My outside thermometer said 0.6° C, and that is as close as dammit to the 1° C shown on the latest revision to the forecast. The latest revision still shows sunny spells this morning, but at the moment the cloud seems too thick to let any sunshine through. Maybe the sun will break through a bit later. The other change in the latest revision is that 3pm is now shown as just light cloud, and 4pm is shown as sunny spells without any rain. The temperature remains the same at freezin' cold rising to bloody cold (4° C) for a few hours this afternoon. Tomorrow is interesting. It was shown as having a fair possibility of a brief fall of snow, but now there might be a bit of rain or sleet at midday, but the rest of the day is just shown as very dull and cloudy, and very cold again.

  There was one thing I did yesterday morning that really stressed me out. I think I may have done it after the laundry that I will mention soon (I am adding this bit as a later edit). I'm not sure why I could momentarily forget such a thing as the mind-rape of trying to do anything online on a government web site. All I wanted to do was to get a pension forecast, and find out how to request my state pension when I reach the appropriate age in this coming June.

  To do the whole thing online means setting up an account with the government - one of the last things I would want to do, but I guess you have to humour them if you want your money. It brought back bad memories of trying to claim a tax refund a year after quitting work. They ask for all sorts of crap that I don't have, like a valid passport or driving licence. They say that in the next section there could be several ways of proving your identity, but when you get there they only offer two, and you have to select any two out of the two offered. One of choices was a passport, and so I fell at the first hurdle because I don't have one.

  The good thing is that it is still possible to fall back to pen and paper. In the case of my tax rebate a few years ago, they said that if they didn't hear anything to the contrary, which they wouldn't because I couldn't provide proof of identity, they would mail it me in a 3 or 4 weeks - and they did, no proof required. In the case of the pension forecast there was a form to download, fill in, and post to them. I have now done that. There was also a form to claim my state pension, but I can't send that off for another 6 week or so (4 months before my pension is due).

  Before I got too relaxed yesterday morning I did the bit of hand laundry I mentioned yesterday. It was only a small job - just two t-shirts and some underwear - and I did the job in one go. It didn't feel too taxing, but I still rested for a bit before the main feature of the day - another 3 and a bit mile walk.

  I was out a bit later than usual. Many of my walks start between 11am and midday, but yesterday it was just after 1pm before I set out. I have to admit I wasn't feel too good at first, and I was contemplating turning around, and heading back to home before I had walked a full mile. I decided to grit my teeth and press on.

  I was feeling a bit creaky, and also something like very mildly asthmatic, but I think the latter was just an effect of the cold air. There was an additional difficulty that persisted after that first mile when everything else seemed to loosened up, as it usually does. That difficulty was walking on very slippery and squelchy mud. The effect was made much worse by the low sun dazzling my eyes, and my feet seeming to be in deep shadow.

  I had to walk very carefully in case I hit any deep mud that I couldn't see. It all added to the stress of the outgoing half of the walk. It was much better on the homeward leg of the walk. The sun was behind me, and so no glare. I was mildly enjoying my walk then, but I was wearing a black coat, and with the sun on the back of it, I was soon feeling very hot under the coat.

  One of the first places I visited in the park was the little stream that runs along the edge of the area known as the Vineries. The last few time I have been there the stream has been flowing really well, but yesterday it looked a bit low. That seemed strange because the main rivers were in full flow. It also seemed to stop at this point in the photo above. I had assumed it was a weir, but it seems it isn't. At this point I could hear the water gurgling down to somewhere unknown. I had visions of limestone caverns, but the bedrock around here is probably hundreds of feet below clay and gravel.

  I mentioned my observations to the Friends Of The River Pool. It wasn't too long before I heard that this is actually what is known as a French Drain. It would seem that below the gravel is a drain with a pipe that feeds water to the first of (apparently) 4 ponds. I know of 3 ponds, and have yet to find the fourth. The thing I still don't understand is why it is suddenly working when nothing seems to have been disturbed. Maybe it was just the extra water after all the recent rain has washed the pipe free of mud or something. Anyway, it is a shame that it looks like the nice little trickling stream is going to remain dry from this point onwards unless we get some more exceptional heavy rain.
  The entrance to this field, which I picture from the other direction on one of my recent walk, is still just one big mud bath. There is a lot of surface water laying on the grass in places. In places it is just like you used to see in old movies when the hero falls into quicksand. There are places where it almost feels like the mud could swallow you up, but the worst of it was over by the time I had walked to this spot, and turned around to take a snap of the ground I had just walked over.
  I didn't take many pictures yesterday, but I had to take this one showing the moon and a very blue sky. I took the picture just a few minutes before 2pm. The moon was rising in the east, and the sun was to the south. I did try and enhance the contrast of the moon, but that interfered with the blue, and so I left the picture untouched apart from a bit of cropping, and shrinking to fit these pages.

  I walked as far as the bow string bridge, which I crossed, and then headed for home on the other side of the river. It felt very different walking towards home. There is always a psychological boost when walking homewards (for me, if not others), but there were two other factors that came into play. I was now walking aware from the glare of the sun, and the first bit of the walk from the bridge is slightly downhill. I guess you could add a third thing - I was on proper paths, and didn't have to be careful walking on slippery mud.

