This morning is most definitely very damp from prolonged light rain. Maybe the afternoon will feature lighter clouds, and maybe they won't leak. The BBC forecast says the rain will continue until 4pm, and that there will be sunny spells at 5pm. The BBC gives the most pessimistic temperature forecast - just 3° C. The Met Office says 4° C. It makes little odds - both are highly unpleasantly cold. Tomorrow things get worse - maybe. The Met Office says tomorrow will start with light coloured cloud until mid afternoon when the clouds thicken. By 6pm it could start to rain, and by 7pm that rain could turn to snow. By 8pm that snow could turn to heavy snow ! Curiously enough, the BBC shows sleet in the morning, and no rain, sleet or snow in the evening. Both agree that the temperature will start around 1° C, rise to 4 or 5° C in the afternoon, and then quickly fall to 1° C again. It's like being in the middle of winter again.
 
   Yesterday was another day that had it's moments, but was basically dull and boring. I did hear from Kevin during the morning, and he confirmed he was still too ill to go out for a beer in the afternoon, or indeed any social interaction for at least the immediate future. I still have no idea what is wrong with him, but I do remember a month or two ago he said he had a cannula for intravenous anti biotics - which sounds pretty serious.

  I decided I didn't really fancy sitting in a pub on my own, with a crossword as my only company, but I did fancy doing the crosswords in The Metro. It seemed like a full wash was a bit excessive for a walk to the station and back, and so I just flicked a damp flannel around, and squirted on some deodorant before taking a swift walk to the station. It was hard work keeping up the pace, and some bits of my were starting to ache in a suspicious manner.

  Going home again I did have the benefit of the first bit being slightly downhill, but it's only a drop of about 6ft down a gentle slope. It was enough to get me off to a good pace. It was hard trying to sustain that pace all the way home, but I almost managed it. The good thing is that the suspicious pains changed into ordinary fatigue pains, and my heart didn't explode or anything. It gives me hope that it will be possible to get my version of being fit again once we get some pleasant walking weather again.

  I got off to a splendid start doing the crosswords in The Metro. I don't think it took a lot longer than 5 minutes to finish the Quick crossword. There were only a couple of answers I had to have a quick think about. The rest I almost did as quickly as I could write the answers in. So far, so good, but then I tackled the Cryptic crossword. That slowed me right down, and after half an hour I came to a halt after only managing about 6 answers. I need to do more of that cryptic crossword to get back into practice, and feel the mind that compiled them.

  I had a couple of things for lunch, but only the rice crackers with cheese were suitably low sugar. One item was a pouch of chilli con carne that had been in the cupboard for ages. It was a long life type package, and I didn't check the use by date. I suspect it may have been well past it. The reason it was in the cupboard for so long was that it's sugar content seemed to be quite high, and until yesterday I had been reluctant to try it.

  As well as that high sugar content it also tasted unpleasant - a sort of stale taste. It probably didn't help that it was probably made with the lowest quality ingredients. The worst thing about it all was that I have another pouch in the cupboard. I think I will check the use by date to satisfy my suspicions, but then I will throw it away.

  My afternoon was dull and depressing, and that is probably why I was drawn to exotic foods. I don't I did eat anything more exotic than some salted peanuts until I had my dinner. I passed some of the time doing finance stuff. In the morning post I got my electricity bill. It was nowhere near as bad as expected. I was asked to pay just £23, and the next standing order payment will more than cover that. With luck, winter part 2 will soon be over, and I can reduce my electricity consumption, and start building up credit for next winter. The actual finance stuff I did was to increase my standing order for gas by £35, and also pay my telephone bill.

  I passed more time in the afternoon by resuming my job of copying old recordable CD and DVD disk to hard disk and backup hard disk. There were two unusual disks among those I worked on. One was a DVD data disk that I am sure I must have recorded. It had on it a load of Jodie's photos from about 2002. They featured her first visits to Finland, and an ex boyfriend who I am pretty sure she has zero regard for these days. The other disk that I didn't remember was from an old friend whose path has diverged too far over the years, and I feel I barely know him now. He had once given me copies of a load of legal radio jingles, plus other stuff from his time when he was doing some stuff for a small local radio station. To be honest, most of it is of little interest.


  My dinner last night was what I was going to have the previous night - a simple stew of diced beer and a whole heap of red cabbage. I also added a dew baby potatoes for a little more texture. I can't really say it was very nice, or at least not delicious, but it was pleasant, and in theory it should have had a very low sugar content.

  What probably didn't have a low sugar content was one of the two beers I had last night. The Aldi sourced Biere Tripple was nice, but I could feel it was sticky when it dried on my lips. I guess that is the problem of mass produced beers for supermarkets. They don't store the beer for long enough for fermentation to stop before bottling it. Instead, it is pasteurised to kill the yeast before bottling, and a lot of the sugars from the barley have not been turned into alcohol. At least that is my guess....

  The second beer, Val-Dieu, Noel, was a special Xmas brew. They are traditionally more robust, but it didn't seem to leave my lips sticky like the Tripel beer.  Anyway, the beers kept me amused until bed time. It was an earlier night than expected. After my usual break from the TV in the middle of the evening, I turned on again to watch QI. I watched for a few minutes and realised it didn't seem all that long ago I had seen that episode before. I turned the TV off, and headed for bed.

  It didn't seem to take long to get to sleep last night, and initially I seemed to sleep well, but it is always annoying to wake up and find it is before midnight. It doesn't matter if it is 5 minutes before midnight, it still feel annoying that the next day hasn't started. Had it been 5 minutes after midnight it would have been fine.

  I seemed to sleep well until about 3am, and I think at that time I had only woken once for a pee. That seemed good, but it seemed to take at least half an hour before I got back to sleep again. From then on I woke at least three times with painful cramp in my lower legs (usually my right leg). I don't know what I did, but from about 5.30am I managed to sleep with no moire cramps, and everything was fine again.

  Except everything was not fine. My blood glucose reading hit 9.0mmol/l. That is still a whole point below the red line (10.0mmol/l), but is still not good. Having identified two possible reasons for it I can sort of relax, and just try to be more careful today. Maybe that is easier said than done....
  The beers I ordered on Sunday night are due to be delivered today. The estimated time of 13:20 to 14:20 is usually an accurate estimation, and I would not be surprised if it is closer to the first time. This is completely unlike Amazon's "before 9pm", and then sometime estimates that keep changing every hour. Most of the new beers, plus a few repeats I know to be good, are fairly strong, but their sugar content should be very low. Some European beers even show the sugar content, and it is often zero !

  Today is a lousy cold and damp day, but I think I will probably go out again, but only to grab a copy of The Metro from the station - I desperately need the practice doing the cryptic crossword ! Obviously I will probably get drunk in the evening :-)