Clear skies meant yesterday's temperature drop continued until it was around 4° C this morning, but that was compensated by the clear blue sky, and bright sunshine. The latest revision predicts the sky will start to cloud over at midday, and the afternoon will feature white cloud with a 10%, or less chance of any rain today. The mid afternoon temperature should reach 11° C. Tomorrow's prediction just shows white cloud from the start to the finish of the day. It may stay dry, and by 4pm the temperature might reach 13° C.

   My main achievement yesterday was to successfully fast right up to dinner time. By doing so my blood glucose level dropped from 10.3mmol/l in the morning, well into the danger zone, to a nice 7.5mmol/l. I have to admit my stomach was grumbling a bit in the afternoon, but I have to remember I did similar fasts quite frequently when at work. It was a lot easier there because no matter how much I craved food, there was nothing to eat until I got home from work. It is why I used have dinner so early in those days !

  Another achievement was hand washing my big bath towel. There was no rush about it because I have 3 or 4 other bath towels, but it seems I can wash that bath towel, dry it overnight, and then use it after my shower this morning. It is quite a heavy job washing that bath towel. Not only is it very heavy when saturated with water, but it needs at least 5 rinses - together with the initial wash in detergent, and the final fabric conditioner, it means wring out the towel, by hand, 7 times. I reckon that must burn up a calorie or two.
  There is still one coming from China (or somewhere), but my new table cloths were delivered yesterday. The 120cm table cloth I first tried was just adequate, but I ordered 150cm ones for the delivery that arrived yesterday. The one in the picture is a wipe clean, PVC table cloth. It sort of looks nice, but at the moment it seems a bit stiff. I hope that it won't be long before the creases fall out, and it hangs over the edge of the table better. It seems perfect for boozing sessions, and other everyday uses, but I have what I hope are nice linen ones for special occasions.

  Another thing I did yesterday was to finish the book I had been reading, and made a start to the sequel to Ben Bova's "Mars" - "Return To Mars". The first book saved all it's high drama to near the end of the book. I guess that is the classic way of doing it, but somehow it felt a bit laboured. I expect the sequel will do something similar because it too has a sequel - "Living On Mars".

  I have read all three books before, but I can remember nothing about the 2nd and 3rd books. I must admit that I could only remember some very vague details about the first book when I re-read it, but it all became familiar as I read it. I have always thought that the school way of reading books, where you are suppoed to drag every single nuance out of the text, and learn the position of each comma and full stop, spoils, or even completely kills the entertainment value. By just enjoying what you read, without committing the whole thing to memory means you can re-read, and still enjoy a book.

  At 5pm I checked my blood glucose, and found it was nice and low (7.5mmol/l as noted above). In theory that could have lead me into temptation, but I stuck to my principles (to at least the extent of about 85%). My dinner was a simple casserole (previously called a stew until I realised it was probably a casserole*). It was diced lean beef with some tenderstem broccoli and some runner beans, I also added some cashew nuts along with oxo cubes and a good splash of dark soy sauce.

* I cleaned up my pyrex casserole dish to cook dinner. I am not sure why I haven't used this far more. Until yesterday it had not been used in favour of using a plastic microwave proof container. Unfortunately plasic ends up getting horrible stained, and while I know it was scrubbed clean, it did look rather nasty. I shall now try and stay with the pyrex dish because it doesn't stain, and although heavy, is easier to clean after use.

  I added the cashew nuts to my dinner because there was only half a handful left in the bag, and I thought they might add an exotic element to the meal. They didn't ! I barely noticed than as I ate dinner. It was almost filling, but a little while after I guess I was not distracted enough when watching Star Trek (not a good episode last night), and I felt peckish. There were many things I could have eaten, but I opted for some salted peanuts instead of the better choice of nothing at all.

  There could have been many reasons why, but I seemed to sleep a lot better last night. Maybe it was my lower blood glucose level, or more likely it was the temperature. It did get very cool last night, and I only had the heater on low. By the time I was ready to sleep it was not very warm in my bedroom, and I managed to sleep under the duvet for several hours. By about 3am it was feeling chilly when I came back from a visit to the toilet for a pee, and I turned the heater up as I passed it on the way back to bed.

  It could be an indication of better sleep that I woke up around 5am thinking it was time to get up. It was just starting to get light, and I could have got up then, but I decided to try for an extra hour of sleep. I probably got around 30 to 40 minutes, but I stayed in bed until 6am. The first thing I did was to check my blood glucose. It was higher than expected at 8.7mmol/l. That was measured using the last test strip in the bottle. I opened up a new bottle, and took blood from the next finger along, and it said 8.3mmol/l. I was hoping it would be under 8, but 8.3mmol/l is not too bad.

  I feel like I am hovering between feeling good and bad, and I could settle either side. It would be good if I were too feel good because I am contemplating going for a walk this afternoon (but only contemplating it !). One of the first things I am expecting to do this morning is a little soldering job for a friend - one of the men who encouraged my camera work. He works (or worked) as official photographer in the National Gallery (or Portrait Gallery around the corner). He could be phoning me in the next hour for directions to get here. It is lucky that I have already showered, and washed my hair, even if I am not dressed yet !