I am hungry.

I had a piece of chicken and mashed spuds and vegetables for my dinner last night. That was the last meal I ate.

This is down to being in a rush on my part. Having a subsidised canteen at work means that not only is food very cheap during the day, but it also means that I get an extra 15 minutes in bed of a morning.  When you are naturally averse to mornings like I am then this quarter of an hour assumes a larger importance than it probably merits.

I know that I will be greeted on arrival at work in the wilds of the industrial parks of County Dublin with a slice of toast and a boiled egg. Then at lunchtime I will go all out with a soup and sandwich for 1.35Eur.

This morning I arrived at work desperately bored. I had spent the journey to work reading the raunchy book ‘The Official Driver Theory Test’. This coming Saturday I have an exam on the rules of the road. Before I can get a learner’s permit to drive I have to pass the theory test. The book is dull, dull, dull. But if I am ever to escape the clutches of Dublin Bus and its strange smelling passengers then passing the exam is essential. I will be reading this book a lot this week in preparation for Saturday’s exam.

I arrived at my desk to discover that in my rush out the door I had left my insulin on the kitchen table. This is not a crisis of massive proportions – it simply means that I shouldn’t eat very much unless I can have an injection first. My blood sugar level was low this morning so I could eat a little.

Breakfast involved a solitary, joyless, miserable boiled egg. The reason I can’t eat is because foods containing carbohydrates will raise my blood sugar levels and without a working pancreas, I need an insulin injection to lower the sugar level to a healthy level. A boiled egg is carbohydrate free so is an acceptable foodstuff. Lunch involved an insipid bowl of thin, watery carrot and coriander soup.

A colleague thought it would be uproariously funny to bellow ‘Are you on a diet?’ The inner look I gave her would have curdled milk. I laughed in response however. Just because I am hungry doesn’t mean I shouldn’t laugh at other people’s dreary sense of humour.

Roll on 5pm. I am going to have a big old dinner. I am thinking homemade burgers, mashed spuds, gravy and broccoli. And a Brunch ice-cream from the freezer section of the Spar next door to my house. Just to keep it classy.