Ramadan 2018

Hi everyone. Hope you are well Yesterday I almost had a melt down. Everything was going well, I woke up at 3 to eat, had my food, felt great and went back to sleep. Woke up without an alarm at 7 and just laid in bed for a while. Got up at 8 and did some stuff about the house. At 10 I was taking a group of boys from school on a D of E walk, about 12km in the lovely sunshine. One of the boys is Muslim and was fasting. I’d prepared emergency water and food in case we needed it but that wasn’t the plan. I also took baby wipes to wet our skin with in the hope that we didn’t sweat too much. Anyway it was a good walk and we only got a little lost! I got home for about half 2 and had a shower, did some school work and watched TV. Now this whole time I hadn’t really felt hungry, I mean if you’d given me food I could have eaten it but I didn’t feel hungry. At about 4ish my desire for a drink got greater and I tried to distract myself. By 7 I was almost in tears. I managed to wait until 9:1

So I have decided this year I won't blog everyday - I can't imagine everyone found my life that interesting anyway. I have a little while now before I have to go out so thought I would do a quick summary of the past few days Day 1 was ok, during the day I had times when I felt hungry but it wasn't too bad. On the evening I arranged to meet Amjad, as he was in York, and we went to a Pakistani restaurant and broke our fast together. We had to wait 5 minutes later than I would have in Hull but about 15 after where Amjad lives, I had forgotten that you could break fast at sunset for where you are, although I did it last year when I went to stay with family, it was about 5 minutes earlier. We had a nice meal and Amjad got a load (not really that much) takeaway to have during the night. Unfortunately the next day I was ill, I'm not sure if the food had contained milk, which makes me ill, or if I had caught the bug that had been going round at school, but I didn't

17th May - 4pm This morning was tough, I woke up at 4:45 to eat and couldn't manage to finish the food I had prepared for myself, and there wasn't a lot, I also didn't drink all of my water. I had contemplated getting up and doing some work but decided I would just feel hungry so I napped until quarter to 7. At school this morning I felt very hungry and wasn't sure how I would survive the day, now however I am feeling fine. Quite excited as today will be the first time I have broken fast with someone else. I am going to meet Amjad in York to have dinner (at 9:05). I hope the restaurant don't take ages bringing the food so that we have to wait even longer. I didn't realise I have made a very hectic schedule for myself this evening, I have a physio appointment at half 4 and then will have to rush home and get changed for another appointment across Hull and from there I may as well make my way to York as there is no point driving back home to hang around for

So it has been confirmed. Ramadan starts on Wednesday night/ Thursday. I had my pizza tonight because I’d ordered it before Ahmad messaged me and I think it actually turned out for the best, you know what it’s like that day after you eat loads, you make your stomach swell and feel hungry all day the next day. So tomorrow I’m going to drink lots of water and try not to over eat and I’ll set an alarm for 4:30am to have my last food for Thursday. I do appreciate that I don’t have to get up and go to the mosque to pray, although I might like to see what that is actually like. I’ve looked at the times on my “my mosque” app and sunrise it at 4:55 at the moment and sunset at 9:02 - I’m in Hull so if you’re further south you get to fast for less time. Sunrise and sunset move by about 2 minutes every day, so each day my time for eating gets 4 minutes longer, you might not think that’s long but I will be sat staring at a bottle of water for the last 10 minutes

So, it’s Monday 14th May and we’re on the final countdown to Ramadan 2018. I have told “my boys” at school that I’m fasting again this year and had mentioned to some that I was going to have takeaway pizza for my final non Ramadan meal. One of them said to me this morning “I think you’d better get your pizza tonight Miss” I asked him why and he said because he’d heard it was starting tomorrow. I then asked a boy in another class and he said not until Wednesday or Thursday.  So I know the start of Ramadan is based on the sighting of the moon, although as a scientist I still don’t get how they can’t predict this more accurately, anyway I messaged a couple of friends and they are going to get in touch when it’s confirmed but it’s definitely not tomorrow, so I’ll probably have my pizza tomorrow night, even if it ends up being Thursday it won’t matter! To make things more difficult for myself I have decided to try being a vegan as well this year, I actually figure it will be easier as I