arrived to find that I instead of the medical centre there was demolished building site, a great excuse to miss an appointment if ever there is one. I looked around and remembered that a building was going up nearby when I came in the autumn again for the renewal shot. There people going in and out of an entrance to a structure which seems to me to a cross between twenties modernism and challenging contemporary, but once inside it is spacious wow, brilliantly organised and creates an atmosphere which says you are well so why bother coming in here.

I don't think from what the doctor said there is anything for me to worry about or hastily check the disposals in the Will, but the opportunity is being taken to check everything else out and it will all take a couple of weeks of tests and a further consultation. What it has done is to focus my attention on the difference between being addicted in the sense of being under the control of something or someone, whether the activity or interest is legal or not, and being a fanatical enthusiast, wanting to push the boundaries of experience to their limits. For me my interest has changed from a consumer and devourer of luscious cream filled pastries, to sitting in park with gentle breeze watching nature and the next generations make my day.
06:59
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Working in the healthcare industry for a number of years, I know that the best medicine some people have is food. Food is used not only for nourishment, but also as a treatment for depression, an expression of love and affection, to entertain, to tempt, to bribe and even to punish. What is most disconcerting is that food is also responsible for the senseless murder of millions of people every year. Food can be an addiction, a crutch, a tool, and a weapon of mass destruction. However, at it's very root of existence, food is still to nourish and sustain life. I suppose it wouldn't be the first time that something positive was often used with negative consequences. It wouldn't be the first time an experience turned into devotion. It is the nature of the beast unfortunately, to push the limits of something good until it turns into something destructive. The love of luscious cream filled pastries usually isn't the problem........it's spending half of your grocery money on them!!!!!!
Posted by <> on 04:04 - 04:32