The latest revision to the forecast has improved the day a little bit, but the damage has, is being done right now - it is cold (8° C), wet and gloomy. What's worse is that it seems it will stay this way into the afternoon. The last rain may still be heavy, but the sky could be brightening up as it falls around 3pm, but the first sunny spell is now predicted to be shortly before sunset. With a maximum temperature of 10° C, and grey skies, albeit in various shades, it is feeling almost wintry. Tomorrow may be brighter, but with almost no sunshine, although it might stay dry. It may also be a tiny bit less cold with a possible brief spell at 12° C (although at the moment it seems 11° C may represent more of the day).
 
   Yesterday was definitely a day of two contrasting halves. The first half was most encouraging, and happy. The second half was gloomy and depressing, and it was a bit more than the weather that changed, although the weather definitely steered how the day went.

  The sunny morning automatically put me in a good mood, and although I felt a bit tired, I was otherwise feeling good. I must admit it took me a long time before I was ready to have a shower, and to go out. My initial plan was to go to the sorting office, to pick up a book I had ordered, and then go home via Tesco to buy some food and drunk supplies. Before I left I got a text message from Michael saying he was in Tesco, and had put 4 bottles of Diet Coke in his shopping trolly for me.

  That was actually the second bit of good news in the morning. The first was another unexpected phone call from Angela. That in itself was very uplifting, and the good news she told me was even more uplifting. It does depend on the weather next Wednesday, but if it is dry she said she wants to try and get to the pub at dinner time to have our usual Wednesday lunchtime drink. She says she feels she will be OK to get a bus there.

  When I set off for the sorting office I was full of joy, and on a different day I might have walked all the way there, but while it wasn't too cold, and it was bright and dry, it was also getting a bit late. I was worried that the sorting office might have closed by the time I got there. To save time I got a bus there. Once I was there I should have taken a picture of the opening times for future reference.

  It is on Mondays and Saturdays that they close at midday, and Thursday is when they stay open until 8pm, other days they close at 4pm. So they were open when I got there, and the queue was just two other people, and one them was halfway being served. I only had to wait for a few minutes before I got my book. It was a bit smaller than expected, but it does list some good short stories - unfortunately I probably will remember at least half of them.

  After getting the bus to the sorting office, and with the bus stop almost outside the place for buses towards home, I got a bus home. It was a 171 bus, and I was expecting to use one, or maybe a 185 bus, later. Once I got home I sent a text message to Michael to say I was back home, and ready to receive my drinks any time that was convenient for him. That turned out to be about half an hour later.

  I was feeling great when I went out to meet Michael at his car parked opposite my house, across the road. The sun was shining, the sky was blue (although the wind was feeling a bit cool), and I was looking forward to telling Michael about my two phone calls from Angela. I was also looking forward to arranging what we might do in the evening. Maybe Michael put the first nail in the coffin  for that.

 He said that as much as he would like to go and see Carrie and Steve playing in The Honor Oak pub last night, he felt disinclined to go out if it was wet. I must admit I had to agree with him - up to a point. I had been studying the changing weather forecast, and there did seem hope that the heavy rain predicted for later might have stopped by the time I suggested we might walk down the road to get the bus. We left it at that we would see what the weather was like nearer the time.

  I went into lazy mode for the rest of the afternoon. I caught up with a bit of reading, and even tried to have snooze, but three things happened. The first was the sky clouding over, and it becoming quite gloomy outside. That was followed fairly quickly by a lot of rain. At the same time my stomach felt odd. It was so similar to light hunger that I assumed that was what it was. I ended up eating all four of the "salad" pots I had bought the previous day.

  That didn't seem to satisfy in the way I hoped it would. Maybe it even made things worse. By 6pm I was far from in any sort of pain, and yet my stomach felt sort of funny. I began to feel that resolving it would probably involve a trip or many more to the toilet. I looked out the window, and it was still dark and raining, and decided I would not be going out. I also made the insane decision to order a takeaway - maybe as a kill or cure sort of thing.

  The takeaway dully arrived, somewhat later then my usual dinner time, but not very long after I had ordered it. I used the same kebab shop/restaurant as last time, and once again the portions were fairly big, and very delicious. This time I only ordered enough for one night, although to be honest it was still enough for two medium sized dinners dinners. It was another hour or two before my true condition was revealed.

  All along I had been suffering from trapped wind. It is sort of odd that it was never more uncomfortable. It was only ever a very gentle nag that something was happening. It happened as I went to bed. I am sure that the people in the pub were very glad (or would be if they knew) that I hadn't tried to be brave and go to the pub. I started to release wind. I tried to see if anything more than wind might be released if I went to the toilet, but nothing happened - except more farting.

  Over the next hour or so the stench built up in my bedroom, and if anyone had introduced a naked light into the room there would have been a big enough methane explosion to blow the roof off ! After while it did seem to be coming to a stop, and although I could still feel some minor discomfort, I was able to get to sleep with little difficulty.  I didn't seem to sleep that well last night, and the proof was that I went back to sleep when I would normally be getting up, and didn't wake until almost 8am.

  That was a 2 hour lie in, and it was sort of nice. Maybe nicer still in that there was no special reason to get up early, and with it all dull, wet and gloomy outside, probably a good reason to try and hibernate. Probably the biggest reason for not sleeping well was the temperature. It was like stepping back several weeks or more when I was struggling with it being too hot to sleep under the duvet, but too cold without. By 3am I had the heater up full, and apart from an hour when I turned it down after getting up, it is back on full power now.

  I have to admit it was a stupid, and dangerous thing to make one bit of my takeaway last night a "donor meat with chips". I think I can blame the chips as being the biggest contributor to another very high blood glucose reading this morning. It was well above the red line, and reason enough to try and fast for a lot of today. 10.7mmol/l is not good ! Of course I did do some snacking in the afternoon, and the crisps and even the salad put share some of the blame.

  Today I have the option to go out to a gig tonight. At this end of the day I don't fancy going out even if all the rain is out the way by the time I would be going out. I guess it might still be possible that I will go out, but right now I don't fancy doing anything except reading, and maybe snoozing, although there is one small job I will probably do.

  That job relates to a minor job I actually started yesterday. I have long had fantasies about taking extra lights to a gig. I have three quite bright, LED, "video lights", and I even have a dedicated light stand tripod. One day I will take them to a gig, but most places are too small and crowded to put up lights. I was thinking about it yesterday, and decided to top the batteries up for the lights (they use camcorder batteries).

  Most still had a fair charge after last being charged possibly well over a year ago. Most did not take long to be fully charged. One battery was different. The charge light on the charger started flashing after a short while. It indicates the charger thought something was wrong. This morning I had a vague recollection that the second charger I have react differently. I tried it, and that potentially faulty battery is charging perfectly normally on the other charger. The problem with the other charger was that the mains lead was cut very short when it was being used by the camcorder engineer where I used to work. Today's job, after waiting something like 15 years, is to put a full sized (say around a yard) mains lead back on it.