  It was an indication that I was feeling better,and more relaxed when I did one short detour to have a look around the stinky pond. It didn't seem quite so stinky yesterday, and I could almost imagine wildlife living in it (I have seen pictures of frogs in it). I did notice, and hear many birds in the trees around the pond, and I hoped I might get a snap of one or two, but they were far too fast for me.

  For the very last bit of my walk, the last third of a mile, I was shadowed, and eventually overtaken by a couple of police horses. It always seems nice to see a couple of horses in the streets around here (and if you have any, they are good for your rhubarb too !). It felt very warm when I finally got indoors. My thermometers said it wasn't, and it was just the marked difference between 6 or 7° C outdoors and about 19° C in my front room which was only heated by the sun coming through the windows.

  The one thing I wanted to do when I got home was to have some lunch, but I was fasting, and the sunshine made that seem easier, or indeed possible. Soon after I had got into indoor clothes, and sat down, I checked my blood glucose, and it was very high - well into the danger zone at 11.1mmol/l if I recall correctly. I have observed highs like this after a walk before, and so I ignored it for a couple of hours until my body temperature had settled down, and there was a better distribution of blood around my body.

  That next reading was a lot lower. It was just 7.8mmol/l, and I would be happy with that at any time. I am unsure why there is that large peak after exercise. It is possibly to do with how the blood keeps away from cold extremities like cold fingers and faces, but I am sure that is not the full answer. Anyway, it was low enough to break my fast for the day, and I had about 100gm of salted peanuts to keep me going until dinner time.

  I still wanted to limit the size of my dinner even if the ingredients were not the healthiest option. It was actually a very simple dinner - dry (i.e. no butter) sausage sandwiches. It was just a small pack of the very slightly posher Aldi Lincolnshire sausage - so 6 sausages instead of 8 in the "normal" packets. I didn't want to eat too much bread and so I only used 4 sausages as sandwich filler (rather chunky sandwich filler !). That dinner, as described, as well as that 100gm (approx) of salted peanuts was all I ate yesterday. It is amazing what a bit of sunshine can do.

  There were two additional programmes on TV last night after two episodes of Star Trek. They were part three on the series "The Art Of Drumming", and that was followed by a documentary about the classic Cream album "Disraeli Gears". I found the last two episodes of drumming to be both interesting and tedious. Maybe if it was more exciting I would have stayed up to watch it, and stayed up even later to watch the Cream documentary. Te latter sounded like it could have been good.

  I wasn't feeling that tired, but I elected to go to bed, initially just to read, instead of keeping the TV on after the second Star Trek: Enterprise episode. After reading a few pages I thought I would like to try to get to sleep nice and early. It did take a while to fall asleep, but it can't have been long after 9pm, and I suspect it might have even been before that. I seemed to sleep OK, or even rather well when I consider that I think I slept for a solid 4 hours. Then it all went wrong.

  I went for a pee, and it was rather cold in the bathroom. When I got back in bed I could not seem to find a comfortable position. The bed had grown new lumps in the previous 4 hours. The room temperature was such that it seemed too hot under the duvet, and too cold with out it. I seemed to spend a good couple of hours trying to get comfortable, or trying to relax enough to get back to sleep. I even got up for 15 or so minutes to read some stuff off the internet.

  I am unsure when it was, but I think it was soon after 3am that I eventually fell asleep again. I then slept for about another 4 hours. That meant I got a full 8 hours sleep in total, but the break in the middle make it feel that I missed out on a full night's sleep. I can imagine myself having lots of snoozes today - which I ought to, but won't resist that much, to avoid another night of restless sleep.

  Apart from feeling like I have a sleep deficit, I guess I don't feel too bad this morning. Maybe there is, or was, an extra bit of stiffness in my right knee after yesterday's walk, but I don't think there was any other legacy from it. My head did feel a bit thick, with a very mild headache when I woke up, and if I stop to think about it, it is still sort of there even now. The good news is not as good as hoped, but my blood glucose was down to 8.3mmol/l this morning. After that day of fasting and exercise I was hoping it might be even less, but it is good enough.

  I ought to cut my food intake down considerably today, and only eat known good stuff, but I don't think that is going to happen. For one thing I have fruit that will need to be eaten soon before it starts to spoil. Ideally I should finish the loaf of bread because even yesterday it wasn't that fresh. I think I can resist the loaf today, but I'll have to finish tomorrow. Maybe I'll wet it, and zap it in the microwave for a minute or so to freshen it up (or appeared to be freshened up).

   I think dinner will probably be grilled chicken thighs with green beans. That should be healthy enough, it all depends on what I end up eating before and maybe after that ! Apart from thaat vague idea for dinner, I don't think I have any other plans for today. There is a very small chance I may go for another walk. I would like to examine that French Drain, and see if I can spot the so far undiscovered fourth pond, but it all depends on how I feel, and what the weather looks and feels like at the time.