Today it will rain, rain some more, and then rain on top of that....except....At the moment the rain seems to have stopped, or if it is still raining it is too light to see without going outside. It is certainly extremely wet outside from earlier rain. The heavy rain, that has apparently been falling since the earliest hours of today, will continue until midday (except for right now when it appears to have stopped). After that the rain will become lighter until it is predicted to stop around 6pm. While all this is happening it will be getting colder and colder. At one point the BBC weather forecast said there might be some sleet, but they seem to have changed their minds about that. It is approximately 6° C now, but by midday it will be down to 3° C. Apparently it will stay there well into the night. Tomorrow should be dry, but by daybreak the temperature will have fallen to 1° C. There could be some sunny spells tomorrow afternoon, and maybe they will help raise the temperature to 4° C in the afternoon.

  I was close to feeling almost OK yesterday, and I finished yesterday with some speculation that I could possibly go out. I admitted a lot of doubt about it, and in the end I didn't fancy it. I was still feeling a bit creaky, and sort of fatigued, although the latter is often just in the head because there was nothing to really inspire me. Worst of all was that the promised sunny spells were far sparser than they seemed they would be, and between them there were long, or seeming to be long periods of really dull greyness. Some of the dark clouds looked threatening too, although it didn't rain after the morning.

  My chest troubles, what I believe to be costochondritis, has tended to over shadow anything else that is negative. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, what I describe as fatigue could just be lack of get up and go. That is sort of inevitable when the weather is bad, and it is hard to shake it off when an occasional nice day happens. I just get into a rut after a spell of lousy weather. On the other hand, some of that fatigue has included some assorted joint pain. It is possible that is the famous "after shocks" that Covid is reported to have. In some ways it does feel like very mild 'flu symptoms, but there is evidence that still points back it all being in my mind - all the symptoms, bar some of the chest creaks and groans, can easily disappear when distracted by something interesting. The trouble is that there seems little of interest at the moment.

  I guess in some ways I am doing quite well. I can't remember which year it was, but one of the reasons I was so keen to retire early was that I had just gone through a lousy winter. I vaguely remember feeling so bad that I thought another winter like that would kill me. One of the reasons I write all this rubbish is so I can look back and check on these things, but there is now so much to check that it is like wading through glue. As far as I can recall, this winter is the first nasty one since leaving work.

  When I check my record of walks I see that in November and December 2019 I was out walking at least 3 times a week. Admittedly many of the walks were not as long as most of the walks I did last year, and many of them were just walks whose prime purpose was to meet Angela in the pub at lunchtime, but for most of those I did try to be creative to lengthen the walk. I really hope that later this year it might be possible to do more of those walk. I also really hope that we will get loads of warm sunny days when I can do some long local walks. An even bigger hope is that I will be able to use public transport again, and explore some more distant places.

  Back to yesterday.... It turned out to not be a boring day. Once I had got a bit of laundry done I set up my old PC in the dining room, and booted it into Windows so I could use my USB video capture device to copy some old VHS tapes to digital mp4 files. Some things I recorded in the past because I thought they may be interesting, but they aren't really. Then there are some things that I am glad I did record. One such recording was a 3 part documentary made by/for The BBC, as part of their Horizon programme. This documentary was called "Red Star In Orbit", and was made in 1990. It was a fascinating look at the early Russian space programme and then comparing what they, and America had done in the "race to the moon", but mainly from the Russian perspective. I was just going to copy the video, but I ended up watching it as it recorded. I watched 2 of the three episodes, and I hope the third was originally recorded OK, and I expect I'll watch that as I copy it, probably today.

  I felt a strong desire to nibble while copying/watching that video. I ended up eating a couple more of those very sweet coconut rings, and I even had 2 packets of spiral, chilli cheese flavoured Cheetos. I washed that lot, plus a small packet of pork scratching down with a pint of beer. I had all that on top of a brunch of bacon and beans, and all on a day when I was going to try and eat carefully.

