The latest revision to the forecast still says there will be sunny spells from 1pm to 2pm (but not 3pm as in the earlier screenshot above).  It seems today will be warmer than yesterday. It is now expected to be 5° C between 2 and 3pm !  At the moment it looks like it has just been raining. The road outside looks very wet, and yet the chances of rain this morning were no more than 10%. Maybe the rest of today will not be quite as dull as yesterday, but it still does little to raise my enthusiasm. Tomorrow will see a similar temperature profile to today, but the cloud is going to be thicker. The sunny periods (if we get them today) will be lost behind thick dark clouds tomorrow. Most of the day is shown as having thick dark clouds. Most of the day will a 10% chance of rain again, but a few hours in the afternoon may see a 20% chance, but no rain is specifically shown for tomorrow.
 
  I felt ill for a lot of yesterday. That was of some concern considering the symptoms were " a bit 'flu like". I often felt cold, and various joints, including those of my ribs, seemed to be aching. Not badly aching, but enough to be annoying. I checked my temperature quite a few times during the day, and as usual it wasn't even high enough to be "normal", but was perfectly consistent at being normal for me. I am now very certain that the reason that I was feeling cold so often was that it was cold.

  I was trying to heat the house, or at least the bits of it I was using, using the same sort of energy that would keep me comfortable if the outdoor temperature were as high as 10 or even 12° C. That doesn't work when the outside temperature is struggling to even reach 3° C. It was notable that the times I didn't feel cold were also the times when my 'flu like aches had all but disappeared - when either doing some manual work, or when I said "hang the expense" and turned the heating up.

  I was caught in a feedback cycle. The less I did, the worse I felt, and the less I wanted to do. It was one of those occasions when I knew intellectually what was happening, but the gloomy weather outside drained most (all !) of my enthusiasm to do anything at all. Although I wanted to just lay down, reading, and snoozing, and feeling miserable, I did do two things that amply demonstrated that I was physically OK, and just depressed.

  One thing was to do that good old standby, some laundry. It is surprising how quickly it can build up when you are actually thinking it didn't seem more than few days had passed since you last did some laundry. In my case that last bit of laundry was probably when I washed the mud encrusted jeans that I had been wearing on my walks through the muddy park since, or probably well before, the start of last summer (and maybe even before spring !). They were an exception to the usual routine, and so probably don't count.

  Anyway, I was a couple of t-shirts, some underwear, and a pair of what I think is called "base layer", or in essence, thermal underwear of the type used by cyclists or runners. I had been using them as pyjama bottoms, but they were often too hot, and so would get sweaty and smelly. Once I started this physical labour I soon warmed up, and as I did so all my aches and pains started to fade away. Maybe they didn't fade completely, but it was still a big relief.

  Curiously enough, the other bit of work I did also seemed to make me feel much better. It was pretty good proof that much of my malaise was all in the mind. I can't even say that it was another case of just warming myself up because half of it took place in my freezing cold kitchen. It was a bit of washing up, but only a bit. Mostly it was washing and polishing glasses that we had used on Thursday afternoon. It also included a glass we hadn't used that I found in a cupboard I rarely open in the kitchen.

  I rarely open that cupboard for two reasons. One is that it means bending down to use it, and bending even lower to clean it, or get anything from the back of it. The other reason is that in it's time it has been a wildlife refuge. As well as spiders, some ants, and even a woodlice or two, it has, over the years when I had a bad infestation, gathered a large collection of historic mouse droppings. It is better to never use it, or even open it. Sometimes though, a vague memory that there was once a bottle of strong beer in there, generated enough curiosity to need a peek inside. There was no beer in there, but there was another Hoegaarten glass in there - exactly the same glass as the one Jodie and I use for beer tasting, and also the same glass as Michael used to bring with him.

  There is a reason I say the "same glass", and it because each glass has a very slightly different version of the brewers logo on it. The glass I am currently using for some Diet Coke, as I write this, has the logo looking like it is etched into the glass (although it probably isn't). Another of the three I have has the logo in blue, and the third has the logo in blue again, but also has a sort of crown on it. Also, the glass I found in the cupboard was probably "borrowed" from a pub because it has an official "Half Pint" sign etched into it.

