You're the one for me fatty!

When I was here in the cold, cold, coldness on February and March, I would punctuate each day with a bowl of home made soup for my lunch.

As I work from home, I felt it was important to move away from my desk for slightly longer than it took to make a sandwich each lunchtime to prevent me going a bit cross-eyed and so standing in the kitchen, peeling and chopping, onions, celeriac, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers (... you get the idea) seemed preferable to wandering outside in the windy chill of the Obkirchergasse.

This slightly ritualistic, or obsessive behaviour, depending on how kind your worldview is, resulted in me losing quite a lot of weight. Quite a feat in the land of dumplings, believe me!

Now, when I returned, I was eager to give the soup regime another go (cheaper than Champney's anyway) to shed the pounds I had regained upon returning to the land of the pasty. But alas, it is too hot to even contemplate boiling the kettle during the day because of the extra degrees it adds to the ambient temperature!

I have been further thwarted by the discovery of Ruccola Frischkase and Rote Ruben Frischkase at Radatz, the deli round the corner. This is basically cream cheese (probably 100% fat judging by its general deliciousness) mixed with rocket and beetroot respectively (the latter having the marvellous addition of horseradish too and being the most glorious colour of pink as to make you question all the declarations of the lady behind the counter insisting that it is "100% bio" (German for organic)) and it has become a regular occurrence at breakfast (and other indulgent snacky) times, replacing light cottage cheese and curd cheese as the breakfast bread spread of choice. Yum yum!

My trousers certainly don't feel quite as loose as they did when I arrived but I think I am retaining water in the heat.