There seems little sign of the sun breaking through yet. Maybe that is why the latest revision has changed the firsst sign of the sun to 11am, but the forecasters are very confident that once the sun does break through the clouds it will remain sunny until sunset. It will be cooler than that last few days, and the temperature will peak at just 10° C for just one hour. From 6pm the cloud will build up and thicken, and it will stay as thick cloud for the whole of tomorrow. It will probably be just 7° C tomorrow.

  
  Yesterday was an exciting day (for certain values of exciting). I was feeling moderately OK, and that was good because I had a moderately long walk to do. I had to get to the Bellingham Green medical centre for another attempt at an aortic aneurysm scan. The last time this was attempted was 12 to 18 months ago, and on that occasion it failed allegedly because of belly fat.

  I estimated it to be a 3 mile round trip to the medical centre, and as the screenshot on the left shows, it was actually 2.975 miles. I think my estimate was pretty close ! I did over estimate how long it would take to get there. I was basing my estimate on when I am walking in a park, or similar, and I am stopping to take photographs every now and then.

  I had to slow down after about the first mile because I just couldn't keep the pace up. That was a little disappointing because I thought I could sustain 3 and bit miles per hour for longer than one mile, but evidently not.

  It was a dull old day to go for a walk, but I still managed to raise a light sweat by the time I arrived at the medical centre. My overestimate of the time meant I arrived there 10 minutes earlier than expected. That gave me a little time to cool off, although my arms still felt a bit sticky inside the sleeves of my coat.

  It was good to get inside and to take my coat off for the examination. The scan is done with an ultra sound scanner. I told the nurse/technician that it had failed last time, and wondered of the portable machine she had might be any different to the one they used last time. She said no, and not to worry because she had got successful scans from fatter people than me. It was probably because her technique was different to last time.

  My memory of the previous scan may not be terribly accurate, but I am sure the nurse/technician was trying to do the imaging a bit higher up my belly than yesterday's nurse/technician. (I am not sure if she was officially a nurse, a technician, or a nurse and technician !). She started just above my belly button, and when that didn't produce good images  she tried from the side.

  The final outcome was that she still couldn't get a clear enough image to go on record, but she did say that she had seen most of the aorta in small patches, and what she saw looked fine. She told me, and showed me on the screen, that it was not body fat that was the problem, but "bowel gases". These may or may not be farts in the making. The view was like looking through patches of fog - you can see something through the swirling fog, and it is easily identifiable, but not the whole thing all at the same time.
  Upon arrival at Bellingham Green there are signs to several places, but none to the medical centre. This picture is as good as any to show what a dull day it was. There is not one "sparkle" in this picture. It is all flat and dreary.
  This is the medical centre. It is a typical (these days) corporate doctor shop with a spare room or two that can be hired out to other medical practitioners. The room the scan took place in also has refrigerators for the storage of vaccines.
Another view of Bellingham Green taken from a different entrance.
  Taken from almost the same spot as the previous picture, but looking towards the left.
  The centre of the green is not green at all. The green is overlooked by two "Christian" churches, and so it is unlikely any pagan rites take place here....and anyway, that is a star in the middle, and not a pentagram. I guess it could be Jewish in appearance, but it may have too many points for that as well.
  As a sign says on each gate, it is a community green. This sign was one of the better condition signs. There was one that looks like it gets attacked with graffiti a lot. It is a bit weird that it only happens to just one of the 5 or 6 gates into the green.

  I wanted to get home as soon as possible after "the ordeal", but once again I couldn't sustain the speed I wanted to. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting to get home much before 3pm, and possibly even later when I was first estimating how the day would go. I actually got home at 2.27pm. I think I probably did the walk home in less time than when going to the medical centre. I may not have been able to walk as fast as I wanted to, but it seems I was walking faster than I thought I was.

  One thing I didn't want to miss yesterday was Michael dropping off 6 bottles of Diet Coke that he was going to buy from Tesco for me. In the end I arrived home in plenty of time for that, and Michael confirmed he would be back in 30 to 40 minutes to join Jodie and myself in our Thursday afternoon beer drinking session. Jodie even arrived early after I told her I would be back home earlier than expected.

  We had a pleasant, albeit unexciting drinking session. One thing became obvious is that just one beer advent calendar box of beer is going to last us until almost Xmas time itself. I have another 5 boxes of beer almost untouched. I think we will be drinking advent calendar beers until the end of February at this rate ! There are some nice strong ones I am looking forward to, and some strong beer that maybe I am not looking forward to.

  Michael left us at about 5.30pm, and Jodie left to get the 6.19 train to London Bridge (she was going to a gig later on, and was meeting a friend there). Once they had gone I could get on with dinner. I did manage to squeeze in a light lunch of Thai noodles just as we poured the first beer. I was expecting to have it before Jodie arrived, but as I said, she arrived earlier than usual.

  My dinner was just Aldi "southern fried" flavour chicken steaks. Apart from some per-peri mayo I didn't have anything else with them, but a bit later I had three crackerbread strips with some cheese on. By my reckoning that didn't end up as a lot for the whole day, but maybe I was wrong, or maybe there was something else at work - like maybe one of the beers had a high sugar content. The chances are that it was something else at work....

  I finished reading the book I have been reading not long after 9pm, and possibly before then. I turned the light out, and initially felt a bit uncomfortable - probably from the walk. Before I could get too bothered about it I seemed to fall into a deep sleep. I only seemed to wake up a couple of time in the night - maybe 3 times maximum. I was really surprised that one of those times was at 5am. I just couldn't believe I could have slept that solidly.

  It didn't seem to be that long until I fell asleep again. Sometime after 6am I woke up again, and that is when I would have got up, and I did want to get up early so I could got to Tesco at opening time, when it should have been quiet in there, to get some shopping. I could have forced myself to get up then, but I seemed to feel tired, and was determined to get another 10 minutes sleep. It was gone 8am when I woke up, and actually got up.

  I was disappointed to see my blood glucose was exactly the same as it was yesterday. 9.2mmol/l is not terribly bad, but it is not good. I was expecting it to be lower based on what I ate, plus the exercise. Maybe it was one of the beers having more sugar in it than expected, or maybe it is because I am still fighting some form or infection. I don't know what that infection might be. A week or two ago it could have been a bit of mild infection near the crater of where a tooth used to be many years ago, but that has seemed to be OK for some time now.

  One thing is certain is that I feel a bit tired still. If the sun ever does make an appearance, and the latest deadline has passed with no sign of any break in the clouds, I can foresee myself laying on my bed, with the sunshine coming through the window directly onto my bed, and quietly reading and snoozing rather than going out for a walk in the sunshine. The latest revision to the forecast now shows the sun breaking through at 1pm. That make me quite certain I won't be going out today. The best I might do is a bit of gardening.