  I have talents that I am hardly aware of, and can't consciously control - or so it seems. Yesterday morning I had a very unhealthy breakfast of saveloy and chips. For a slightly late lunch I had a quarter pounder burger with cheese. Another very unhealthy thing, and both part of the Thursday night takeaway order. I was very aware of how bad these things were for me, and somehow, without really being aware of it happening, my brain throttled my appetite back.

  Three or fours after having that big burger (with sweet burger bun) I was thinking of dinner, but it still seemed some time away. I decided I could have a light(ish) snack of rice crackers and some blue cheese. Of course the cheese will fur up my arteries, and increase the girth of my belly, but would add almost no glucose to my blood. When dinner time approached I was looking forward to another portion of takeaway, and it would have been chicken shish kebab - lean grilled meat and salad (although the mood I was in I would have eaten the pitta bread as well).

   I may have been looking forward to it, but somehow I didn't feel hungry, and so I went without. That is almost without precedent. A bit later, maybe near 7pm, I did have a dessert of a bar of almost sugar free dark chocolate. (It does have an artificial sweetener in it, and it is the type that can act as a laxative on some occasions). That was the last thing I ate last night, and I went to bed hungry, but not actually feeling hungry.

  I watched a bit of TV, and read for a while before going to sleep. Despite being so lazy, and I am sure I had several snoozes during the day, I fell asleep easily. I think it was some time before 10pm. I then seemed to sleep solidly until about 2am. That is often the time when I can suffer a spell of insomnia, and last night was no exception, but this time I was probably awake for no more than a long feeling 20 minutes. I then slept well for another couple of hours.

  After that I entered that period of sleep when I really don't know if I am awake or asleep. Apart from the possibility of some dreams where I dreamed about being awake, I can't recall any dreaming at all last night. I think it was about 5am when I woke up feeling too hot. It was mainly my legs that felt too hot, but anything outside of the duvet felt too cold. The solution was to turn the heating up full. I was asleep again before my bedroom started to feel warm, but it seemed to take the chill off the room fast enough to kick the duvet off half my body. It was nice to wake up to a warm (but only just) room.

  I strongly suspect I adopted some strange sleeping positions in the last hour or two of the night because I woke up with some interesting aches and pain. Back ache was the most prominent. All these unusual aches and pains subsided quite quickly once I got up. Some of the usual ones persisted, but most of them don't feel that bad, and almost good compared to some of the worst mornings. The one persistent problem is my chest. My ribs still feel sort of ratchetty, and it seems far too easy to get my chest aching - mildly, but still vary annoying.

  If I hadn't experienced this chest pain so many times before it could be worrying, but past experience shows the worst thing about it is that it could last for weeks now. Of course there is the danger that if I were to have a heart attack, a mild one like all my previous ones, I would just blame the pain on my belligerent ribs. I probably would do that anyway in this day and age. In the past I could present myself to hospital for a weeks rest, and a good excuse for a week or more off work, but now I am retired I don't go to work, and at the moment the best place to catch, and die of Covid, is in hospital. I think I'll give it a miss.

  Although I ate much that was bad yesterday, my late intervention to my eating means this morning my blood glucose has dropped to 9.0mmol/l. That is far too high, but it is a lot less than yesterday morning. If I can be careful with what I eat I could hope it will have gone down to nearer to 8.0, and ideally even less tomorrow morning. The problem is that I have two more portions of takeaway that I think should be eaten today before they go off. One of those portions is a grossly unhealthy donner kebab meat with chips - very nice, very unhealthy. The other is shish kebab, and healthy provided I discard the pitta bread.

  I really don't know what I will do today.  At the moment the sky is all light grey, and that is not as depressing as the dark grey sky for a lot of yesterday. If the early afternoon really does feature sunny spells, I may put on my warmest coat, and go for a walk. I must admit that at the moment the idea of such a walk does not appeal because I fear my chest will hurt, and that will kill any enjoyment. I really want to walk in hot sunshine, with no coat, and in shorts. I just hope that when that comes possible, in many months time, I feel good enough to be able to push myself back into condition for some lok walks exploring places I have never walked before, plus revisiting some of my rarer destinations like One Tree Hill, and Blackheath.