The forecast has just been revised again, and an extra hour of sunshine/sunny spells has been added to 9am - this just as it looks like the clouds are now thickening, andd we may lose the sun before 9am. Light rain, instead of a thunderstorm is now shown for 4pm, and 3pm could be dry. 6 and 7pm have now changed from light rain to thunderstorms. It is another day where anything could happen except the temperature prediction of 21° C. It is worth noting that the BBC weather forecast shows thundery showers for the whole afternoon ! Tomorrow may be a degree cooler, and feature light rain from mid morning to mid afternoon, but I expect that forecast to change umpteen times until the day has passed.

   Yesterday was a day where I thought I needed to fast until dinner time because of my high blood glucose reading (10.3mmol/l). To avoid further suspense I can say I managed it despite the double temptation of two shopping trips. There was also the temptation to break my fast when I checked my blood glucose at midday, and it was down to a satisfactory 8.6mmol/l.

  My first shopping trip was to Tesco - always a source of temptation. On this occasion I stuck to my guns, and only bought sensible stuff. Apart from a couple of small/medium bags of peanuts, which may have a high calorie count, but tend not to add any sugar to my diet, I only bought some diced beef, diced pork, and sprouts and broccoli. My intention was to get back onto an autumn/winter diet rather than the stuff I have been eating in the summer.


  The above two pictures have nothing to do with what I bought in Tesco, but I decided to do a comparison between these two cans of chicken soup - based on prior knowledge, I didn't re-try them again yesterday. Heinz is an American brand despite being so well known in this country, and like all food from America (or using American recipes) it has a lot of sugar in it despite it claiming to have no added sugar. It's other big feature is that it has a slimy texture and a disgusting taste. The Tesco Cream Of Chicken soup is considerably cheaper, and makes no big claims on the label, but it tastes lovely, and has only a tiny amount of sugar in it !

  After coming back from Tesco I fed the birds using seed I had bought from there, and then I relaxed and read my book as a distraction from the thoughts of food. That sort of worked, or at least it worked well enough to stop me eating anything. It was probably a couple of hours later, after the light shower at 1.30pm sort of confirmed that it would probably be dry for a few more hours, that I went out again.

  This time it was to Poundland. As I walked there I was very aware that I couldn't keep up the pace I would have liked to walk at. The main reason was that my legs felt stiff, rather than the still high humidity. My legs didn't hurt, but the stiffness seemed to take a bit more effort I didn't have. On oddity was that it was my left knee that seemed stiffest. Usually it is my right knee that complains, although that complains be means of actual pain. The worst thing was the depressing thought that if every time I went out was like this I would not want to do any long walks.

  I only had a few things in mind when I went to Poundland. I wanted a couple of bottles of bleach/toilet gel, and I wanted to get another bottle of Cussons apple and elderflower shower gel. It smells rather nice - unlike their sea samphire and something else shower gel. That does not smell good to me. I also bought a bottle of another in the range, and a bottle of Imperial Leather shower gel that was in an identical plastic bottle to the Cussons. I feel sure they come out of the same factory, and maybe they use a different name for different regions, but because Poundland buy up end of stock lines to sell cheaply (or make you think they are cheap) they get all sorts of things you rarely see locally.

  One other (actually two of them) things I bought were inspired by some cooking I had started before going out. They were "tupperware-like" plastic food storage boxes with clip on lids. What I really wanted were the one that I think Poundstretcher sell (or sold) that had a glass, rather than plastic base because being glass they won't stain like plastic does after sometime just a few uses if used in the microwave.

  What I had started cooking was to be my dinner. I also part cooked two portions for dinner today and tomorrow. Last night's dinner was basically beef cubes with sprouts, but by the time I had finished adding spices and gravy granules it became quite a rich dinner. I had hoped to get away with adding a few things that had a fair bit of sugar in them because I only used them in small-ish amounts.....or maybe I didn't.

