It looked damp when I peeped out the window early this morning, but I don't there has been even a hint of rain since then. At the moment the cloud cover is 99.9%, but it still seems semi-bright outside. The latest forecasts say it should brighten up more after midday, and there is a chance of a random scattering of sunny spells this afternoon. The afternoon temperature should be 22° C. Tomorrow is looking like it should be a lot brighter with some hours of full sunshine and many hours of sunny spells. The temperature is probably going to be like today.

  Sometimes plans do not work or, or even happen as intended. Today has started with a failed plan, but back to yesterday... I was preparing to go out yesterday evening, and trimmed my beard, had a shave, washed my hair, and had a good scrub under the shower. It felt very nice, but ultimately it was wasted effort because I didn't go out.

  Another thing that felt good was changing all me bedding. As I mentioned yesterday, it was getting quite stinky after the hot sweaty nights recently. It is almost seductive to go to bed for the first time in fresh clean sheets, and last night it was enhanced by the feint smell of the duvet cover. It was probably several years ago when I last washed it, and I was using a rather nice smelling fabric conditioner. It is annoying that I can't remember what it was, or even whether it smelled so nice at the time. It has had 2, 3, or maybe even more years to lose much of the scent, and maybe it is the tantalising faintness of it that is so nice.
  One thing I didn't do was to put the duvet inside the duvet cover. I thought it was still too hot at night for that, and just the cover would be enough to keep warm if the temperature dropped too much. This morning it was cold enough to sleep partly covered. My only annoyance in this exercise is that this morning I found that my skinned elbow (from my fall last Monday) managed to leak a few thin drops of blood after (presumably) resting my elbow on the sheet while levering myself up to grab a drink in the night. I do remember thinking "ouch" at some time in the night, and now I have the proof why. I bet those stains don't come out easily after they have dried in during all the days I leave that sheet on my bed.

  In an attempt to get my blood glucose under control I arranged my eating around the idea that I would go out in the evening, and go to bed with no supper after I got home again. I started my day with the usual bowl of instant noodles. The plan was to have a relatively safe (i.e. low sugar) combined lunch and dinner mid afternoon. That didn't happen because of unfolding events.

  It was just before midday that I was notified that my Amazon order of a new blood glucose meter was out for delivery two days earlier than expected. At about the same time the weather forecasts had been revised to show rain, in varying degrees for mid evening - just about when I was going to go out, and continuing when I expected to be going home again. Once upon a time, when I was all keen and enthusiastic, and not just going to take pictures, I would have been happy to put on a raincoat, and still have gone to the gig, but being in a hot pub with a coat definitely didn't appeal to me.

  I think it got to about 1.30pm when I revised my eating plans. I had a simple, as in one single item, lunch. It was an individual pork pie, and unfortunately it seemed a bit tasteless after eating it straight from the fridge. I think I should have given it 60 seconds in the microwave to warm it up a bit. One thing I did do before throwing the wrapper away was to check it's sugar content. It looked to be very low, although if I had looked closer it would probably say something annoying like "per portion for one person - 10 portions per pie" - which is a bit ridiculous because a pie that is only a tad more than 3 inches across is just a few (very big) mouthfuls !

  The notification I got from Amazon just said my packet would be delivered "today". Checking on their website just said "before 9pm" and that didn't change until after it had been delivered. That was at about 6pm. There was nothing to do but try and keep myself occupied reading and stuff while trying to stay alert, listening for the doorbell. One thing I was going to do was to finish washing a couple of hand towels that I had left in soak. Both had been used as protectors for my pillow on sweaty nights. One had only been used a few days, but the other was thick with it. I didn't want to do it while waiting on high alert for my packet.

  It was roughly 6pm when my packet arrived - which was much more reasonable than 9pm ! It was my new, Chinese brand, blood glucose meter. It wasn't long before it was unpacked, and I was setting it. I was doing all this while eating my dinner of salad leaves, ham and cheese. I did a quick comparison between my existing and new meter halfway through dinner - which at any other time would be stupid. I expected a very high reading, and that is what I got, but the old meter gave a much higher reading. That was what I hoped for, but maybe it was a bit premature to celebrate.

  The one thing I didn't realise was that there was the usual three Star Treks on last night. For some reason I thought it was a Saturday, and not Friday with the weekday TV schedules. I watched the second of the Star Treks, Enterprise, and Voyager, and then turned the TV. Usually I would go to bed to read then, but last night I thought I would make some headway washing the two towels I had left in soak since the morning.

