Once again the day has started at just 12° C, but by this afternoon it should be a more comfortable 18° C.  At the moment the sun is trying to break through the cloud cover. It is currently bright enough to cast a dim shadow....that as I write this is getting stronger ! This may bode well for this afternoon when some sunny spells are forecast. It seems the forecast is in a state of flux at the moment and so the timing of any sunshine seems to be random. The idea that it should be a dry day seems constant though. Tomorrow could see a similar range of temperatures, but otherwise may be more extreme with longer spells of sunshine, and some even heavier spells of dark cloud...but maybe still a dry day.

  I think I may have woken up after a bad night's sleep partly uncovered yesterday morning. My body temperature was just 34.9° C, and so I was possibly more sensitive to feeling cold. I fought the feeling for as long as possible, but I was forced to turn the heater on low, and put not only trousers, but a shirt too. I can't remember what time it was, but I also warmed myself a bit with a can of hot chicken soup for breakfast.

  My body temperature showed I did not have a fever, very far from it, but I did seem to go through all the symptoms of a cold in the space of a couple of hours yesterday morning. I did some sneezing, my nose ran, I coughed a bit, and had a sore throat. It was one of those strange time when a couple of hours later you suddenly wonder where all the symptoms have gone to. I guess it was an allergy, but to what ? The cold maybe ?

  Maybe I gave in too early, and just accepted my fate that I was going to have another very lazy day. I don't think I did anything of any relevance all day. At least until later afternoon I felt ill. It is hard to say what the symptoms of this "ill" were. I just didn't feel good. Some of it was almost certainly the aftershocks of bad insomnia the night before, and some of it was the aches and pains I get from spending hours laying down reading.

  By early afternoon I was not feeling cold, but I did not feel warm enough to take of my t-shirt - which sort of annoyed me because I prefer not to wear one when laying on my bed. I decided another can of hot soup would be both nice, and warming. I had a can of "chicken with chunky vegetables". I tried an experiment that worked quite well - adding bits of rice cracker to give it a bit of crunch.

  I also stirred in some of my new chilli sauce. (I did the same to the cream of chicken soup I had for breakfast). I am beginning to regret buying 6 bottles of that chilli sauce. It hasn't got much bit. It has a strange sort of metallic taste that I am not keen on, and I really hate it's extreme sugar content. My blood glucose really spiked high when I checked it just before dinner time. I think I will try and palm off a bottle or two to Michael. He can tolerate the sugar, but I know he will probably moan the chilli has no real heat.

  I have solved the problem with the chilli sauce by going back on Amazon. This time I tried using "Jamaican style chilli sauce" in the search box, and one of the first returns was one of my favourite chilli sauces. It was so cheap, although not as cheap as Tesco, that it was not available by the single bottle, and I ordered a pack of 12 ! That should keep my mouth burning for months to come. I also solved my dwindling stock of peanuts (just half a bag left) by ordering some peanuts in industrial quantities ! This may not have been a wise idea because peanuts are not noted to be low calorie food items, but at least they are low sugar, and don't affect my blood glucose level when I snack on them.

  Another warming thing was to crack open a bottle of whisky, and pour myself two very large ones. By late afternoon I was beginning to feel OK. Not just warm, but almost happy too. It still wasn't good enough to inspire me to prepare any dinner. Two other things conspired against it as well. I had already had the notion that I wanted to try another "German Kebab", "Doner Gym Box", but originally it was not going to happen until sometime next week. Unfortunately I was also sent a discount voucher code, and that sort of triggered me.

   I ordered three of those Doner Gym Boxes. One was beef, another chicken, and the third was the veggie option. I started with the veggie one. As well as a heap of salad (mostly lettuce) there was what looked like one small veggie burger cut into about 5 or 6 pieces. It was a bit like bubble and squeak, and so fairly nice, but tasted surprisingly salty. I then had the chicken version. Once again there was half a lettuce in the box, plus a few bits of onion and tomato. There was also considerably more chicken than there was of the cut up veggie burger in the veggie option.

  With the amount of salad I ate, I found that the two boxes were more than sufficient for my dinner. It was my intention to save one of the boxes for part of my dinner tonight, and it seems I have the beef option to look forward to. One thing I wanted to try yesterday was to tip out the boxes onto a plate. That was definitely the way to eat them. Last time I ate them out of the box, and I just couldn't see what I was doing. At first I thought there was no meat in there, but eventually found it at the bottom. Turning it out onto a plate put the meat on top, and was a far better eating experience.

  I was a bit apprehensive about how I would sleep last night after my bed night the night before. I felt I wanted to go to bed early, but I didn't think I would be able to get to sleep. I was in bed, reading by 8pm, but I didn't read for long. I think I turned out the light before 8.30am. At first it did seem I was not going to get to sleep, but it was probably less than 15 minutes later before I was fast asleep. Maybe another very large whisky  a bit earlier in the evening helped.

  I had turned any heating off some time before I went to bed, and so I was able to sleep under the duvet from the beginning. There were a few time in the early hours of this morning when I was awake thinking that maybe it was feeling a bit too warm under the duvet, but I fell asleep again until I could be sure about it. I had many dreams in the early hours of the morning, and maybe some before midnight, but the memories are fading so fast that it is hard to be sure.

  I woke up this morning feeling quite uncomfortable. In some ways it was a rerun of the evening before last when it was feeling uncomfortable that ruined my sleep. This morning I was probably less uncomfortable in most areas, but two bits of me were particularly painful - although it did depend on how I was laying in bed. My right knee seemed very bothersome in certain positions. I also have lower back pain, and changing positions could only make it less or more painful.

  Since getting up my right knee has been mostly OK, but the back pain continues to be annoying. The strange thing is that the pain is offset from my spine, and so is probably my liver, or a kidney about to explode. My right shoulder feels bit stiff - something I didn't notice while in bed. Also both elbows feel sore. I heard from Michael yesterday, and he agrees that that recent rain has brought on many aches and pains for him too. This does not bode well for the future.

  There is some good news this morning. It is possible that my very high blood glucose reading, late yesterday afternoon, was some sort of fluke. This morning the reading was 6.3mmol/l, and that is low for me. That is further proof that all I need to keep my blood glucose nice and low is grilled meat and salad. If I could afford it I would have kebab every night ! Even my weight, although still not as low as I managed to get it in the summer, has dropped a tiny bit towards that elusive low.

  Two more bits of good news is, firstly, that the sun keeps coming out. I hope that doesn't spoil this afternoon when it is actually forecast to come out a few times. This afternoon I am going for some exercise, and I am going to a gig....well a sort of gig. I don't know what name Dik us currently using for his band, but they are doing a semi acoustic set at 3pm outside his house in Hither Green. In one respect I think it would be better if the sun didn't come out this afternoon. I have never been to his house, but if it is on the side of the road that I think it is, it will mean taking pictures into the sun. That doesn't make for good pictures.

  If I have the time, energy, and enthusiasm, I may go out with my camera later this morning to see if I can get any meaningful pictures of the skewed bridge that carries the Catford Loop Line over the Mid Kent line. It is being replaced this bank holiday weekend. It is possible the old bridge has already been craned out, and maybe even the new bridge craned in by now. It will still need a day or so to ballast the new track, and do all the testing, but there might be something to see this morning.