I just can’t believe it, I weigh exactly what I did this time last month. I can’t even get the same weight on the scale twice during a single day, never mind over the course of a shaggin’ month. At least I didn’t put on weight, but this whole project is supposed to be about weight loss, so what happened over the course of the last month?

Summer is the time of salads & walking on the beach, it should be the easiest time of the year to lose weight. Not!

My story, & my excuse, for this pretty shoddy result is that I was trying to shop local. In fact, I was trying to find a local beer. I wanted a “favourite” beer made by a company that is locally owned, & not by one of the big international brewers. I have nothing against the big guys, I like a lot of their stuff, but I did want to have a couple of favourites among the small, local brewers too. Craft brewing is big everywhere these days, of course, but I’m struggling to find a couple or three beers that I really like. I don’t know what’s going on with all these fruit & chocolate flavoured brews, I just want a bloody beer-flavoured beer. And no, it doesn’t have to be screaming hops, or some other bloody ingredient, at me either. Is that too much to ask for?

Anyway, sitting amongst hordes of millennials, all of them sipping pink & cranberry coloured brews, with cinnamon sticks & orange slices hanging off the glasses, I tried beer after beer. They’re not all bad but I haven’t found the one yet. You know the one I mean, that one that is so good that you have to have a couple of dozen in the beer fridge, at all times, in order to avoid the constant worry that you might be running low. So … & only very reluctantly, I assure you … I might have to continue this beer investigation through the month of August too!

I think I might not be a wine drinker. Now that doesn’t meant that I haven’t drunk a glass or two of wine in my time. And I’ll probably drink a few more going forward. But really, is it just me, or doesn’t most of it taste like shite!?! That said, I’ve had a few glasses that I’ve enjoyed along the way so, never one to give up, I will persist until I find that perfect red & that perfect white. Here again, I’m looking for a local product. I still have a lot of work to do on this wine front yet. So maybe another project for the month of August.

And of course, when you’re testing beers & wines, you need to eat some stuff that you mightn’t normally eat. To mop up all that excess alcohol swishing around inside you, as it were. The old French fry is a great tool for that & you can get them everywhere, can’t you!?!

On the bright side of things, the good news is that it looks like I’ll be able to integrate beer & wine into my regular diet & not balloon up again.
Sure, isn’t that only great news!!! 🙂

PS … I hope you’re all having a wonderful summer & if you have any recommendations on the beer & wine front, send them my way!