The heavy rain for this morning seems closer to persistent drizzle, rather than the stair rods of rain that forecast seems to suggest (to me). One interesting thing is the fog and mist shown for 2pm and 3pm. It seems unlikely for the middle of the afternoon, but it has almost survived one revision to the forecast. 2pm has now changed from fog to drizzle, and 3pm has changed from mist to fog. I guess it is possible as some obviously warm air is heading our way. By the end of the afternoon the temperature should rise to 10° C - warmer than we have had for days now. Tomorrow may start at 7° C, and heavy rain, but the temperature will fall to 3° C by midday, and the rain may have stopped by then. The afternoon should be brighter, but with no sign of the sun, and the temperature slowly climbing to a high of 5° C by early evening.
 
   I can only describe yesterday as being another mix of good and bad. I don't think I can call the snow as being particularly bad - particularly because it didn't hang around long, but did make the day seem brighter, and more interesting. The following rain, mostly more like drizzle by my reckoning, was not a nice feature, but going out in it was sort of like an adventure - which in a masochistic way was good.

  Apart from having a shower, and washing my hair, I didn't really do anything yesterday until it was time to go to the pub just after midday. I put on my bright orange, thick, hooded winter coat, and stepped bravely out into what seem no more than light rain. I headed for the station so I could pick up a copy of The Metro so I could do the crosswords in the pub. Despite the rain it felt like a semi pleasant journey to the pub.
  My intention to do the crosswords in the pub was a half triumph, and half disaster. I did the quick crossword non stop except for occasional pauses to take a swig of Guinness. Once again the cryptic crossword soon had me stumped. I managed to solve 8 clues, although I was not convinced I had one answer right.

  It would have been much more pleasant if Angela had been there, but she is still off sick from work with her broken leg. The details of her accident, and the damage done are still sketchy in the extreme. I read yesterday that a further complication was some sort of nerve damage, and a suggestion that might take longer to heal. Fortunately I have my spies....actually a couple of woman who work in the hospital who asked me if I knew any more, and who said they would ask Angela's workmate if he knew any further details. I'll have to wait until next Wednesday to see if they have found anything out.

  As well as two pints of Guinness, I also had a double Jameson whiskey to "keep out the cold" when I headed home. I times my exit so I would have plenty of time to walk to Ladywell station so I could get the train home. Actually I had more time than expected because I confused the time with the next London train. The Hayes train, via Catford Bridge, was four minutes later. There were doom and gloom announcements while I waited for my train. I could barely make them out with the thick hood around my ears.
  It seems that Southeastern were expecting more snow, and the disruption that might cause. They suggested they would start running down the service from 5pm, and elsewhere it s suggested the last trains might be as early as 9pm.  As far as I was aware, all the weather forecasts I had seen showed no more snow expected, but then I thought that maybe the snow could have been expected further out into Kent. However, the animates weather map to be found below the main weather chart on the BBC website didn't seem to show any snow filled clouds heading towards the south east corner of the country. I never did bother to check to see if the trains were running anywhere last night.

  Last week, and maybe the week before, I was wondering about how much it was cheating my getting the train to and from the pub. Looking back at my records I found a walk from home to Ladywell and back again. That was measured at 1.34 miles. Yesterday I measured each of the 4 bits of walking, home to station, station to pub, pub back to station, and then station to home. It added up to 1.242 miles. I guess it is slightly cheating, but not by much.

  When I got home my coat was dripping, but I seemed to be warm and dry under the coat - as it should be. I still felt the need for some hot lunch. I had a can of Irish stew, that I consider to be a very tasty "chunky" soup, and a can of pea and ham soup to make sure I got a good dose of vegetable fibre. After that I checked all the train pictures I had snapped to see if I had managed to snap any new trains to add to my spreadsheet of train pictures. There were none, and so I laid down to read, but after a page or so I put the book down and snoozed.

  It was gone 4pm when I woke up. I took my afternoon dose of tablets. It included a cod liver oil tablet. It wasn't long before I was burping cod live oil flavoured burps. I needed something to hold that oil down, and I made myself a sandwich. It was two slices of Polish Sourdough sliced bread with some mayonnaise instead of butter, and a single thin  slice of ready slice cheese. For something so plain, it was rather nice.

  I hadn't prepared any dinner by 5pm, and I was almost considering ordering a takeaway. I really didn't fancy doing much in the kitchen because it seemed freezing down there. In the end I decided I would make a very simple, as in just two ingredients dinner. Those two ingredients were quite a lot of rashers of smoky bacon (that was almost a month passed it's sell by date - fortunately bacon was designed for long life before there were fridges). The other ingredient was just boiled baby potatoes. I did seem to seriously under estimate how much of them I was cooking. It did turn out to be a rather big portion, but the potatoes and bacon, with some sauce, were rather nice, and I had no problem scoffing the whole lot - although some guilt was involved.

  Last night was yet another night of watching the usual stuff on TV, and then after a break, turning on the TV again to watch QI. Once again it seemed like it was not all that long ago that Dave had shown the same episode as last night. For some unknown reason it was worth watching yet again, although maybe only in parts. I went to bed when it finished, and read for a while. I was possibly asleep well before 11pm. On the whole I seemed to sleep well, although I think I woke up around 1am and decided my bedroom was feeling too cold. I turned the heater on full, and went back to sleep.

  Last night was unusual in that I only got up for a pee about twice in the night. I remember waking up at 3 or 4am and thinking I probably needed a pee, but it didn't seem urgent, and the bathroom was unpleasantly chilly. So I turned over and was soon asleep again. I think I was quite surprised when I woke up at 7.15am. I suspect I had woken up an hour or two before that, but the memory of it was so hazy and dream like that I just can't be sure.

  What I think I know, but who ever really knows, is that I sort of feel better for an apparent good night's sleep. The best of all is that I seem to have recovered from my exposure to cold wet air yesterday afternoon. I forgot to mention it a few paragraphs up the page, but yesterday evening I seemed to feel a bit wheezy, and was dry coughing a lot.

  I could not believe my blood glucose measurement this morning. I thought I did everything wrong yesterday, but the reading was just 8.8mmol/l. I regard any reading starting with 8 point something as being of no great concern beyond that anything smaller is a desired bonus. I think that one plan for today is to get a bit of shopping in - stuff which if eaten properly could reduce that blood glucose reading a bit more.

  Of course today's eating could still easily be a disaster because it is Thursday, and I think Jodie and Michael will be here this afternoon for another beer tastings session. With an occasional extra drink, from my current collection of strong Belgium beers, I could easily get drunk, and end up eating a horse !