The top picture was taken on the Toshiba camera, and the lower picture was taken on my mobile phone. I hadn't intended to do a comparison, but while I was in the therapuetic gardens behind St Mary's church I had a message from Patricia in Argentina. Where she live that are "suffering" temperatures of 36° C (it is high summer in the southern hemisphere). I took the picture on my phone to send back to Patricia to show that despite it being very cold, it was bright and sunny.

  Had I been doing a comparison pair of pictures I would have tried to match the framing of the pictures. My mobile phone has produced a brighter picture. That makes it stand out more, but notice how all the detail of the stonework of the steeple is lost. The Toshiba phone shows much more detail, and the sky looks a deeper blue as well. I still think that the Toshiba camera is rather good for it's age even if more modern cameras are better. It remains as I bought it - a curio to be brought out at odd times....because I can !

  I arrived at the pub a little early, and did my best to drink slowly so I would not get too far ahead of Angela when she arrived. I had warned her I would be there early, and I guess she was was keen for a drink because she was there before 1pm. We had a very enjoyable drink together. I can't say there was anything special about it except it felt very natural or something like that.

  I think we left at about the right time (last week we were 5 or 10 minutes late), and I walked Angela back to work. We parted after a nice hug. Unlike the week before, when maybe it had been such a good time that I felt sad afterwards, I felt happy. It seems Angela had thought it to be very enjoyable because a few hours later, possibly when she got home after work, she sent me a text messages to say "Thank you for a very pleasant afternoon xx". I can't recall Angela ever coming out with something like that before.

  One other thing that happened yesterday was something that strikes icy fear to the bottom of my heart - I received a letter from the taxman. Like all communications from that den of vampires I didn't really understand it. The good thing is that it appears I don't have to do anything. If I understood it correctly it is that my tax allowance has been changed as a temporary measure for the rest of the financial year (until April) so I can pay back £100 that I apparently owe them. As far as I can guess it is because I had a pay rise from my BT pension that happened after my tax code had been set for the year. The bit I don't understand is that it shows my tax allowance going up, and not down, unless that refers to after the £100 has been paid off.

   As usual, I think the price to my mental health is greater than any tax savings, and so I shall ignore this letter like I have ignored all of them over the last 50 years. There was one tax return I did complete and send in, and that came in the few weeks after leaving school, and starting work. It was almost a joy to tell the taxman I hadn't earned a single penny because I hadn't started work then !

  When I got back from the pub I fancied some breakfast (at 2.30pm !). I decided it would be a splendid time to eat the twin pack of Scotch eggs I had bought from Aldi on Monday. There was only one flaw in that plan - those Scotch eggs were rubbish ! There was nothing actually wrong with them, but there was nothing right either. The sausage meat around the egg was bland in flavour and texture. I guess the eggs, apart from being very small, were OK, but they still failed to excite.

  I think I had several little packets of Mini Cheddars to bolster up those Scotch eggs. I also made sure that my dinner was far more substantial. My dinner was rather big, although over 75% of that bigness was cabbage, cauliflower, and beef stock. The diced beef portion was actually small by comparison. It was mostly a nice dinner, and fairly filling, but I don't think I'll be mixing cabbage and cauliflower in the same meal again. I think cauliflower probably goes better with chicken. The reason I had it with beef and cabbage was that I was using up the last bit of cauliflower.

  Last night's sleep was another night that was both good and bad. I did seem to fall asleep easily, and I did seem to get a lot of sleep, but it often felt like I was just a smidgen from waking up a lot of the time. Sometimes it feels like I might have woken up for a minute or two to plan the next bit of a dream, but I guess I might have done that while still asleep. I think I was dreaming a lot, but it was only the last dreams, shortly before getting up, that I remember in some ways.

  One dream started off with a visit to the nurse. I can't remember what she might have done. My memory is more like that I had been to see the nurse in the past tense, and the few seconds I do remember were set at home. My mum told me my new hard drive had been delivered, but had been delivered to the hospital (for some unexplained reason). I set off to the hospital, and the next thing I knew was that I was there. I was looking for the post room, but all I found was a nurse who told me I would probably have to spend a few days in hospital.

  Apparently I had some sort of blood leakage between my lungs and something else. I had a cannula inserted into a finger - which was very odd. I was also given an injection of silver iodide into a finger on the other hand. This was apparently to make the Xrays they were going to take look sharper. All this was done while stiff fully clothed, and sitting on a chair. The next thing I knew was that I was in a bed, and being visited by my older sister. She had brought me a single, brown coloured aspirin tablet for no apparent reason, and a slice of ice ginger cake. I told her the cake was  bad idea because they would be watching my blood glucose like a hawk while I was in hospital, but I still ate that very sweet cake regardless.

  There was another jump in time and I was visited by a doctor who spoke so softly I couldn't understand a word he was saying. He had a very long thin tube that reminded me of the catheter that was using to inject the radio dye when I had an angiogram done in real life. I thought he was going to try and thread it around my veins or arteries, but he just plugged the end into the existing Cannula. Nothing happened after that, and I think that was probably when I woke up.

  In reality it is me who watches my blood glucose like a hawk. This morning it had dropped a little bit to 8.8mmol/l. I had been hoping for an even lower reading, but sadly not. I am beginning to notice a pattern emerging. Most of my readings seem to come in pairs of similar numbers. It is as if my food takes a full two days to digest or something. Looking back at all the readings I have taken every day this month I now withdraw the idea that the readings come in similar pairs. There are some similar pairs, but enough very individual readings to make the idea nonsense.

  My plans for today are very simple, and exactly the same as most Thursday's. Today is beer day, and this afternoon I will probably be joined by Jodie, and Michael to taste some more exotic beers, but I shall keep some more mundane beers for myself and Michael in case the exotic beers are too nasty !