It doesn't seem to happen that often, but both the BBC (Meteogroup) and Met Office, and my own eyeballs, agree that it is raining - a lot. It is very dull outside, and it could stay this way for most of the morning. Maybe it will be less dull at 3pm when the chances of rain apparently drop from 60% at 2pm to just 20%. This morning the chance of rain is currently shown as 90% (and earlier still it was shown as greater than 95%). The rain maybe lighter, but there is a high probability that showers will start again near sunset after a couple of hours when the probability of rain is said to be low. It is almost mild now, and the afternoon temperature will rise a bit more to 16° C. Tomorrow should be a much brighter day, but a bit cooler, and then it may rain very late in the afternoon...maybe from sunset for several hours.
   Yesterday was one of those days... I wasn't feeling that good, but as good as I was the previous day when I walked almost 5 miles, and came home feeling almost better than I did before I went out. However, yesterday there was something else that didn't feel right. I couldn't describe it, and I have no idea why whatever it was seemed to make me think that going out might not be a good idea. Maybe I was too influenced by the morning starting off rather dull, and making me think it might rain. Later in the morning it became more obvious that it would be dry, and there were the first of some sunny spells that started off very insubstantial, but improved in the early afternoon.

   It would be much later in the evening before I became very aware that all was not well. I feel sure I must have know this in the morning, but if there was anything substantial like a pain or ache, it was only as bad as the pain of a cloud passing in front of the sun. In the meantime I tried to do some useful stuff around the house. As I wrote yesterday morning, I wanted to do at least a limited amount of hoovering to pick up some food crumbs in the front room from when I was eating my dinner in there while watching TV.

  I ended up doing quite a substantial amount of hoovering - enough to need the hoover being emptied twice, although the capacity of my Tesco bought, Chinese "cyclonic" cleaner is rather small compared to dust bags of old. I did a pretty good job hoovering the front room, and the back room. I also hoovered the hall, but not the stairs. I did hoover the top landing, and the hall, or whatever you call it from the top of the stairs to the two bedrooms, and the bathroom. I gave the spare bedroom a very quick, and far from thorough hoovering, and I did some of the worst parts of my bedroom. I couldn't be bothered to pick stuff up, and so I only hoovered bits of floor I could see in there, but at least it was a start.

  Intense hoovering, and I believed I was doing yesterday, can bring on a bit of a sweat. It obviously isn't exercise in the same league as a 5 mile walk, but it must count for something ! Although I must admit I have my doubts. After (or was it before ?) the hoovering I also did some overdue washing up, and did a limited amount of tidying in the kitchen. That was the one time I actually went outside the house. It was to put some food scraps into the brown wheelie bin where they slowly turn into compost. That bin must weigh a ton now because it hasn't been emptied since the beginning of the year (and maybe since last year) and I keep adding stuff. After a week or two it settles down leaving loads of room for more. It was about two thirds full yesterday, but in a few weeks it might be down to just half full as it settles down into compact compost.

  I filled in much of the rest of yesterday just reading. I did make a little progress selecting a few more of my best pictures of 2017, but my heart wasn't really in that project yesterday. The one thing I tried not to do was to eat much, but I did give in a few times. I can't recall if it was elevenses or lunch, but I reheated in the microwave some potato wedges that wer part of the takeaway the previous day. Apart from one individual wedge that may have had a maggot in it, and tasted foul, they were rather enjoyable. I would usually be inclined to smother them with tomato ketchup, but I didn't have any. What I did try was some balsamic vinaigrette dressing meant for salads. That seemed to work quite well.

  For dinner I had two shish kebabs from the previous night's takeaway. I was only going to have one, but the salad was already beginning to look a bit limp. Not only that but they seemed rather less substantial than they first appeared. Overall I didn't enjoy them. The meat seemed to be a bit tougher than expected, and they seemed to have been put together by someone in a rush. Speed is very important in takeaway kitchens, but some can still do it fast with an effortless skill. I also came away with the idea that the kebabs were made my someone reading a recipe book, and not a chef. They weren't bad, but were not good either.

  I guess some part of that takeaway was the cause of a stomach upset that struck me late in the evening. The strange thing is that there were almost no warning signs. It started with a bit of internal rumbling, and the carried on persistently, on and off for ages, but with very little drama. Now the funny thing is that I can remember two previous days when I didn't want to go out for a walk because I knew something wasn't quite right, and yet I could feel no discomfort, and nothing seemed to happen until late evening. Maybe part of my brain can see into the future or something.

  Like I say it started with my stomach starting to rumble just before I would be going to bed. At first I thought it was a bit of wind developing, but then I became concerned, and it would soon transpire very rightly so, that any fart would be a wet one. I lost count of how many times I went to the toilet before I felt that it would be safe to go to sleep. At one time, fed up with only being able to read half a page of the book I was trying to read before having to dash to the toilet, I took the book with me to the toilet. That was OK until I realised that I had been sitting on the toilet so long that my legs were going to sleep.

  I wasn't paying much attention to the clock, but from about 9pm until midnight I must have visited the toilet every 5 to 25 minutes, and maybe 10 minutes was an average time. It could have been after midnight before I was empty enough to attempt sleep. When sleep came, and I think it came quite quickly once I turned out the light, I slept unusually solidly. I have a vague memory of going for a wee sometime in the small hours, but the first time I woke up properly was at 7.35am - quite late compared with normal.

  This morning I still feel a bit tender, and I have passed a bit of wind, but I must be fairly empty inside - although my scales tell a very different story. At least my blood glucose level is not too bad this morning. It needs to come down a lot, but it is a useful improvement on the previous morning. The rest of me feels sort of OK, and sort of not OK. The gloomy weather and rain can only inflict negative emotions on me, and I have a sort of low pressure headache. A headache that isn't really a headache, and is probably all in the mind.

  There is no way that I am going out for a walk in this foul weather....although curiosity, and an urge for novelty could make me don a raincoat and take a short walk - maybe only as far as the little supermarket on the bridge where I could do a little shopping without a mask. I do have just one plan for some indoors work, and that is to do a bit of laundry. Maybe I'll do some photo editing, and maybe I will even resume my video editing project, but on days like this I could just as easily spend much of the day reading. I won't know what I actually do until I've done it, and can report it tomorrow.