Friday 17th January 2020

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Friday 17th January 2020

08:44 GMT

Yesterdays morning was OK. Yesterday lunchtime wasn't so bad, but as sunset approached the rain started to fall. The evening was decidedly soggy ! It was another mild day with the temperature probably hitting 12° C by early evening.

Today marks a change in the weather. The day has started off mild, but will get colder and colder. There may be a frost by tomorrow morning. The screenshot above shows light rain, and some sunny spells for most of the daylight hours. The latest revision shows the rain finishing at 11am this morning. As I write this it seems to have stopped raining for some time now, and the sun is trying to shine, and may well do later because the clouds look very patchy right now. The revised forecast shows that apart from the possibility of a shower at 5pm, it will just be lightly overcast from midday, and the temperature will slowly fall away from 10° C this morning to just 4° C by midnight. Tomorrow may see the temperature down to 2° C (which will apparently feel like 0° C), but once the sun rises it should be a sunny day, and that may raise the temperature to 7° C.

I am unsure why, but yesterday I was still suffering from something like tiredness/fatigue. That was annoying because once I had finally got over the wetter symptoms of my recent cold I had expected to feel good, or even better than good. I have also had the unwelcome return of the ache in my right shoulder and elbow, and also my ribs. It is almost as if I didn't have the common cold, but some sort of viral infection. Something not as bad as proper 'flu, but more like a weak imitation of it. That is the only than that can explain the longevity of this illness. The only good thing is that I keep hearing that it is not just me suffering like this, but many others. Some have speculated that it actually is a mutated form of 'flu.

One thing that made my condition worse, or at least made it feel worse, was that I was expecting a parcel, and I had to stay alert, and ready to answer the door when I dearly wanted an afternoon snooze. With the benefit of hindsight I know now that I could have had one. After doing nearly nothing all morning, and into the afternoon, I eventually had to go out before that parcel arrived.

I was going out to go for the restart of the late Thursday afternoon boozing sessions. Yesterday we met in the Bromley Wetherspoons so we could start to use some of our CAMRA discount vouchers. They make for a very cheap session, but also a less pleasant ambience than out more usual haunt in Shortlands. To get to the Bromley Wetherspoons means taking a bus, and in the past that has always been a pain in the rear end.

Yesterday my bus journey was very different. The difference started when I approached the 320 bus stand which is located a couple of hundred feet or so from the first official bus stop on the route. As I approached the bus stand I noticed the bus driver come out of the little toilet kiosk and get on the bus. He then started the bus up as I drew level with the doors. The doors were still open, and I asked the driver if he was just about to leave. He said yes, and so I asked if I could break all regulations and get on at the bus stand rather than have to try and run to the bus stop. He said "officially no", but get on anyway.

I gave the driver my profuse thanks, and my bus ride started earlier than usual. Just that 10 or so minutes earlier seemed to mean that the one way system hadn't descended into grid-lock yet. The bus was not quite as busy as it seems to get a bit later, and the journey to Bromley seemed much smoother. That 10 minute early start translated into getting to the pub about 40 minutes earlier than usual. I was the first one there, and I was three quarters through my first pint before Chris turned up.

I was almost tempted to stay for a fourth pint last night, but I decided to stick to my usual three pints. Of the three pints I drank, one was very nice, and the other two less so. My first pint was the best, and it is the one pictured above on the left. Innkeepers Special Reserve (4.5%) was a very drinkable beer. It had no strong flavour, no extra bitterness, and it just seemed to slip down so easily. In many ways is more like a light session beer than a 4.5% beer. My second pint, on the right in the picture above, was a lot less enjoyable. The tasting notes mentioned "fruity", but it tasted more like there were a few rotten blackberries in it. It was drinkable, but not enjoyable. My last beer, whose name I have forgotten, and I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it, was nicer, but still not fully enjoyable.

While on the bus going to the pub I noticed a few spits of rain on the windshield. When I came out of the pub it was raining quite freely - sometime light, and sometime heavy. I think it was the rain that tipped a decision that was hanging on a knife edge before. I had been almost daring myself to buy chicken and chips on the way home. I blame the rain for making me do it. I have to say it was nice to come home, out of the rain, and tuck into some hot food. It was almost justified too because I had eaten very little all day up top that point.

Having warm food, plus beer, inside of me made my weariness worse. Maybe "worse" is not really what I meant because that sounds like something bad. In fact it was a pleasant sort of tiredness, and it sent me to bed early. I was in bed, and asleep before 9pm. It was a very typical night, or perhaps I should describe it as being one of the better nights. It was one of those nights where you think you just closed your eyes for a few moments, and hours would have passed when you opened them again.

In theory it should have meant that I got a good night's sleep, and maybe in the end I did. By 6am I had had just about 8 hours sleep (allowing for as much as an hour awake in short periods of being awake during the night), and that seemed as if it should have been more than enough. I got up and went through the normal things - another pee, and even a poo - taking a screenshot of the weather forecast - checking my blood glucose (very slightly above average, but less than I expected) - weighing myself (a possible very small loss) - and then I went back to bed.

I thought it would be impossible to go back to sleep, but somehow another hour flashed by while I seemed to have only blinked twice. It seems that I really did need that extra sleep. At the moment I can't work out if I am bursting with energy, or still feeling like laying down might be nice. I'll discover more about that as the day continues. For now I feel quite pleased with my blood glucose level. After the beer and chips I expected it to be a lot higher. Just being slightly above average, 7.9 against a long term average of 7.6 seemed like a very good sign. I was also rather amazed to see that I might have lost 100gm in the last 24 hours, although such a small change is nonsense - I could put that back on just by drinking a glass of water.

I might have to wait until tomorrow morning to find if that chicken and chips has had a bad effect on my weight. Today I should take steps to balance the books, and go on a 3+ mile walk, but I really don't feel like that now. On the other hand, if the sun, which is now shining brightly, could stay out for another 3 or 4 hours I might have to force myself to go out. In the absence of that I think I should probably try and raise the enthusiasm to do some more housework. Now I have heard that Patricia is definitely intending to visit late this year (possibly before summer starts), and may even be wanting to stay here for a while, I guess I ought to do more of my housework - and in particular trying to rehabilitate the back room so it can be used as a dining room again. Only time will tell if I do any, or none of these things today.