There is a lot of doubt about how many sunny spells we will get this morning. As I write this, just 15 minutes from 9am, the sun is barely above the eastern roof tops, and it looks like it is rather hazy sunshine. Looking out both my north and south facing windows I see mainly blue sky, and it seems possible that we could get more than just sunny spells this morning. It seems too much to hope that it might last until even 1pm, but fingers crossed ! This afternoon the temperature should rise from this morning's 6° C to 10° C. In sunshine that could feel warm, but I think  warm coat will still be needed. Today should be dry, but the chance of rain is now shown to be 10% from as early at 1pm. No sunshine at all is forecast for tomorrow, but the temperature should rise to 11° C, and it should stay dry. Friday might see 12° C !
 
   Once again, yesterday had it's ups and downs, and also a bit of drunkenness ! My whole day revolved around waiting for two deliveries. The first, several boxes of beer, came a little earlier than expected at 2.30pm. Even the second, spare eyepiece pad for my Nikon cameras, were delivered a bit earlier than expected by Amazon. I was expecting that delivery to be well after dark, but it arrived just before 5pm.

  One thing that passed a lot of time yesterday was washing a small bath towel. I mentioned it yesterday, and said it had been soaking in detergent over night after not dealing with it the day before yesterday. I usually find that towels need a lot of rinses, and that small bath towel needed an awful lot of them. Over the course of three sessions, I must have rinsed the bloody thing at least a dozen times, and possibly 15 times. The water was still far from clear even after that, but I was getting bored, and tired of doing it. I shall just have to remember to wash it again after very few uses.

  One other small distraction yesterday was to prepare for today - the start of a new month. I had prepared my diary page for February the day before yesterday, but I still had to prepare my various spreadsheets where I now record most of my health indicators. I guess they have become a compulsion these days, but I think they are the only ways of seeing the longer trends. I manage my blood glucose on a day by day basis. That is why I check my blood glucose every morning.

  That morning check can be reason for both elation or despondency, but having the longer term view helps put things into perspective, plus the better readings act as a sort of challenge to equal or better them. I had high hopes that this morning might match the excellent reading yesterday morning. Maybe it could have been, but for one factor.....

  That one factor was the delivery of my beers. As can be seen in the picture, I had ended up with four boxes, although one box only had two bottles of beer and a "free" glass. The funny thing is that I didn't realise how much beer I had ordered. The list didn't seem all that big, but the price paid was the big clue as to how much I had really ordered.

  As I said above, it all arrived at 2.30pm. I opened all the boxes straight away, and rearranged the bottles and cans to reduce the amount of boxes to just two (I double stacked all the small cans). I resisted the temptation to drink any beers until about 5pm when I selected one can and two bottles to drink.

  The can was almost nice for a beer which was more in the style that Jodie likes. It was a very hazy beer, almost soup like, but it was not too sour. I am sure the reason was that it used Mosaic hops to my great surprise I find they come from America. Until now I had a very low opinion of American hops, but it seems Mosaic is nowhere near as bitter and sours as, for instance, the so called New England hops uses in some foul tasting beers.

  The second beer was a small bottle of a very sweet tasting porter from the Omnipollo brewery in Sweden. The beer itself was called Noa Pecan Mud Cake, and it was very sweet tasting. I would later learn that the sweet taste was caused by real sugar/glucose/fructose/lactose, and it would have a significant effect on me beyond the fact it was 11% beer ! The second bottle/third beer was from the St Bernardus brewery in Belgium. It was a special Xmas ale, and was 10%. It too had a sweet taste, but not a sticky sweet taste like the Omnipollo beer.

  By 6pm I had finished all the beer I intended to drink. I was feeling quite drunk, and very hungry. I had drunk those strong beers on a completely empty stomach, or at least I had eaten nothing since the bowl of instant noodles I had for breakfast. It was very lucky I hadn't been stupid and had the Madeira cake that has been lurking in the cupboard for 18 or more months. Before I had my dinner I checked my blood glucose. I don't usually do this, but I was curious what effect those sweet beers would have.

  I was shocked to see the meter display 12.3mmol/l. That is well into the danger zone. I hoped that it was just a brief blip after taking the reading so soon after drinking those sweet beers. It almost was, but at the time it seemed obvious that I would not be getting such a low reading this morning as I got yesterday morning. I didn't let it spoil my dinner of lamb stew with white cabbage, cauliflower and shallots. It was a fairly nice dinner, although I do wonder if the shallots provided much flavour. They were strong enough that I was sure I could still smell them on my fingers this morning.

  The rest of my evening was almost normal apart from the hangover that lasted until about 7pm. After that I felt fine, but rather tired. I watched the early QI on Dave, but I didn't fancy the second one, and headed for bed at 9pm. I can't be sure, but I think that after reading for a while, I was asleep around 10pm. At some time in the night I was feeling too hot. I think it was possibly around 1am, and I turned the heater up, and slept almost uncovered. One unusual thing was that at around 4am I turned the heater down again, and managed to get back to sleep mostly under the duvet.

  It seems I mostly slept well last night. I can remember that I had many dreams, at least one of which was set in a sort of work environment, but the details are too vague to recount. One oddity was a dream that seemed to be mostly about buses. That made a change from trains. The bit I do remember is that a bus route was diverted to run through Catford, and it went to somewhere useful - possibly work. It was odd that it used a vintage bus in a more pink shade of red. That is about all I can remember about that dream.

  Once I got up the truth was revealed. Those delicious beers had spoiled my blood glucose reading. Yesterday, after eating a very similar diet the day before, the reading was a marvellous 6.5mmol/l. This morning it was a good, but very ordinary 8.0mmol/l. I was probably hoping it might still be in the sevens. My weight continues to go up and down. After a second, and more productive visit to the toilet, my weight was exactly what I tell my doctor it is. That is neither good nor bad, although after a few higher peaks in the last week or so it was an improvement. The only fly in the ointment was that yesterday it was a few hundred grammes lighter. Can I blame the beer for that, or do I just need to make another productive visit to the toilet.

  Today, being a Wednesday, the day hinges around a visit to the pub at lunchtime to meet up with Angela. Today I will have no choice but to walk to the pub because the trains are all on strike. I am wondering if there will still be copies of The Metro at the station. I think I will check, and depending how I feel, what the weather is like, and how early I am, I could get a bus from near the station. I will decide on that on the spur of the moment.