There was definitely some rain earlier this morning, but by 11am it seemed like it was all over. The latest revision to the forecast, which starts from 1pm, shows sunny spells from 3pm to 5pm. It still says the maximum temperature this afternoon will be 16° C. It should be another mild night with the temperature still around 13° C at 6am tomorrow, but it may only rise to 15° C in the afternoon. There may be a couple of sunny spells in the morning, but most of the day is expected to be quite dull, and some heavy rain might fall.

   Yesterday was quite a good day. In the morning I went shopping in Tesco where I mainly bought safe stuff, but as usual a few things, like some reduced price mini pork pies, were a bit naughty. I saw one litre bottles of Smirnoff for £18 when purchased with a Clubcard, and so I bought one.

  The afternoon was another beer tasting session with Jodie and Michael.  I guess I could describe it as pretty typical apart from the fact that Jodie left half an hour early because she was going to a gig in the evening. One interesting thing was a couple of cans of beer from The Garden Brewery. One was really horrible - as you would expect a beer containing rhubarb and other tart fruit in it, and the other was really wonderful. It had chocolate and stuff in it !

  After Jodie left, Michael stayed on and we had another beer or two. I think he left as late as 6.30pm. I had important stuff to do, but I let my hunger lead me. The original plan was to just have a couple of cans of Tesco Cream Of Chicken soup because of it's very low sugar content. The idea was to get a nice low set of blood glucose reading for this morning for when I saw the nurse for my annual diabetic checkup.

  It didn't happen like that. I suppose I should blame the booze, but I didn't feel very drunk, or indeed not really drunk at all. I still didn't have the second can of soup, but opted for not just one, but two cans of Greek or Turkish beans with rissoles in one, and pork in the other. They were not quite the ambrosia I was hoping for, but were still very nice - even if they had their own health problems.

  It was only about half hour after eating, and not really enough to time for my dinner to settle, when I did something I have often hoped I could do, but have never managed before - hand washing stuff, or in this case finishing hand washing a couple of towels. Being towels they needed loads of rinses before the rinse water became not too frothy. I think I did 3 or 4 final rinses, with a wringing out between them, before a final wringing out before hanging them up to dry.

  That extra work, on top of the booze and food, made me feel very tired. I think it was around 9pm when I went to bed. I only managed to read a couple of pages before I put the book down, turned out the light, and was very quickly fast asleep. I think it was just after 1am when I woke up again. I felt a bit uncomfortable. I initially thought it was just a bit of gas, but I didn't think the beans could work quite that fast. It turned out that I needed a large poo.

  I seemed to sleep OK after that. I even had some erotic dreams, or at least dreams that seemed to be heading in an erotic direction, but alas, I can't remember any more about them. Shame really. I think it was just after 5am when I woke up for a pee, and at the same time I turned the heater on low. It felt like I would never get back to sleep, and then suddenly it was 6.30am - a bit later than I had intended to get up.

  It was a moderately busy morning, and could have been much more busy if I had attempted to print off a few sheets of spreadsheet health records to show the nurse, but I decided she would have to make do with few photos of some of my health readings. The first thing to do was to check my blood glucose readings on my three blood glucose readings. I thought two of them were pretty good.
  It was interesting that the two old meters, on the right, had identical readings, but the meter on the left gave a much higher, but still just a tiny, weeny but lower than my typical average. I regard readings starting with a 7 to be good readings because I seem to rarely get them, although at the start of 2022 I did seem to get them quite frequently for a few months. I wonder what I was doing then ?

  After checking my blood glucose I weighed myself before I had anything to eat or drink, and once again my readings were good for me - as in a lot higher than desirable, but remarkably stable of a the last few years. I took a picture of the scales to show the nurse so I didn't have to worry about getting on the scales in the surgery. The most interesting readings were my blood pressure. I tried taking one before breakfast and as I expected it was high, but still in the safe zone.

  I actually took two blood pressure readings maybe an hour or so after breakfast. The first was very good, and so was the second and hour later, but it showed to approaching effect of "white coat syndrome". My systolic pressure was up a bit, and my pulse rate was up from 58 bpm to 62 bmp. One unfortunate thing was that I had another productive visit to the toilet after I had eaten. Had I done it, and weighed myself before eating, I might have shaved a few hundred grams off my weight.

  The final thing to do was to wash my hair, and have a shower before getting dressed ready to go out. There was one more bit of body cleaning to do before getting dressed, and it was to clean my feet, and in particular between two toes, with some alcohol hand cleanser. I seem to suffer from a yeasty smelling bit of foot odour particularly between just toes on my right foot. I made sure they were spotlessly clean for the nurse.

  It was a relief to find I didn't have to walk through torrential, or indeed any rain, to get to the surgery. I arrived there 5 minutes early, and than had a 15 or more minute wait before I was called. It wasn't the nurse I expected, but the nice looking one. The trouble is the older, and more "stout" nurse is much more sympathetic to my condition, and tends to praise my blood glucose and weight control (although the latter only that it is not going up).

  The good looking nurse evidently thinks everyone should look slim and beautiful like she does, and so she said I ought to lose weight. She also said that my recent blood test showed a small rise in my blood glucose. She said that while showing me a graph of previous tests, and a small rise at the end that was a long way below some previous spikes on the graph. She was not happy about that, but very slightly softened her stance when she notice my age, and said that I didn't look to be 68 years old. I think she might have thought I could have been 10 or more years younger, and possibly didn't realise I have been managing my weight and diabetes for 15 or 20 years now.

  I'll give her her due, even if it was annoying, that she was doing her best to be what she thought was helpful. One such thing was to suggest I might go to diabetic meetings in their other branch in Marvells Lane almost in Mottingham via one of the more tedious, all round the houses, bus routes. I told her there was no way I was ever going there. Her most conciliatory offer was to suggest another blood test, and another appointment, within the next 6 months, but at a time of my choosing. She printed off the blood test sheet, and I think I'll wait until at least mid spring, when hopefully there will have been some sunshine to cheer me up, until I give my blood sample. One final service before I left was to give me my 'flu jab.

  It is nice to be home now. I've had some lunch, and I think I deserve a snooze now. I have doubts I will do anything for the rest of the day, although I might re-evaluate the possibility of going to a gig if it is predicted to stay dry tonight - which it seems it might. However, I still don't really feel any keenness to go out and do any photography at a gig. It seems I am still suffering from shock after ending up as the official photographer at Angela's wedding.