The BBC version
of today's forecast said there would be
sleet this morning. I think there was some
very fine sleet falling earlier, and at
the moment the road looks wet after some
slightly heavier rain or sleet has fallen.
The Met Office just says today will be a
very grey, but dry day. Everyone agrees it
is going to be a cold day. Both the BBC
and Met Office say it will be no warmer
than 4° C. They disagree about one
fundamental thing. The Met Office now says
it will be dry all day. The BBC says there
will be light rain through the whole day.
At the moment the BBC are winning ! Both
forecasters say tomorrow may be a tiny bit
less cold, 5° C appears in both forecasts.
They also agree that after some very early
morning rain it will be a dry day.
Nearly all the symptoms of the
common cold that I was suffering from
yesterday morning seemed to fade away
during the morning. I still felt a bit
sort of tired, but it was probably cold a
grey weather depression as much as
anything else. My temperature seemed very
typical for me through the day, but I did
feel cool a lot. It is probably because
with my savings getting a bit low I am not
being quite so generous with the heaters.
The heater on half is fine to keep the
chill off my bedroom if I am active, but
it does feel very cool if I am resting, or
just quietly doing stuff on my PC. I find
it interesting that just a change of a
couple of degrees to the outside
temperature can have such a huge change to
the perception of the temperature indoors.
It is like throwing a switch, and the
trigger appears to be around 5° C.
I found myself wanting to eat
frequently yesterday. With my blood
glucose being high recently this was
obviously not a good idea. All I could do
was to try and eat stuff that shouldn't
have too bad an effect. For instance, for
a nice warming lunch I had two cans of
Heinz "No Added Sugar" tomato soup. I
spoiled that by consuming quite a lot of
Bruchetta with it. (I am unsure if I used
the correct spelling, but it is that very
dry toasted bread with a sprinkling of
herbs and stuff on it.). One odd thing is
that I had some rather old Lee &
Perrins Worcestershire sauce in/on the
first can of soup. I don't know if it was
a long term Covid effect on my taste buds,
but the soup seemed to take on a slight
fishy taste. There was no such taste when
I used hot pepper sauce on the second can.
It always seems like Worcestershire sauce
should have a shelf life of forever, but I
get the impression it oxidises over the
years, and ends up with this fishy taste.
I have new Worcestershire sauce on it's
way (it should be delivered within the
next hour), and I can repeat the taste
test again today - maybe.
I seemed to eat a fair bit of fruit
yesterday. I once used to feel that it was
not good for my blood glucose, but it
seems to be fairly neutral now. Maybe it
is the drugs I now take that I wasn't
prescribed when I was first started battle
with my blood glucose. It is possible that
fruit had a altogether different effect.
All that extra fibre can act as a good
clear out ! I very nearly had baked beans
as well yesterday. As well as the "no
added sugar" soup, I also bought a pack of
"no added sugar" baked beans. I was going
to have them with sausages for dinner, but
in the end I thought that maybe green
beans may be a better option.
One of the things I did last night was
to make a photographic record of some of
my health readings. It was probably in
case my cold started up again, or
changed into a more serious illness. My
blood oxygenation was very good, and the
exact opposite of what is expected of
someone suffering from Covid-19. My
temperature was a little high compared
to my usual readings, but still a long
way from the official fever level. The
reason for the high reading was probably
because I had not allowed enough time to
lapse since eating my hot dinner. My in
ear thermometer said it was just 34.9° C
in my ear, and that is quite low.
Finally there was my blood
pressure. I think in any text book the
figures above would be regarded as very
good. I think I got this low reading on
my first attempt. I usually have to wait
a bit to take a second reading after I
have calmed down from putting the cuff
on, and stuff. For instance, this
morning my first reading showed the
Systolic pressure to be 130mmHg. I
waited a minute or so, and thought
calming thoughts (or something) and the
second reading showed the Systolic
pressure to be just 110mmHg.
I was quite looking forward to my
bed last night. Even fighting off what
must have been a very mild cold, or
maybe winning that fight, was tiring. I
was in bed before 9pm, and read for a
while. I was just about to put the book
down, and turn out the light when my
phone rang. There are a few people I
would be very happy to receive a call
from late at night, but not my friend
Lee. He is such a gasbag. He had a few
things to get off his chest, but his
conversation meandered around all over
the place, and he is a bugger for adding
extra detail that is of no interest to
me. If it is, for example, a story about
his aunt I have no need to know the
married name, her maiden name, the names
of her husband and kids, plus the last
24 addresses they have lived at, plus
the name of next doors dog !
I let him say his piece. Tried to
say yes or no at the right times, and
finally managed to get him off the phone
at about 10.15pm. By that time I was no
longer relaxed, and no longer feeling
sleepy. Instead of being asleep before
10pm, as I originally hoped, it must
have been around midnight before I fell
into a fitful sleep. I probably did get
some good chunks of sleep during the
night, but the last hour or two seemed
to feature a dream that seemed to go
around in circles, and got nowhere.
I know that it was probably just
one short dream, maybe followed later by
a variant, but in the night I seemed to
be trapped in it like a stuck record. It
was inspired by the SciFi book I am
reading. The hero is stuck on a planet
that has de-evolved to an almost stone
age existence after being cut off from
the civilised planets for many
generations. The one thing they do have
is primitive petro-chemical industry,
and use it to (badly) refine crude oil
to run some very primitive steam
engines.
My dream seemed to pick up the
story after the hero suggest some
improvements to their technology. The
processes in the oil refinery have been
improved enough to use it to make
plastic, but only in the form of black
plastic "bin liner type" bags. My
annoying dream(s) didn't show how this
was done, or what use the black plastic
bags were for. It was almost like a
snapshot to say "we now make plastic
bags" that was stretched out to seem
like a long dream even though it
contained almost zero information. I
found it annoying !
There was good and bad news this
morning. The good news is that despite
thinking I had eaten far too much
yesterday, my blood glucose level has
now come down to 8.2mmol/l. It still
needs to come down a whole digit to be
really satisfactory. It is possible it
might not come down today ! My parcel
from Star Bargains has just arrived (and
I have unpacked it). As well as a fresh
bottle of Worcestershire sauce, I also
ordered a chocolate Swiss roll. I am not
sure why I ordered it. I was probably
drunk or something. That would also seem
to explain why I seemed to order 4
bottles of "Classic", i.e sugar
saturated, Coca Cola ! In pre-covid
times I could probably pass those 4
bottles on to someone else, but I have
no idea what I will do with them now.
I felt OK to go out again this
morning...well almost OK. I only went as
far as the mini supermarket on Catford
Bridge, but it felt like a bit of a slog
walking there and back. The reason for
my shopping trip there is amply
illustrated in the picture above. It was
a sort of panic buying thing. I am
hearing reports of companies in the EU
not wanting to bother with our
governments new Brexit red tape, and so
deciding not to export anything to us.
Even is stuff is sent here it will
probably be delayed at the ports while
reams of paperwork are written and
examined. Things like beer may take a
low priority compared to perishable
foodstuffs. I can imagine many of the
nice Polish beers disappearing from the
shelves in the coming weeks, and I
wanted to get at least one more
selection of them.
Going to that mini
supermarket was probably the last major
thing I will be doing today. Contrary to
the Met Office saying it would no rain
today, the rain continues, on and off,
and sometime no more than drizzle. From
the look of the sky it would be no
surprise if it continued to and beyond
sunset. I shan't be going out in it
again today. I might do a bit of
laundry, but other than that it is going
to be another day of rest...probably.
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