This morning started looking damp, but it wasn't raining. According the latest revision to the forecast, rain is now due at 11am, and it will continue until 2pm. The last two hours could feature very heavy rain. After that it may be dry until an hours light rain at 5pm. Only light cloud was forecast for this morning, but it seemed very grey to me, and apparently it will soon get even darker grey. Once again the temperature should peak at 7° C (according to the latest revision). Apart from the temperature being as low as 2° C at 7am, tomorrow's forecast looks a lot like the early forecast for today (as shown in the screenshot above). One difference, just to make things even worse, is that there is a weather warning for strong winds tomorrow !

   I felt miserable and depressed for most of yesterday. It was mostly because of the soul crushing weather, but I was also feeling a whole heap of regret that I didn't/couldn't make it to the gig, that featured Miranda on guest vocals for at least one song, plus Angela in the audience. Fortunately something happened in the early evening that did a lot to cheer me up.

  I really didn't feel like doing anything yesterday, and I probably spent most of the day laying on my bed reading. It did make me wonder if doing that was contributing to something like a repetitive strain injury that was making my wrist, and part of my hand hurt. With hindsight I don't think it was, but holding up a moderately big book to read while flat on my back was putting some strain on my wrist. Maybe on my right shoulder too because that was very sore for a while.

  I had also been suffering from some pain from my elbows as well for a day or two. I am tempted to think I was being attacked by some sort of virus, maybe even the Omicron variant of Covid - one generally believed to be very mild, and more like the common cold than like the 'flu (which it's big brother is more like). The trouble with that theory is that none of the aches and pains were new, apart from that hand/wrist thing. It just that they seemed more intense, and perhaps lasted longer than usual.

  Being in pain is a good enough reason to feel miserable without the effect of the lousy weather on top. I sometimes wonder if there is a distinct division between feeling miserable, and feeling depressed. On the whole I would say I was miserable yesterday, and not depressed. Although having said that, there were odd moments when I was having thoughts that would be easy to explain as depression effects. On the other hand, wanting to shut myself away in the warm and dry must have been a very common emotion since the day of the caveman.

  For me, and probably many others, one effect of feeling miserable is a desire for nice food as some sort of positive stimulus.  There are lucky ones who lose their appetite under such stress, but not me ! It was perhaps fortunate that my food supplies were running low, and I managed to almost follow a sensible path. I made a point of not eating the rest of the alleged zero sugar chocolate digestive biscuits after what they seemed to do to my blood glucose, and I ignored the tub of icecream that has been in the freezer since the summer, and I ignored the tinned custard and rice pudding, that I bought several years ago.

  I did eat 4 "ripe and ready to eat" Kiwi fruit. They were far from ripe even after sitting in the kitchen for a week. They were hard, and very tart. I initially worried about their sugar content - until I took the first bite. At lunchtime I had two bowls of instant noodles, and the last instant char sui rice. The latter I made up with only about half the amount of boiling water than the previous two times, and it was much nicer. It is almost a shame I have used the last of the three I bought, and I can't remember where I bought them to buy more if I wanted to - which I don't think I do.

  I also cooked up some oven grilled boneless/skinless chicken thighs with plenty of seasonings. I had some as a snack, and some as the main part of my dinner. They were nice, but not that nice. I intended to have them with some thin sliced red cabbage and red onion, but like last time I couldn't be bothered to prepare them. I washed dinner down with several large whiskies.

  It was just after dinner that my spirits were lifted when I got a message from Angela. It was quite a surprise, a very nice surprise when she said she was sorry I didn't make to the gig on Saturday, but that she didn't blame me because the weather was awful. I replied to say that the weather was only part of the reason, and related the tale of my touch of "dysentery" earlier in the afternoon, and how it left me feeling rotten.

 Angela was very sympathetic to that problem, having experienced it herself. She then said "Take care my very best friend. Hopefully see you Wednesday". That, particularly about being her very best friend, really lifted my spirits. I spent a lot of last night wishing that Wednesday could come sooner. When it is at last Wednesday lunchtime, I hope to try and find out if Angela and Miranda went by them selves, or if lover boy drove them there. I was having fantasies about sharing a cab back to Catford with Angela, and, err, being very close in the back of the cab.

  The night before last I took a couple of Paracetamols before going to bed, and had the best sleep for several days. Last night I did the same, but I didn't manage to get to sleep until much later than intended. I think it must have been around 11pm before I fell asleep. Maybe there was a bit of lingering excitement from Angela's message, or maybe I just couldn't seem to switch my brain off from thinking about the book I was reading (Isaac Asimov's "Robots And Empire"). The last pages I read, maybe half a dozen of them, were rather dense, and slightly boring. I think my brain was trying to play back in slow motion what I had read in an attempt to understand it better.

  Having got to sleep, none of my dreams was about robots or empires, or at least as far as I can remember, but I can actually remember very little in terms of dreams. What I do remember is a long period of insomnia, almost an hour, starting at around 3.3am. I feel very certain I was awake for at least some of that time, but I do wonder if I was actually falling in and out of sleep, with dreams filling in the time when I was asleep. I guess it is something I'll never know.

  I woke up at around 7am. I was partly tempted to try and go back to sleep, but I wanted to be up early so I could go shopping in Aldi this morning. I got up, and after washing my hands, I checked my blood glucose. Despite having some doubts about what I ate yesterday, my blood glucose was reading a nice low 8.0mmol/l. Of course that was not that low. Even my target of 7.5mmol/l is not that low. Something like 6.5mmol/l would be far more acceptable, but 8.0 is well down on the start of the danger zone at 10.0mmol/l.

  After washing and dressing I set out to Aldi with the thought in my mind that I could take a few liberties with my diet provided I ate the naughty stuff for breakfast, and then was very careful afterwards.....maybe. I felt very creaky when I first stepped outside, and initially it seemed almost like hard work walking to the supermarket, but at some point everything must have eased up because I noticed very little discomfort when I reached the supermarket. The transition must have been so gentle that I never noticed it happening. It was just a sudden "oh, that's OK then" moment.

  I really only bought two unwise items in Aldi, and they were two packs of sandwiches. But were allegedly wholemeal bread, and there is a microscopic chance that neither had much sugar in he bread. I have scoffed both of them for breakfast. Later today I might have soup for lunch. I have a fish pie for dinner, but I might add a cheese sandwich as a sort of dessert because I bought another loaf of Warburton's "no added sugar" wholemeal bread.

  Unfortunately Aldi were stocking any scuba diving kit in their "specials" this week, and so I have nothing suitable to wear if I wanted to go out later today. It looks like I will be staying in. I think I feel different to the last few days, and maybe I will actually do something useful today, although I feel that reading a book is sort of useful.