How to eat Ryvita

Ryvita has been around longer than you might think. Back in 1937, in "The Road to Wigan Pier", George Orwell wrote:

"A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't....When you are unemployed....underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want to eat something a little bit "tasty". '

Now, while I agree with the sentiments expressed here by Orwell, I don't agree with his choice of Ryvita as a dull wholesome food. Wholesome, yes. Dull - never!

I just ADORE Ryvita. This is how I like to eat it, and as you will see, by the time I've finished with it, it is wholesome no more.

Step One: Take a couple of Ryvita, dimpled side up. Spread lavishly with cool salted butter, until the dimples are full. (It's an art getting the butter to exactly the right temperature. Too hard, and the Ryvita will shatter into a million dusty shards. Too soft, and it's greasy: project destroyed. Don't even THINK about using margarine either. It's GOT to be butter.) Slice some good strong cheddar (must not be the crumbly kind) and cover the Ryvita with wafer-thin slices. Sit back and enjoy your healthy snack.

Step Two: Gosh, that was delicious and you're still hungry! Repeat step one, with the rest of the Ryvita (Ryvitae?), butter and cheese.

Step Three: Feel sick and no longer healthy. Clear up the crumbs and wrappers and act like it never happened.

Alternative toppings (which must always include the butter), are peanut butter, PB and jam, PB and marmite (my fave) and, to ring the changes, just marmite. Oh, it's so good I might just have to have some now.

The above activity has been known in our house, for a number of years now, as a "Ryvita Frenzy". As in "don't bother asking Mummy for any of that, she's having a Ryvita Frenzy". Back in the 1980s when I dabbled for a while with bulimia*, I was "doing" at least one packet of Ryvita with butter and marmite every day. (I flirted with anorexia*, too, but just liked my food too much.....). It works with any flavour of Ryvita, but avoid the new-fangled stuff with raisins in. I don't know why they would do that.

I found out recently that the Ryvita thing might just run in families. Last summer my teenaged niece was staying with us, and she surprised me late at night getting a sneaky Ryvita fix when I though everyone was in bed and asleep. She was highly amused. Apparently my sister suffers from the same addiction!

(* I'm not being flippant about these diseases. I know they are real, serious, and not to be recommended as leisure activities. Just telling it like it was.......)

Gym Women

Why are so many women at the gym so downright weird? The constantlychewinggum ones, for starters. I'm noticing that there is a definite correlation between gum-chewing and wrinklieness. The gum-chewing-women at the gym are always:

Lacking any kind of a bum, poor dears;
Unnaturally thin;
Over-made-up;
A strange orangey-brown "tan" shade - even in February.

Now I'd be the last person to laugh at ANYONE at the gym. Especially the plumpies like me, but at least we have the decency to look as if we didn't spend three hours just getting ready to go there. But there's something about these women that really winds me up. Why do they have to be in my face with their skinniness? Were I that thin (it'll never happen this side of the grave) I'd be sitting in Starbucks drinking lattes and eating cake, not freaking out all the poor fatties who actually NEED to be at the gym.

I've got to come to the conclusion that they are there to intimidate. They may have beautiful bodies (if you consider skinny, wrinkly and orange to be beautiful - clearly they do), but they are doing nothing, in my view, to promote the image of fitness. Or the benefits of working out.

If I was a gym manager I would not let them in. They frighten the other members.

Am I jealous? Probably. At least about the skinniness. I openly pity women with tiny bottoms, but secretly I would LOVE an arse that small - snaky hips and thin thighs are undeniably sexy. But the heavy make-up and the tans? No sir, never. The whole point of make-up should be that it enhances what is already there, not disguises or hides under layers of brown gloop. And tans? Only for stupid people.

Skincare - Dr Thayer's

I've just got to share with SOMEONE - anyone. So many skincare products over so many years, now I'm just wiping my face with a cotton wool pad soaked in Dr Thayer's Witchhazel (this one with Rose for added moisture). It's LOVELY girls, gets off make-up, soothes sore bits, I've even got fewer spots. The benefits are endless, they really are. Just slap on a bit of moisturiser after (I use Aveeno with a nice high factor sunblock, of course) and I'm good to go and a lot better off financially too.

Honestly, I'm 45 now and the money I've spent on skincare over the years is just ridiculous. This is the best routine I've had yet, my skin is very soft and fresh, not a bit dry or sore.