The latest forecast revision has changed 8am from sunny spells to thick cloud. The reality is that the sun is shining, and has been for the last 20 or more minutes. It has only just gone behind a cloud, but I can still see plenty of blue areas of sky. The basic bones of the forecast still sort of stands. As per the early morning revision there will be sunny spells moct of the time until about 3pm when the latest revision predicts light showers for a couple of hours. The early afternoon should still be 11° C, but the temperature will start to fall by mid afternoon, and it could be a chilly night. Tomorrow could start wet, but the afternoon should see some sunshine, and the temperature may briefly rise to 10° C. The day after could be similar.

 I spent several hours at least re-reading another book yesterday. As the picture shows it is by Alan Dean Foster, and is called "The End Of The Matter". It is another book where advanced science, and space travel are convenient tools for a story that shares a lot with fantasy. It features telepathy and premonition, and is set in a future where weird and wonderful aliens mingle with humanity. It is less turgid than the previous book I was reading, but I am still only 50% enjoying it.

  I don't know why I didn't check it a lot earlier, even the day before, but during the morning I decided I would see why my right foot was so painful. My left foot had felt uncomfortable the day before, but had settled down OK, but the right was still very painful in one place. Upon checking I saw I had a huge blood blister. I snipped a small hole in the middle of it, and gingerly squeezed out as much blood as possible - at least half a teaspoon full ! I then washed it with some disinfectant, and put a large plaster (with extra surgical tape) over it. From that point on it was more or less comfortable, but is going to take a fair time to fully heal.

  I almost allowed the dull and wet weather to overpower me yesterday, but I did manage to overcome it to a limited extent. I can't really remember what inspired me to do it, beyond the barely significant need to do it sooner or later, but I got the hoover out yesterday. It would have made little difference if I had left it for a nicer day, or if their was a special need to do it (a special visitor, for instance).

  Maybe the main driver for it was that the dining room did have a fair bit of little bits of cardboard on the floor where I had been cutting up boxes to put in the recycling bin. I hoovered the dining room, the front room, the hall, and the stairs (but not beyond the top of the stairs).  I have to confess that since I seem to be doing this a lot more frequently than I used to, it is a lot easier because there is less dust and fluff to hoover (except for those little shreds of cardboard in the dining room).

  One thing I failed at was fasting until dinner time. I gave in at lunchtime, but what I ate them should have been fairly safe, but I later had doubts about it. It was oat cakes - high in fibre, and known to be low in sugar (although that could be added sugar rather than sugar generated by enzyme action on starch). I smothered those oatcakes with (allegedly) chilli flavoured Marmite. On this occasion I did notice a slight chilli tingle after eating them, but it was still negligible.

  An hour (or was it 2 hours) after eating those oat cakes I checked my blood glucose, and it was very high (over 12mmol/l). That was an unpleasant surprise. An hour after that I tested my blood again and now my blood glucose was down to 9 point something mmol/l - quite a drop. Just before dinner it was down to a very good 7.5mmol/l. Evidently those oat cakes, or maybe even the Marmite had raised my blood glucose a lot, but it seemed so unlikely.

  My dinner was a bit experimental, and ended up bigger than was ideal. I had two chicken thighs that were neither skinless or boneless. I decided I would roast them before using them in a sort of stew. They looked very small, and so I had the idea of roasting a couple of sausages with them. I had an idea that a sausage stew could be nice, and last night I found it would work, and could be very nice. After the roasting I cut up the sausages, and broke up some of the chicken before stewing it in chicken stock with some bean sprouts and broccoli. At the end I added some gravy granules to thicken up the stock.

  It was nice, and should have been all I needed, but I decided to roast/grill the rest of the sausages in the same foil container I had roasted the chicken and sausages. I knew at the time I would end up eating them, although in theory I would keep them until today to be the meat in another stew. I don't know if it was eating those sausages, or if there is sugar in the gravy granules, but this morning my blood glucose has not dropped as much as I hoped. I am feeling suspicious about those gravy granules. I seem to have been getting high reading since using them. It is time I checked the ingredients.

Please wait: err...your calls are valuable to us or......some such bollocks.....

   No, those gravy granules are, as expected very low in sugars, and although the thickening is done by starch, there is not even a great deal of that in it. I guess those sausages must contain more sugar than expected. Perhaps it is lucky I ate them all last night, and I'll now try to buy less of them...or at least that make/flavour. The other explanation is one that sometimes seems to be the case even if it seems unlikely - that being there is a sort of time delay in these things, and I'll find my blood glucose has dropped more than expected tomorrow morning (wishful thinking taken to extremes !).

  It was almost warm last night, and I could have left the heating off, and snuggled under the duvet last night, but I didn't. I left the heating on low, and continued to sleep barely covered. It is silly, but I find covering my self with the duvet unpleasant. It is more or less the exact opposite of when I came out of hospital in 2013, with my chest held together with staples after my heart bypass operation. It was too uncomfortable to cover my delicate chest, and I had to learn to sleep without being covered. It felt really weird, but now, after practising for so many years without covering myself, it seems natural. The flaw in this argument is that with last winter not being as cold as this (although my memory could be faulty on this point) I probably did use the duvet more than the heater.

  I mostly slept OK last night, but around 3am, the time when all bad things happen, I did feel a bit cold, and I probably managed to go to sleep with maybe one leg, part of an arm, and maybe my back and bottom partly covered by the duvet. I think I kicked it off once I was asleep. At about half past 4 I had a bit of a scare. I woke up convinced it was time to get up. I knew it was too early, but I just couldn't seem to get back to sleep again - and then suddenly, with no warning it was getting light outside, and the clock said 6.20am.

  I woke up then feeling mostly OK. I can't say I was feeling very dynamic, but most bits of me seemed to be working well enough. As I said further up the page, I was disappointed when I checked my blood glucose. I thought I had done well enough to reduce my blood glucose to less than 8mmol/l. It was actually 8.4mmol/l. I guess at any other time I would have accepted that as good enough, but I had hoped for something nearer my self set target of 7.5mmol/l.

  Today I have a golden opportunity to ruin my blood glucose again. I have already made a slight start on it. I had a sort of breakfast of one of the items that came in my Star Bargains order. It was two small (25gm ?) bag of "loaded fries" that are like corn sticks with a bit of mild chilli on them (although of course the package suggests that they will be as hot as boiling sulphuric acid !). What happens later could be even worse. It is Thursday, and Thursday is beer day. I shall undoubtedly drink enough to get just mildly drunk, but that is all it needs for a food frenzy ! I'll reveal the bad (or good) news tomorrow.