Yesterday was good until it became bad ! I mentioned yesterday that I went shopping in Tesco. After that it was just a case of relaxing until it was time to go out for my retinopathy exam in Lewisham Hospital. There was a sort of late summer/early autumn feel, and smell, to the air as I walked through the park. I don't think I really enjoyed it, but I was pre-occupied with making sure I kept to time. I gave myself little slack when setting out, but I did arrive 10 minutes early so I guess my timing was about right.

  Before the actual scan, or actually, photography of the back of my eyeballs there were the usual preliminaries. They included a simple eye test with a chart on the wall. With my long distance glasses on, which I very rarely use now, I could read the very bottom line with ease with my right eye, and has been since time immemorial, my left eye was weaker. Maybe not as weak as it seemed though. I was wearing a face mask, and every time I breathed out my glasses, which were cold because I had not been wearing them until I needed to read that chart, instantly fogged up. I just couldn't seem to stop the left lens fogging, and that made reading the chart a bit spurious.

  Next came the bit I don't like. It wasn't having the drops put in my eyes that dilate the pupils, although that is unpleasant for a minute or two, but it was the 20 minute wait for the drops to do their stuff. As the pupils dilate my eyesight got progressively blurry, and the lights became dazzling. They were like this for nearly 10 minutes before I was called in to the room with the very specialised Canon camera.

  It doesn't look much like a camera, but it definitely says Canon on it. The technician takes 4 pictures in all - each eye from two slightly different angles. The camera has a built in flash, and I think it goes through the same lens used for the camera - which is clever. With four pictures taken the technician gave them a quick look. They would be examined by someone else later, but some technicians will mention any bad things they see.

  The lady who was seen before me evidently got bad news because she was in tears when she came out. In some ways it was not surprising because she was too large to even walk, and had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. At least I could walk there by myself, and choose the stairs rather than the lift. My on the spot diagnosis was the same as the last 15 or however many times I been for these scans - "there is some background retinopathy, but nothing to worry about, and no need for another visit for 12 months". I expect the letter I'll be getting in a few weeks will say much the same.

  It was only about 12:25 when I left the hospital, but I sent Angela a text to say that I was heading to the pub, and I would wait there if she was coming to join me. I was almost ready for my second pint of Guinness when Angela replied to say she was on her way, and so I ordered my Guinness and a drink for her. We had a very nice time in the pub, although with a lot of chat about applying for pensions, and Freedom Passes it wasn't quite as warm or intimate as it can be.

  I ended up having three pints of Guinness before I walked Angela back to work. Once we said goodbye, outside her office (and without a hug) I tried to walk home as fast as possible. my eyes were still quite blurry, and I could barely see the squirrels that I might have otherwise take a photograph of. I tried to walk fast, but a bellyful of Guinness made it seem like I was walking through treacle.

  It was a relief to get home. I didn't feel drunk, but my desire for food indicated that I probably was. I tried, and partly succeeded in not eating anything too bad. It was little more than a snack of rice crackers and some cold sliced spicy meat. Then I lay on my bed to read for a while. It wasn't long before I dozed off to sleep. I think I must have slept for an hour. That was nice, but waking up with a hangover wasn't. I also felt cold, although I seemed to warm up very fast when I put the heater on low.

  I decided I couldn't wait until dinner time for some more to eat. I opened a can of Heinz chunky chicken and bacon soup. It was warm, and it was filling, but I found it a bit disappointing. I am not sure what I thought it would taste like, but it didn't seem anything like my imagination could dig up. The good thing is that it was fairly low in all the things I try and avoid. It was probably less than an hour to dinner time (6pm) at that point, and I cooked some beef sausages for dinner.

  I don't think I usually see beef sausages in Aldi, and that idea was bolstered by the ones I had yesterday being a special using Aberdeen Angus beef. They were OK, but underwhelming. Once again I was not sure what I was expecting, but they didn't match any part of my expectations. In the meantime I was still suffering from my hangover. I thought any more food might make me sick, and I had a really annoying headache. I haven't had anything like it for many, many years, and I sometime have doubts that it was something other than a hangover.

  Hangover or not, I couldn't concentrate on watching Star Trek: Voyager, and so I decided to watch another archived recording of Blake's 7. Once again it was both good and bad. I feel sure there were some excellent episodes of Blake's 7, but in my young enthusiasm waiting for the next episode to be broadcast, I think I glossed over the less good episodes. I am now thinking that there were a lot more of them than I remember.

  I lost all track of time last night, but after reading in bed for a short while I probably feel asleep not much later than 9pm. I do have a vague recollection of it not being dark outside. I think I slept OK until midnight, and maybe a bit after, but my room was starting to feel a bit cool. It wasn't really, and it would still have felt far too hot under a duvet, but I didn't have a duvet. I turned the heater on low, and it wasn't long before I fell into a deep sleep. I can barely even remember getting up for a wee at any time.

  As 6am approached I started to have dreams that left vague memories. The only one I remember, more in concept than stark details, concerned being back at work in the telephone exchange I used to work in. I seemed to be there for a special project rather than as part of my normal work. It was to try and fix some faults that were degrading how the exchange was working. On the first day I found two faults that had gone undetected for years - mainly because they were plain to see to my eyes. The dream seemed to fade out when I announced my intention to go over the road to buy a pie for my lunch.

  At 6am, or thereabouts, I woke up feeling like I had slept well. That sleep felt so good that I wanted more, and after a wee I went back to bed for "just 5 minutes". 90 minutes later I woke up, and decided I probably ought to get up. As usual I checked my blood glucose. It was up a bit, but I seem to be going through a phase of measurements starting with eights. This morning it was 8.5mmol/l - up from 8.2mmol/l yesterday morning. I feel the tomatoes I ate with the sausages raised it more than the Guinness, or any snacks I had.

  So far this morning I have done some maintenance on the bird table. It was while in the garden, with just shorts, and no t-shirt, that I felt how hot the sun was, and how hot the day could be if the sun could stay out all day. The maintenance I was doing was basically to empty out the hanging feeders onto the bird table, and then to try and clean some of the gunk out the bottom of them. Where rain water had got into them the seeds at the bottom were starting to sprout. Having cleaned them out the best I could I refilled them.

  It seems very quiet out there now. No birds have checked out the new food, and in fact I can't even see any birds in the sky. It is almost as if they are all waiting for something. A storm maybe ? Nothing bad is forecast for today, but the forecast have been lacking a lot of accuracy for a while now. I do note that the latest revisions do now show the reality that the sun keeps on popping out, and there are still patches of blue sky to be seen.

  The next thing I must do is to have a shower. After that I don't really need to do anything until this afternoon when I'll be drinking beers with Jodie again. It is possible that if I feel there is time I might pop out to either Poundstretcher or Poundland to buy more bird feed, but there is no rush, and I might not bother.