08:21 BST

  Yesterday's weather forecast wasn't too dissimilar to reality. The morning was quite sunny, but the sunshine stopped around midday. It didn't get too dull because a lot of the clouds were white, and there were even bits of blue sky visible, but sadly none of them were where the sun was. The temperature prediction may have very slightly underestimated the temperature. My thermometers said the temperature hit 20° C (and almost 21° C according to one of them) against the forecast 19° C.

  

  The only fault with the weather forecast so far is that it is sunny now, and has been for an hour or more. The latest revision to the forecast has pushed back it's prediction of when the sun will start to 11am. There are some fine streaks of clouds that ay dim the sun a bit now and then, but at this time I can't see a cloud substantial enough to completely block the sun. It seems that the early sunshine has already pushed the temperature up to 12° C (or 13° C according to one of my thermometers). Maybe that will mean today's high could be higher than the forecast 21° C. The latest revision to the forecast shows full sunshine up to 5pm today. The forecast for tomorrow shows a day of full sunshine, but an afternoon high of only 18° C. That is still well into t-shirt weather.

  I've just been to the toilet, and I thought my slight lack of balance had faded away, but it was one of those visit where use of the bog brush was indicated, and I definitely felt very strange as I bent over to look down the pan. I think that is a very strong indicator that the problem lies in (probably) just one ear. However, the improvement over just a couple of hours suggests it won't be long before it is just a memory.

  Yesterday was a bad then good then bad day ! I described the bad yesterday morning. It was the problem with my balance, and was probably caused by some sort of inner ear trouble. I think I mentioned trying some light (walnut) oil in my left ear, the one I suspected might have some rogue earwax in it, and it is possible that helped. During the morning my wobbliness did seem to fade away.

  I was still feeling unstable when I washed my hair, and had a shower. Now that was an interesting experience ! As I think I mentioned yesterday, unlike the previous time I had this affliction, and when it was left right movement that made me wobble, it was up and down movement that affected me. It took a lot of willpower to try and convince my brain that the messages it was getting from my legs muscles should over ride the messages it was getting from the semicircular canals in my ears. It must have helped that it was probably only one ear that was causing the problem.

  To wash my hair I hang my head over the (in)side of the bath, and use the shower head. That does involve lots of up movements, particularly of the head, which is the problem rather than just raising or lowering the body, and so I was getting lots of mild vertigo. I was able to ignore it because I had the solid side of the bath as a reference point. Things were a bit more tricky when I stood in the bath for my shower. With nothing to hold onto in any direction, and almost the only solid, but rather delicate thing being the bathroom window behind me, I had to really be careful that my shower didn't end in disaster. Once or twice I felt the need to stretch and arm out to put a hand onto the wall next to the window.

  I had my shower without mishap, and before I turned the hot water off I filled one of my big builders buckets to wash some clothes by hand. Maybe shaking up my semicircular canals during my hair wash and shower helped in some way because it did seem the point when the vertigo effect started to fade away. I had to dry my hair, and do other stuff before I could get back to my laundry.

  Doing my laundry by hand, using big buckets in the bath, took me back to even more up and down movements as I would switch to kneading the cloths in the soapy, or rinsing water, to pulling them out to wring them out. By the end of doing that washing I seemed to have just about cured my vertigo/wobbliness. The only shame is that I was a bit slow at getting everything done, and I had lost the sunshine when I finally got the washing on the line to dry.
  Hanging the washing on the line was a good time to inspect my garden (although I took these pictures after I had taken off my rubber gloves and washed and dried my hands). I noted that one of my hanging baskets has sprung into life again. I do remember putting in a couple of different types of bulbs in the basket, and it seems another type is now flowering. What I must remember to do is to dead-head the old flowers, and hope it encourages new flower beds to grow.
  I'm very happy that my tulips are flowering at last. This morning all four were open. There are some other plants that have flower buds beginning to develop, as well as a few more tulip buds forming. At least one of them looks like it will be yellow. My only regret is that I didn't buy more of these bulbs, and plant them more densely. They look rather sparse at the moment, and that encourages the cats to wander among them, and cause damage - although oddly I haven't seen any cat poo in this flower bed this spring.
  This looks like a very boring picture that shows nothing, but notice the hole in the middle. The back flower bed has several similar holes. It was only by chance that I noticed a striped and furry bum disappearing down this hole. I didn't get a good enough look at it, and I doubt even if I did I could say what species it was, but generally it was a Solitary Bee, and you can read much more about them here - https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/ryan-clark/guide-solitary-bees-britain

  I can't remember what time it was, but sometime around the middle of the day I got a phone call from Jodie (I just remembered - it was as I was doing the fabric conditioner stage of my washing). She phoned to tell me that she could not get over for our beer drinking session because she had to go to Sutton Council to hand over, or collect a death certificate for her late mum. It left me adrift for the rest of the afternoon, but I wasn't sure I felt like drinking beer yesterday.

