The temperature only just made it to 4° C at 8am, but it is rising. We have already had one sunny spell despite the latest revision to the forecast saying it will be 1pm before the sun breaks through. Looking out the windows I see clumpy clouds with odd islands of blue here and there. I guess those clouds to thin out a lot more before we get the promised sunny afternoon. Even in full sunshine the best we can hope for is 11° C - a figure The BBC and The met Office agree on. Another clear night may see the temperature drop to 3° C by 7am tomorrow morning, but once the sun rises there should be full sunshine for the rest of the daylight hours. Sadly, it will be another cold day like yesterday and today. Just 11° C again. Of course, if the BBC have it right for tomorrow it will be just 2° C at 7am, and reach 12° C in the afternoon.
 
  I don't know whether to describe yesterday as good or bad. I guess that like most days it was a bit of both, and maybe I am putting too much bias on the evening - now that was not good, although I suppose it had it's moments. The day started with me doing almost nothing except writing everything I wrote yesterday. I did total up how many words I had written a few days ago. It was 1468, and that is the length of a short story (I think), and certainly a figure I would have once thought impossible before computers made writing so much easier.

  Once again it was almost midday before I had my morning shower, and washed my hair. At the end of it I put two pairs of lounge pants, and two pairs of under pants in to soak. This time I didn't ignore them for the rest of the day. It was probably around 2pm when I put my Marigolds on, and gave them a good rinsing, and then fabric conditioner before giving them an intense wringing out, and then hanging them up to dry.

  I put the clothes horse in the front room, with a desk fan blowing at it, because in another hour Jodie would be over for a beer tasting session. In that hour I had to wash and polish the beer glasses, and also have some lunch so I wouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach. I had 3 beetroot, pea and lentil "veggie cakes" plus one rice cake, and all were very liberally smeared with Philadelphia cream cheese. Although the brand is owned by Kraft, maker of terrible American food, they somehow resisted the temptation to blend in several pints of corn syrup into each tub. It is thus "low sugar".

  I think Jodie used the same time train as when she turned up very early on Thursday, but yesterday she went shopping in Tesco for her lunch before arriving here. Maybe it was the sunny weather, but she seemed to be in a more cheerful, and sociable mood....or maybe she didn't have a hangover like she sometimes has. She didn't bring any beers, and so we had to use many of mine that have been hanging around for ages.

  We had quite a mixture of beers, and for me, many of them were not that nice, but then again, none were so horrible that they went down the sink. Even the worst was still quite drinkable, although there was one which I predicted Jodie would like that she did pour down the sink. Oh well, the thing about all this beer tasting is discovering all the tiny nuances that distinguish one beer from another. Where it all fails is that I can very rarely remember what I had drunk.

   I guess Jodie spending so much time logging all the beers on the untappd website sort of makes sense. On the other hand she never, or at least extremely rarely drinks the same beer twice, and that makes tasting such a wide variety sort of pointless. I guess I try and remember the style of the beers I like, and buy and drink more of that general style. At the moment, and as has been for some time, my favourites tend to be Belgium Abbey beers.

  Had I been completely sober my evening may have been a lot better. Had I been drunk my evening could have been a lot better, but I was half drunk, and wanting to drink more, preferably socially. The good thing is that I had made sure I had a fair sized, but very safe dinner cooked by the time Jodie left just after 6pm. It looked as if it was going to be a very big dinner before it was fully cooked.

   It was three chicken thighs with a huge heap of ready shredded cabbage and leek. Once cooked it shrank to a third of the size. It was a very nice dinner, and that was good because I will be having almost the same tonight. If there was one fault with it, it was that a couple of whiskies later I was feeling hungry again, and ideally I wanted something like a dessert, which could have been ice cream. I actually chewed on some German smoked ham, and no more.

  During the first part of the evening I watched a couple of episodes of Danger Man, and then checked the Freeview electronic programme guise again to see if there was anything on TV. I almost didn't spot the "Bond film" Spectre, but fortunately I did, and I watched it. I can't make up my mind if it was one of the better films from the franchise or not. Being mostly set in London was sort of good, but it didn't feature the well known warm characters of Q, and Miss Moneypenny. Their new replacements somehow jar, and particularly a very young looking Q.

  I think it was approaching 10pm when the film finished, and I went straight to bed. I read for a while, and then I think I fell asleep fairly quickly. On the whole I slept OK last night, but there were a few times when I woke up I did not feel good. I think it was nearly 1am when I woke up and my right wrist and elbow seemed very painful. I think I must have laid on them in my sleep, or something like that. I had to take a few minutes to put on wrist and elbow supports before trying to get back to sleep.

  I wish I could remember more of one particular dream so I could understand it myself. All I can remember was being trapped in a sort of flexible bit of tubing with things whizzing past me. I somehow pushed with my legs to widen the tube, and managed to get out. Upon getting out I said to someone that I had proved that internet connections could be widened to let more data through. It seems the things whizzing past me were bytes of data. It felt very odd in the dream, even scary, but in the cold light of day it seems quite meaningless.

  I know I had another dream not long before I woke up, and go up, and I am sure it was something very interesting, but I can't even remember the theme of it now. One thing I do seem to remember at unknown times during the night was some mild discomfort that could be directly attributable to not going to the toilet at all yesterday. That seems to have been resolved this morning, or more likely partly resolved. I feel sure there is more to come.

  The unexpected in magnitude good news this morning is that despite the beers, an occasional careful snack, and even a double dose of instant noodles for breakfast yesterday, my blood glucose was marvellously low this morning. It was just 7.2mmol/l, and I thought that merited another double dose of instant noodles this morning. Now to try and think what to do today.

  It is a shame it won't be warm enough for bare arms today, but I think a lightweight jacket should be warm enough to go out in today. I can't make up my mind if I want to just take a walk in the park, or to go on a train adventure. I guess one factor in the decision is how my guts are feeling. I have now been twice, and I get the feeling I am leading up to a big "clear out". Hopefully in the next couple of hours I might know where I stand (or sit !).