The latest revision to the forecast has changed 10am to dark cloud, but other than that, it remains as shown in the screenshot above - cold, grey and miserable ! The afternoon high today will be just 7° C. Tomorrow is shown as completely dark grey, and with a high of just 5° C.

   Yesterday was pretty miserable. Not only was it cold and grey, but being ill was starting to wear me down. On the other hand my illness was changing, and possibly for the better, although it is hard to decide if there is any useful improvement this morning.

  I had been hoping I would feel well enough to go out for a bit of shopping yesterday. I probably could have forced myself to go out, but my need was not so great that I wanted to risk making things worse. The almost total lack of sunshine (apart from a few brief sunny spells) made it feel chilly in my bedroom where I spent most of the day. I ended up running the fan heater flat out to get the room really warm.

  After a few hours of the heater on full blast my thermometer said my bedroom was, or should have been, very warm, but I still felt a bit cool. That strongly suggested I was running a fever, but my under-the-tongue clinical thermometer said my body temperature was only very slightly high. In fact the reading I got at 2pm, 36.5° C, a whole 1.2° less than what is usually considered the start of a fever, was not far different to a reading at similar times during the last 3 months.

  At other times, like this morning, I have had readings a bit higher than normal typical, but I have found some past readings just as high when I don't remember having any illness. The morning reading is very dependant on whether I slept under the duvet, or had kicked it aside, plus how warm my bedroom was. So it seems I probably didn't have a fever yesterday, but I most definitely felt depressed.

  Once upon a time I was be sort of grateful to feel terrible because it meant I could take time off work as sick. Under such circumstances I could relish being lazy, and try to bring it to a new level of extreme laziness. Of course living on my own meant I had to attend to my own needs, and couldn't aim for something like a zen trance or other distractions from reality. Of course there was also the problem that every now and again a short sting of coughs would drag me back to reality.

  The nature of my cough changed yesterday. The day before yesterday I think I reported that my cough was being triggered by tiny drops of mucus apparently balancing on the top of my windpipe. On every breath they would sort of shiver and irritate me. It might have been the night before last, or during the day yesterday that those drops of mucus were no longer a problem (the big problem being trying to shift them with ever more powerful coughs).

  That seemed like a move in the right direction, but it was no more than a small change in direction. Although during the day, and also during the night, the next symptom started up. It was basically a stuff nose. It has still not reached the stage where my nose is freely dripping (than goodness), but it does benefit from a good blow now and then. In past colds I have been in the position where each blow could saturate a tissue beyond further use, and the next one was needed a minute or two later. The worst I've had during this cold - so far - is a couple of uses of each tissue, and sometime 10 or 20 minutes before a new one is needed.

  I didn't seem to have a lot of appetite yesterday. It is possible that was a subconscious trigger from my very high blood glucose reading yesterday morning. At lunchtime I half fancied something to eat, and went for a very simple meal that needed little preparation - instant noodles. It was definitely nice to get something hot to eat, and while the flavour and make of instant noodles I chose is not noted for being delicious, it seemed to taste pleasant enough.

  I didn't eat again, apart from maybe a chunk of cheese, until dinner time, and in fact I didn't really have a dinner unless you call a couple of handfuls of mixed nuts a meal - which I guess if you are a squirrel you would call it a very good meal ! I washed them down with three cans of Guinness. I thought it would make a change to whisky, and drinking Guinness helped save my diminishing supply of Diet Coke.
  The photo above came out very strange. I think it was a mixture of lighting - rather red lighting like tungsten lighting, and partly obscured flash from the camera, plus some light from my desk light. While adding photos to this narrative.....
  It must have been a week ago that I ordered a beer advent calendar from The Bier Company. Their beers are OK, but it is rare they include some of the more exciting beers. Most of their beers can probably be found in supermarkets - different supermarkets in different parts of the country, so there are beers that you would probably not come across easily. My big moan is that they are one of several companies who claim they have shipped your order when you haven't.

  All they had done when they sent this email (or screenshot of part of the email) was to phone Yodel to arrange collection, and to get a reference number. So at this point their courier (Yodel) had not received my package. This is confirmed a little further down when it says "We're expecting your parcel from your sender". The Bier Company may think this makes them look super efficient, but it just makes them look like pratts ! The very latest news is that my beer advent calendar will probably be delivered today.

  I watched some TV last night, but soon after 8pm I felt like going to bed. I had turned the heater to low some hours earlier, and my bedroom was starting to feel cool. I thought getting under the duvet would be good. I read for maybe 20 minutes before turning out the lights. As far as I can recall/guess I fell asleep really quickly. I seemed to sleep well until 4am this morning, although I probably got up to pee about 4 times before that.

  At 4am I wanted to go back to sleep, but it seems I didn't feel tired enough. It felt like I was awake for a whole hour, but I guess it might have been less before I fell asleep again. I woke up again at just after 6am, and it seemed a good idea to get up. After all, there is nothing stopping me going back to bed today - except for the expected/hoped for beer delivery. Under normal circumstance I would have expected my blood glucose reading to be quite low after not eating much yesterday, but these are not normal circumstances. At least this morning I got my blood glucose down to 9.2mmol/l, and that is just about OK.

  Aside from dreams, which I don't really remember enough to comment on, I do remember something of my cold symptoms. I have already mentioned that yesterday my nose started to get very stuffy. Every time I woke up in the night I had to give my nose a good blow, but it seemed I only had to do it the once, and even this morning it still only needs an occasional blow. That is not a lot worse than normal life - particularly when walking in cold air.

  I did note my cough changing character during the night. My coughing became much more sporadic, but when I had to cough it was more a sort of deep growly cough with some small amount of mucus. That is rather different to the sort of barking, and mostly dry cough of yesterday. I (obviously) hope this is good news. It now feels like I have a very ordinary, and mild common cold.

  I'm not sure if I would feel like walking to Tesco later, and I am not sure I would want to go to Tesco if I keep coughing. It is possible that a walk in fresh air could make it better, or worse, and of course there is no telling what the change of atmosphere, going from fresh air to that inside the supermarket, would do. I guess I'll just have to see how I feel later today. One thing I am not going to do is to walk to Hither Green to see The Entourage Band playing Xmas songs early this afternoon.