Yesterday felt warm, but sunshine was in
short supply. It wasn't gloomy, but rather dull
compared to some of the sunnier days we have had
recently. There was one period of full sunshine,
but otherwise it was just occasional sunny
intervals. The afternoon temperature was a
comfortable 23° C.
By now we should be very close to
full sunshine, and yet the sky still seems
rather cloudy. I'm not so sure it is clearing,
and yet even the latest revision to the
weather forecast promises it should be a
bright sunny day. It may not be a particularly
warm day, just 21° C by this afternoon, but at
least that is very comfortable, and should
feel good when out in the sunshine - provided
the "moderate" breeze isn't too cooling.
Tomorrow is currently predicted to be just
about the same as today. They day after could
be similar, but a degree or two warmer.
Not going out yesterday was a
good idea. It allowed my feet to heal a bit
after two previous days of giving them a good
pounding, and it gave me time to do a few jobs
that needed doing, although I have to admit my
productivity was not very high. I did seem to
spend a fair time relaxing. I guess I only did
two important jobs - neither of which took up
much time. The first was to empty all the bins
indoors, and dump the contents into the
wheelie bins ready for possible collection by
the dustmen today. There is some doubt about
this because Monday was a bank holiday, and
that usually disrupts the schedule.
The other job completed was to had wash
a few t-shirts, and more pairs of underpants
than I realised were in the washing bag. It
may not have been very sunny yesterday, but
the air was dry, and while it was not windy,
there was enough breeze to stir the washing
hanging on the line. It was all dry before the
evening - all except one sleeve of a t-shirt
for some strange reason.
The other thing I did was to finally
prepare two of my ancient videos to show on
here. In the early 1980s I had some expensive,
but very primitive, video equipment, and a
great desire to be creative with it. My
opportunities for that seemed few and far
between, but there were these two videos that
I put a lot of time and effort in to produce a
short clip that would have taken seconds in a
professional video editing studio....well,
maybe not seconds, but it would have been far
easier than the sweat I put into it. These
days, doing it digitally, with special effects
I could only dream of in the 1980s, would be
so easy.
This
video was made in 1981, and features
Marion. At the time she was a bar
maid in the late lamented Forest
Barn pub or bar in Forest Hill. I
spent a lot of time drinking in
there, or drank a lot in there ! It
was the start of a relationship that
would last, on and off, about 5
years. These days the relationship
would be described as "it's
complicated".
This video was made in 1986. It is
about Imogen. A young lady who I was
very close to (but not close enough)
for a few years before her
university life took over, and I saw
her less and less. She was studying
dentistry in Birmingham, and at
first I was only able to see her
during the holiday. She ended up
getting married to a naval dentist
from Portsmouth.
One of the things I wanted to do
yesterday was to try and eat carefully.
Apart from my blood glucose not going as
low as hoped, my weight was slowly
dropping, and I wanted to continue that.
It was a bit tricky to do because without
the distraction of a long walk, there were
time when food seemed irresistible. I did
my best, and probably didn't do to bad,
but to be safe I had to experiment. One of
my doctors, the one at the practice whose
speciality is diabetes, and other eating
type problems, swore by rice cakes being
so low in everything that it was hardly
worth counting them.
My lunch was three chilli flavoured
rice cakes with Marmite on them. In theory
it was all terribly healthy, and it did
satisfy me for at least 5 minutes. For
dinner I had some well seasoned grilled
skinless/boneless chicken thighs with a so
called "Mediterranean style" salad. I
dressed that salad lightly with oil and
balsamic vinegar. It should have been
pretty healthy for me, but it left me
wanting more. Later on I had more - three
more rice cakes with some cheap and nasty
sliced ham on them.
I watched two different episodes of
Star Trek last night, but I didn't seem to
get very excited about either, and I
turned off the TV after the second had
finished. I then went to bed to read - it
may not have even been 8.30pm when I did
that. I ended up reading for as long as a
couple of hours before I went to sleep.
Once again it seemed like a got a good
sleep, but it's only in the last 15
minutes that I have stopped yawning -
except thinking about it is going to make
me yawn again any minute now !
I don't think I opened my bowels at
all yesterday, but thankfully I did this
morning, and so was able to get a better
idea of what my weight was doing. It is
unsurprisingly not as low as when I was
dehydrated after my recent long walks, and
maybe was a tiny bit higher than expected,
but is pretty reasonable. I think it is
likely that another visit to the toilet
will drop my weight by enough to be
something closer to hoped for.
My blood glucose is up again this
morning. It is 7.8mmol/l. I blame those
rotten rice cakes for it going up. It is
still well below the danger level, and the
only concern is if it continues to drift
upwards. My personal target is for a
figure under 7mmol/l - mainly because it
gives some leeway for those inevitable
times when I give in to temptation.
As usual I am unsure how good, or
how bad, I feel this morning. I am quite
aware that my feet are not fully healed,
but "fully healed" could take weeks. I
think my legs feel OK though, and so I
will probably go for some sort of walk
today. I am contemplating going to the
seaside for a walk along the normally very
quiet bit of seaside from West St Leonards
to Bexhill. Even on a hot summers day,
there are few people who use this part of
the shore. Whether I will go that far, or
even out at all, is something I will
finally decide later. It would help if the
sun came out properly. It is bright, but
the sunshine is still hazy as it filters
through a misty looking sky.