  When it came around to dinner time I gave my "stew" another 5 minutes in the microwave to warm it through again, and also to give the sprouts a bit more cooking. I wanted the sprouts to be "al dente", but they still seemed to be as hard as bullets (or maybe as hard as Granny Smith apples). That was rather disappointing, and I may cooked the next sprouts by themselves until I am sure they are going slightly soft before I add them to another stew.

  I partly precooked two more stews based on diced pork for today and tomorrow. One will be with broccoli, and the other will be with the other sprouts - hopefully better cooked ! I will also try and make them a little less rich than last nights dinner. I can't remember if I had many dishes like these basic meat and green vegetable dinners last winter, but I had them a lot in the days when I was at work, and it was a very frequent occurrence that after eating such a dinner, which was more hot gravy than anything else, my guts would sort of boil up, and a visit to the toilet was required. That happened last night, and it seemed like it could be the start of another stomach upset, but after a lot of internal gurglings, it was all over after one sitting on the toilet.

  That was good because I felt comfortable when I went to bed. I can't remember what time that was, but I watched two concurrent episodes of QI, and one was a long one. It was probably close to 11pm when I got to bed. I read for little more than 10 minutes before I had to put the book down, and go to sleep. My sleep seemed to be very unremarkable until about 3am when I suddenly switched to insomnia for maybe 40 minutes. There seemed no special reason why I couldn't get back to sleep. It was almost as if i had had enough sleep, and it was time to get up.

  Thankfully I did get back to sleep, and while I think I probably woke once again for a pee, it barely registered on my brain, and the next concrete thing was waking up at 6.30am knowing it was time to get up. One other oddity about the night is that I can't even remember dreaming, let alone remember any thing about a dream. I think I'll accept that as a good sign, although I don't know why.

  I allowed myself a pint of water before I checked my blood glucose, but I might have been a bit hasty in doing it. It was a bit of a disappointment that it was no lower than 9.0mmol/l. As I mentioned, I did make the gravy in last nights dinner very rich. Both the chilli sauce and soy sauce were sources of sugar. I must admit I was trying to use up the new chilli sauce I have been trying, and now know it contains a lot more sugar than my favourite. I also added a heaped teaspoon of a smoked chipotle harissa paste, and I think that probably had a fair bit of sugar in it. I must be more careful about tonight's and tomorrow's dinner.

  Despite that disappointing blood glucose reading I allowed myself to have an instant noodle breakfast. The idea being that it would be easier to fast until dinner time if I didn't start off on empty. I also had it because I thought I might go out today. The morning did start off nice....
....This was the view from my north facing bathroom window this morning (picture taken at 06:51) just 30 minutes after sunrise. The sun is still very low in the sky, and only able to light up the tops of some buildings, but the sky is nearly all blue apart from a few whisps of very high cloud on the right of the sky. It was too easy to believe that it heralded a glorious day, but as I write this the forecast sunny intervals for 9am are already degraded to just very hazy sunshine. It probably wont be long until the thickening cloud cuts the sun off entirely.

  In the latest revision to the weather forecast the threat of rain has been reduced to just a 40% chance of light rain at 7pm. The first three hours of the afternoon should now feature some sunshine. Maybe I might go out today, but only maybe. I think I'll make my first priority doing some laundry, and getting on the line to dry in (hopefully) the few hours of sunshine early this afternoon. After that I'll see how I feel, and consider what else I could do.


  In 10 days time I will be seeing the nurse for my annual check up. One of the things she always tries, but usually gives up on, is checking my blood pressure. I do have a plan/idea that might get me a slightly more sane reading, but it will never be as low as this reading taken last night soon after eating my dinner. This is a very low blood pressure reading. You could add 100 to these figures for the sort of readings I usually get in the surgery. My appointment is at 11:40am, and before I go I will have something substantial to eat, and see if I get an unusually low reading for one taken in the surgery. By low I am probably thinking of something like 250/150, or on the extreme high side of "normal". I doubt it will work, but I can only try. Fortunately the nurse and doctors accept my home readings when I am relaxed, and not being harassed !