  I didn't really do much for the rest of the afternoon. One thing I did do was to avoid eating too much. I think I had a plan forming in my mind. It was probably a very mild plan, and ignorable until I drunk a single bottle of beer late in the afternoon. It was a bottle of 6% Abbot Special Reserve, and it was very nice, and very malty. As I have found out the hard way before, that delicious malty taste means it had a lot of a sugar in it - malt is actually a special form of sugar.

  It meant what I did next really was sort of stupid - and maybe doubly so because I couldn't remember the restaurant/takeaway that seemed not to saturate all their cooking with sugar. I seemed to develop a burning desire for a Chinese takeaway, and so I ordered a large takeaway.  The trouble with Chinese cooking is that it can use a lot of sugar, and not just in the obvious stuff like sweet and sour sauce. I definitely had a takeaway from a forgotten restaurant/takeaway shop that seemed to not have to bad an effect on my blood glucose as the takeaway I had last night !

  Maybe it is something like guilt, but I didn't think last night's food was as wonderful as I hoped. It was all very pleasant, but it was not the nectar of the Gods ! I could have probably enjoyed something else, even something I had cooked myself, even more. The worst thing about it all was that I ordered ample for another meal today. In fact I had a half portion of spicy rice for breakfast this morning.

  The half portion of rice I had this morning was the remains of some Singapore Fried Rice that was the second to last thing I ate last night. The very final thing was a free taster of some lightly battered fried chicken wings (4 of them) with spring onion and sliced hot green chillies. These last two items I finished eating while watching the start of an episode of QI on TV. It was followed by an episode of QI-XL, but I decided not to watch that, but to read in bed for a while. That would have been at about 9pm.

  As I lay on my bed reading, two things happened. The first was that all the chilli and cayenne pepper I had just eaten brought me out in a sweat. The second was that I suddenly felt a wave of vertigo sweep over me. It was nothing like as bad as the "whirlies" we used to get as 16 year old amateur drinkers, but it was the start of another hiccup in my semicircular canals (or so I presume).

  There was no nausea involved in it, and because I was laying down, and had nowhere to fall, I just ignored it, and carried on reading. Obviously it was a bit more difficult to ignore when, for instance, going to bathroom to brush my teeth, or to have a pee, but I managed both with nothing worse than having to touch the wall once to steady myself. It was actually the chilli inspired sweating that was the bigger problem.

  I just couldn't stand pulling the duvet over myself, and yet with a wet body it felt freezing. I had no choice but to turn the heater on at a time when I really wanted to try and keep my electricity as low as possible. I guess my sweat got less at the same time the room warmed up, and I ended up spending the whole night sleeping mostly uncovered, although I didn't spend the whole night sleeping !

  The first interruption to my sleep happened before I had even got to sleep properly. That spicy food gave me bad indigestion, or heart burn. It is fortunate I am very familiar with my own chest pains, and while it could easily have been thought to be a heart attack, I knew I just needed some antacid tablets. So up I got again, and wobbled to the other side of the bed (why do I only ever get into or out of bed on the one side ?) to get some Gaviscon tablets. After a while they settled the heartburn, and I could get to sleep.

  It didn't seem like I ever managed to get more than an hours sleep at a time, although I probably did in reality. It seemed like I was forever waking up. Sometimes it was, or seemed to be as simple as a dry mouth, but often it was for a pee. On one occasion it seemed I did a bilious burp, and had to take some more antacid tablets to calm that down. Every time I got up for a pee I had to concentrate on not falling as I walked to and from the bathroom. Actually I don't think the vertigo was so bad that I would actually fall. Even just touching a wall, or something, with a finger tip was enough to hold me upright.

  I didn't feel very good when I got up this morning. The vertigo, or wobbles, were possibly not as bad as the morning before, but still annoying more than anything else. My blood glucose shooting up through the red line to 10.7mmol/l was the very worst thing. As a brief transient it is nothing to worry about, but I still have to get through part two of that Chinese takeaway, and there is a chance that some of the beer I drink today could contain a lot of sugar. I have to look forward to another very high reading tomorrow morning.

   The only saving grace is that it should be hot and sunny tomorrow, and I can try and spend a lot of the day walking, or riding on trains (if any run on the bank holiday weekend). The exercise will burn off some of that sugar, and not being able to eat while I am out will help even more provided I can avoid eating like a horse when I get home again. As for today...well I can't really go out because the trains from Elmers End are running, and so I should be expecting Jodie to come over for our one day late beer tasting session.

P.S. After typing the final full stop of the paragraph above I went to the toilet. The significance of that was that it was a test of any vertigo/wobbliness. It seems that my vertigo is fading out a lot faster than yesterday. It was all but gone. That must be some kind of good news.