The amazing thing about this morning is that the wind, which has been quite gusty for days now, has just about dried the roads after last night's rain. There was a lot of clear sky a bit earlier, and some nice sunshine. It has clouded over now, but hopefully most of the rest of the day will feature sunshine. It is going to be a very cool day. It is currently around 9° C, and the afternoon high may only be 12° C.  Tomorrow may be dry, but grey, and possibly a degree less cool than today.

 
   I was looking forward to meeting Angela for a drink yesterday. By the time I had done a few things, and then had a shave, shampoo and shower, I didn't leave myself much time to walk to the pub. My usual route was to walk through the park, and come out through the hospital almost next to the pub. I had only walked a few hundred feet into the park when I sent Angela a text message to say I was on my way. A minute or two later I got a reply to say she was sorry, but off work sick. I did consider turning round and going home, but since I was already out I would turn it into a walk around the park.
  I had my camera with me, and took a slow amble through the park looking for anything worth taking a snap of. One of the first things was this patch of cyclamen (if I have spelled that right). From a distance they looked like crocuses. I think I have heard of a winter crocus, and until I could see the flowers better I thought that was what they were. They were revealed because all the vegetation had been cut back on the river side of the fence along the path - and not before time ! The nettles and brambles were spilling onto the path a month or so ago, and reduced the width of the path to half in places.
  It may be the time of year, but this squirrel didn't seem so skittish as usual. It posed quite happily with me no more than a few feet away. I never see much evidence of people feeding the squirrels in this park. That tends to make them much tamer. I think that if I had some nuts it might have even come to me.
  The view to the west was all grey clouds, but to the south and east there were nice patches of blue sky. This picture is looking roughly east with the Hospital's Riverside building in the background.
  Ladywell Fields has quite a variety of trees, but very few of the type that wear their autumn colours with pride. This tree was producing many scarlet leaves, but it seems that as soon as they became scarlet they would fall off. There was a good scattering of red leaves below the tree, but the tree itself looks a bit sparse.
  This tree is doing it's best to give a glorious autumn display. I probably ought to check it every day until I find the perfect picture, but it is never going to compete with pictures taken in wooded areas where all the trees turn red and gold.

  I didn't measure my walk because when I set out it was just going to be the shortest way to the pub and back. I ended up walking an approximation to a figure of 8 - starting on the west side of the park, and then crossing to the east side near the halfway point. Then I walked to the Ladywell Road entrance, and looped around to walk towards home on the west side. Just before the approximate halfway point I crossed back to the east side. Based on prior walks I estimate it was about a 1.5 mile walk.

  20 to 30 minutes after I got home I phoned Angela to see if she was OK. She was, and we had a nice chat. First we talked about her troubles, and ended that with a discussion about the third Covid jab. I said that I was having mine Friday (tomorrow) morning - or at least I will be going to the walk in vaccine centre, and presuming I will get jabbed there. Angela said she felt reluctant to have the third jab, but admitted she didn't know why, and would probably end up having it.

  Then the conversation turned to my problems. They all revolve around this problem I mentioned yesterday about Jodie, the washing machine and her dad's imminent death. Angela instantly agreed that Jodie was being very unreasonable to demand that I have her parents old washing machine so she can continue to use it at my place.  Angela was very supportive, and in a way I think my troubles are a good distraction from her own. I could tell from the tone of her voice she was feeling good about supporting me. We left the conversation with my idea that I would try and phone Mark, or maybe Arm, to get a better estimation of the extreme clutter in Jodie's flat.

  It was a few hours later when I spoke to Mark. He confirms that Jodie's flat is in a terrible state. She has hoarded so much that he can barely get in the place. It would take an age to clear a path to the kitchen, and be able to replace the washing machine. At this rate it seems I will have to give in to Jodie's demands, but I think he three of us, me, Mark and Arm are going to pressure Jodie to try and start clearing all her horded stuff away. I can imagine that stuff she "saved" for whatever reason in the past is now damp, and could even have spiders in it. Jodie is a true arachnophobe, and wouldn't dare touch anything that might have a spider in it. I can imagine that most of the hoarded stuff is stuff like magazines, beer bottles and anything else with a nice colour - even old toothbrushes !

  I can't recall if I had any breakfast yesterday. I think I had the fishcakes the day before, but maybe it was yesterday. I definitely had two cans of soup for a late lunch. My dinner was nothing but grilled chicken thighs that I had smeared with harrisa paste. I am pretty certain that paste had a lot of sugar in it when judge by how it looked when grilled. It was another one of those occasions where the added flavour was not worth the extra sugar in my meal. At some point I also had 4 "sugar free" chocolate chip cookies. They are know to have a bad effect on my blood glucose despite their alleged sugar free status.

  Like the day before yesterday, I expected to feel quite ready for bed early evening after the fresh air and exercise I had in the early afternoon, but like the day before I just didn't feel sleepy. Once again I watched TV until 9pm before going to bed to read. Last night was worse than the night before. I didn't seem to get to sleep until well after midnight. Some of the problem was the noise of the heavy rain outside, and oddly enough there was also that old problem (for me) of the room being too warm when under the duvet, and too cold without it.

  It felt like I hardly slept at all at first, but with hindsight I know that many hours slipped past almost unnoticed. I started sleeping much better from around 3am. I think the rain might have stopped by then, and the room had cooled off a bit. At about 4.30am I woke up for long enough to put the heater on, and have a pee. The heater was only on low, and with the outside temperature down to 9° C (and possibly lower earlier in the morning), it was still rather cool when I finally got up - much later than usual at almost 9am !

  This morning the revenge of the harissa paste, and maybe more so of the "sugar free" choc chop cookies, was very apparent. My blood glucose was up to 9.1mmol/l. I guess some of the stress hasn't helped either. That blood glucose reading is still in the safe area, but it is not good for me. The silly thing is that what seems the worst thing is that it really messes up my running average for the month, and I can see the chance of achieving my target of an average below 8.5mmol/l falling off the horizon.

  Today could be an interesting day on many levels. It is a Thursday, and I am expecting Jodie over this afternoon for our regular beer session. I think we will be joined my Michael, and so I will have some sort of moral support, or at least a distraction from Jodie. There is even a microscopic possibility that Angela may visit as well. Even if the chance is microscopic I had better pull my finger out and do some housework before this afternoon !