  My usual plan with washing sweaty towels (after use as pillow protectors) is to soak them in bio detergent, and then give them about 3 or 4 rinses. The bio detergent doesn't smell nice, and so I then wash them again in normal scented detergent. I thought I was then going to leave them soaking in that overnight, but I seemed to find some energy from somwhere, and carried on. I think I gave those towels 6 rinses after the second detergent, and then, having wrung them out to the best of my ability, I hung them on a clothes horse in the front room with a desk fan blowing on them.

  I was pretty hot and sticky after that hard work, and I tried to cool off before going to bed. Even after going to bed I stayed up reading for a good half hour or more. Once I put the book down, and turned out the light, it seemed that I felt asleep really quickly. A similar thing happened every time I woke up in the night (maybe 3 times). I would lay there thinking nothing would happen, and then suddenly I was asleep.

  If it were not that I can't stop yawning as I think about it, I would declare I had an excellent night's sleep. I know I had a varied selection of dreams, and one in particular I remember as very enjoyable. The stupid thing is that I have no idea why it was enjoyable because I can't remember a thing about it. In fact I can't seem to remember any of my dreams beyond the fact that I did have them.

  It is probably because couldn't stop thinking about this morning's "great experiment" ! It was to take simultaneous blood glucose readings using blood from the same pin prick for both the old and new blood glucose readings. I was really hoping two things. One was that the new meter would confirm that I had eaten reasonably yesterday, and that the old meter would give a much higher reading.

  Well that was a bit of a shock. It was the old meter that gave the reasonable, but still higher than desirable reading which was lowest at 9.2mmol/l. The new meter said 9.4mmol/l. In an ideal world, both meters would give identical readings if they were both very accurate, but it is known that they are not that accurate, and in a way I am surprised they were so close to each other. It does strongly suggest that my old meter is in good working order, and that all those nasty high readings I have had lately were true, but......

  Two things could be at work here. The first and most obvious, is that I decided to change the batteries in the old meter in case they were weak (although I did this a few weeks back, and it made no difference). While doing so I saw a reset button - which I pressed. I think all it did was to clear the recent memory option because it didn't, as expected, put it into new set up mode - setting the date and time - although it did seem to change the time zone to 5 hours behind, and I can't find a way to set the clock back to the correct time zone.

  Whether doing that reset had any effect on the accuracy is probably something I'll never know. The second possibility is that I have been reset. It is hard to put times and dates on very subtle feeling, but maybe for a week or two I have been off colour, and I didn't realise it until I realised I was feeling better. There have been occasional times when my blood glucose reading has gone high, even higher than some of my very high readings, when there has been something wrong with me. The best example being when I was in hospital with a possible heart attack in 2019. I had some very high readings during that time. In the last couple of days I have been starting to feel quite good. Maybe it is my imagination, or maybe I am/or have recovered from some sort of bug, and with luck I can look forward to me blood glucose readings dropping down to figures generally in the eights (8.nn mmol/l).

  At the top of the page I referred to plans still changing this morning. My plan this morning was to have a couple of leftover "ancient grains" bread rolls with cheese for breakfast - just to get them out of the way, and at a time when they shouldn't effect my blood glucose reading in the morning. Well, that plan changed instantly when I spied green patches of mould on one roll, and a few lighter spots on the other. This morning it was back to instant noodles for breakfast.

  One exciting thing I have forgotten to mention until now is that I weighed myself yesterday morning. It was after two very productive visits to the toilet. I seemed to do enough for two days. When I weighed myself I found I had lost 2kg, and and possibly almost getting on for 3kg since I last weighed myself 2 to 4 weeks ago (I think). I was actually just below my "official" recorded weight on my medical records. I am reminded of this after just coming back from a second visit to the toilet today. It was not nearly as productive as the first, but I did weigh myself after the first, and I was at least 200gm (which is not a lot, but easy to see on my scales) lighter than yesterday morning - which makes me sort of happy.

 I don't think I am going to make any plans for the day this morning. I'll just make it up as I go along. I may have a look at possible gigs this evening, and I might even consider going for a walk. The latter would be good for both my blood glucose level and my weight. It is supposed to be an essential, but recently the idea has repelled me, and I am probably not that keen today. There is a walk I am very keen to do, another walk to, or around Blackheath (last done in August 2020), but I don't think I can handle a 6+ mile walk in my current state of fitness. If I do get out today it will be something less challenging.