The forecast has changed a lot, mostly for the worst, since I took the screenshot above. The first significant omission was of the bright sunshine for the first few hours after sunrise. That has all changed, and changed a lot. The forecast should now show dark grey clouds at the moment, and I would not be surprised if it started to rain soon. The revised forecast does show heavy rain at 2pm, and a potential thunderstorm at 3pm. The next three hours of rain after that, finishing at 7pm, will, or may be just light rain. I can't help but feeling that if I check the weather forecast in a few hours time it will show something completely different. The only consistency is that this afternoon should still be 21° C. With such variability it is hardly worth mentioning that tomorrow is predicted to start with heavy cloud until 8am, and from midday there could be some nice sunny spells. The afternoon may be 22° C.

   For some reason yesterday seemed like a very satisfactory day. In reality it was not that satisfactory, but that will be explained further down the page. As I wrote yesterday, the first thing of significance that I did was to go shopping in Tesco. By weight the majority of what I bought in there were cans of soup selected to have a low sugar content. To my surprise I found that potato and leek soup was shown as having a very low sugar content.

  Two novelty items were jars of Korean Kimchee - two different makes with slight differences in the ingredients lists. One mentioned barley malt, the sugar from which beer is brewed, but it is near the bottom of the list, and they are quite small jars. Not only that, but Kimchee is supposed to be powerfully spicy, and therefore probably eaten in small quantities. I did try some yesterday, and I was rather disappointed. It didn't have anything like the "bite" I hoped for.

  The other special item I bought was part of the reason for going to Tesco. It was a pot of Rosemary (pictured on the left). I had intended to buy just a packet of Rosemary, just like I did with the Basil I am now successfully growing, and try and get the sprigs to drop roots if dangled in water. The packets looks rather dry, and the sprigs were cut very short. I opted to buy Rosemary already growing in a pot. All I have to do now is to keep it alive, and eat more lamb and/or potatoes.

  Jodie was off out somewhere for a gig, and didn't join me for our usual Thursday afternoon drinkathon. However Michael dropped by and we spent a couple of hours drinking and nattering away. On this occasion I was drinking Guinness, and Michael had a can of Carlesberg, and a bottle of Banks Amber Bitter.

  I slowed down my drinking a lot after Michael went home, but continued to drink until I had polished off 4 cans of Guinness. The reason for this was twofold. It was only about 5pm when Michael left, and it was too early for dinner. The other reason was that I couldn't relax because I was expecting a brief visit from Natalia. I have never met Natalia before. She is an Argentinian, and is a friend of my friend Patricia. Patricia is currently in Italy, but there is some important post for her here. The idea was that Natalia was going to visit Patricia in Italy and deliver the post by hand. Yesterday it transpired that Natalia has not had her full Covid vaccination, and probably can't travel. She said she would post the post to Patricia - something I could have done - but there is a possibility that Natalia could do it easier because of her job - what ever that is.

  Natalia had forgotten what a rotten interchange London Bridge is between tube and national rail, and missed the 18:01 train she intended to get, but fortunately there are plenty of trains in the rush hour, and she got the 18:16 train. I talked her through the last bit of walking from the station to here to make it easier for her. With hindsight I should have met her at the station to save her the walk, but we had arranged it with the idea that I might still have guests at home (Jodie and Michael).

  It was probably easier to have a short conversation at home rather than in the middle of the rush hour crowds. Natalia only stayed for 10 minutes, and then I got on with cooking my dinner. It was to be a simple, and probably healthy sort of dinner - grilled cod in batter (or breadcrumbs ?) and sugar snap peas. I garnished the cod with a good dollop of tartare sauce before I ate it. It was one of this dinners that was sort of nice, but somehow unfulfilling. A bit later I had two wholemeal rolls filled with liver sausage and kimchee. They were a bit disappointing too.

  It is starting to sound like my whole day was disappointing, but enough boxes were ticked to make it feel satisfactory even if it wasn't. The real trouble came when I went to bed. Last night was one of those nights when it felt like everything was wrong. The temperature was half a degree too cool, but boiling hot if I pulled the duvet over myself. Maybe it was the change in weather or something, but I also found it difficult to get comfortable because no matter what position I tried to sleep in something hurt. Not a bad hurt by any means - just a bloody annoying hurt !

  As well as assorted joints complaining, I seemed to have a few muscles complaining as well - probably muscles that were trying to pull joints into the most comfortable position. On top of that I started off with a stomach ache. It may have been some sort of reaction to the Kimchee. A couple of antacid tablets helped a lot, and Later in the night that particular discomfort had faded away. It felt like I had a terrible night, and kept seeming to wake up. I'm not really sure I woke more often than some nights, but I felt that I was getting very poor sleep. Maybe the stress of that just made it worse.

  This morning I don't feel all that wonderful. The silly thing is that I know most of it is in my head. I didn't have any trouble going out to the garden to feed the birds earlier. My body even seemed to be working well for that 5 minutes of low grade action. Then things got worse. When I checked my blood glucose it had shot up to 9.6mmol/l, and that is too close to the danger area for my liking (even if an occasional overshoot like this doesn't seem to spoil my official diagnosis of "good blood glucose control").

  I wondered if things could get worse. Feeling I had slept very badly, and had allowed my blood glucose to rise so high, were bad enough, but of course things could get worse. The first added worse thing was the brightness going away seeming very quickly when the sky became covered with suffocating thick dark clouds. If I had any enthusiasm for anything before, it has been completely drained now.

  The only thing I had planned for today was to go to a gig this evening. I wasn't over keen on going, and it could be said that I was only going to go because it was the best out of a very poor choice (for my musical tastes) and that I feel I am expected to go to gigs. In reality I was very ambivalent about it. It is at The Lord Holmesdale pub, and that is a fair walk from Bickley station (or a potentially very tedious bus ride on a bus that goes the most "scenic" ever devised to turn an A to B direct distance of maybe 5 miles into a 20 mile magical mystery tour). Fortunately foul weather may give me a good excuse to do what I really want to do - close the curtains, turn the heating on, and indulge in many hours of reading !