It wasn't help on a balloon ! I had a text message from Michael asking if I was drinking in the afternoon. I said no because Jodie was at a gig, but I would be more than happy to have a drink with Michael if he wanted to pop around. At that point I had barely got up. I didn't have time for a shower, but I did have a quick spray of deodorant, and put on clean clothes. I then had to wash the beer glasses ready for use. At the end of a drink session I tend to just rinse them, and do a proper wash on the day they are going to be used.

  It was when I went downstairs to wash the glasses, and to put the heater on full in the dining room, that I noticed a helium party balloon outside my back door. It had been downed by the weight of the rain drops on the balloon, and also the heart shaped tag at the bottom was saturated. Unfortunately that tag had been written in water soluable  ink, and was unreadable. It might have suggested the origin of the balloon. I had seen several out the front, and I also noticed another caught in a tree a few back gardens away.

  When Michael arrived it wasn't long before I found out why he was so keen to see me. It turned out he had a lot more to say about Angela than I did. It seems he committed the sin of waiting three days to answer Angela's request for him and his wife to attend Angela's wedding next June. I think on that third day she might have contacted him first, and then he had to reply "probably". There is a valid reason for that, and it's also a small part of why I can't be definite about going or not.

  Both Michael and myself suffer from some of the maladies of old age, and find it very difficult to know how we will feel in the near future, and no idea at all about the further future. A good example is this morning. I think it is probably mostly over now, but I had a "stomach upset" this morning. I have paid three visits to the toilet now, and I can't rule out another later on. I am fine sitting here typing with the toilet 10 paces away, but I would have not been able to go out earlier this morning. Maybe on this occasion, like many similar in then past, I will be fine to go out much later.

  I can't recall what it was exactly that Michael said, when reporting his exchange with Angela, but it made me think that Angela is having trouble rounding up as many people as she hopes for. I suppose it is necessary to arrange these things so far in advance, but many of her closer friends probably don't even know if they will be alive next year.  Our age, 67, is a very popular age to die....maybe only if you are a rock or film star.

  It was interesting hearing Michael's views on the forthcoming marriage, and wonders why it is even needed. Is it even possible that it is Angela's way of putting the ball and chain on lover boy because he is taking the relationship less seriously than he is ? Several years ago it was definitely the other way around. Have the tables turned ? (Is that the right expression ?).

  Anyway, we had about two and a half pints of assorted beers together, a good gossip, and Michael even stayed an hour later than he intended because he was enjoying it so much. It was just after 6pm when he left, and I put the last touches to my dinner before it's last 10 minutes in the microwave oven. It was actually a very simple beef and broccoli stew. That last bit of cooking was mainly to warm it up. I had done the initial cooking early in the afternoon.

  For just two main ingredients, plus some stock cubes and gravy thickener, it was surprisingly tasty. The best bit about it was that I was very sure it would be a very low sugar meal. I was hoping it would be good enough to counteract my lunch. I had lunch at midday, and I was still miserable then. That meant I threw caution to the wind, and had two more small plates of oven chips for my lunch.

  I watched a few of the usual things on TV with, and after my dinner. It wasn't long with a hot dinner inside me, and my bedroom being warm, that I began to feel sleepy - an effect enhanced after the poor sleep I had the night before. After watching the early showing of QI on Dave, which finished at about 8:10pm (I think), I decided to go to bed. I think I read a couple of pages before turning out the light. I think that was no later than 8.45pm, and I don't remember a single thing after that until I woke up just before midnight rather surprised that I had slept so deeply.

  By midnight my room was cooling down because unlike last year (and many of the year before that) I turned all the heating off before I went to bed. From then on my sleep got worse. I had several periods of insomnia. A couple were sore of enforced. I was aware that I was farting a lot, and it may have been at the end of the next short period of sleep after midnight that I awoke from a dream that I was passing a poo on the toilet. That was worrying, and instead of going for a pee I got and went and tried for a poo. I just farted, but I did have a wee as well !

  There were two time in the night when I got up to sit on the toilet in the cold, and both times it was just wind. It was odd. I didn't feel bloated, and superficially I didn't feel uncomfortable in that department, although lots of other bits were aching in the cold. My last 6 hours of attempted sleep produced some poor sleep - and also a lot of vile smelling farts. You know that they have to be really bad when even your own farts make you feel sick !

  One good thing came out of it. At 4 am, one of the times I was out of bed, I switched the fan heater on. When I finally got up, just after 6am, it had taken the chill off the room. It made getting up far more pleasant ! There was another pleasant thing in store. When I checked my blood glucose reading it was an excellent low at 7.4mmol/l. It does seem that I can tolerate chips well provided that I have them early enough in the day. It also sort of proves that a basic meat and green vegetable stew is a very good way to end the day.

  I recently turned off the fan heater, and I am hoping today's sunshine will keep my room warm enough to be able to relax, and even have a nice snooze at some point in the day. Apart from a probable need to visit the toilet for a fourth time this morning, I seems to feel reasonably OK this morning. Sod's law says I can't enjoy that, and the sunshine to go out for some exercise today. They weren't due until tomorrow, but it seems my order of two cases, and some screen protectors for my new (secondhand) Huawei P30 Pro phone will be arriving today.

  I expect they will arrive quite late in the day, possibly even mid evening, but I dare not take a chance of not being in from mid afternoon at the latest. Another aspect of this is that it seems today will be the tension fraught day when I try and transfer as much as possible from the old phone to the new phone. With luck, being phones from the same company, the built in transfer software will do a very thorough job, but even so, some things like Whatsapp and SMS history may not go over. It's a bit like bungee jumping. You finally have to take that one step from which there is no way back !