The latest revision to the forecast has added some more sunshine this morning to better match current reality. This nice sunshine should last to 9am, and hopefully longer. The next sunshine might be at 3pm. The rest of the day will be dull with a 10% chance of rain at any time. The temperature today should reach 18° C, and maybe if the sun manages to stay out even longer it might even push that up to 19° C. Tomorrow could be sunny until 2pm, and that should raise the temperature to a pleasant 20° C.
 
  Yesterday was one of those days that was a waste of a day. I did so little yesterday. There were several reasons for that, but the biggest was the continuing domination of the world by the professional mourners for our dead queen. There was no point going to the shops yesterday - they were all closed. The main Tesco was closed all day, but the smaller "big corner shop" style stores were supposed to open at 5pm. Oddly enough there seemed to be a full train service yesterday.

  I have to admit I wasn't feeling all that good yesterday. For once it wasn't my guts playing up, or at least not after 10 or 11am. The main trouble was the cold was making me ache. My right elbow often gave me a fair bit of grief, and my knees often felt a bit stiff. The worst thing was my chest. It must have been 4 or 5 years ago that I went out on a walk from Rotherhithe to London Bridge alongside the River Thames. I got caught in a couple of showers, and my t-shirt got saturated with cold rain. That really triggered all the scar tissue from my heart operation, and my chest hurt for quite a few days after that.

  I haven't been out in the rain, but two nights ago I went to bed after eating some very spicy food, and after drinking some strong booze. I fell asleep without realising I was sweating like a pig. I woke up a few hours later to a cold and clammy duvet cover on my chest. I am pretty certain it was that that triggered my chest. I wasn't in pain all the time, but it was enough to put a real damper on my day. The best thing would have been to hand wash some laundry, or to go for a walk in walk sunshine. There was no expected warm sunshine yesterday, and the only significant thing to wash was a duvet cover. I thought that was too much for me, and it would be too difficult to dry.

  There was something I did yesterday that I can recall thinking was a useful thing to do, but I can't seem to recall just what it was. It was obviously not a big thing....although maybe it was. I've been trying to remember some physical thing I might have done, but it must have been an almost non-physical thing, but still stressful - going on line to pay one of my credit cards off.  In some ways the timing was good because not only did I fully pay off the last statement, but a couple of hundred quid off next months statement.

  Having written that last paragraph I have come to the conclusion that it is complete rubbish....well maybe not complete rubbish. I did pay off one of my credit cards, but I think it was the day before yesterday now. It was the reason I spent another £250 on  Nikon D300S camera. It seemed my budgeting was still going well, and while I was spending within my limits it would be good to grab the camera while it was going at that price.

  The Nikon D300S is a semi-pro camera, and most, if not all my Nikon lenses are compatible with it. Being semi-pro it has a few extra bells and whistles. One is an interval timer. The camera can be set to take pictures at set intervals. One suggested uses is for time-lapse videos. That could be fun. I am probably making it up, but I suspect the sensor would be chosen to be lower noise than others that would go into the cheaper "hobbyiest" cameras.  There is a non "S" version of this camera which is a bit cheaper, but the "S" version has full audio adjustment for movie recording.

  It is possible that I will not make full use of this camera until next summer and at outdoor gigs. By that I am really thinking of Petts Wood Calling when I should have a back stage pass, and can take along, and safely store, my camera bag with two cameras. Next year I could take three cameras - each with a different lens, and never have to worry about changing lenses. I can almost feel excited about it already. Hopefully I will get to other gigs before hand to test the camera out.

  As well as doing very little apart from resting, reading, and snoozin', it felt like I ate very little. Just because it felt like it doesn't mean that is what happened. I know I had breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner. Breakfast was instant noodles. Lunch was soup (probably two cans) and the afternoon snack was ham on rice cakes.  I would have preferred cheese instead of ham, but I seem to have run down all my food supplies, and the reason I would have liked to go to Tesco yesterday.

  For my dinner I had one pack of diced beef in the fridge. Unfortunately when I got it out the fridge I realised I had eaten stuff in the wrong order. That beef was 5 days after it's use by date. That doesn't usually matter for beef, but it did last night. It looked dark but with what must have been bacteria growing on some bits of it. I didn't take any chances, and devised a new recipe for dinner.

  It was basically the same as I was going to have, but I substituted a can of butter beans for the beef. With the Oxo and red wine flavoured beef stock it couldn't be called vegetarian, but it was close to it. I cooked it with purple sprouting broccoli, and it was sort of nice. I put the manky beef on the bird table with the hope that the magpies and crows would dispose of it for me. As I write this I can see one magpie with a cube of that beef on next doors shed. It is having some difficulty shredding it, but looks like it is making some progress. A crow or two would make a far better job of it.

  I didn't think I would ever say it, but yesterday I approved of some of the mourning. While watching two Star Treks (Enterprise and Deep Space Nine) all the adverts were replaced with a silent caption. That made it so much more pleasant when reading stuff on the internet during the commercial breaks. I guess it would much up their schedules to show stuff with no commercial breaks - that is a pity because commercial breaks have no entertainment value these days.

  I suppose it was almost late afternoon when I had my first central heating - central in my body ! One of the reasons I wanted to go to Tesco yesterday was for  cheap bottle of Tesco's own brand rather nice blended whisky. I felt I deserved a whisky for several reasons yesterday.

  One reason was to give the illusion of feeling a bit warmer without burning electricity. Another reason was as an analgesic. A couple of large whiskies seemed to be a far better cure for my painful chest than ibuprofen. There was also the idea that a few tots would help me get to sleep easier.

  The Cutty Sark Whisky, pictured on the left, was not cheap, and so I definitely didn't want to over indulge. It is 50%, and stronger than typical 40% whisky. That means less was needed. I could definitely feel a warm glow when I went to bed last night, and I had little trouble falling asleep soon after QI finished at 10pm.

  Later in the night my chest was quite annoying. There are a couple of factors at work. One is that I was 90% certain it was just bloody annoying, and not lethal, but there is always that little bit of doubt that the pain could be a heart attack. Having had a couple I can say the pain is only partly similar.

  Maybe one difference is that this chest pain is a dull ache, and the position changes a bit depending on posture. There is also the occasional feeling of bones rubbing together when making some movements. In fact the trigger for the worst pain was as I got back into bed after going for a pee. I felt a sort of jolt, like two bones colliding, or something like that, as I twisted my body getting into bed.

  The other factor is that fears can increase in the dark of night, and so can the pain. What can be just a mild irritation during the day can keep you awake during the night. I did my best to keep my chest warm last night, and that helped. With hindsight it seems I also used postures that would bring on their own aches in the morning. I do seem to have some back ache this morning.

  I have had two minor triumphs this morning. the first was my blood glucose was down to just 8.1mmol/l. That was rather pleasing. I have a feeling that butter beans probably have some sugar in them, and certainly more than beef. Maybe if that beef hadn't gone off my blood glucose reading might have been even lower. My second minor triumph was finally, after many attempts, getting through to the office that deals with appointments with the vampires for the blood samples the nurse wants me to give for analysis. I have got a nice early morning appointment on Friday morning.

  My chest is still sore this morning, but I will try and stay off painkillers for now. The first thing I want to do, once I am washed and dressed, is to go shopping. That should be a good test of my chest. If it gets even worse it is a very bad sign, but hopefully it will improve as my body warms up with a bit of light exercise. What I do after that depends on how I feel while shopping.