Apart from my shopping trip, where I ended up doing no shopping, I didn't really do anything of great note yesterday. It just felt like a cold and grey, depressing sort of day. There were several times when I turned the heater on for a while, because I was feeling cold. I think some of it was because I was battling whatever was wrong with my back. I assumed I had pulled a muscle, and maybe that is all it was. Perhaps it was the pain I was battling rather than anything physical.

  Later in the day I stopped feeling cold, and around dinner time I was feeling like I had more energy. It was then that I realised that the pain in my back had gone. It must have faded out so slowly that I didn't notice it getting better. It is good, if a bit odd, that it didn't even seem to leave any tenderness that might be provoked back into pain if I made a wrong move. It seemed like, and so far I continue to feel like, I am back to normal - whatever that is ?

  While I was feeling low I couldn't easily fight the desire to eat stuff I shouldn't. I suppose I fought off the worst desires except for two small bags of crisps. They should have been very enjoyable, but guilt diluted the enjoyment - maybe just a little bit. Most other things I ate were chosen to be relatively safe, and I had to try and continue that at dinner time. I decided I would just have a couple of cans of oxtail soup for dinner.

  Oxtail soup is, in my personal opinion, nice, and a couple of cans can be sufficiently filling while still being semi low in calories and sugar. However, I didn't just have the soup as it was. I added some left over "reduced salt and sugar" baked beans, and some hot chilli sauce to the first can, and it worked really well. I added some cubes of mature cheddar cheese to the second can (plus the inevitable hot chilli sauce), and it didn't work nearly as well. Instead of adding flavour it was like the soup and the cheese subtracted the flavours from each other. It was still very eatable, but it lacked enjoyment.

  TV seemed so unattractive last night that I started watching an old recording of Blake's 7. I used to be a great fan while it was fresh on TV, but now I tend to have favourite bits of it, but I find a lot of it is a bit trite. Having said that, I enjoyed watching a full episode last night, and I suspect I will be watching more episodes. The great dilemma is will I start from the beginning of the series, or try to pick out some of the best episodes ?
  It was a full hour after sunset when I was having a final wee before going to sleep (I had brushed my teeth an hour or so earlier before starting to read in bed). I was quite surprised to see that the sky was still lit up so late after the sun had set. In the picture above the west is to the left. I think it was the contrast between the dark blue sky and the black looking clouds that drew my attention to it.

  Once I had taken the picture above, I got into bed, and I think I fell asleep quite quickly. The next major event was waking up at around 2am feeling chilly. Both my outside thermometers said it was just 13° C. That seemed low enough to put the heater on low. I seemed to sleep well again once the chill had been taken off the room. Towards the morning I became aware that I was dreaming a lot, but this time there were no erotic, or even weird dreams to remember.

  I do remember one dream, and I have no idea what inspired it. I was walking down a high street when I passed a shop that seemed to be selling mostly expensive, but tasteless furniture. It also seemed to have some electronic stuff in there. My eye was drawn to the back of the shop where I spotted a very large Grundig "Weekend Boy" radio. (most Grundig radios were called something Boy). Back in the real world there was no such thing as a "Weekend Boy", but in the dream I recognised it as a very sophisticated radio with full short wave coverage as well as the usual broadcast bands.

  Grundig did make radios like this, but this had all sorts of bells and whistles, and a detachable speaker for stereo use. The shortwave bands covered all the marine, aeronautical and amateur frequencies, and all the filters typically used for those modes. Such a radio could have been £500 when new, but this shop wanted just £50 for it. I decided to buy it there and then, but only once I checked it was in working order. As the shop assistant got it down I realised it was a display model made out of canvas ! It was beautifully authentic looking, but worthless.

  Despite wandering off the path of righteous during the boring afternoon, my decision to just have soup for dinner paid off. My blood glucose was down to 8.2mmol/l this morning. That was good news. It was also good news that my back was still OK, and even my legs felt generally OK. The later was good because I will be needing my legs later. I have actually tested my legs this morning. I went shopping in Tesco, and walking there and back felt "normal".

  There are two more things on my agenda today. The first is a definite. At 11.35am I have an appointment at the hospital for a retinopathy scan. This is where they use eye drops to dilate the pupils so they can take a picture of the back of the eyeball. It is a diabetes thing, and it is looking for things like blood leakage or blood clots. It will be very nice if the weather is exceptionally dull when I leave the hospital because dilated pupils means everything you look at is painfully over exposed. The other thing I will be doing is less definite. I intend to go directly to the pub when I get out of the hospital. Angela has said she will try and meet me today. I will probably be in the pub some time before her lunch break. Maybe if she can come, and things are quiet, she may sneak out early to join me....or she may not be able to come at all.