Yesterday was another day where a few important things happened, but most of the day featured very few things happening. The first important thing was going to the pharmacy to collect my latest repeat prescription. I am happy to say it was all there, and ready to go this time (although I think it was one pack of low dose aspirin that was quickly added just before the bag was handed over to me).

  It must be some sort of mental aberration that had me walking almost as fast as I can walk on the way to the pharmacy, and back again. There was no reason to rush, but like most times, I pushed the speed until I was breathing very deeply, although not actually gasping. I could possibly have pushed it a bit more, but the fact is that I don't think I have been able to breath truly deeply since my chest was put back together after my bypass operation in 2013. The silly thing is that I could breath much more deeply, much more easily, when I was still smoking 50 fags a day.

  Nothing much happened for a few hours after getting back from the pharmacy, and then two things happened in quick succession - one almost triggered by the other. It was 12:15pm when I got an email to say I was to expect a parcel from Amazon - by 9pm !  I was expecting this, although I was hoping it might have happened an hour or two earlier, but that only happens on the rarest of occasions.

  Once I knew that it would be many hours before that parcel arrived, I felt free to go out and get some bits from Poundstretcher. When I got there I found they had a sale on. It was a warehouse clearance sale, and everything was half price. I was assured it was not a closing down sale. I didn't go that mad, but my bill at the checkout was £46 before the 50% reduction reduced it to just £23.

  It was one of those occasions when I wished I had loaded up with more stuff - but I would have to do it selectively because I have a suspicion that some non-working returns might have been put back on the shelves. That seemed to be the case for the solar powered garden lights, the ones that look like coloured lightbulbs. I bought three, and even after several hours in full sunshine they did not light up after dark. It is possible that they have been sitting around so long that their NiCad batteries have discharged too low, and they might benefit from a kick start from a bench power supply.

  There was one thing I did that happened before going to Poundstretcher, and that I almost forgot about. It was to do a bit more laundry to hang on the washing line to dry in the sun. It was only a couple of t-shirts and some underwear, but it was enough to empty my washing basket. Thanks to this sunny weather even my backlog of bed linen has been washed and dried. Once the sun returns, maybe some time in May, I will wash the bedding I am currently using - it doesn't smell to me, and it isn't stained, but I will admit it could be offensive to others - although sadly the chance of "others" experiencing it is remote in the extreme these days.

  The final great event of the day was the arrival of my parcel from Amazon. It arrived earlier than expected, but even 5.40pm is still annoyingly late in my book. The main item was a 1TB solid state hard drive that I intend to fit into my laptop. It should make it feel a bit faster, and it is possible it will reduce the power consumption. I intend to clone the current disk it uses. It is a job for a rainy day, and I don't think I'll have to wait very long for one of those.

  The other items in the parcel were a couple of make up mirrors. I don't use make up, but there are odd occasions when I am, for instance, sitting here typing, and something like an out of control eyebrow starts to annoy me. Having a handy drawer sized mirror saves having to get up to find a big mirror. I was not sure what was the best mirror to buy, and so I bought two. One is a bit more than I need. It has a ring of white LEDs around the outside. They are powered by a rechargeable battery charged via a USB lead. I think I will offer it to Angela.

  I suppose the fact that I fasted until dinner time was another notable event yesterday. It was occasionally hard to do, but at other times it was remarkably easy. Having a few distractions helped a lot. The final outcome was that my blood glucose had dropped to a wonderful 6.2mmol/l just before I ate my dinner. It would be great if I could keep it around that amount a lot more of the time - it would be a typical level for a non-diabetic.

   My dinner was quite big. The main part was a couple of quarter pounder low fat burgers on a bed of salad. The second part was some Polish chicken and beef sausages I had bought quite some time ago. They were vacuum packed, and so should have had a long life, although I don't think there was a "best before" date on them. They were both nice and not nice. I think there was a sort of conflict between taste and texture, but I can't explain it now.

  Both parts of my dinner were accompanied by generous amounts of chilli and lemon potato rings. Superficially they seemed to have a high sugar content, and so eating them was sort of madness. The trouble was that the only figure was a high amount of sugar per 100gm, but I could not find how heavy the contents were supposed to be per bag. My guess was it was probably no more than 50gm.  They were nice, and this morning it seems it was worth taking a chance on them.

  Last night was another night when I suddenly started to feel terribly tired as early as 8pm. I didn't watch any TV beyond 7.30pm, and went to bed after it. I doubt I read in bed for more than an hour, and I wonder if it was even as long as that. Once I put the book down I think I fell asleep quite quickly. I had turned the heater off at least an hour earlier, and I think I didn't feel the need to turn it on low until about 2am this morning.

  On the whole I slept well last night. There was only short period of insomnia when my left heel started to itch. I find an itchy foot really annoying because you can't scratch it like other places. Fortunately it didn't seem to last long, and it may have only kept me awake for little more than 10 minutes. I can remember having dreams, lot of them, but when I try and remember anything I can describe I seem to keep thinking of a bit of dream from the night before which I described yesterday.

  The good news this morning is that despite chomping through that whole bag of potato rings yesterday, my blood glucose has dropped to 8.1mmol/l (it was 8.3mmol/l yesterday morning). I don't feel any better for it, although yesterday's fasting may have one benefit - I don't think I'll be visiting the toilet every hour through the morning. I have been this morning, and I think that might possibly be enough for today.

  The big question is what I should do today. With tomorrow being the start of a week or more of cool and dull days (and probably rain before a week has passed) I ought to try and get out into the sun today. I'm not sure if I fancy a walk in the park though. The park is getting a bit boring now. What I might do is to start my quest to visit the furthest parts my Freedom Pass allows me to go to for free. I do have possible route in mind where I could do a flying visit (which counts) to Swanley, Knockholt, and Dartford station. It involves a fair bit of train changing, but I might do it. The only downside, which isn't a real downside, is that I am liable to come away with even more train pictures, and my spreadsheet, listing all my reasonable or better photos of trains, will grow to even more obscene size.