  In some ways that series of snacks achieved something that I used to be warned about, but never really experienced before - it spoiled my dinner. It spoiled it in as much as I couldn't think of anything that would compete with what I had eaten, and I didn't have the patience to try and put something together that could be really yummy ! The solution was to go for a simple solution, and that was to try the "Spicy Pad Thai" that I pictured yesterday. It was quite a small portion, and it was nothing like the picture on the packet ! It was like a brown lumpy sludge. That description sounds horrible, but it was actually quite nice. Most of it was sort of squidgy, and so the "vegatable protein" bits didn't stand out like some sort of evil contamination. I could eat another of those, but I think I would prefer it with meat, and from an oriental take away. I followed that ready meal with a tub of low calorie ice cream.

  As usual, I read for a time before turning out the light, and going to sleep. I think that happened a bit earlier than recently. I may have been asleep by, or soon after 9pm. I didn't have a perfect sleep, but most of it was pretty good until almost 5am (or was it just after 4am ?). I seemed to be awake as if it was time to get up. I did get back to sleep, but it took some time. I think it was just after 7am when I finally gave in, and got up. It was just starting to get light, but it still hasn't made it even now. It is very dull and gloomy out under grey leaden clouds.

  "You'll be taken home in box bowb-head". This is a quote from one of my dreams. In fact it is about the only thing I can remember from the dream. It was directly inspired by the book I am currently reading - "Bill, The Galactic Hero...On the Planet of The Hippies From Hell". Bill is a galactic trooper, and in my dream he was in a bar, getting very drunk, with another trooper. They were winding each other up, and the quote was supposed to be a threat. The word "bowb" needs some explanation. It is prevalent in this series of stories, but the author, Harry Harrison uses it in other books that feature the military. It is a sort of universal "four letter word", and it is usually easy to translate what four letter "Anglo-Saxon word it replaces !

  This morning I am once again almost astonished that my blood glucose is only 8.5mmol/l. Of course that is a lot higher than desired, but still just about acceptable, and a lot lot less than the 10+ I was fearing. I actually seem to feel almost OK again this morning, possibly even better than yesterday morning, and that was good enough for me to do the laundry with no hassle. Something happened to my chest during the night that might have been good, or it may have been entirely neutral even if it did feel a bit dramatic. I was laying on my side during my short period of insomnia this morning, and suddenly my chest sort of crunched. It was like the width of my chest had suddenly decreased. If it wasn't impossible (says who ?) I would have thought it was my sternum shifting. It felt dramatic, but didn't hurt at all. If I concentrated hard I could just detect a bit of soreness a bit after it happened. For the moment I am choosing to believe that it was something resetting to how it should be. Whether that is true, or just wishful thinking, is something I will probably find out during the day.

  There was another thing I remembered yesterday. It all began when I went up stairs, and for a brief moment I seemed to be almost out of breath. That is obviously a bad thing, and could by a covid symptom, but then I thought about it more, and realised it used to be quite common before I started to force myself to tackle some hilly walks last year. I can remember a specific time when I was visiting my ex(?) friend Sue. I needed a wee, and walked up her staircase with a belly full of beer, and felt winded at the top. Like yesterday, it just took two semi deep breaths to cure it. I sometimes wonder if I hold my breath when walking up stairs ! I am slowly realising that many potential symptoms of covid are nothing new, and I really should stop thinking that an old symptom is for any new reason.

  Today I will..... Well, I'll probably digitise that last episode of the Horizon programme "Red Sky In Orbit". I know I won't do it, at least I am 99% sure I won't, but I keep getting stupid ideas about going out for a walk in the cold and the rain. Maybe my idea is that when the temperature drops to just a couple of degrees it would be comfortable to wear my orange winter coat. It has a hood, and I am sure it is waterproof. Apart from the rain, the mud, and the depressing grey sky, it might feel OK for a short walk...maybe....