As I write this the early version of the forecast says we should be transitioning to dark grey clouds. There are some around, but we have had some short, and rather weak and hazy sunny spells recently. The latest revision says light coloured clouds until 11am when the cloud will/might turn to mid grey, and then at 2pm we can expect dark clouds and the first falls of rain.The rain at 3pm could be quite heavy, but the rain may stop at 5pm, and by then the clouds could be white. There may be a few scattered showers later in the evening. The temperature may very briefly hit  21° C, but 20° C may be more representative for the afternoon. Of course The BBC have a different idea of today's weather. In particular, they say 2, 3. and 4pm could feature thunderstorms, and that the temperature could reach  21° C for 3 hours or more. The BBC's forecast for tomorrow includes thunderstorms (they love their thunderstorms) from 8am to 4pm ! The Met Office just shows light rain from 9am to 5pm. Bother forecasts almost agree the temperature will reach just 19° C tomorrow.

   I think I can repeat: yesterday was yet another good day. Nothing really happened in the morning. Patricia did some work before taking a shower and washing her hair. I spent time writing yesterday's piece, and once the bathroom was clear I had a shower.



  It was about midday that we took a walk to the local Wetherspoons. I may not look happy in the picture on the left, of me standing outside the doors of the pub, but I was. I was sucking in my gut, and it seems to have worked, although the tension of it, or holding my breath, meant it didn't look like I was smiling, but I was happy !

  We weren't going for lunch in the 'Spoons, but just for a farewell drink. I was quite keen to have the only two beers that were not part of their standard offerings. In my ignorance I thought that maybe they were the last of the beer festival beers. I later saw that the beer festival doesn't start until 11th October, and runs until 22nd October. Now I am forewarned, I must make some sort of effort to go there to try some of the festival beers.

  I had the two guest beers I saw on handpump, and Patricia had a large orange juice. We chatted for maybe an hour as we drank before we left. Patricia headed to a bus stop, and I headed home. Patricia was heading to Greenwich to meet her sister and son in law again, and once she had seen them she was meeting her partner before heading north (I think) to see her partners dying dad.

  I have to say it was very, very nice to have Patricia here for 3 or 4 nights, but it was also nice to get back to my usual routine. In simple terms that means being able to fart and belch as loud as I like. Being able to go for a pee in the night without having to tiptoe to the bathroom, and also not have to worry about putting on at least a pair of underpants when going back to my bedroom after a morning shower !



  Just going back to when we were going to the pub...... We bother noticed that the michaelmass daisies (also known as Asters) were covered in bees. I think I have mentioned before that I think someone now has a beehive in the local area. I seem to see a lot more bees this year. On the other hand, this is the time when the michaelmass daisies explode with flowers in my front garden, and it was also warm and sunny - like bees seem to like.
  It was only yesterday morning that I decided to show off my new Nikon camera to Patricia. She agreed it looked very professional, and I told her how easy it was now to get bands to pose for me when using it with the big lens on it.  She didn't exactly pose for this picture, but managed a nice smile as I took this snap in her cycling shorts and top.
  These were the two beers I tried yesterday lunchtime. I should have tried the Knight Of The Garter first because after the LD 20 (which must mean something for rugby fans) it tasted very thin - almost as if it was watered down. It was just 3.8%, and I don't think I would describe it as golden in colour (until it had been processed by my kidneys). The LD 20 was just 4%, only a tint bit stronger than the other beer, but it tasted so much nice. I could almost kid my eyes that it could be a rose red bitter, and maybe after another 8 pints of it I might even have seen it looking like that, but....

  When I got home I was looking forward to eating a pack of two Scotch Eggs that I had bought quite a few days ago. Like the last two, they had been in the fridge long enough to pass their use by date, and once again I thought I detected a slight hint that maybe one corner of one egg may have started to go off. I ate them both regardless, but maybe I did detect a small feeling of trouble from my stomach, but nothing bad happened.

