The latest revision to the forecast has changed it a fair bit compared to the early version in the screenshot above. The most obvious change is that the hail forecast for 1pm is now shown as dry, but dull. The sun has just about broken through now, and the latest revision shows sunny spells for 10am, 11am, midday, and 2pm. 3pm is shown as just a 30% chance of rain, and my guess is that it will be another hours of sunny spells. It is not going to be a warm day - just 9° C is forecast. Tomorrow may reach 12° C, but it is going to come at the cost of a very wet morning, and possibly more rain after that.

   Yesterday did not turn out as expected, and for one time that was sad, but there were compensations, and I could possibly argue that overall, yesterday was a pleasant day. I wouldn't go further than "pleasant" though. The big disruptor of my plans was a volatile gut. I seemed to visit the toilet too frequently in the morning, and I couldn't be sure it was all over until it was too late to go out to the pub.

  I think the blame for my volcanic guts can lie on my Indian takeaway dinners. I don't think over the three nights that I kept them cool and chilled, they grew any nasty bacteria. I think it was more that the spices, and maybe things like the fried onions, had a laxative effect - one that came to a head (or a bottom !) yesterday morning. The two, or three previous morning I made at least two substantial deposits in the toilet. Yesterday was only different in that I seemed to keep going until it felt like I had completely emptied my digestive tract.

  Despite my dodgy guts, I went ahead and got ready as if I was going out. I have a wet shave. I shampooed, and conditioned my hair, and then I had a good scrub under the shower. After drying my hair I got dressed, and in the expectation that I would be drinking Guinness in the pub, I put on my Guinness t-shirt. The next thing I did was to rush to the toilet again ! I most definitely had to go, but the quantity involved was moderately small. I hoped I would be safe for at least half an hour.
 
 It was about 11am and it seemed like I was safe, although I was still feeling the occasional tremor from within. I took a chance, and went to get some shopping in Tesco. My thought was that if I survived that I might take a chance of going to the pub. I did survive it, but there was a moment of doubt when I was in a stupidly long queue for a checkout because only two were opened.

  It wasn't long after I got home that I was back on the toilet emitting what would turn out my final contribution for the day. Of course it was only with hindsight that I knew it to be the final visit of the day. I still had time to get to the pub for 1pm, but when I added up the pros and cons I realised it was nearly all cons, and no definite pros. I was not sure if my guts were really empty. It was still raining at that point, and a walk in the park would not be pleasant, and finally, I strongly suspected that Angela was not at work, and so she would not be there.

  I decided not to go to the pub, and doing something about the very hollow feeling I had. In a way it was a test to see if I did have some sort of stomach bug, or if it was just some sort of laxative effect taking place. One thing I bought in Tesco, which I probably shouldn't have, was a bag of crinkle cut oven chips. I cooked a plate of them. While I was waiting for those I decided to dispose of a pack of BBQ chicken wings I had found on the reduced price shelf. They only needed 90 seconds in the microwave to warm them up. I ate them while the chips cooked.

  I noted there were quite a few Xmas things with heavy discounts, but I think most were only with Clubcard use. I bought a half price gift pack of three miniature bottles of vodka, and a half price gift pack of miniature bottles of port. Half price seemed more of an equitable price for those gift packs. The vodkas were £2.50 at half price, and at least that made each bottle cheaper than the price of a single measure in a pub ! Actually, when I think about it, it was quite a bargain. I must try and buy more before they are all sold !

  It must have been around 1pm when the postman shoved some good stuff through my letter box. One item was one of the books I have been expecting. If I am very lucky I might get another today. The other major thing was, to my great relief, my shiny new Senior Railcard. It was so good to get it after all the trouble I had to go through to get it. Now I just have to hope for reasonable health, and some warm sunny days to go exploring further afield than inside the London travel zones.

  The rest of my day was not exactly a very active time. I did very little apart from rest, and read, and continue to feel hungry. After BBQ chicken wings, and chips, I had had more than was probably good for me, but I still wanted more. It was hard to fight it, and I gave in and had a cheese and corned beef sandwich. I didn't heat it in the microwave this time. I think it just tipped the balance, and most of my desire to eat almost disappeared. A bit later still I did have some well washed Turkish delight cubes. Washing hopefully removes all the sugar that I assume to be icing sugar.

  During the afternoon I started reading the next book by my current favoured author Edmond Cooper. The current book is "The Last Continent", and was written in 1963. It is an interesting take on colour prejudice, and obviously it was influenced by the mores of the age when written. It cats the black people as the more technically advanced. They live on Mars which they settled while world war 3 devastated most of the world. Almost all life was eliminated for Earth, except for Antarctica where a small enclave of white people survived the war, and ended up thriving once climate change, caused by the atomic war, turned Antarctica green and fertile. Unfortunately they reverted to a more primitive society. They are initially portrayed as the underdog, and gain more sympathies than the black Martians.

  As usual I watched some TV before, during and after I had my dinner. Last night's dinner was not curry. It was a home made sort of chicken stew, but it did contain a lot of fresh chillies and bell peppers. Oddly, it was not hot despite the chillies. It was sort of nice, and was most definitely a fairly big dinner - bigger than the portions of curry I ate on the previous four nights.

  I watched two episodes of QI last night before going to bed. I read for 30 or more minutes before turning out the light, and trying for sleep. At first there was the usual difficulty of trying to get comfortable. Last night brought at least one novel irritation - an itchy eyebrow, and the longer I resisted scratching it, the worse it got. After giving in I gave it one quick scratch, and that was was a complete cure. Oddly enough, I think that was about the last thing I did before falling asleep. I it may have been about 10pm.

  I think I must have woken to have a pee once or twice, but I have no strong recollection of doing so. I definitely remember waking up at approximately 3.30am. It felt like I had slept enough, and if it had been mid summers day I might have taken a chance and got up, but I just lay in bed experiencing insomnia for what felt like an hour. In reality I have no idea how long it was because I went into that state of sleep where I seemed to be awake, but long periods of time went by with no memory apart from dreams.

  I can't seem to remember any of the dreams in any way that I can describe them, but I seem to think they were very realistic, and only little odd things differentiated them from reality. It is odd that while I can't remember these dreams, they left strong impressions behind. One dream was hard to tell from real life. The only clue was that it was set in a different house. I guess I don't remember any more than that because what I was doing was so mundane that there was nothing to remember.

  Maybe I was still dreaming when I checked my blood glucose this morning. Despite feeling like I had over eaten yesterday, it had dropped a bit more to just 8.0mmol/l. That was still not quite low enough to trigger my eating frenzy of devouring the cake I have in the kitchen cupboard.....but maybe tomorrow ! It seems highly unlikely, but it does seem my illness at the beginning of the month, which might possibly have been a mild covid variant, actually had a positive effect on how my pancreas is releasing insulin into my system. I'm not complaining if that did actually happen.

  I think that this afternoon should be a a beer tasting afternoon with Jodie, and possibly Michael. I must send a txt to Jodie and ask her to confirm it at her earliest opportunity. If she is not coming here then I might try and do something else. That could be a walk, a train journey, and possibly even a drink in a pub with Michael.