And A Healthy New Year To You All

It’s January 2006 and we are just back from shopping. We spent Christmas week camping in the forests of the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, and the joys of having a supermarket nearby were distinctly lacking, with the nearest one an hour’s drive away. I do pride myself on being able to pack enough food for a week so that frequent trips to that cornucopia of American living wasn’t necessary, but it was nice to nip round the corner this morning and stock up. Shopping for food early in the New Year is a very different thing to the mad scramble of ten days ago. Shoppers pause and read the calorie count, add up the carbohydrates and worry about the chemicals. Baskets are now laden with fresh fruit and vegetables instead of cake and coke, and there is far more activity in the fruit salad section than in the ice cream area. Everyone seems to have a guilty conscience with regard to their weight, and with the added horror of the recent Tsunami in the Far East, people realise that maybe the rift between the “have’s” and the “have-nots” is far greater than they had thought. So this is the time to dust off the bikes, join the line-dance class, walk twice round the park and carry the shopping inside instead of using the trolley. This is the week when we all move swiftly and firmly past the bakery section and the biscuit shelves, avoid anything to do with fizzy pop and sweets, and choose the pre-skinned chicken and the low-fat everything. This is the time when registration at health clubs and gyms are at an all time high and the racks of magazines at the check-out are emblazoned with “Lose Weight Now” articles, showing us the sylph-like hips of some film-star who claims to have lost half her body-weight since Christmas. Oh sure, it will last for about two and a half weeks, and then, feeling that we have earned a reward, we will dive back into the gallon tub of ice cream and order a pizza. At least we don’t have to listen to “Jingle Bells” being mangled by an electronic synthesizer any longer, and if we manage to stay out of the shops for a another week, the endless queues of people returning the gifts that other people queued endlessly to purchase will have shortened, and the Absolutely Final Grand Sale of the Year will be over and life can return to normal. I can report that we finally enjoyed a dozen carefully rationed mince pies that were delivered from the delightful Hubbards Cupboard in South Miami. Our Christmas lunch was a huge success and with our three Jewish guests, it turned out to be a fusion celebration after all. A Very Happy New Year to everyone.