07:54 BST

  The afternoon featured a lot more sunny spells than predicted in the weather forecast for yesterday. It didn't seem like it would be, but it was a fairly good day if you ignore the duller times. The temperature may have exceeded the predicted maximum of 20° C, but it didn't seem to feel that warm.

  

  I'm not so sure there was full sunshine at 6am, but it may not have been obvious because the sun would have been very low in the sky. As I type this full sunshine is predicted in the latest revision to the forecast, and while there are some thin, and high clouds to be seen, the sun is casting a very sharp shadow. With luck there will be non stop sunshine from now until 4pm when the latest revision to the forecast predicts enough cloud to reduce the full sunshine to just sunny spells for most of the rest of the hours of daylight. Of course that forecast could change a lot by 4pm.  For all that sunshine the temperature may only touch 23° C for a short while this afternoon, and 22° C might be more representative. Sadly, tomorrow may be mostly dull with a shower or two, and rather cool at no more than 16° C. The day after might be even wetter !

   Yesterday was another day split into a busy morning, and close to boring afternoon. I basically did two things yesterday morning. One was to go and get a bit of shopping in Tesco, and the other was to hand wash two pillowcases, and a double fitted sheet. When I hung the washing on the line we were going through a dull but of weather, and it didn't seem like the ideal weather to dry stuff, but it wasn't long before the sun came out. Quite early in the afternoon I brought it all in, and it was bone dry, and feeling nice and warm.

  I did have a vague plan that I might go out exploring by train yesterday afternoon, but several things conspired against it. I wanted to go to Chessington South, and Ewell West stations as part of my quest to explore the limits of my Freedom Pass. I spent a bit of time checking the online timetables (actually I just looked at the online departure boards). It seems that Chessington South had nothing better than what seemed like a Sunday service - on a Saturday ! That was just one train an hour.

  One train an hour would mean a very long wait if I wanted to explore a bit in the area, and I missed the train. Ewell West, being on a through route, had a better service of two trains an hour, but they were just 2 different hourly services to different destinations. It all seemed to be a very poor service for a Saturday. I couldn't really forgive them if it was one train an hour on a Sunday, but at least it would be sort of understandable. I hope their weekday service is a bit better.

  That poor service was just one thing that dampened my enthusiasm. Another was it going through a dull period at about the time I might have gone out. Of course if I had managed to go out I could have experienced warmer and sunnier weather not much later in the afternoon.  The final inhibition was a hard to define feeling that all was not good at the lower end of my digestive tract. I had been 2 and three quarter times in the early, just before mid, and later in the morning. I had this funny feeling that I hadn't finished yet, and much, much later that would prove to be correct.

  It was a very mild feeling, but I guess the best way to describe how I felt in the afternoon was "miserable", although bored might be closer, but you could also add a bit of "disappointed", unenthusiastic, and unfulfilled into the mix in various proportions. Mostly it was just the feeling of wasting a day. The negativity of that feeling was inspired, or compounded by the thought that we  are getting to halfway through the year, and it often feels like I have done nothing this year. Of course that is a fallacy because I have achieved a lot. Having a wonderful, sort of intimate time with Angela at the gig the Friday before last was a wonderful thing, but the sad bit is that it doesn't happen very often.

  I was in a classic situation where I felt artificially very hungry. It was only by promising myself a treat for dinner that I was able to keep my eating safe. I can't remember if I had anything like a formal lunch. I don't think I did, but I know I had two lots of snacks based around 4 rice cakes at a time. One lot of 4 rice cakes had different sort of cheeses on them. I know cheese is generally safe with regard to my blood glucose, but it is high in calories and fats.

   I ought to cut down the amount of cheese I eat. I am making some sort of conscious effort to do just that, but it is case of weaning myself off it slowly, and then only as I find alternatives. One such alternative that is nice, but has no ability to feel filling, is Marmite. My second plate of 4 rice cakes has two different types of Marmite on them. One was "Dynamite" chilli Marmite. It is possible to detect a very slight warmth from the chillies, but unless you were told what it was you could easily think it was ordinary Marmite.
  There is no mistaking truffle flavour Marmite. It has a very strong mushroom like taste, and to be honest, I am not sure if I like it. It is the latest special flavour of Marmite, and I believe it is only available in bigger Sainsbury's stores initially. I was fortunate that Jodie's friend Alan, who shops in Sainsbury's bought a jar for me. While I am unsure about the flavour, at least it is far better than "I Love You" Marmite made with champagne yeast. That stuff is truly awful. It was released as much as 10 years ago, possibly more, and I still have 3/4 of a jar left. It is probably time I gave up on it, and washed the jar out to add it to my little collection of Marmite jars.

  My special treat for dinner was a kebab takeaway (although we really need a new word for a delivered takeaway). It was a terrible extravagance when the cost of living is spiralling out of control, but it was very nice. I didn't go for the healthiest option - shish kebabs, but I did order one of those plus a Doner Kebab - mystery meat on an upright spit. The fat, and probably the salt content is very high, but they are delicious.

  As usual, I ordered enough to qualify for a discount. As well as the doner and shish kebabs, I also ordered some fried chicken, and grilled chicken wings. I specifically ordered from the place that I know does good chicken wings. I had the 10 chicken wings for breakfast this morning, and I'll have the three bits of fried chicken for dinner tonight. I might have some salad with that chicken. For lunch today I think I will have some or more lentil soup. I think I need some extra fibre in my diet at the moment.

  There was nothing on TV last night, and I fancied watching something. I dug out some recordings of series one of "Alexie Sayle's Stuff". If I read the Roman numerals correctly at the end, the series was made in 1988. It was all very edgy stuff in those days, but it seems to have matured nicely. I think I probably enjoyed the three half episodes I watched last night more than when I originally watched them.

  One thing I did earlier in the day yesterday was to have several snoozes. At least one must have been an hour long. I think that extra sleep was one thing that made it hard getting to sleep last night. The other thing was the continuation of the late mornings feeling that I needed to have a poo. It is incredibly rare that I have a poo near midnight, but it happened last night. To mess up my sleep even more, I found I had to go at 1.30am too !

  I dared to get on the scales yesterday morning, and I was disappointed to find that after a short run of unusually low blood glucose readings, I seemed to have put on over a kilogram. After yesterday morning, and last night, I am now thinking along the lines that maybe I had a backlog of poo inside me. It wasn't a great deal, but I needed to go this morning when I got up, and I can imagine going again before the morning is over.

  It felt like I had one of my worst nights for years last night. It sometimes seemed impossible to get back to sleep after each time I woke up, and it took ages to get to sleep the first time. Maybe after snoozing so much during the day I just didn't need all the sleep I did get, and maybe I got more than I thought last night. I do know that I found it almost impossible to sleep after 5am this morning, and i ended up slowly getting up well before 6am.

  My eating strategy seemed to work OK yesterday. My blood glucose reading was just 8.1mmol/l this morning. If the current trend continues I could be looking for a nice and low end of month average - even after four very bad days earlier in the month. Every low reading like this morning makes me even more sure that those very high reading were something more than the result of eating badly. Maybe something like an infection or illness. On the other hand it might have been that I was eating badly because I was pissed off.

  I had no plans to do anything today until this afternoon, but I think that once I have had a shower I will wash the double duvet cover I took off my bed last Wednesday. It is going to be a bugger to wash, but it should dry quickly in today's sunshine. After that I will return to full on lazy mode until later this afternoon when I think I will be having another beer tasting session with Jodie.