Today I woke up HUNGRY. And grumpy. Not a great combo as a single parent…. I’m never my best in the morning and being hangry as well as not ideal.

S and I both had a bowl of rice with lentil soup (soupy rice really) and a cup of tea.

Then S had football so we headed off for that with some snacks for the little one to eat, and came home RAVENOUS so we made flatbreads with hummous and a couple more little samosa things, with a little beany sauce to dip them in.

I am so pleased I saved the best meals to the end – the hummous and flatbreads were AMAZING and such a nice change from rice both in terms of flavour AND texture. Much-needed at this stage in the week.

Dinner was more soupy rice, but the lentil soup is actually lovely and very filling and comforting to eat too. S has raised enough money for a vegetable so she had sweetcorn with hers and I had chorizo and spring onion with mine.

In the evening we made some more rice crackers as we were both still a bit hungry. And I had another glass of fruit tea and another 100ml of wine!

We are both already planning our meals next week and choosing things we really fancy to eat (FRUIT! Vegetables! Pizza! Pasta!) so I need to do a shop tomorrow. Only one more day to go.

As with last year, this challenge really makes me reflect on how hard it is for refugees.

Doing just a week is hard, imagine 5 years of this?

Also realising I am so lucky I can prep my meals in advance, store them in a fridge, reheat in the microwave later, use my blender to make the mixture for rice cakes, and bake them crunchy and crispy in my oven.

But imagine doing this challenge with no fridge, no oven, no blender, no microwave, just a tent and a single camping stove / hob burner to cook on. How much harder would it be to only cook what you need for each meal without being able to prep or store cooked food?

Food for thought indeed….