  After my lunch I laid on my bed, with the sun still shining long after it was supposed to have finished in the early versions of the forecast. I read for a while, and then closed my eyes. For some reason I can't really remember having a snooze, but I feel sure I had one, and at least an hour passed with no memory of it. When I presume I woke up it was getting very close to Star Trek time - except, as I soon realised it was a Saturday, and not a weekday. hence there was no Star Treks onb last night.

  In fact there was nothing on TV when I might have watched it, and very slim pickings later on when I couldn't be bothered to turn the TV on. I ended up watching three more episodes of the Granada TV series of Sherlock Holmes stories. I had my dinner, such as it was, while watching the first of them. I could have had either beef with cabbage, or lamb with cabbage (both spiced) for dinner, both were mostly cooked, but I didn't fancy either.

  It seems too hot for a hot stew dinner last night, and I opted for something simpler, and sort of appropriate - low calorie and low sugar ice cream. It was delicious, and went down a treat, although ultimately it was not fully satisfying. I was trying to keep my sugar intake as small as possible after moderately high blood glucose readings in the morning. A bit later I thought I would take a chance of bowl of instant noodles.

  It was definitely not a night for using a duvet last night, and in fact I used a small fan to stir the air over my upper body and face as i tried for sleep. I feel fairly sure I fell asleep by, or soon after 10pm. Then there is a big blank in my mind until about 30 minute past midnight when I woke for pee. When I got back to bed I tried to get back to sleep, but nothing happened. I just could not relax. One problem was I had some thoughts buzzing around in my head that would not shut up.

  It wasn't helped by feeling a bit warmer than I like to go to sleep. Also I seemed to have developed a series of aches and pains. i had some aches that I was sure were definitely caused by trying to sleep on my right hand side too many times. Doing that had jarred my wonky ribs and other legacies from my quad heart bypass operation 10 years ago. My knees seems to ache one after the other. It seemed if I found a position was good for one knee the other would hurt. At one point my neck hurt, and for a long time my right wrist was really quite painful. It was the same repetitive strain injury type pain I get when writing a lot if I don't put on a support bandage (like I had to yesterday morning).

  I now have a theory that a lot of these aches and pains were caused by a change of barometric pressure as the weather was changing from nice (yesterday) to nasty (today). At gone 2pm I took a couple of paracetamol, but nothing seemed to happen. Evidently I did because maybe an hour later I must have fallen asleep, and I didn't realise until I was waking up for another pee at sometime between 4am and 5am (probably closer to 5am). It didn't feel like I would get much more sleep, and I was surprised when it was suddenly 7.30am.

  This morning it is possible that one of the Scotch Eggs may have been "iffy". My guts seemed to rumble a lot when I got up, and going to the toilet included a lot of gas. It was all very splattery (which I am sure you didn't want to know). Like yesterday morning, this morning I got two very different blood glucose readings. This time it was the old meter that gave a reading that was exactly one more than the new meter. The old meter read 9.5mmol/l, which is rather high, and the new meter read 8.5mmol/l, which is very average.

  I am beginning to think that some of these big differences between to two meter readings might depend on the order I take them. I put test strips in both meters. Prick one finger, and squeeze out enough blood for both test strips (and still enough to make a big blood blot on a tissue). The only difference is a few seconds before dipping the second test strip in the bead of blood after dipping the first. It seems unlikely that just a second or two could be enough for the blood to oxidise, or congeal of something, but maybe that is the case. Maybe when the last of the test strips run out for the old meter I will leave the fresh container of them sealed, and just use the new meter. Maybe I might alternate between tthem every month or something.  As it stands, these conflicting readings don't make planning for the day very easy.

  There is one job I have to do as soon as I can today. It is to finish washing quite a big lot of laundry. Once I have done that I can have a shower and wash my hair. At first I might not have bothered to have a shower, then I thought I might pop out to get some shopping, but now I might not do the shopping because I just realised it is Sunday, the trains are running (albeit only 2 an hour), and Jodie will probably be over for some beer tastings this afternoon.