Of Fried Food and Field Kitchens

Hello from the Salisbury Plain (or, in terms of the military exercise I'm doing, Helmand Province, Afghanistan). I'm through six meals out of 15, which, sadly, really is how I look at the week – like a hurdler jumping over I don't know what. Fat, perhaps? Cakes? Buttercream frosting?

Anyway, there is food galore and zero movement on this exercise (can you say misnomer?) One of the contractors I work with described this particular type of job as "never knowingly undernourished" (when I arrived, the major in charge of briefing us didn't know, as my mother would have put it, "his ass from his elbow," but he did know what times the field kitchen would be serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

Several of the other people I work with chat happily about how much weight they put on in these gigs, what with fried breakfast every morning, roast potatoes and chips at lunch and dinner, entire tables full of pudding choices… And yes, if you're wondering, apparently some of the puddings are worth eating – people have been raving about the cheesecake, although the custard I saw yesterday for the sponge cake looked radioactive.

I can handle a meal or two where I have very little control over what is served – and no way of judging whether the portions I'm taking are ludicrously large. But day in and day out it is difficult, especially when the porridge is pre-sweetened (they insisted there was no sugar in it, but there most definitely is) and there is butter, oil, deep fat and generally just fat-fat-fat in just about every possible option. It makes me anxious, and it doesn't help that there is about zero opportunity for exercise, shut up in a window-less room for more than 12 hours at a time. (I couldn’t even do my usual morning five Sun Salutations in the barracks where I'm staying – the carpet, if it can be called such, is that slippery. I thought briefly about yoga on the grass outside, but thought about the eyes of dozens of squaddies upon me and promptly reconsidered. The signs in the barracks may refer to them as "gentlemen," but…)

Anyway, I did haul myself out of bed this morning on little sleep to run around the camp for 45 minutes, so I was feeling a bit better – at least until I was faced at lunch today with bad, worse, and truly catastrophic for options. I chose the greasy meat pie and tried not to grumble that "healthy option" was written in red marker on the menu board, so why wasn't there something next to it?

It's also helping that on this assignment for some reason I care a whole lot less than usual about being in the middle of things – or what other people think. A group has gone down to the pub (or to the officers' club) both nights, but I stayed behind. I'm not drinking for 30 days, and besides, Sunday night I had to work that had to be finished, and last night I had to type up some interview notes before time renders them virtually unintelligible, even to me. (I also wanted to squeeze in a quick run – I could only manage 25 minutes, thanks partly to the too-heavy dinner.)I may go and be social one of the nights, but we shall see…

Must run…I've just been on a British foot patrol where the Afghan National Army has shot and killed a 10-year-old boy and there is mass chaos breaking out among the locals…