Saturday 9th October 2021

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Saturday 9th October 2021

08:43 BST

The only good thing about yesterday was that it was very mild, maybe even slightly warm at 19° C. Other than that it was dry, but shades of grey through the day until just before the sun dipped below the horizon a gap opened in the cloud to enable a few feeble rays of sunshine through.

The forecast got off to a good start today. It said fog, and there was fog. In fact the latest revision says that 9am will feature mist, and with 9am now very close it is looking to me like the fog has not thinned that much. Maybe the fog or mist will last to 10am. We really are most definitely in autumn now ! The next thing will be frost, but maybe not for another month. Once the mist lifts it should leave a nice sunny day, and the temperature should climb from 10° C now to 17° C. Tomorrow will probably be mostly dull, and occasionally very dull, but with also a possibility of one or two brief sunny spells.

I have to confess I felt pretty bad yesterday after my bender the night before. I really didn't feel like doing much at all during the morning, and I probably wouldn't have done much in the afternoon if it hadn't been for Jodie coming over for another beer drinking session. I fortified myself with a plate of grilled bacon. That seemed to help a bit, and more importantly it stayed down !

One bit of excitement was a delivery from Amazon. It was a good example of how Amazon, and others can get things wrong when relaying on pre-programmed maps to follow. It was probably around 2.30 when the van pulled up right outside my house, but the driver walk 3 or 4 houses up the road to deliver there. When he got back to the van I could see him consulting his phone, and scratching his head. He checked in the back of the van, and then drove off all of 100ft away before getting out his van, re-checking his phone, and checking in the back of the van before driving off out of sight. 10 minutes later he was back outside my house, and delivery my three bottles of whisky.

These three whiskies come from (from left to right) Wales, South Africa and India. The sad thing is that I didn't feel like opening any of them yesterday. I remain very curious about how the South African and Indian whiskies will taste. I deliberately ordered the Indian whisky that was described as unpeated in the hope it will not have that horrible (to me) smoky taste of burning peat (woodsmoke can be fine). I think the South African was also described as being not peaty.

Jodie arrived just after 3.30pm, and she was not in a good way. I'm not sure why she bothered to come. She is still in the middle of what must be a bad cold. She was frequently blowing her nose, and coughing up unpleasant mucus (which she delicately coughed into a tissue in the hope it would not be obvious to me). She was not in a drinking mood, and neither was I. It was all made worse by the first can of been I opened. I think I bought it in Tesco. It was Brewdog's "parma violet" flavoured IPA. If that sounds like a disgusting combination then you would be right. It was most difficult to love, and we tipped most of it down the sink.

I opened a tin of a beer we had drunk a week or two ago, although obviously from a different can. Jodie said she remembered she didn't like it, and didn't have any. I found it to be unlikeable, but it was only a small 330cl can, and I drunk it all, but that was the only booze I drunk yesterday. Jodie had a glass of whisky and lemonade, and then a couple of small shots of Limoncello. After that she went home on a train just before 6pm - the earliest she has left for months or more.

A happier bit of news is that I have two more sunflowers taking the first steps towards blooming. The top picture is of the one that has grown to about 6ft high. The second picture is of a sunflower that got blown over in the storm was had a few weeks back. It seemed to straggly to try and tie up, like I did to the one in the top picture, and I didn't really expect it to do anything, but it looks like it is starting to flower. I have one other plant, and that has a big bud, but no sign of it opening yet.
naughty nuts

Just after Jodie left it was dinner time. My blood glucose was reasonably low yesterday morning, and I wanted to try and keep it that way. The bacon I had for breakfast shouldn't really have contributed any sugar, and I ended up having a negligible amount of beer. That just left making a sensible choice for dinner. I opted for three cans of soup - all known to have low amounts of sugar in them. Not only that, but their combined calorie amount was pretty low as well - maybe something near a quarter of the "daily recommended allowance". In theory I was dieting as well !!!

An hour after eating my soups I was watching TV, and feeling like I wanted to nibble. I had half a bag left of the nuts pictured on the left. I had eaten the first half a couple of days ago, but decided not to eat the whole (quite small) bag when I noticed that the list of ingredients included sugar, and smoked sugar ! The nutritional information on the front of the bag says the sugar content is supposed to be quite low (although note that is for a mere quarter of a bag).

It wasn't even 8pm when I got bored, and I decided to brush my teeth, and go to bed. I thought I might read in bed for an hour or so before trying for sleep. I barely made it 20 minutes before I put the book down, and promptly fell asleep. As usual I woke up for a pee 3 or 4 times in the night, and to my surprise they were quite big pees. I expected them to be hardly needed after drinking so few beers, but I guess 3 cans of soup contains a lot of water too.

I seemed to sleep unusually well last night. Even after going for a pee I was asleep again in minutes, possibly even in seconds. It may be an indication of how good that sleep was when at 7am I seemed to come fully awake, with no desire for any more sleep. As usual, the first thing I did was to check my blood glucose. It was bad news, very bad ! Instead of a similar, or even better reading than yesterday morning, it had shot right up to the danger line, 10.0mmol/l.

I can only think that my first fears over that "Smoky Paprika Nut Mix" was well justified. I can't remember when I ate the first half of the bag, but I have a strong feeling that I had a high reading after that time too. It could be almost forgiven if they tasted smoky or of paprika. They do have a sort of very mild piquant taste, but considering they were sold for a premium price, they were ultimately rubbish.

This morning I deliberately had a breakfast because I felt hungry, but also because what I ate would probably raise my blood glucose a bit more, and so it was best eaten in the morning so I have the whole days to get over it. It was Thai styled/flavoured fish cakes. They were sort of nice, but have left a nasty after taste. I think it might be the garlic in them. I still like garlic to some extent, but it was one of those flavours that never came back properly after I part lost my sense of taste and smell when I had covid in the spring of last year.

I have no idea what I am going to do today. A few years back, when I must have felt a lot more alive, I would have grabbed my camera and gone for a walk in the fog, but that just didn't appeal today. If it does turn out that today will end up sunny, I may go for a walk, but I feel little enthusiasm for it now. I don't think I am over my alcoholic poisoning yet, and I will be having another dry day. Either that or I am going down with Jodie's cold. That could explain my high blood glucose reading. It usually goes up when unwell, but I have only the barest hints of any cold symptoms at the moment. I foresee a quiet, and boring day in today.