It has been,
and is very dull as I write this, but
the sun has started to try and push
through the clouds. The latest
revision to the forecast has changed
to show that this hour will be extra
gloomy, but I can see a few slivers of
blue in the sky, and if one of those
should end up where the sun is....
11am is when the forecast says the
first sunny spells should appear, and
midday could see the start of clear
skies and 4 hours of solid
sunshine....maybe. 2 and 3pm could see
the temperature peak at 11° C, but it
will only be 10° C for a good few
hours either side of that. Once again
the wind feels bitterly cold, or at
least it did when I walked down the
road at just before 8.30am. Tomorrow
may feature very little sunshine, but
the temperature is expected to be
around 15° C.
I don't know if it was an
after/side effect of my 2nd Covid
vaccination shot, but I still didn't
feel good yesterday. Like the day
before it was mostly a case of feeling
very sleepy. My muscles seemed to be
working OK because I washed a
large bath towel with no difficulties
late in the morning. Thanks to the
relentless wind, and some sunshine, I
took that towel in around 5pm and it
was warm and fully dry.
It was a bit later in the
afternoon when I began to feel not
only sleepy, but rather strange. I
can't quite explain what
"strange"means, beyond the fact that I
didn't like it. It could have been
generated by an upset stomach. I did
feel slightly bloated while also
feeling empty and wanting to eat -
which sounds like a contradiction, but
that is how it felt. It could have
been trapped wind, but over the next
12 hours it turned out to be not very
well trapped. From time to time it did
smell like something had died in me !
I tried to calm it all down
with some booze, and this was both
easy to do, and occasionally
successful. It was easy because
yesterday afternoon was another
boozing session with Jodie. It wasn't
a very enjoyable session though. maybe
we just didn't have anything
interesting to say to each other
because Jodie spent half the time with
her face buried in her phone. There
was also the ongoing problem with some
of the beer.
It was a bit stupid that I
didn't take these two picture to the
same scale ! On the left was a beer,
if it can be called a beer, that was
coconut flavoured. I'm not sure I
would like to drink it too often, but
it as actually nice in a weird sort of
way. On the right was something that
was the exact opposite. "Sour Suzy"
was not really sour, but it did smell
like pee, and tasted like cold pee (or
as I imagine cold pee would taste). I
had bought two cans of it - one in
each of two different beer selections
as selected by the distributor. It was
because I bought it that after two
sips I poured it straight down the
sink. Jodie announced that she liked
it, and would have drunk my can too !
There was one other thing I did
yesterday of great importance. It all
started when, after failing to use the
governments website because I couldn't
electronically prove my credentials, I
downloaded the form to ask for a
prediction of my state pension, and
posted it off. It took a few weeks and
I had my answer. As expected it was
between a pittance and not very much.
It might have been a few weeks after
that that I received another latter
from the Pension department inviting
me to apply for my pension. It
suggested I should do it on line, and
included a sort of invitation
password.
I had strong doubts it would
work, and went as far as to print on
the 10 page form to apply for my
pension, but yesterday I went online,
and to my great surprise it all worked
very smoothly. Not having worked
abroad and gone through marriages and
divorces made it very simple. I doubt
it took more than 5 minutes to fill it
in, send it, and receive a
confirmation.
All being
well, from the third quarter of June
this year I will officially be an
old age pensioner !
My lunch and my dinner were
both cold shish kebabs from the
previous night's takeaway. Maybe
the lamb shish kebab I had for
lunch was responsible for
upsetting my stomach, but I don't
think it was the actual cause.
Maybe it didn't help though. I
don't think I like the place I
bought it from. The lamb did seem
to be a bit nicer when eaten cold,
but it still wasn't as good as it
could have been. The salad was not
very good either. The plus point
is that there was a fair amount of
meat in the kebab.
Dinner was the spare
chicken shish kebab. Once again
there was plenty of meat, but the
salad was sparse like in the lamb
kebab. Despite there being a good
amount of meat, I began to feel
hungry an hour or two later. I had
stayed up later than usual
watching TV, and it might have
been even before 8pm that I wanted
more to eat. I ate a small can of
spam with some sauce on it. In
theory it should have been sugar
free - which was good after also
eating a few things with small
amounts of sugar in them, plus
several beers whose sugar content
may not have been that low.
It is typical reverse logic
that the closer I got to bedtime
the less sleepy I felt. I expected
to have a bad night, but apart
from one time in the night, I
seemed to get to sleep very
easily, and slept well. I think it
was just after 2am, when I may
have been asleep for 3 hours, that
I woke up feeling very cold, and
freezing cold once I came back
from the toilet. I had left the
bathroom window open, and the wind
blowing through it felt bitter.
Nevertheless, I still wondered if
I had a fever, but apparently not.
After laying in bed under the
duvet for a few minutes I felt too
hot, and kicked most of the duvet
off again.
It was around 5am, and
after another visit to the ice
cold bathroom that I turned the
heating up full before going back
to bed. I was soon asleep again,
and in effect I overslept. It is
probably only on a Monday morning
that I can oversleep because that
is the one morning when I like to
be up early enough to go shopping
in Aldi when they first open at
8am. It was just gone 7am when I
woke next, and I couldn't get
ready in time to get to Aldi
before about 8.20am.
I was very curious as to
what my blood glucose level would
be this morning. I checked it a
couple of hours after eating last
night, shortly before I went to
bed, and it was 8.7mmol/l. It
seemed reasonable that it would be
lower than that this morning, but
it was an annoying 8.9mmol/l. That
leaves absolutely no slack for any
bad things I might eat today.
Fortunately I didn't really buy
anything that bad from Aldi this
morning.
Walking to Aldi, and to a
lesser extent, walking from Aldi
back to home, felt a bit OK, and a
bit not OK. That is, or course,
nonsense because I can't really
describe it properly. My legs
seemed to work OK, but there was
some stiffness around my right
knee. It was probably made worse
by the icy feeling wind. Probably
the worst thing was that I
couldn't seem to walk as fast as I
really wanted to. I have no idea
how much faster I would have liked
to walk, and I wasn't really
walking slowly anyway. It was more
of an impatience to get there
because I was late, and to get out
of the icy wind.
I was originally thinking
that I should go for a walk today,
but two things have put me off
that idea. The grey sky and icy
wind were enough to kill my
enthusiasm when I was going to
going to Aldi. After coming home
from Aldi I had some breakfast.
There is almost always something I
buy that I want to eat straight
away. This is why it is always a
lot better if I can start Mondays
with a much lower blood glucose
level. This morning I stuffed my
face with breaded haddock for
breakfast. It was a large portion,
and while it may not have a great
effect on my blood glucose, it has
left me feeling a bit too full for
anything like walking.
I just checked the latest
revision of the full forecast for
today. They are still insistent
that this afternoon will be pure
sunshine, but at the same time
there will be an 11mph wind from
the east (a cold direction) and
the 11° C will feel like just 8° C
when the wind chill is taken into
consideration. I think I will be
staying in today. One thing I
might do today is to paint a door
and/or a window frame. I have the
white gloss paint, and one of the
things I bought from Aldi this
morning was a set of paint
brushes. I have no excuse not to
do it but laziness, and I have
that in bucketfuls !
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