The one thing that seems definite is that today is going to be very cold ! It is still close to 0° C now, and the afternoon may only see just 2° C. The latest revision says it is misty right now (it isn't) and that the mist (if it ever falls) will lift after 11am. Soon after that the sun may break through the clouds enough to give several hours of sunny spells, but the temperature still won't rise above 2° C. Tomorrow the temperature may slowly rise from below zero to as much as 4° C by early evening. It is predicted there could be a 10% chance of rain tomorrow. That is a very small chance, but if it does rain it will fall as snow with the temperature that low. I have to confess I am getting very fed up with winter, but at least a good snowfall would be a bit of excitement for a day or two. Maybe it will happen in February some time.
 
   
  I had a feeling I wouldn't enjoy it, but I had to take advantage of the afternoon sunshine, and go for a walk. I hadn't got very far before I started wondering where I would turn around, and head for home again. There were several reasons for this. One simple one was that I forgot to take my gloves with me. They were in my bigger, hooded, orange winter coat. My hands felt freezing because of this, although they didn't quite get painful like I expected to happen.

  Wearing the hooded orange coat, with the hood up, would have kept my ears warmer, although they too didn't feel too bad. Maybe the lack of wind reduced the chill factor.

(The sun has just come out 90 minutes early, and while it is supposed to be misty).

  My legs felt very stiff yesterday, and the cold seemed to get my right knee feeling extra stiff and sore. It was not helped by wearing a new (old) pair of jeans. I mentioned those jeans yesterday, but at that time I hadn't realised the worst thing about them. They seemed tight around the knees, but that was really only noticeable when walking up steep steps such as the "rustic" steps up the river bank formed of bits of tree that are pinned into the bank with more bits of tree. The whole tightness thing was made worse by the material of the legs feeling more like stiff canvas than soft denim. I think those jeans will need a lot of breaking in !

I was feeling very uncomfortable by the time I got to the path that leads from Winsford Road to the footbridge across the railway. I very nearly turned around there, and with hindsight it might have been good if I did. I continued as far as the bow string bridge, and turned around there (or in actuality I crossed the river on the bridge and headed back on the over side of the river). My legs were aching a lot as I walked towards home, but as I walked I became increasingly aware that my ribs seemed to be clicking and popping a lot.

  I am unsure why my ribs were complaining so much. I am sure that the coat I was wearing wouldn't have made any difference, and yet it seems it might have. I don't think it was any tighter. If anything I think it was slightly less tight around the chest, but maybe it was changing the load or positions of my arms some how. What is for sure is that the last part of my walk was very uncomfortable - except, for some strange reason, the last few hundred yards. Maybe it was because I was walking on level paving stones or something.

  All the aches and pains quickly went away once I got home, and into the warm. Even the fatigue didn't feel too bad once I was indoors with my coat off. I had the energy to do a bit more work to my paint stripping project. I am getting the hang of how to use that paint stripping gel now. With hindsight I wish I had started on just one panel, and did the second once I got familiar with the process.

  As can be seen in the picture on the left, there is now a lot of bare metal to be seen, and the figure of the Greek lady is being revealed more and more (I call her Greek in honour of Angela who has Greek roots.). After rubbing off the gloopy paint and gel with a lot of kitchen paper I gave what I hope is a final coat of paint stripped gel, and left it to do it's work overnight. With luck, when I get around to it today I will get the last of the paint off. Tomorrow, because there won't be time today, I will probably be attacking it with metal polish.

  I had eaten no more than a handful of peanuts before I went out, and although it seems like it should be the other way round, because of that, I didn't feel particularly hungry when I got home. After cleaning up from the paint stripping, I went and looked at the pictures I had take on my walk. I think I only took about 10 snaps. A few of them were OK, but showed nothing of interest. The others were attempts at taking photos of birds, All were failures.

  I think there were several factors at work that spoiled the photos, but all boiled down to one thing - camera shake. I think I was feeling too crap to concentrate on keeping the camera steady. The problem was made worse by the lack of light. The sun was often shining, but being so low in the sky it left too many shadows near ground level, and it wasn't strong enough to penetrate the trees near the river. I noted that even though it seemed bright enough to my eyes, the camera was often showing very long exposure times - some time as long as a whole 10th of a second - that is a long time to keep the camera rock steady, and particularly at high zoom levels. So, no pictures today.

  When I first sat down in front of my PC to check the pictures I was still warm from my walk, and I had the heater on low. It wasn't long before I began to feel chilly. The first thing I did was to turn the heater up to it's full 2kw. Then my thoughts turned to hot food. I opted for some instant noodles, and further refined that choice to some tomato flavour instant noodles. They turned out to be the tastiest instant noodles I have ever tasted. I didn't dare try to decipher their sugar content (very small print amongst a lot of other small print in different languages). I have often thought that instant noodles have had a bad effect on my blood glucose, but even two bowls of these tomato flavour noodles didn't seem to do much harm.

