Michael Harding: I worry I’m the elephant in the room

One morning in January I jumped out of bed and flung my pyjamas off and stood naked at the mirror. I had been avoiding drink since New Years eve, in the hope of losing my beer belly.

But I was disappointed. “Mister Bumble,” as the General describes him, was staring at me from the mirror.

“It’s the weather,” I suggested to the doctor, at my regular appointment later that day.

“How is the weather causing you to put on more weight?” The doctor wondered.

‘The General says I only go to Warsaw to get away from the Beloved’

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‘All your old shite about religion, that’s all pram-baby talk’

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I envy Marty Whelan. His voice bouncing into bedrooms in Cahersiveen and Killarney

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The worst part of getting old? Nobody knows who you are any more

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I said, “Because I can’t go walking when it’s raining. So I get no exercise.”

“You could swim,” he suggested.

“Are you mad?” I wondered. “I’m from Cavan. We don’t do the breast stroke. The lakes are too cold.”

I was even thinking of taking some sausages to Warsaw with me but I wouldn't like to be stopped at the airport and deported for smuggling

“The Leisure Centre is heated,” he suggested.

“That’s beside the point,” I said. “Going anywhere with a pair of swimming togs in January is not something, as a Cavan person, I’d be comfortable with.”

The doctor put his head down and began writing.

“I’ll try to do better,” I muttered, like a naughty schoolboy in the presence of his teacher.

But it's not easy. When I go to Enniskillen I can't resist picking up loads of rashers and sausages in O'Doherty's of Belmore Street. Not that good food is the cause of me being overweight. The problem is the amount I consume. And O'Doherty's of Belmore street produce the best puddings in the United Kingdom and it's rumoured that their bacon comes from pigs so well minded that they spend their lives sunning themselves on an island in Lough Erne and lounging around on deckchairs reading the Impartial Reporter.

I was even thinking of taking some sausages to Warsaw with me but I wouldn’t like to be stopped at the airport and deported for smuggling.

Besides, my plan was to eat less and walk more in Warsaw and so lose weight.

Which is why I walked everywhere for the first week. I walked to Arkadia Shopping Mall every morning, and had coffee and a bun. I usually had lunch in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews  where couples hugged each other in the cafeteria so intensely that they made me home sick for the beloved. And in the afternoons I headed towards Old Town to sit in some dark church and let my anxieties fall away. But on my way home I often had a kebab.

So even though I walked a lot, it was doing me no good. Because every time I went out I ate more.

I simply can’t resist food. I have no brakes.

For the rest of the time, I sat in the apartment as warm as toast, looking out at the rain or snow. The only exercise I got was lifting the remote control for the television.

As we sat down to dine I heard someone grunting. We both heard it. Not a small grunt, but a huge gut-wrenching roar

After a week I realised I was almost as fat as my my old school friend from Drogheda.

He has been in Warsaw for years, working in the IT industry, where his only exercise is pressing the keyboard on a computer during the day and smoking dope while watching the Winter Olympics at night.

He’s a squat little fellow and he invited me for lunch in his apartment; a cozy dining area and lounge all in one, with a small balcony out the back where he often smokes his big doobies alone.

As we sat down to dine I heard someone grunting. We both heard it. Not a small grunt, but a huge gut-wrenching roar that sounded like there might be a constipated giant in the toilet, or a Viking ramming his favourite ice pick into the skull of an Englishman in the apartment next door.

My host was dishing out perogis; delicious dumplings with sausage meat on the inside. He paused, but didn’t seem uneasy.

“That’s my next door neighbour,” he explained.

“Is he killing someone?” I wondered.

“He pushes up weights,” my host said. “His apartment adjoins mine.”

Then he covered the perogis with baby onions and soy sauce.

Another roar came through the wall, and I could imagine the weight-lifter being nailed to a cross.

“It sounds like he might be having a heart attack,” I said. “Or a hernia.”

“Ignore him,” my friend suggested. “Just think of him as the elephant in the other room.”

My belly was distended below the table. And I noticed that my friend also straddled his chair so that his belly was spread evenly between his two legs.

“Let’s not worry about him,” my friend said, opening the wine.

“I won’t,” I replied. “It’s the two elephants in this room that are beginning to cause me some concern.”