The earlier prediction of a couple of sunny spells came close to happening, but the sun just couldn't punch through the cloud, and they have now disappeared from the latest revision of the weather forecast - as also the heavy rain for 3pm. The latest revision just shows non stop light coloured cloud from now until the end of the day. The only positive thing is that it should still be 11° C this afternoon - not that it will feel good without some supporting sunshine. Tomorrow is currently predicted to be mostly grey and wet, but there could be a couple of hours at 12° C in the mid to late afternoon.

   I didn't really manage to raise any enthusiasm to do anything yesterday morning. My stomach still felt a bit sore, but at least it had mostly stopped rumbling, and that was probably a significant reason for just wanting to relax most of the time. The flip side of the coin (or whatever) was that I felt very hungry (I probably wasn't, but I don't I have managed to decipher the signals I get from my stomach).

  It was so easy to give in to what I thought was an empty sort of feeling, and stuff it with some very naughty crisps, although the naughtiest thing was buying the crisps in the first place. They sort of made me feel a bit better, but the feeling didn't last for long. As 1pm approached, and my drinking session became nearer, I wanted more to eat. In some ways I was a bit limited by what I had available, and I was able to make a semi good choice of some "chunky" beef and vegetable soup - 2 cans of it !

  The final thing I did to settle my stomach was to drink a fairly big measure of 50% Absinthe. It might have worked better to numb my stomach if I hadn't had those 2 cans of soup a bit earlier, but it probably still helped to start the process. Jodie managed to miss her train again, and with the service only being every 30 minutes, I had a longer wait than expected before we could start on the beer.

  Much of the beer we drank was various Samuels Smiths brews, and it was all good, but a bit variable. The Porter was better than expected, while the oat meal stout was not as nice as expected. The unexpected hero was the Stingo - an 8% beer that is specially aged in oak casks. It was one of those beers you need to get your tongue around before you start to enjoy it. I knew it had potential from the first sip. Jodie declared it not very nice at first, but after a few mouthfuls she declared it to be very nice. It is a shame we only had half the bottle each. A full bottle would have been nice.

  My original hope was that Jodie would get an earlier train than usual, but she wasn't in time to get that, and so stayed for another couple of shorts before leaving in plenty of time to get the 6.54pm train. As soon as she left I heated up my left over kebabs from the previous night's takeaway. I was probably eating the first before Jodie even got on her train. Last night it was chicken shish kebab, and as usual I only ate the salad and grilled meat.

  All the booze and the hot food left me feeling very tired. The effect was multiplied by the fact that I had a bad nights sleep the night before. It is difficult to say when I actually fell asleep last night, but it was probably before 8pm. At 9.38pm (I remember that time perfectly for some reason) I woke up feeling like it must be time to get up. Fortunately the gathering hangover stopped me before I tried to get up.

  I seemed to sleep relatively well for the rest of the night. I woke a few times for a pee, but nothing else seemed to bother me - in other words, my stomach felt fine. When I finally did get up, just after 6am this morning, I did need the toilet. It was slightly loose, but nothing out of the ordinary. I seemed to have got over the stomach bug that was a disaster the night before, and a small irritant for several mornings before that.

  The best thing this morning was my blood glucose. It was another one of those occasions when it was high, but a lot less high than expected after eating and drink stuff I probably shouldn't have. It was 8.8mmol/l, and I can live with that for now, but it may not be any better tomorrow, and could be worse as a result of going shopping in Aldi this morning. I have to confess I did buy a few things that it might have been better not to have done so.

  Unlike most mornings when I try and guess how I feel, this morning I could assess how I felt based upon actually using it. I am happy to report that my legs seemed to be working fairly well as I walked to Aldi, although my right ankle felt a bit odd. it didn't exactly hurt, and it wasn't exactly stiff. It was a pinch of each and something else. Maybe a sort of spongy feel. It felt like it might do something bad as I walked, but ultimately it gave no trouble, beyond feeling a bit weird, both there and back.
  One of the things I bought this morning - Jojoba toilet paper for a smooth, shiny, and dandruff free bottom....probably. The naughtiest thing I bough was a couple of packs of sushi. They look innocent, but contain quite a lot of sugar. I have eaten them for my breakfast. I also bought some crisps, and I will try and eat them over a period of time unless I get drunk ! I think I am the only person buying it, and the remaining stocks are going down very slowly, but I did my part and bought another three bottles of Cosmic Unicorn shower gel. I like it. It has such a clean smell - a sort of clean nurse smell !

  There were two things I was definitely going to do today, and I have already done one of them - shopping in Aldi. The other is to finish laundering the soiled sheet that has now been soaking in detergent since yesterday morning. Once that is done, and hanging up to dry, and I can think about other stuff to do. I feel I ought to try and go for a walk today although I have no great enthusiasm for it, but if I do I can go via a cash machine and draw out some more money on my old Tesco Savings Bank cash card. Maybe today I will get the emergency PIN to set up all the security stuff so I can activate the new card, but it could still be days away yet.