  As a brief aside, I have just returned from going to the toilet for a wee.  I was rushing to finish the last two paragraphs because I needed that wee, but i was also feeling uncomfortable in other ways too. In particular I was suffering from the strange pain on the underside of my right thigh. It seems to originate from my right buttock, and radiate downwards. I never used to get that pain until I tripped on some brambles, and pancakes among the mud and nettles of Brookmill Park some time in the summer. I sometimes wonder what damage I did, but there is no way to see a doctor over such trivial things at the moment. Anyway, for some reason I decided to (lightly) proof read the last two paragraphs I wrote in a rush. I sometimes wonder if I actually write in English.......

  Back to the plot... It wasn't long after eating/drinking my two hot bowls of instant noodles that I started to feel really tired. I laid on my bed, and started reading. I probably managed to read a single page before I put the book down, and fell asleep. It is slightly annoying that I can't remember how long I slept for. All I can say was that it was for a "medium", aka nondescript period of time. I felt better for it. Once I had gathered my wits together I noticed it was time to start preparing my dinner.

  Dinner was a nice healthy (apart from a bit of fat) dinner of grilled lamb shoulder steaks served with nothing else than some sugar snap peas, and some mange tout. It was nice, and the on;y thing that would have made it nicer would have been if my grill was hotter, and could make the fat a bit more crispy. For dessert I had some fruits - some kiwi fruit, and some Clementine oranges.

  I felt sufficiently revived after that to stay up watching TV until 9pm. I then read in bed before falling asleep around 10pm. Apart from a gap in the middle, I seemed to sleep well. The gap was that awkward time around 3am. It is a popular time for heart attacks apparently, but that wasn't my problem. I think I had a brain attack. After waking for a pee just after 2am I glanced at the outside temperature, and saw that it was minus 0.9° C outside. That got me thinking, and for the next two hours I couldn't seem to shut my brain up. I can't even remember more than a fraction of what was echoing around inside my brain for two hours. I'm sure it was nothing bad, and probably just stupid things like wondering what the weather would be like.....

.... I suddenly remember one thing I thought of doing during that brain attack. It was a simple way to check what the weather was like in January (at the beginning of this just about to end year). Once I have uploaded screenshots of the weather forecast for these daily blogs, I archive the originals on my PC by month. All I have to do is check the archive using an image viewer, and there they should be all in order.....Having done just that I see that the temperature mostly varied between 8 and 14° C last January, and the average was probably over 10° C. It seems the January starting tomorrow morning is going to be considerable cold based on the long range forecast (which is usually complete fantasy).

  I fell asleep again around 4am, and slept well, although that sleep did seem to feature many long dreams (or dreams that seemed to be very long, but probably only seemed that way). I remember snatches of two of those dreams. One I remember because it was getting erotic right up to the point where waking up spoiled it. I was in the company of a Polish lady I really only know as a singer. I have no idea why she was in my house, but she was dressed in a (non opaque) night dress, and so was obviously going to stay the night. Somehow we ended up in a very intimate embrace. I found my hand on her breast (by accident - I think), and I asked her if she minded. She said yes, and that they didn't do that in Poland, but she said she would be quite happy if I put my hand between her legs. It is the story of my life that that was the exact time I woke up !

  Another dream was a fanciful variation on something I have been meaning to do. In the dream I was sitting on the toilet, and while I was waiting I decided to compare my old Wellington boots with the boots (or shoes) I was wearing. They seemed no wider, but much longer. That is about the whole of the dream, but as I say, it has roots in a possible reality. I think I still have a pair of industrial, steel toecap, Wellington boots that were issued to me when I started my first job in Post Office Telecommunications. I recall they were never comfortable, but I still managed to wear them 20 years later during some heavy snow. I think my feet are wider now, and assuming I still have them, they might possibly still be wearable after all these years if really needed. I must admit I was thinking about wading in the river rather than in heavy snow.

  This morning my blood glucose has dropped to a more acceptable level. It was down to 8.1mmol/l. The rest of me is not too bad. At least I don't seem to have any particular after effects of my uncomfortable walk yesterday. Today should be one of the better days, because today is Thursday, and Thursday is boozing day. I doubt we will see Michael today, but I think Jodie will pop in to consume a few bottles and cans of beer with me. There are still two strong Xmas beers to drink today, as well as other assorted beers. I wouldn't be surprised if Jodie doesn't bring some more exotic beers with her. All I have to do now is finish cleaning up the dining room. That will include washing off the final coating of paint stripper - hopefully well enough so Jodie doesn't complain about the smell !